YAY!

I did it, I really did it! My Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup History of Magic OWL was accepted! I got a total of 150 points for Hufflepuff for doing those four hats (to reiterate: Viking Hat, Hermione Hearts Ron, Gamer Hat and Button-Tab Hat) in three months. Normal homework projects were worth 15 points each, plus optional bonus points, so 150 points for four hats is pretty good!

I'm so proud of myself for setting this goal and meeting it!

I got this badge to post on my Rav profile for completing my OWL:

ETA: Assuming I don't get any bonus points this month -- and I don't really expect to since the Reading Mitts and the carnation were the only homework projects I turned in -- I earned 336 points this term.

Pouch

I finished the black pouch! Now I just have to turn it in.

I'm in a hurry, so I'm just going to post the photos. I think they're pretty well self-explanatory. It's a small little bag, but it's just big enough for a small project or some notions, and it's easy to carry. I like it.

This is my 5th project for the House Cup for February, plus 50% on my OWL, and my 3rd for Nerd Wars. I turned in the first two hats (Viking Hat and Mom's Hermione Hearts Ron hat) for the OWL; the lightbulb and conversation heart for the House Cup; and Cookie the murloc, the Icarus cowl and now this for both challenges. Go me! It was a busy month!

I've been a busy little bee

First and foremost, I finished Mom's hat!

I'm tired, so I won't go into details that I've already explained on Ravelry, but I cut out one repeat. It still turned out huge and had to be shrunk a bit. I hope it fits now. There's no chance of it being too small, but it may require some additional shrinkage.

By the way, I LOVE this yarn (Road to China Light). It feels amazing and has great drape, and I love this color. You can't really see in the pictures, but it has a lot of depth to it ... lots of flecks of deeper greens and blues that you can't quite tell are really there unless you stare very closely. It's kind of like the ocean, except of course not quite the right color. The color's almost alive. And yeah, the yarn's just great ... I mean, look at that stitch definition! I want more.

Then today at work, I got bored and decided on a quick project ... a knit conversation heart.

It was a very quick knit. I happened to have the lavender yarn in my car (I used it for demonstrations in my knitting class) and used Julie Edwards' Little Stuffed Heart pattern to knit up a quick little heart. It took about 30 minutes to knit the heart, another 10 to sew it up and stuff it, 10 minutes to find suitable pink yarn for the writing and 10 minutes to embroider a sloppy slogan on it. It ended up as another cat toy. And a project for History of Magic in the House Cup! I didn't intend to turn in a History of Magic project this month, but it was so quick ...

Now, I really must finish the bookmark for my Hufflelove Exchange partner so I can get that in the mail. Then I still need to do the murloc, the black pouch and of course, the Icarus cowl, all by the end of the month. Hah!

Mom's Hat

I finished my first project for this month's House Cup assignments. No big deal, just an amigurumi lightbulb. Very quick. I gave it to the cat to use as a toy.

I wasn't entirely happy with the shaping ... the socket turned out a little long, and the bulb part was a little too short and flat on the top. But I figure since it's just a cat toy, who cares?

I also gave my brother his Viking Hat. The beard is a little narrow. When I get time, I'll knit a wider one to replace it with. But he loved it, and aside from the beard being a little too narrow for his face, it fits pretty well. And the beard does hug his face nicely, it just doesn't cover as much of his cheeks and jaw as I think it should.

So, with those two projects done, I've been working on a few others. I'm trying to design and knit a cowl using the feathery edging from Icarus. I've got the design finished and yarn purchased (I'm using Alpaca with a Twist Fino in a light blue ... it feels completely amazing!) but I haven't had a chance to wind my yarn into a ball yet. I've also been trying to find/come up with a good design for a lacy bookmark for a swap we're doing in Hufflepuff in the House Cup. I tried one out already, but I wasn't satisfied with it, so it's back to the drawing board. I'm using Kidsilk Haze for this, in black. It's the first time I've worked with Kidsilk Haze. It's softer than I expected ... I think I like it. Which is good, because I'm probably going to have around 200 yds. left over, even if I don't frog the bookmark I already knit from it. And I am open to good bookmark suggestions, by the way. I'm looking for something rectangular, maybe with a scallop or v at the end, and lacy and pretty and delicate.

