So...what does one do after she learns how to make a pouch...?

This kitten here goes completely insane. She drafts a pattern from scratch, learns a new quilting technique and then spends most of the day working on it.








My arm, it is wore out from all the back patting I've done since about 10pm yesterday.






There are so many of my favorite things in this pouch. I'm not even sure where to start.







The interior fabric?







The bunny?







No, I believe my favorite part is right here: a sweet running pony 1" square surrounded by an equally sweet wonky star and then outlined with some twee embroidery. The cute, it just killed me.

I didn't actually follow the tutorial, just looked at the pictures to get an idea of what I was supposed to be doing.

I think I "done good."

A crazy part of me either wants to write up a pattern, or try making more and selling them. I'm not sure, though. This pouch has about 6 hours of work in it, and I'm pretty sure charging minimum wage plus materials it could be a hard sell. Would someone actually pay $50 + shipping for a Kindle cozy? Even one was intricate and sweet as this? And would it be fair to myself to sell my work/time for minimum wage?

Anywho! I had an awesome Memorial Day here, kittens. I hope you all had a good one.

It's not a Wednesday....

But I'm blogging today anyway! Happy Memorial Day to the American kittens out there. I've actually been a bit busy the last few days, as my friends on Facebook got to preview last night.

Pattern: Pencil Pouch Tutorial

I spent a little over 5 hours Saturday night and about an hour yesterday morning working on these pouches. I wanted to make gifts for The Boy's teachers for making his first school experience such a positive one. I will be stuffing these with chocolate and putting little notes in them; for his teacher and her assistant, I also plan to add small gift cards.

I have had so many scraps sitting around from recent projects that I didn't have to wash up anything new to make these. It felt good to clear out some left overs, even if it was such a small amount. They won't quite hold an unsharpened pencil, but any instrument shorter than that fits in just fine.

The Boy approves.

WIP-it Wednesday: 21 of 52

Kittens! I'm managing to blog today. Two Wednesdays in a row; haven't done that in awhile. You see, after last week's post, a fire lit under my butt, and I started working faster on my cardigan so I could get an idea if I need to try and acquire another skein of my yarn or not. The jury is still out as I finish up skein 03 of 06. (I currently have 4-6 more rows worth of yarn in the skein.)







From the back, it's looking good, nothing to worry about. I could have lifted the waist band up even higher to fit better with my natural waist, but as it was, I cut over an inch from the pattern right there.

The worrying part is here:

Even though the sweater is wide enough to not burst out of it, I'm still busty enough that the front is riding much higher than the back of the sweater. Once I block the sweater and the upper garter ridges relax, it will help with the problem. I know that's partially what is going on right now and why it's riding up. I'm seriously considering and debating adding darts to the front sides to give them a bit of extra length.

But this eats up more yarn...which I'm not sure I can spare at this point in time.

I originally thought that making it through half of my yarn would give me a better idea of if I had enough. Now, I'm convinced that I need to knit up skein 04 and see how far that one takes me to get a better idea. It's definitely going to be close if I decide to make this a longer sweater, add darts to lengthen the front, and keep the pockets in. I really want all of these things, but having a limited edition colorway with only 10 skeins in existence makes it tricky. I've managed to locate 3 of 4 sister skeins to mine. However, I really do not want to have to bother someone else for one of them if I can help it.

So, knit skein 04 first, then see how I'm doing from there. I keep hoping that perhaps mine are a bit higher in yardage than marked, and I'll eek through this. Sundara is known for underestimating the yardage of her skeins to avoid disgruntled customers.

WIP-it "Wednesday": 2O of 52

Kittens, I fear that I may be skipping quite a few WIP-it Wednesday posts. At the rate I'm currently knitting, there are not enough changes from week-to-week to keep things interesting. I'm not sewing or doing any other crafting at a fast enough rate either. Things are pretty slow here and my motivation has been lacking. 2011 is looking to be stressful for me 'til the end, so I suspect this will be normal.

Anywho, not to be too much of a Debbie Downer here, but I did want to address that really quick. When one has readers, no matter how many, she feels a need to explain absences. Blogging is a really interesting thing in that way. It's done primarily for one's self--for me it is, anyway--but there are others who read the content, making it almost like a letter or conversation. Thus, the apologies for not blogging more often.

But I digress.

It took almost 2 full weeks, but I finally made enough progress on one of my projects to show it off again.

My cardigan is slowly coming along, but I'm really happy with it so far. It now has both sleeves, and I've started into the body. A couple of things about it have made me nervous; the first was quieted today. It does indeed appear to be wide enough in the front that I will not be bursting out. Yay!

