Actual finished object

I actually finished something! A pair of socks. These are using my Plain Old Stockinette Sock Pattern and Trekking 147. These took way too long to do due to lack of knitting time, but I finally finished them. They are nice and comfy and I love the color! I also have another pair of socks that has been finished for quite a while except that I have a little more embroidery to do. Just a little and that has been taking months just because it's so boring! Hopefully, I'll finish that soon because the socks are really, really cool!


I've already begun the next pair, more Trekking, this time in blues with a little bit of purple. The colors are actually a fair representation on my screen.

Greta!

Okay, folks, you know you're having a bad photography week when you have to resort to the "least crappy" photo. This shawl is beautiful, but apparently she's not very photogenic. At least not in the lighting that has been available to me the last few days. I'll keep trying to get better photos, but I really want to show her off. (I love the way NB names her shawls. "Greta" sounds so graceful.)


The close-ups are a bit better:

Those nupps (rhymes with "soups") really pop out when blocked, don't they. And the edging is my favorite:


The specs:
Pattern: Greta Garbo Shawl Kit from the Wooly West
Yarn: Nordic Lites in Linganberry
Needles: size 5
Size: around 60" across the top and 30" down the middle
She's a bit smaller than she was supposed to be. I should have gotten a third skein of yarn and moved up a needle size, but she's okay, I guess. I'm 5'7", so I like my shawls to be a little on the big side.

I've been working on the Kimono Top. It's coming along. It adds to speed when half the stitches on each RS row are slipped instead of knitted. I've been working on some other stuff, so I'm not further along. I'll tell you what my kitchen smells like and maybe you'll excuse the slack knitting - freshly baked bread and geranium oil. The bread smell is sort of obvious, but as for the geranium oil, I made up some wonderfully fragranced face cream yesterday with almond, jojoba and rose hip oils, beeswax, and lavender and rose geranium essential oils. It's really nice and my skin feels nice and soft.

Magickal Earth Shawl

Wow, she's finished and blocked and HUGE! Here she is in all her glory:

The color's a bit more accurate on this one, though the grey may even be a little lighter; it's showing up a bit too dark on my monitor:

(Click on the pictures for close-ups!)
Specs:
Started: March 1, 2008
Finished: December 26, 2008
Size: about 60 inches square
Needle size: Size 2 (3.00mm)
Yarn: Zephyr in Pewter
Pattern: Magickal Earth by Sandy Terp in Gathering of Lace

This shawl is probably the one I've most wanted to do since I started knitting lace. Gathering of Lace was the first lace book I purchased, and Frost Flowers and Leaves (finished earlier this year) and Magickal Earth immediately caught my eye. (I love unicorns and Celtic Knots.) I had to build the confidence to tackle this one though. Having done this one now, I'm pretty confident in most lace projects now (well, except for the Raku Suri Stole, but I was stupid enough to immediately try another lace project when I'm pretty sure I need a little bit of a lace break). Anyway, I think I'm going to try and finish up a couple of small projects, then maybe tackle the Raku Suri. Meanwhile, I'm going to show off my new shawl tonight at my Sit 'N' Knit and guild next week. New shawls make me very happy.

New Socks and More

My new socks:

Pattern: Oriel from Sensational Knitted Socks; it was my first toe up sock and I might just be hooked. I only had a few yards leftover. I've been asked about the toe-up heel flap and here's a closeup.

It's from SKS and really is a neat thing. You work it back and forth along the heel and pick up the stitches along the bottom of the heel instead of the back and then you work around, decreasing as you go up and working the slip 1, knit 1 between stitch markers for the back of the heel. The heel flap really does cup the foot on the to up heel very nicely. I highly recommend trying it.
Yarn: Apple Laine in Blueberry. I really need some more of this stuff. Gorgeous and feels so nice. It has wool, mohair and a little bit of silk and nylon.
Needles: Size 0s, my usual. I love the fabric with 0s.

Now for the more:

Tonight is my polymer clay demonstration at my knitting guild meeting. I'm going to demonstrate how to make polymer clay buttons. Here are some of the buttons I've made with molds. The two upper ones on the right were painted after baking with artist's acrylic paints and then varnished with a polymer clay gloss and the rest (except for the pink one which was not touched at all) were decorated using a brush and Pearl-Ex powders before baking, then varnished after baking. The tutorials on buttons are on the sidebar. Wish me luck.

Another FO!

Well, I started the year off slowly, but I've finished another something else.

Specs:
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill in Spanish Moss
Needles: Size 0 DPNs
Pattern: Baby Cable Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks, but I used my own basic pattern for heel and such.

Finally, A Finished Object for Friday!

I've really been into this alliteration thing for titles lately. But, you didn't come here for my adoration of alliteration as of late, did you? Nope, you came to see what I finished, didn't you? So, I present you, without further ado, my first finished object of 2007!

Pattern: The Hidcote Garden Shawl by the talented Miriam Felton
Finished size: About 80 X 38 which is a little smaller than the pattern specifies, but still plenty big
Needles: Size 3
Yarn: Viola Handpainted Lace from Sweet Georgia
No modification. This pattern is a joy, very interesting to do and really keeps you on your toes because of all the different decreases.
And the closeup:

I am so happy with how this shawl turned out. The yarn is just perfect and the pattern is just incredible. Maybe this weekend, I'll get some elegant modeled shots. Now, I'm already to pick Forest Path Stole back up just in time for the February start date of the KAL.

And I'm really happy to have a finished object finally. I haven't finished anything since the Hexagon Shawl. That's two whole months without a FO! I hope now to get a few rather quickly as the socks are almost done and I have a second snowman vest also nearly done.