And I've been working on Mom's Hermione Hearts Ron hat. I've finished 3 repeats of the cable and lace pattern. The pattern calls for 4 repeats of the pattern before you start decreasing, but I need to measure the hat first. It's looking a little long. I may need to start decreasing before that point. Mom's head is only slightly larger than mine, so if it fits me well, it should fit her too. I tried it on earlier, and it's just a little loose on me (good, since she needs an extra half inch to an inch, plus hats that are too snug look weird on her). It also reaches from the middle of my ears to where my skull starts to flatten at the crown, so I'm thinking I'll be cutting out that 4th repeat. But we'll see.

No pictures of that yet because my camera batteries are dead and I'm not sure where the replacements have disappeared to. I'll have to find some before the end of the month so I can post a photo showing I've completed both of the first two hats for my OWL.

And then I have to finish the rest of my class assignments, both for the House Cup and for the Nerd Wars challenge, which works basically the same way. Fortunately, I can use the same projects for both challenges, as long as I can find a category to fit each of them into. The Icarus Cowl will count for both. I'm also planning a knit murloc for Luke and a black wool pouch to count for both challenges. The lightbulb only counts for the House Cup, sadly.

Oh! And speaking of the House Cup ... point totals are in for the first month. I earned 66 points! I turned in 3 class assignments for 15 points each and one "detention" project (a project that started the month as a WIP) for 10 points. And I got bonus points on each of my class assignments ... 1 bonus point for Earpaper, 7 bonus points for Saroyan and 3 bonus points for my Lord of the Earrings. My new goal is to top those amounts this month, but that may not happen ... it is a short month, after all, and I have spent a significant portion of the first week working on my OWL and swap projects. But we'll see.

Head coverings

I finished my "Earpaper" tonight!



Random observation: I think my hair looks great in that photo! And I can't figure out why. I didn't do anything different ... just my regular cheapo Suave shampoo/conditioner and kids' detangler. But it looks nice and chocolate-y brown and smooth and silky ... I love it!

I finished the knitting yesterday, washed it, then soaked it in a tea/coffee mixture for 10-15 minutes to tone down the pink. I blocked it (flat) overnight then sewed the ends together and wove in the yarn ends today. I like my earwarmer almost as much as my hair in that photo! Well, okay, maybe not that much, because my hair and I have a well-documented love-hate relationship so it's pretty exciting to have a good hair day moment. But I do like the earwarmer.

As usual, there's a few other photos, and more information, on Ravelry.

Then I immediately cast on for my brother's Viking hat. Yay, FINALLY I get to start my OWL! Haha. Assuming I don't get seduced sidetracked by other projects, this should go pretty quickly. It's a fairly basic hat with a bottom hem, except for the horns and beard, which are knit separately and sewn on later. I'm improvising the design, but I've got it pretty well figured out already. I'm trying to keep good notes on what I've done so that I can write up a full pattern later. I know you're interested in it, Jessica, and maybe a few other people will be too. I'm thinking about offering it as a free PDF-format pattern if it turns out well ... what do you think?

Oh, and by the way, here's all the yarn and needles I'll be using for my OWL projects, along with swatches of each yarn:

From left to right, top to bottom, you have my Caron Simply Soft Eco yarn in Natural plus a swatch of that (done on size 4 needles) for the Viking hat horns (first column); Red Heart Super Saver in Cafe, for the Viking Hat beard, with the aforementioned size 4 Knitpicks circs, plus a swatch of that yarn (also done on the same size 4 needles) and the Stitch Nation by Debbie Stoller Bamboo Ewe yarn and swatch (yep, on size 4s) in Mercury for the body of the Viking Hat (second column); Road to China Light/Silken Jewels in Blue Tourmaline and a swatch (I really put those size 4s to work ...) for Mom's Hermione Hearts Ron hat as well as Knitpicks Andean Silk in Cinnamon with matching swatch (you guessed it, 4s) for my own Robin's Egg Blue hat (third column); and my size 3 dpns, the Patons Kroy sock yarn in Mercury, the completed gamer glove, embroidery floss in various colors and my Kroy swatch (hah, fooled you, this was done on 3s!) for Luke's Gamer Hat (fourth column).