Before I move along to the second concern, aren't those garter ridges a lovely detail? Along with all of the stress I have this year, I'm also without The Mister, which means I'm lacking a photographer the majority of the time. He's not physically gone, but he may as well be. He spends all the time he can locked in our bedroom with background noise to drown everyone else out while he studies. And studies. And studies some more. (Some people like to talk about how the military is full of stupid, unintelligent people: this could not be farther from the truth. Most jobs require a level of intelligence and competence that surpasses being "a grunt." Being a helicopter pilot not only requires being in peak physical condition above and beyond, one has to be really sharp and able to learn/memorize quickly as well. Now you know. I digress, yet again....)

Back to the knitting stuff.

The second worry I'm still on the fence about. I have 6 skeins of the Sundara sport merino I'm using for this project. At this pictured point, I've used up 2 and started into the third. Is anyone else starting to feel nervous for me yet based on that bit of information? I'm starting to think I may have to give up the pockets which are a feature of this design, which would make me sad. I'm hoping that my obnoxiously short torso will save the day and I may be able to eek pockets out of what I have.

Only time will tell. And at this rate, it's going to be a substantial amount of time....

Oooh, an FO!

Kittens, it's been awhile since I've had one of these. It seems that this year, all I can finish are toys. (Interestingly, these are my least favorite thing to knit/make. Love the look of them; hate making them.)








On Wednesday, I started and finished this Angry Birds Finch for my little guy. He's been having a difficult time adjusting to his father's new class schedule, so I wanted to do something nice for him. He's been super excited and the first couple of mornings, I woke up to Angry Birds battles in my bedroom. Now, he wants even more birds and more piggies to vanquish. He'll get them...in time.

The pattern designer has a full pattern line of the Birds now. I would highly recommend these; they're very well written and clear.

WIP-it Wednesday: 18 of 52

I'm back this week, kittens! I finally made some noticeable progress on one of my projects, so I have something to blog. You know... other then assure you that I'm working even if I've been really quiet and not showing off many pictures.

After my last sweater project turned out so abysmally, I allowed myself a pattern purchase and immediate cast on of another to ease my pain. Nothing hurts me more than a project that needs to be frogged; I hate wasted time and effort. (Hey, at least I do not knit the whole thing trusting my gauge and try it on at the end!)

This is some lovely Sundara Sport that I have had marinating in my stash for about 6 months now. It's definitely not the oldest yarn I have sitting in there, but it is one that I've had a hard time picking a project for. For some reason, I remembered it as being darker then it is; I seem to recall that while I liked it, I didn't really love it when it first arrived. Maybe it just looked like a darker grey in November then it does now?

This project has been on needles since mid-April. I'm moving at a snail's pace on it, but I'm OK with that. 2011 is all about taking things slow. I've been working with an unfamiliar construction type--the technical aspects are easy peasy--and sleeves are always a concern for me. I ended up making a decision to alter the pattern and fit 8 additional sleeve stitches into the top of the sleeve as I worked. (No math involved, just winged it.) I am so glad that I did and how they're spaced. Even before blocking and the growing this superwash merino will do, they fit perfectly. With growth, I'm expecting about a couple inches of ease to be added in, making them a close fitting, but looser-than-my-usual-preference sleeve. Even if for once my knitting doesn't grow like past experience has taught me, it fits! So...WOOT.

I'm about to take a quick break for a project I'm making The Boy. Then, I'll be right back on the next sleeve and getting this sweater moving!

April 2011 Wrap-up

End of the month, kittens. Here we go again!

Yardage Totals 2011

January: 1071 yds
February: 762yds

March: 1189yds
April: 1083yds

Year to date: 4,105 yds or 2.33 miles

Not bad considering it feels like I got nothing done this month.

I skipped the last WIP-it Wednesday because there was no discernible progress in any of my projects. Why bore my small audience with the same pictures as the week before? I can assure you, kittens, that I am making progress, as my yardage numbers show. I managed to finish O4 of the O7 skeins of chocolate brown yarn in the bottom stripe of the never-ending blanket for The Boy. In May, I will finish that stripe. In the sweater project I cast on late in the month, I've finished the yoke and am moving onto the sleeves this next month. I even managed to have a single FO for April, a monkey for my daughter. (The Boy now wants one of his own, and I'll try to knit that sometime in May as well.)

I'm rather pleased that my average is better than 1,OOO yards per month, which is my low monthly goal for 2O11. After 2O1O and popping out a mile per month--damn near close, anyway!--I really needed a break. I'm not going to lie to you, kittens, I've needed it. 2O11 has been rather stressful and many things require my attention that have not in the past. I'm hoping to come through this experience a little more adult than I have been. With the third decade of my life wrapping up, I suppose it's time to get serious about that whole "adult" thing.

Thank you to those of you that read this little blog of mine. Here's to a productive May!