Another Snow Day!

Yesterday was another snow day! Woo! I love snow days. 

Hot chocolate and knitting that's what snow days are good for.
I didn't end up having any hot chocolate... but I did get a lot of stuff done. And, because I was home all day I took lots of pictures.

In the morning I made a batch of lotion bars. This batch came out much better than my first batch in my opinion. This time around I replaced the avacado oil with coconut oil, which made the bars just a little bit softer and easier to rub in. 
The recipe for this batch was:
2 oz. Beeswax
1 oz. Cocoa Butter
1 oz. Shea Butter
1 oz. Almond Oil
1 oz. coconut oil 

I wish that making lotion bars was a quicker process, because I'd do it more often. But it's mostly just waiting for everything to melt. 

And like last time I made these the same smell, since I only have one fragrance oil...

But at least oatmeal milk and honey is a great scent! And fragrance oils are actually pretty expensive.
Even though I was a bit messy filling the mold, I did get 5.5 bars out of this batch.

And this time around I made a special bar just for my dad with no fragrance in it. I made him a special tin to send back with my sister when she visits.

Once all the lotion was made I did some more work (in case you are worried I did actually get work done on my laptop while I was waiting for all the parts to melt). Then I decided to get in some knitting, because you know what? Nobody else was working, they were all shoveling snow. I'm pleased to say I made some great progress! On Tuesday I started a Meeting Point top (from Holla Knits) for my sister, and I'm already almost at the center of the sweater where the points meet, hence the name. 
Here's where I started in the morning:

And this is what I had by the end of the day!

The scale of the pictures is a little funky but let me assure you, there's much more sweater there in the second picture.  The reason I'm trying to finish so quickly is that if we can get a project done between the 7th and the 26th of Feb for the HP knitting cup we get a bunch of extra points. So! Yet again being part of Ravelry is spurring my knitting efforts. 

And now for the update on my other projects since my last post.
I took an updated picture of my cedar leaf shawlette

I'm almost finished with the regular knitting part. Just 6 more rows and then I can start the leaves! (though others who made this said that that leaves were a test of patience...so we'll see how those go).

I also made it to the halfway point on my color affection! So I'm on pace to finish it halfway through next month!

Hopefully I can keep up the motivation as the rows get longer and longer...

Anyway, quite a lengthy update, but hey! Gotta do something with those snow days! and the lunch the day after a snow day when it's still snowy out and almost nobody shows up to work.

Snow Day!

Well yesterday (Wed, Feb 5th) was a snow day! Which, sadly,  when one is an adult snow days aren't necessarily as fun as when you are a kid... since I basically just worked from home. But, lucky for me it was a really quiet day work-wise since everyone else stayed home as well, and a lot of people had to spend most of the day shoveling 9" of snow. 

So, since I was required to be near my laptop to check emails and see if anything needed updating I figured I might as well keep my hands busy and cast on a small knitting project that was easy enough that I wouldn't have to focus on it too much. So, I whipped up this little bear sweater! This bear will get donated through my knitting guild to the local emergency responders to hand out to kids when they respond to calls. (our guild gets the bears donated to us and then we knit them sweaters to make them extra special) 

I went with Green for this bear's sweater since I thought it would go well with this bear's plaid bow tie, which has a bit of green in it. Have I mentioned I love super quick projects? I always feel a sense of victory when I can finish something in one day. 

Once I finished the little sweater, I went back to working on my Peeta socks. I'm not going to lie I have a case of second sock syndrome coming on and I'm having trouble working on this second sock... But I did make some progress yesterday, finishing the first set of wheat tops on the leg.

And then, since I made what I felt was pretty good progress on my socks, I rewarded myself by casting on something new, because I just couldn't help it. 
This is the cast on and first row for a Ceadar leaf Shawlette. The pattern and yarn I've had almost as long as I had the yarn for the Peeta socks... this one was added to my queue back in 2012 (thanks ravelry of keeping track of that for me). 

So I'm now going to bribe myself into making progress on my socks so that I can work on this shawl (which will end up being more of a scarf I think once it's done). This is another new to me yarn, so I'm excited to work with it and it's super soft! Ball and Skein "Sofia" and the 10% Cashmere is lovely! To think yet another yarn I could have bought more of if I'd just used it sooner...sigh it's a hard life I lead having so much yarn in my stash ;)

One Peeta Sock Done

Well, I'm not going to lie, I was hoping to have more progress to show before posting again, but heck if I always waited then I wouldn't keep up with the posting... AKA what usually happens. So here goes. 

