Saturday, January 31, 2009
Contest Reminder
Also, there is a contest over at being me is what i do best for a couple of hand knit coffee cup warmers (one is vegan!) so head over there and comment on her blog to enter.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Out of Commission
So I totally crippled myself again the other day, bleh! I've had a bad back since I was a kid and it doesn't take much to aggravate it, way too much knitting definitely did the trick! I was ok yesterday (except for some hand pain that I was ignoring) until I was at Tuesday knitting night and started to get horrendous back cramps and had to leave early. So today I've banned myself from any activity that involves repetitive arm/hand motion (no knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery...) I also can't really cook or clean so I'm not sure what I'm going to do all day. I finished the last new book I had so I don't really have anything to read either. Sigh.
OK, onto good stuff! Check out the super cute bracelet I won from a contest on being me is what I do best:
(I love it, thanks again!)
And I never blogged about the new addition to my stitch marker tin, Ms. Pacman and ghosts from Scarymerry's Etsy shop:
Check out her shop, she's got a ton of cute stuff, I need moooore! Although my stitch marker tin is looking a bit full:
It's the best little tin ever though, I got it from United Noodles (love that place, and it's pretty close to Depth of Field, muah ha ha!):
Ok, my back is starting to tighten up so I'm off to a heating pad and day full of this:
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Monday, January 26, 2009
The Red Scarf
See, I have been knitting! I just can't show most of what I've been working on here because it's design work. But I can show you this scarf I started last night, it's a donation item for the Orphan Foundation. They're collecting scarves at the Knit-Out and Crochet next month at the Mall of America so I thought I'd get one going. I'm really in love with the color combo, I just hope I have enough yarn to finish this thing. It's just a basic 2x2 rib, no pattern this time.
And I sewed another sock project bag for myself:
Yay for birds and cute fabric!
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Saturday, January 24, 2009
All hail Zuma!
Earlier this week, my last Christmas present (finally!!!) arrived and I absolutely love it. It's my very first official knitting bag and it's beyond awesome. It's the Zuma bag from Namaste that my husband ordered for me way back in November. I of course had to choose purple (eggplant to be exact) which is a limited edition color that wasn't going to be available until mid January. But it was well worth the wait!
The bag is vegan of course (duh!) and is made from "pvc-free animal friendly faux leather." It makes me really happy that they throw in the animal friendly part in the description :) The material is super soft too, some synthetics can be gross but this bag feels really nice.
And there's storage potential galore:
Here she is holding my Tree Jacket (still not finished btw):
I can't wait for the weather to get a bit less horrid (it's -.4 right now) so I can take my bag out for a nice walk at settle into the Tea Garden for a while, sipping a coconut mung bean shake and knitting the afternoon away...
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Contest!!!
As you may know, I have been doing some destashing (and more destashing) here at Case De Vegancraftastic. I usually sell my used books at Half Priced Books but I thought it be fun to have a little contest this time. The prize is a copy of Knitting For Peace by Betty Christiansen (Ravelry Link). This lovely book has patterns and stories geared toward charity knitting with causes including The Mother Bear Project, Warm Up America, and Project Linus.
To enter, leave a comment on this post telling me about your experiences or plans for charity knitting. If you post about this contest on your blog, link to this post, and tell me about it in your comment, you will receive an extra entry. To be entered, you must leave some way of contacting you (being signed in to blogger is not enough, I've had trouble contacting people through their blogs before), please leave your e-mail address (written like personATplaceDOTcom) or your name on Ravelry (preffered). Winner will be picked by random drawing, the deadline to enter is February 1, 2009. Cont. US only please to cut down on shipping, thanks and good luck!!!
-Kala
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Yarnburger with Soy Cheese
Yum, is there anything better than a nice vegan burger with an organic bun and a slice of soy cheese? Okay, this one is made of yarn, but still! I started this last night as a present for my dad's birthday (which also happens to be Groundhogs Day), I didn't use a pattern because I just felt like making it up as I went along. I used stash yarn for this and I think it's kind of funny that I had all the colors to make a burger. The bun is organic cotton, the lettuce, ketchup, tomato, and burger pattie are all acrylic and the cheese slice is soy yarn.
Cute, eh?
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Friday, January 16, 2009
Rolling in Yarn
Literally rolling. Yesterday was a great mail day, I got a huge box of Crystal Palace joy and the hand painted lace weight I ordered from etsy. We'll start with the lace:
Aren't the colors to die for! Oh my gosh, these colors are so Kala-ish. And yeah, that's a word. It's hand painted lace weight tencel from Yarntopia Treasures in the Cherry colorway. 1050 yards of awesomeness, yay! If you haven't checked out Yarntopia before, you should, the yarn is crazy cheap and insanely beautiful, plus they have a healthy amount of vegan goodness.
