September 27, 2007

Ketchup?

I realized that I hadn't posted the pictures of a couple of projects that were finished during my extended break from blogging, so I thought I'd go ahead and prewrite a post to share them while I'm out of town on my honeymoon. Dual purpose, you know - show the projects off, and try to keep on my roll of actually posting again!

Raspberry Mocha Swirl socks:

Made with Socks that Rock lightweight, in the Rare Gems colorway (where they take the skeins that didn't work out right the first time, overdye them, and turn them in to beautiful one-of-a-kinds).

It was fun seeing how similarly the spiral striping worked out on the two socks... finished these back in May or thereabouts.

BlueCedar Socks:

Made to replace the Thuja socks I made for Sean last fall, which ended up with holes in the bottom by this spring. I used Debblie Bliss Rialto, and the Thuja pattern from knitty again, and added reinforcing thread to the heels, toes, and soles. Hopefully these will last a bit longer.

Calypso Clapotis:

Not exactly a Finished Object, but a Finished As It's Gonna Get Object (FAIGGO?) - I didn't like how the finished fabric felt, and the drab mustardy/greeny color ended up taking a far more prominent role than I had expected, so it got this far:

And then decided to let it sit in stash until I'm ready to frog it or something...

Anyway, now you're pretty well caught up. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week - myself included!

Posted by Shannon at 03:56 PM | Comments (1)

September 21, 2007

What I'm doing today

These are the fronts of our reception invitations, which I designed myself... today is the big legal day (not only tying the knot, but also signing closing papers for our new home). Tomorrow, we party - in a low key way. Then, it's off to the San Juan Islands, and home to move!

(This post was written ahead of time... you think I'm taking time today amongst everything else to blog?!)

Posted by Shannon at 08:49 AM | Comments (1)

September 19, 2007

The end of the charade (for now)

Life is funny.

I haven't knit anything quickly in a long long time... then Charade came along. I was inspired, I had an event deadline, and I busted my ass (doing almost no reading, gaming, etc for the last few weeks) to get it done by this week. This weekend, I got the fronts finished and the shoulders seamed, leaving only the 7 inches or so of front edging to continue around the back of the sweater, seaming the bottoms of the sleeves, and weaving in all of the yarn ends to be completely done. I ended up breaking into 14 balls of yarn, when the pattern called for less than 9 balls worth of yardage, and that's with dropping about 5 inches of length. But, it was almost done, and it looked good!

Then I tried it on. And discovered that I needed to make other plans for my wedding/reception outfit.

I love the drape of the yarn I picked, but apparently it isn't a good match for the pattern as written, at least on my body. When I wrap it, one side has the wrap on top (of course), and that side shows my waist. The other side, however, is pulled straight down from my bust - no waist at all. It makes me look lopsided, and I think it makes me look heavier than I am. *sigh*

So, it's getting set aside until after we move. At that point, I'm going to rip it out and do it over with the fronts going only to the 'side seam' and sew ribbon on to wrap all the way around and tie, giving me a waistline on both sides. Something constructed more like this:

Since I still love the color, drape, and sheen of the yarn, and the stitch pattern and basic idea of the sweater, hopefully this will meld them in a way that works when I put it on. And, given how much less yarn it will use to only go to the side seam, I may decide to put longer sleeves on so that I can wear it this fall/winter. We shall see.

Posted by Shannon at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

September 06, 2007

Playing Charades

I'm working on my first real impulse knitting in quite some time... A few weeks ago Crazy Aunt Purl posted a review of Annie Modesitt's new book, Romantic Hand Knits, and I fell deeply in love with Charade - a lacy wrap sweater. In fact, I fell so in love with it that although I've almost exclusively been knitting from stash and patterns that I either already had or were free online for the last 9 months (a.k.a. when I put nearly everything I own into storage and moved into Sean's one bedroom apartment) I went to Border's that night and bought the book with a coupon I had in my email.

The next day, I decided to check out a newish yarn store that's only about 10 blocks from my work - Twisted. Loved the store, and bought a great yarn for the sweater. The book calls for Berocco Zen, which I've used before and found fairly unpleasant to knit with, or any worsted ribbon... and at Twisted, I found this:

Sirdar Just Bamboo in the Bluegrass colorway, 100% bamboo with a really lovely sheen and drape. I started a swatch (a rarity in and of itself) that night, and the sweater soon after. I've been making pretty good progress, too.

I have this crazy idea in my head of getting it done to wear for my wedding on the 21st, and reception on the 22nd, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get there... especially with all the time that 's going into the house-buying, needing to pack, etc. But I'm going to try, while still lining up a backup option in case it isn't done.

I also finally have the Mango drop-stitch sweater done... I picked it up yesterday from the alteration shop that I had put in the zipper. I'm really pleased with it, too -

Posted by Shannon at 08:45 AM | Comments (3)

August 09, 2007

Um... Hi!

Remember me? I used to post here occasionally, although I haven't been seen for a while. I am still alive, though - more than that, I'm doing really well!

The wedding quickly approaches - we're tying the knot at the courthouse on September 21, and then having a casual open-house style reception at my parents' place the following afternoon... then it's off to a private cabin in the San Juans for a week, stopping in Seattle to see a play on our way back home. We've also started condo-shopping, and are hoping to move in mid-to-late October. Yay!

As far as other life changes go, I took on the newly-created position of customer service manager at work this last March, and I'm finally getting a solid handle on all of my duties. I've been doing lots of traveling, because we have 9 offices scattered around OR and WA, and I have to visit all of them at least quarterly. I certainly have my rough days, and sometimes I feel a bit odd about doing a job that isn't particularly geeky, but overall I'm far far happier with my work now.