I finished the first Peeta (from Hunger Games) sock! It's a bit loose, so I probably could have gotten away with making the size small rather than the size medium, but I think they'll be just fine for wearing. I went with the simple striped toe option so I could use more green yarn and also I feel Peeta is a character her appreciates the simple things. (The pattern had an option for a fancy toe where the wheat stems create a point at the end)

I don't know why I didn't start these socks sooner. The pattern looks cool, is fun to knit and the yarn is super soft! I'll likely be checking out Wandering Wool again sometime in the near future now that I've finally used my skein (and love it! so soft and the color is great!).

As for my color affection, I've stayed on track! Having weekly goals is still working really well for me, and I think I'll try and make a breakdown of all future big projects to try and keep myself from getting stuck in huge hibernation ruts. 
And I even have a semi exciting update pic! Since I've just added in the lime green (the lighting isn't great, but hey, you get what you get):

Hopefully I'll have a post with a finished pair of socks within the next few days!

Color Affection progress and a new Cast On

Good news, making a schedule for weekly progress on a large project has really been working for me. I've reached my goal of 30% complete for this week (which I know thanks to the nifty spreadhseet a kind person on Ravelry made to track one's progress). I have just 2 more pink stripes to go before I add in the green! 

Kind of an awkward picture, but hey I didn't feel like getting up from the couch and re-arranging haha. And you can see one of my favorite project bags poking out on the left next to my leg, My Super Mario Bros bag from Slipped Stitch Studios. 

And since I am sticking to my plan of making my 10% weekly shawl goal and then moving on to something else to prevent boredom I cast on a new pair of socks. Say hello to the cuff of my Peeta socks.

I'm excited to be working on these for a couple of reasons. Firstly this pair is inspired by Hunger games and is by Yavanna Reynolds. I've knit 2 of her other patterns already (Effie and Prim) and I really enjoyed them! Fun to knit and fun to wear. 

Secondly, these have been in my queue since the pattern came out back in March 2012. I even saw the design take shape when Yavanna posted about them in the sock knitter's anonymous Ravelry goup and said to myself, "Wow, I really want to make a pair of those."

 So, back in the spring of 2012 I went and ordered the yarn to make these. When it arrived I wound it up with the best intentions to start right away. I can't really tell what happened after that other than me being distracted easily, but this yarn has been sitting patiently, waiting to be made into socks. 

I'm proud to say I'm sticking to my 2014 stash down efforts, and am still choosing to prioritize using yarn and a pattern I've had in my stash for far too long. Can't wait to really get going on these and see the wheat pattern take shape!

2 more projects finished and it's still Jan.!

Well, I'm pleased to say that this was a very good weekend for knitting. The long drive to and from VT really does facilitate getting in a lot of knitting in a relatively short amount of time since there's really not much else to do in the car besides knitting or napping. 

So, what did I finish you ask?
Firstly, I finished up those lace anklets from my last post. I really like how these turned out! And even though I keep saying I want to make more anklets, I never seem to get around to it, so I'm really glad I got these ones done so quickly. Now I just have to wait for it to warm up so I can wear these (they're definitely more of a spring sock than a winter one!)

The second thing I finished was a striped slouchy hat. I ended up knitting the entire thing on Sunday. I started it in the morning and finished it up before we got home from VT. This pattern was quick and easy and I love the fit of the hat!

I usually wouldn't have dropped everything to work on something so last minute, but since the Harry Potter house cup group was giving special points if you could knit a full project (with 4 patterns to choose from) in a day, I just had to go for it. I'm glad I did! I wore it all afternoon once it was finished and I usually can't stand wearing hats for too long!

I'm also glad I'm participating in a knit-along that gives points for all the things you can complete in a month. It really helps me keep my momentum up, and will hopefully help in my resolution to decrease my yarn stash this year! 

It's 2014!

