Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Kaitlyn Update









I just wanted to post a quick update on Kaitlyn. I have gotten about 3.5-4" into her, and she's coming along swimmingly. Tonight I need to finish up Ivy's baby blanket but that shouldn't take more than half hour or 45 minutes, then the rest of the night will be Kaitlyn all the way! I WILL FINISH ON TIME!!!

I have also sketched out some ideas for a few designs that I will work on once Kait's off the needles and on my body.

I haven't heard anything back from CGOA yet and I'm getting antsy. I don't know why, maybe because I like instant gratification? Also, I'm really anxious to get into the Associate Professional program and I can't read jack on it until I'm a member.

Patience is a virtue apparently.

Monday, February 15, 2010

CGOA and Kaitlyn

CGOA.
I finally broke down and joined CGOA (The Crochet Guild of America) again. I have tossed this around in my head for a couple weeks, weighing pros and cons and here are my thoughts.

I did not join for the camaraderie since that is what my Ravelry groups and Crochet Group are for. I did not join to take the Crochet Masters Program (yes, it exists) because a)It is not available right now and b)I'm happy being a "Professional Crocheter" and do not need "Master Certified" in front of that. I did not join to get a nifty new CGOA Member pin since I still have my old one.

I did join because they offer an Associate Professional designation, which is free, where they pair you with a mentor (and usually someone REALLY COOL!) and that mentor gives advice for aspiring designers and is available for me to ask questions of. I also joined because I would love to go to some of the Conferences (even though reality says that I'm too po!).

So... $65 of my designing money went to a 2 year membership. As soon as I get my login stuff I'll get moving on the AP thing and see where it goes from there.

Ahh, Kaitlyn.
As you know, I am doing a sweater for the Knitting Olympics and the Ravelympics (2 groups doing the same thing in different places). My sweater is called Kaitlyn and I'm testing it.

Kaitlyn had some directional issues with the size I'm knitting which have since been ironed out and now I'm working my way through her again, and right now I'm at about the 2" mark of the neck. It's a Top Down sweater, with raglan sleeves and a lacy bit down the center front. It. Is. Beautiful. Kudos to Christine who designed it.

She said I could post progress pics, so here you go... Kaitlyn #1:

Friday, February 12, 2010

Let the Knitting Begin...





Tonight at 9pm, along with MANY of my fellow knitters and crocheters will begin the Ravelympics and the Knitting Olympics. A Challenge to each person that starts at opening ceremonies and ends when the torch is extinguished.

My Olympic run may be hampered by a non-knitting related injury to my purling finger (hang nail that hurts like heck), but I am hoping that a Performance Enhancing Apparatus (band-aid) will be allowed in these circumstances!

I had originally planned to make my Grandfather and Travis a pair of socks. However.... I have decided to test knit a sweater called Kaitlyn by Christine Buhagiar and it is BEAUTIFUL! I can't wait to have it done and on. I am waiting on confirmation if I can show you a pic or not (sometimes designers aren't allowed to show before it's published), but if I can I will post one soon.

I am making Kait out of Simply Soft Brites Blue, a really pretty color that will look fantabulous on me! I can't wait to see how it comes out. I swatched last night to make sure my gauge was correct (Yes... I... Swatched!) and good thing because I had to go down a needle size.

That's really it for now. I hope you all have a fantastic Valentines Day!

Friday, February 05, 2010

Busy Bee

I have had a great week with lots to do and good times with old friends. I've had a meds scare, 1.8 lb weight loss and a pretty darn good report card from the 8 yr old. Life group and Crochet group - great conversation and some awesome design ideas that have been well received by those that I've mentioned them to. I heard from 2 old friends that I haven't talked to in 18 and 15 years respectivly. I had a day off work on Thursday with the intention of going to Disney with my hubby and/or doing some housework and ended up sleeping until noon... but it was great none-the-less.

That is a VAST improvement from last week with all the mourning.

How about a project update? Here ya go:
~boring boy socks - 80% done but has sizing issues and is being punished and will soon be forgotten.
~ladybug socks - 80% done, but I'm ignoring because of other things that I am working on.
~Submission Quilty babyghan - the center is done and now I need to do the 1 seam and crochet on the border.
~Submission Girls skirt - still in the planning phase, and I am so happy that my friend Margarita (aka Thread Queen) is willing to work on this with me!
~Ivy's baby blanket - I just got this commission decided on Wednesday and I've bought the yarn but have not started working on it. I will though... once the submission babyghan is done. It's a baby granny ghan so it will hopefully go quick.
~Commission purses - I have 1 started but these are on standby because the buyers have not told me what they want yet.

See... busy! I hope that your week has gone well. For those of you having troubles, I've got my LONG list of folks that I'm praying for, seems like my friends and family are all being attacked lately. I hope this passes, and the sun shines for them again soon.

Monday, February 01, 2010

Updates... minus pics.

First off, Stephanie has raised $1,000,110 for Doctors Without Borders. !. !!. That is the magic power of the yarn community. That rocks, and I am so excited to have been able to be a part of it.

Secondly, I am still ignoring the boring boy sock, I have vanquished it from my knitting bag and it is in time out in my sock yarn drawer.

Third, with the publication of Purse-Onality Plus! and my showing off of said magazine, I have been commissioned to make 3 purses. And 2 baby blankets because they are so related. ?. I have no clue what the covers are gonna look like, waiting on input from the buyers. But at least this is giving me another chance to get some project pics of the purse... and yet another chance to show off the fact that I CANNOT COUNT TO 50. Nope. Chain 50, sc a bunch of rows and about 6 inches into it I start to think you know, this looks a little bit big. Hmm, that's odd. Let's count my stitches. 52 (plus the turning chain) so I actually chained 53. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

Fourth, related to third I am going to try to persuade baby blanket gal to let me do my quilty design so that I can write out the pattern as I go and have 2 examples of it - one of each gender. I will find out Wednesday night. If not, that's ok but it would be really nice to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

Fifth, I cannot spell fifth (I did fith... ugh) but also I am doing some knit lace research for a little girl pattern floating in my head. I know I could do it in crochet and have it look like my vision but there's a Call For Submission for a book coming out for warm weather knits for kids. We'll try it and see what happens.

Can you tell that I'm gonna be too busy for any sock knitting in the near future? Yeah, me too. I'm ok with that. On a side note I cleaned out the "hidden" yarn corner. My "hidden" yarn corner was a pile-o-crap behind my stereo speaker 3 ft high. I rescued 5 project bags, 1 scarf-in-progress that I don't like, 4 un-used balls of yarn, 10 skeins of acrylic yarn in various stages of use including 1 connected to the Cliffyghan (which is also being ignored), my design notebook (which I really had been looking ALL OVER for), my 2 Pee-Wee Parka samples and the quilty babyghan sample that I had been ignoring but pulled back out so I could work on it more. Yeah. I took pictures but I'm too lazy to pull them off the camera. But... yay me for cleaning out the corner! Anyone need some acrylic?