I thought getting ready for our yard sale would be the worst of the whole process, but as it turns out, two days selling our wares was equally tiring. On Thursday I had to drag my chair into the shade to avoid heatstroke and Friday was so rainy and cold that I had to wrap up in a blanket and drink hot tea to warm up. A little bizarre, but its all over now and back to life as usual!

Between the yard sale and work, I haven't had much time for knitting but I did knit the trivet from felted knits and am currently working on the oven mitt. Here is my pre-felted progress:

Although I have somewhat sworn off knitting fitted garments (it's hard enough to buy clothes that fit, let alone knit them), I am getting a bit bored by my mini household projects. I was looking for something great to knit up with a stash of Debbie Bliss from my failed home-design sweater (see pink sweater in my photo album) when I stumbled upon the kate-along and said, "I can do that!" I am waiting patiently for my Phildar Famille to arrive so I can give it one last glance before I make my final decision. Any words of encouragement from someone who has made this? A girl can't knit oven mitts and socks forever!

Posted by Molly at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

No stellar knitting progress these days, as I've been keeping busy with my mom organizing for a gigantic garage/moving sale this Thursday and Friday.

Here is a picture of me getting lost in all my childhood glory--rediscovering all the great outfits that my mom made for my dolls (why is this picture so fuzzy, you ask? no idea). How could I part with any of it? I managed to weed out a few things that I don't REALLY need to keep, but we still have lots of work to do. Nevertheless, I have found the time to sneak online and refine my ever-changing blog. Thanks to everyone that helped with techincal advice and nice words about the site, especially Erica who helped me navigate some of the ins and outs of typepad.

Today the big excitement is the IMDB search that I successfully planted in my links in the right column. If you've never been to the Internet Movie Database, now is the time to check it out! Not only can you pick up movie times, but also information about any movie, new or old, and full chronology of your favorite actor or actress' movie career. It's particularly useful (this is a relative term) if you're stumped playing 6 Degrees of Separation.

I recently got these great new colors of Lamb’s Pride for some serious felting action. Last night I watched the French movie 8 femmes (look it up on imdb) and I started the felted trivet from Felted Knits. I’m almost done! There’s nothing like speed knitting on size 13 needles. I decided to make some homemade gifts to bring with me to Japan—so the oven mitt and trivet are my first endeavor.

Posted by Molly at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday’s quickie project was a success and photos of the amazing mini ipod case are here! As a satisfied user, I have to put in a plug for the mini ipod. Mine was a graduation gift from my bro, and it has changed the quality of my music life. Don’t let its small size fool you—it holds all my CDs and can essentially mix all my music together. The only “problem” is it’s so small I’m afraid to break it. Hopefully this knitted case will save the day.

I used a new surprisingly nice and soft Lion yarn called Landscapes that I found at my local Joann’s. I absolutely love this yarn but I couldn’t think of much to make with it, so I used it for this mini-project. It turned out great too! I knit a tube on double pointed needles, and when I got to the right length, just grafted the bottom together with the kirchner stitch. It is a perfect fit, especially if you cast on tight at the top, so the little guy won’t go sliding out every time you turn a corner. I’d like to line this, maybe with fleece, but I’ve never done anything like that before. Anyone have any suggestions? I’m thinking about knitting a matching camera case, but otherwise I have nothing exciting on the horizon. I have a hefty stash of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino left over from my failed sweater design attempt, and I need to find something great to make with it. Until then I'm just patiently knitting along on some socks…

**After reading Mariko's comment I wanted to add these photos of the Lion Landscapes yarn after my felting attempt. This is my felted swatch on the left. The results were not quite as I’d expected, with similar stitch definition to that of the regular knitted swatch, just fuzzier. I think it’s because the yarn is made of two different fibers (click for a close-up). The felted yarn on the bottom of my photo shows how the pastel strand seems to have felted a lot more than its colorful counterpart. I decided just to knit with the yarn normally because it seemed like a lot of trouble for not much difference. Maybe using a heavier-duty washing machine would change the outcome (I usually have to run things through a few times). Its still a great yarn, I hope this helps!

Posted by Molly at 02:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today its safe to say that working on this blog is actually replacing my knitting rather than documenting it. NO MORE! I thought getting up early every day would help me be more productive, but its 1:30 and I haven't done anything worthwhile except straighten up my room while updating my site with painfully slow dialup (If I can't get high-speed internet in Japan I don't know what I'll do). While this is a worthy cause, I think I need to put the formatting of my website on hold while I focus on more important things.

This daunting pile of textbooks is downstairs waiting for me to crack them open for my daily dose of Japanese study (in addition to catching up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday’s prescribed study). If I can squeeze it in, I also want to finish knitting my mini ipod case which is probably the smallest project ever. My fragile little ipod needs a cozy nest so I don't need to worry about it getting banged around when I go to the gym. If I can leave this site alone and sit down and knit for 30 minutes, there will be exciting photos tomorrow!

Posted by Molly at 02:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out the icon that I made of myself at this cool site that I found on ljc's blog. Its hard to imagine what I would look like as a cartoon, but I think this is fairly accurate.

On the knitting front, I went to the yarn store today looking for some bulky wool to make the oven mitt and trivet in Beverly Galeskas' Felted Knits. Sadly, they didn't have any colors I wanted and I had to settle for a boring bag of needles. I need something to knit! Here is a picture of my latest victory:

After making the french market bag from knitty.com a few months ago, I had the inspiration to make a similar tote bag with a rectangular base in three different shades of green Cascade. I knitted forever, and after several washes this great bag emerged. The height shrunk about twice as much as the width, so my square-ish bag became a very rectangular tote. Even so, I’m quite pleased with the results.

Keep your eyes peeled for a photo album of my completed (and abandoned) projects coming soon!

Posted by Molly at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here is my first successful and ridiculously easy project from the Yarn Girls' Book! Just because it's 80 degrees outside is no reason to put away a finished summer (perhaps more appropriately fall) poncho. On size 15 needles, this poncho practically knitted itself--just the way I like it.

I have spent far too long figuring out how to publish this elementary post! Luckily I tried to do anything important on my to-do list for the day before getting sucked in. Unfortunately I didn't QUITE finish studying GRE vocab so I have to get back to work, but I promise more exciting entries and complicated knitting are to come!

Posted by Molly at 05:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)