Another year has started and yet again I find myself having gone a long time without posting. Sigh, this always happens, I get pumped up to do updates, get a few posted and then let them just slide to the side as I get busy with other things... I don't really have a good excuse other than just wanting to lay around and not do much after I get home from work... so maybe if I get started now that it's the start of a new year (yeah yeah I know it's been a couple weeks already) I can try and keep up with it for real! (I won't believe this for myself until I see it though)

Ok, sorry to those of you who read my posts but don't get regular knitting updates, because there's definitely gaps in things I finish but don't get posted...But if I try and go back and  capture everything since my last post, I'll never be able to catch up/keep moving. 

There is one major 2013 project I do want to post about before I move on to my 2014 projects though, and that project is the Aran sweater I FINALLY finished for my dad! Only took a year and a half after I promised to have it finished for him... but let me tell you I am no less proud of being finished. And it fit! 

Once I finished seaming that sweater together, it was like a knitting weight was lifted from my shoulders! Finally my WIP section on my Ravelry page didn't have this giant cabled sweater staring me down, making me feel guilty for working on other projects.

Now that the weight is gone, I've made quick progress through a couple projects already in the new year (and I bet you thought the January update would be short and boring *wink*)

Right after finished my dad's sweater I finished up these socks on New Year's Eve:

Then, to keep up the momentum I went right into my next pair and cast on the morning of the Jan 1st. Wanted to start the new year off with a bang. So I whipped these up in under a week! Finished on January 6th. 

So once I finished up those I decided to cast on a bigger project, and started my color affection shawl. I've decided to set a weekly checkpoint of completing 10% of the shawl and that once I meet that goal I can work on other things for the rest of the week. Here's my progress so far:

Just started on the second color. Once finished the shawl will be blue, pink and lime green. 

So, I know what you are thinking: Well Bri, that's one week of January and a shawl, but what else? I'll tell you what else! The remainder of the second week of this month after I reached my 10% shawl goal was spent on this soft blue hat with cute buttons:

I really enjoyed this pattern, called the Fractured Light hat, that's free from knitty.com. And what I'm really excited about is that there is a matching fingerless mitt pattern that I plan to make as well. And if I'm quick enough I can fit those into this month as well (they are my week 4 plan if I can keep up this pace!)

I initially planned to start right up with the mitts, but decided that if I did too much with the same pattern in a row I might get bored before I finish. To avoid that I decided to cast on a pair of ankle socks with a skein of yarn that's been in my stash since 2011 (2011!) I used the first skein to make some lacy anklets right after I got it and apparently this one just got abandoned. But better late than never! The yarn is stretchy so provides some fun variety. Hopefully these will get done this week!

So far it's been a great new year knitting-wise and I'm hoping I can keep it up! 

Finished Socks! And a new project OTN

Well, I got distracted yesterday and didn't end up doing a second post about what's on the needles. But, in my defense it's because I was finishing up a project, and thus, by the end of the day it was no longer OTN, but in fact a new finished project. 

I've finished the FINAL pair of socks from the socktopus book! This pattern is called 2luvcrew, and you can check out the Ravelry Pattern page HERE.

I knit these in Cephalopod yarns Skinny Bugga yarn in "Purple Soldier Fly". I really love this yarn and hope to get some more fun colored skeins this year at Rhinebeck. 

Sometime in the next few days I'm going to try to compile a little collection of my pictures of all the Socktopus socks and will hopefully get that posted here. 

So! Now that I've finished the lovely purple socks picture above, I bet you're wondering "what now?"  Well! I decided to cast on another pair of socks. After going on a break from socks since May, I'm really excited to get back into making them. I've had the yarn and this pattern picked out for a long time and I'm excited to finally get them knit up. I chose this pair to cast on because the pattern is easier and so should be good for bringing along when Lane and I go out and about during the long weekend. The yarn is Nalani yarns sparkle sock in Cheshire Cat, and I picked what I think is an appropriate pattern to go along with this Alice in Wonderland themed yarn: Down the Rabbit Hole. 

Here's my progress so far (not much since I just started) but I'm excited to see how these turn out! I already tried on the tiny piece I knit up and they should fit nicely.

I'm hoping to make quick progress on these socks and get my sweater for Rhinebeck cast on ASAP. I plan to get a swatch knit up for that by this weekend. (so there may be more pictures to post soon!)