We also went on a cruise this July with a bunch of my family... it was a lot of fun - except for the part where my dad slipped and fractured a vertebra on our last port-day, and he and my mom had to stay in a hospital in Mexico for an extra few days - thank goodness for travel insurance! Anyway, you can check out this flickr set for more pics of the trip. I have to say, we both loved Roatán, Honduras - we'll be going back there, definitely!

In the knitting realm, I haven't been getting a whole lot done, which is part of why I haven't been posting, I think. I finished the Mango drop-stitch not-a-hoodie, except for blocking it and getting the zipper put in - and it's been sitting on the dryer waiting for me to wash and block it for a couple of months now. Sean wore through the bottoms of the Thuja socks I made for him last fall, so I made a new pair with higher-twist yarn and reinforcing thread, but I still need to duplicate-stitch the reinforcing thread into the soles, and it's navy blue thread with navy blue yarn, so I keep putting that off, too. I made a pair of socks out of brown and pink socks that rock, but I haven't taken pics of them, and I finished them in April or May but haven't warn them much yet, given that they are a bit warm for Summer.

I do have a picture of the socks I'm working on now - Mountain Colors Bearfoot in a really basic toe-up pattern, very fast knitting. I love the slight fuzziness of the yarn, and it's nice to get something completed in a shorter time frame - I should be binding off the first sock today. I've also been working on a clapotis in SWTC bamboo, but I'm not too thrilled with how it's turning out, so it's off to marinate with stash for a while as I debate frogging it.

Posted by Shannon at 09:39 AM | Comments (1)

December 18, 2006

Giddy!

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this, I'd be kind of surprised, but I have big news and I'm all giddy and wanting to share, so I'll go ahead and post it just in case.

So, here's my 1000 words:

Posted by Shannon at 05:04 PM | Comments (10)

August 10, 2006

Lost, one seven year old...

It's official. According to the charts here, I have now lost the equivalent of the average seven-year-old girl.

Go me!

Posted by Shannon at 10:29 AM | Comments (8)

August 08, 2006

Job opportunity

Just appeared in my email, and of potential interest to the Portland-area locals - a craigslist ad from knitpicks, looking for an in-house designer.

60 to 80 patterns per year... that's pretty prolific!

Posted by Shannon at 04:24 PM | Comments (1)

Where has the summer gone?

Not that it's over, quite, but I can't believe we're already over a week into August! I've been having quite a busy, social, fun summer - hooray for that.

This weekend was the wedding of two very dear friends, at a state park about an hour south of here. It was a wonderful wedding - sweet, funny, not too long, and perfectly them. I (along with my trust ipod) played DJ (and emcee!) at the reception, and although I had all sorts of issues getting the specified music onto the ipod in the weeks leading up to the wedding, thankfully the reception itself went smooth as silk.

And now that the wedding has happened, I can blog about one of my craft efforts I've been keeping secret. I don't think my friends read this blog, but I'm not certain they don't, so I've been hush hush on this one so far.

The bride's family has a tradition that whenever someone gets married, the family makes a quilt for them as a wedding gift. I was flattered to be invited to contribute to the quilt, and this is what I made for my square - Dragonflies are a favorite of the bride, and were a running motif through the wedding. Her aunt sent me the basic white square and three coordinating purple fabrics, I designed and made my square, and then sent it back to her aunt who gathered them all and put the quilt together. I forgot to get a picture of the completed quilt, which was displayed at the reception, but I do have one of the bride and matron-of-honor dancing that shows almost all of it - I think it turned out beautiful.

In other crafting, i have been knitting, although not all that much. I've finished the back and most of one front on the drop-stitch-hoodie, which I am now calling the mango hoodie:

I want to get it done, because it'll be a great summer-to-fall transitional piece... but, as I said, I've had a busy summer - meaning less time for knitting.

In other life news, I have now passed the 50-pounds-lost mark (hooray!) I am continuing to go to the gym on a regular basis (also hooray!) and I decided to dump the brown dishes I shared with the ex and get a new set from cb2.com. The dishes aren't as big of a deal in the long run, of course, but I just got them this weekend and I am still very excited about them. Hee.

Posted by Shannon at 03:48 PM | Comments (2)

June 13, 2006

Update

It's looking like the pictures are probably going to be even more sparse than the posting here on Confessions for a bit - Over Memorial Day weekend, I went down to the Bay Area with my boyfriend, and my hotel room was broken into. It seems someone was going around and either sneaking into rooms while housekeeping was in them, or posing as the room owner who had 'forgotten something' - they hit at least 2 or 3 other rooms, that we know of. In any case, they took my camera, mp3 player, pda, and the bag with the socks I was working on - so that picture in the last entry is likely to be the last anyone sees of those socks.

I did manage to snap a pic of my steering wheel cover - and upload it - before the trip, though, so I can show that off:

This was a nice easy knit, using Artful Yarns Candy and no pattern to speak of, and now that I've been using it for a few weeks, I can say for certain that I really like it.

Before the trip, I also pulled out my sewing machine and some fun clearance fabric from JoAnn, and created this 2-panel skirt (the panel you see has a twin on the back) to add to my bellydance costuming wardrobe. Unfortunately, I haven't been to dance class in months, but hopefully new dance clothes will help inspire me to work it back into my schedule.

My current works in progress include a new sock, in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock lightweight, in the Rare Gems colorway... which is made up of one-off skeins they have overdyed after the initial colorways didn't take correctly. My skein is a rich brown and magenta, and I'm excited about the prospects. I'm also still working on the Interweave Drop-Stitch Hoodie - I just reached the armhole shaping on the back last night at S-n-B.

And, although I'm sure I could come up with more to say, I'm going to head off to the gym now and just update again in *less* than 3 weeks... or so I hope.

Posted by Shannon at 04:09 PM | Comments (6)