And then there was sock yarn from Crystal Palace:
Wheee, so many potential socks! I got a nice amount of both Panda Cotton and Panda Soy in colors I've been coveting, what could be better? And finally, sock kits:
I got two Crazy 8 Sock Kits that come with a pattern designed by Laura Andersson, needles, and enough yarn for a pair of women's socks and pair of baby socks (unless you have larger feet, then you might not have enough for the baby socks). The kits are available from Patternworks and they're super cute, look at the little mini skeins:
I got a Neutral Kit:
And a pastel one:
My sock yarn stash has totally exploded, I think I'll be needing a bigger storage tub...
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Monday, January 12, 2009
Yarn Outlet and More Sewing
First I want to answer a few questions I got in the comments of my last post (I never really know where to answer those). No, I don't have an etsy shop right now (right now being the operative words here, muah ha ha). I was also asked if I used a pattern or tutorial for the zippered bags. Yes and no. I looked over a few tutorials and ended up mostly using this one with some modifications.
Ok, onto the yarn! This past weekend was one of the super duper rare ones that the husband had off of work so we did a bit of adventuring around. And since he's a sweetie pie part of that adventuring around involved yarn! Needlework Unlimited Outlet to be exact, it was my first time there and it was pretty cool. Everything in the store is at least 50% off and they even had a fair amount of vegan stuff. I ended up with 3 balls of this:
It's a discontinued 100% cotton yarn called Toccata Print from Lana Grossa. The colors are perfect, so gorgeous! I'm not sure what I'll make, but a scarf seems pretty likely, something lacy maybe?
And then there was sewing:
I made this cute little drawstring bag last night with some stash fabric. I love it and can't wait to make more, a bit bigger next time though so I can fit a sock in progress in it. I used this great tutorial from Happythings, you should check her blog out, she's got a bunch of cool sewing tutorials. Lining shot:
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Friday, January 09, 2009
January is all about pink
I'm making myself another pair of Sweetie Pie socks, in Panda Cotton again, in the dotty Lollipops colorway. I've had this yarn for a while and keep staring at it, trying to imagine what it would look good as. Not that the socks look great in this picture, but I'm happy so far, the yarn looks much better knit up than it does in the skein.
And I've been sewing! I've really missed sewing but with all the junk I had in my sewing area, it just wasn't possible to work on anything. But now that I've purged a few tons of stuff I can get my sew on again! I'm trying my hand at project bags:
Not as hard as I thought they might be, once I figured out what I was doing. You see, about 99% of my sewing experience comes from the quilting world so somethings sewing anything 3D is confusing. Plus it has a zipper and zippers are scary. This is the first one I made, isn't the fabric fabulous?:
The lining:
I played around on the second one to see what would happen and ended up with this cute mini bag:
I've learned a lot from both bags and plan to make more until I get them exactly how I want them to be. But I only have one or two zippers left so I need to make a run to Treadle at some point. Yay for a new year and new projects!
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Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Sweetie Pie Revisited
Hey, remember the Sweetie Pie socks I designed a few months ago? They were originally for the Sockathon Yahoo Group but they're now also available as a free Ravelry download so I thought I'd mention that here. It's also here for those who aren't on Ravelry.
They're knit with (of course) Panda Cotton in a red that's no longer available, but who really knits with the color suggested on the pattern anyway? Enjoy!
Take a look at my Etsy shop too :)
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Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Heartsters
Coasters, little doilies, whatever you want to call them, I'm calling them heartsters because of the heart motif. I saw these in the latest issue of Crochet Today and fell in love, they're super cute and gave me a chance to practice following slightly more complex crochet directions. I used stash yarn for these, the smallest red one is Hempathy, the small pink one is Paton's Grace, and the large pink one is Sugar N Cream. I used a D hook for the small ones and a G for the big one.
For the first coaster, I followed the directions and didn't change anything. For the next ones, I left off the last round, I think you can see the hearts better that way. I think I'll make a few more of these as Valentine's presents for my mom, they're cute and pretty easy too. It's crazy, I actually made something from a current issue of a crafting magazine I bought, madness!
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Sunday, January 04, 2009
Spring Forward...into Winter?
Isn't it so unfair that socks (and other projects for that matter) don't get done unless you work on them? Well, I started these socks way back in the summer as a KAL with the Vegan Sock KAL group. We picked Spring Forward and I had some perfect pink Panda Cotton to knit them with. I finished the first sock pretty quickly and then...well, I don't even remember what happened then, but for some reason I never went back to finish that second sock. Curse you Second Sock Syndrome! Thankfully for the UFO KAL, I finally finished these pretties and have a cute pair of socks for myself. Check out this post to see all of the other pesky UFOs I have hiding in the apartment.
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Friday, January 02, 2009
Waffles!
My first post of 2009 will be about.....Waffles!
The husband and I made a big batch last night so we could freeze them and have a stash. That way I can just throw one in the toaster oven when I get a waffle desire. I already talked about these on the food blog, but I'm obnoxious and want to share them here too! The recipe is an all-time favorite, it's Isa's Lemon Corn Waffles and it's in her first book and online at the ppk. I leave out the lemon, add more flour, add vanilla, and of course add some chocolate chips. Not so much that it's too sweet, just enough for some extra zoom. Zoom is an important part of a balanced breakfast you know!
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