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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Amsterdam Mitts

This summer I went to the Netherlands with a study abroad trip for library school. We stayed in Amsterdam, Mons (a little town in Belgium), and Rotterdam and I took a side trip to London! Since this was a class, we actually had homework... and one of our assignments was a reflection project. We could do pretty much anything as long as it was made easily available to the entire program and somehow tied in with our trip and our experience with the Dutch Designs excursion.

So I designed and knit a pair of "Delftwear" mittens (inspired by Delftware) and made a blog about the project. :) If you're interested, check it out here...


Delftwear Mittens

Monday, July 16, 2012

Prehensile Lips and Golf Club Covers

Did you know that giraffes have prehensile lips?

Feeding a giraffe at the Woodland Park Zoo!
You think I'm kidding, but according to the zoo official, their tongues are prehensile too. And you thought picking up marbles with your toes was cool.

In other news, I finished the golf club covers for Daddy just in time for his big tournament in Illinois (maybe? maybe somewhere else?).

Daddy!
All covers are cuffed for extra durability and have ribbed necks to stretch over the head of the club, but stay tight enough to keep the cover on during transit. The number of stripes corresponds to the number of the club. I fussed with the stripes so they lined up properly (need help with your stripes? Check out this video: LINK) and I made my first pom-pom!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Spring Cleaning?

It's finally stopped being completely miserable in Seattle! The sun is shining; the sky is bright and blue; it is even warmer than 50 degrees. Curtis has been hard at work planting things in our urban garden (read: the 8 square feet of porch we have and part of the living room is covered in pots and dirt). He's already got beets sprouting and tomatoes, peas, thyme, chamomile, basil, and green onions are on their way! I'm hoping that next year we'll do some carrots too.

Alyssa went to Thailand and hung out with sleepy tigers.
My best friend Alyssa is graduating this May and until she figures out exactly what she's going to be doing (working, living, sleeping, eating, you know, basics) she's moving in with Curtis and me. I've already got the closet planned (Curtis and I are going to Home Depot later today to get all the stuff we need like support arms and.. screws.. I don't know what else yet) and I'm working on cleaning everything up so there is somewhere for her to land. She's going to be sleeping in my office so I need to get my school and craft stuff put away so she can actually move in. We're even getting a futon so when she's not sleeping on it, the room can be a hang out/work spot too.

What all of this really means is I've spent about three hours organizing my yarn and craft supplies (and I'm nowhere near done yet). I've updated my Ravelry stash page with photos and accurate information and I'm bagging, re-bagging, and de-bagging my yarn as per my new yarn strategy. I can't find my memory card for my little point and shoot camera (boo) so I've been using my new iPhone I got for Christmas (thank you Daddy!) to take pictures and I'm pretty impressed with the images it produces. I'm doing this the slow, more difficult way of course so it's taking me forever but it's nice seeing and touching all my pretty yarn! I'm hoping to get all of the yarn into one bin (plus the WIP (WIP = Work In Progress) basket)... but we'll see if that actually pans out.

ETA: Two bins required.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Accomplished!

It's Monday night, day one of spring quarter and I feel so accomplished! I've read one article, listened to two lectures, printed two more articles to read tomorrow on the bus, and emailed my group for the projects for LIS 530. And I'm going to bed before 10:30am.  Hah Hah! This semester will be organized and non-procastinating.

My APR for Nordstrom is tomorrow morning too. Hopefully that will go well! :-) I think I do a great job and I haven't received any feedback to the contrary...

Not accomplished = knitted golf club covers for Daddy. I MUST finish those this weekend! Determination!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Spring Break is So Close!

Phew! I'm finally in the home stretch for winter quarter. I just submitted my last assignment for LIS 560 (Instruction Training Strategies) and all I have left to do is one more small assignment for LIS 520 (Information Resources, Services, and Collections) and finish up our group project and then it's spring break 24/7!

I promised my dad a set of golf club covers and I'm getting close to finishing the set up. They have a cuff at the bottom to help them last a little longer too. They sure are goofy looking though...


I'll try to get some pictures of them on the clubs once he has the set. They look less goofy on the clubs...

The 3 iron is completely done (on the right) and the 2 just needs some maintenance. I've almost finished knitting the 4 and then I have two hybrid covers (1 and 3) to knit in purple and gold.  The only problem is the jog in my colorwork on the 2 iron...

When you knit in the round, you get a jog in your colorwork if you don't take preventative action!

This is a pretty common problem with colorwork knitted in the round, but I don't know what to do about it yet. I'm thinking that I'm going to ask my friend Elizabeth who does a lot of colorwork what I should do to repair this... I suspect it's going to be some fancy embroidery. I might also go into Serial Knitters in Kirkland to see what the ladies there have to say. Once I have a plan of attack, I'll post what I end up doing here (maybe with some instructional photos?). :-)

Friday, February 10, 2012

Birdie on a Branch Thank You Cards with Lined Envelopes

I can't believe how much has been going on since my last post!  I've finished my first quarter of library school (with a 3.7!), moved positions at work, moved into a new apartment (same building, just up a floor) missed three days of work because of icy roads and bridges in Seattle, joined a gym with a friend and tried a spinning class, been knitting, reading, sleeping (some), eating, and went snowboarding for my first time!

Curtis & me before my snowboarding lesson at Summit West!
There's a video of me coming down a bunny slope on Curtis's phone that we're struggling to remove and post in various, public, and embarrassing places.  If we ever figure it out, I'll include it here as well.  I must say, for my first time I think I did pretty well.

I took a card making class not too long ago as well and, not surprisingly, came home with a whole set of new crafting supplies!  Pretty paper, a stamp, clear ink pad, paper cutter punchers, and a sticker maker all now call my office home.  Embossing was one of the techniques I learned at the class and I tried it out on my first attempt at home as well.  Check out my first set of cards...

Birdie on a Branch Thank You Cards (Set of Four)
I made these 5"x7" cards using paper, adhesive, an exacto knife, a stamp, and embossing powder.  Rather than drawing the tree on or layer paper on top of my base, using a stencil I made out of a paper plate, I cut a silhouette of the tree, leaves, and bird out of a white piece of heavy paper.  I then layered the green and blue paper behind it and the brown is the base of the card.  The pink heart is raised up from the page.

The "thank you" is embossed in gold embossing powder. I used a stamp and clear ink and then sprinkled the gold powder on top and heated it up using a Zap! heating tool I got at PaperSource in Bellevue.  Easy-peasy and didn't even make a mess.

The envelopes are lined too. :-)

These cards are available for my store at PeasblossomCreations.etsy.com or click here to view the listing.  If you don't see them for sale and you're interested in a set of these or something similar, send me an email at knittinsmitten@gmail.com.