I don't know how I managed to make the same set of size 4 circular needles work for all those different yarns, most of which are worsted weight and therefore shouldn't work well on 4s to begin with, but I did. The Road to China is sport weight, so it was no problem, and the Bamboo Ewe and Andean Silk both felt like light worsted and gave me a good, soft, drapey-but-not-too-loose fabric on the 4s. (The bamboo and silk probably contributed a lot to that drapiness. Both yarns feel amazing in the swatch.) I regularly knit Simply Soft on 5s, and since the horns will be stuffed with polyfill, the slightly smaller/denser gauge worked well for that. The Red Heart Super Saver is the only thing I even considered using a different needle for. Red Heart feels like a heavy worsted to me (it's actually listed as an aran weight, in fact), and since it isn't particularly soft, the gauge swatch feels pretty dense and a little stiff. But after considering the alternative, I decided to go ahead and use the 4s. After all, the beard on this hat isn't purely decorative. It also protects the bottom half of the face from the elements. A loose, floppy beard just wouldn't do as well. The fabric produced on 4s should still be loose enough to curve around the face with the hat but dense and stiff and heavy enough to stay there, even in the wind, and actually block the cold somewhat.

One last random observation: my cat is laying in the armchair, snoring quite loudly. Oh the joy of having pets. But she's so cute!

Oh my gosh ... can it be? A post? From Amie?

Wow, time flies. I didn't realize it had been so long since I'd posted here. Eight months! I fail at this whole blogging thing.

The good news is that I found the camera that went missing in winter 2009. So I can post good photos again.

The other good news is that, due to some slow weeks at work and an increased craving for fiber, I've had time to knit!

I didn't get a lot done over the summer or fall, but Jess and I did start another KAL. We both started Bridgewater by Jared Flood. We spent quite some time finding the right yarn ... I ended up with some Colourmart yarn in the perfect pale gray. I love it. But then I got busy with Christmas projects and life in general and set it aside temporarily. Jess finished hers. I'm almost halfway through the center garter-stitch square. Lots left to go! I'm anxious to get back to it. I'm really happy with it. I'm double-stranding the center for extra warmth and squishiness, but I'll do the lace edgings with only a single strand to emphasize the delicateness.

I haven't added the project to Ravelry yet, but I'll try to do that later. I'm at work now and don't have the yarn information handy. If I do that, I'll try to remember to also post a photo here.

Part of the reason I was too busy to finish Bridgewater is that I taught a knitting class! It went unbelievably well. I had 13 active students, and they were all outstanding students. Also very encouraging. So encouraging, in fact, that several of them convinced me to teach another, more advanced class this spring. So, starting in April, I'll be teaching colorwork.

Then came Christmas. A few months before Christmas, I was looking at hat patterns on Ravelry, and my sister-in-law spotted Koolhaas. She went on and on about how cool it was and how much she liked it. So, for Christmas, she got this:


I had some issues with that project. I followed the pattern, finished it, blocked it, looked at it and realized it was pretty short. 2" short in fact. That was on Dec. 23. We celebrated Christmas on Dec. 24. So what she actually received in her wrapped package looked more like this:


Then I ripped back to the last row before the decreases, added a repeat and reknit the crown. That's the version you see on my head in the first picture. It fit her much better with the extra repeat, but I was unable to get a photo of her wearing the final product. So far. She loved it, though.

I finished Koolhaas this month. I've had a very busy month, due in no small part to the fact that I'm competing in the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. I was sorted into Hufflepuff (GO BADGERS!), which I absolutely love. My housemates are awesome. Seriously. They're great. I highly recommend the House Cup to all knitters/crocheters/spinners/weavers/dyers, especially those interested in Harry Potter. (Although, honestly, that's not a requirement ... the projects don't have to be HP themed or anything.) And I highly recommend that all new players request to be sorted into Hufflepuff, because we're the best house! ;)

Basically, the HPKCHC requires that each player complete one project each month for three months. Easy, right? Projects have to fit into a "class," but categories are pretty broad. And if you're good enough with creative storytelling, you can make just about any project fit into at least one class. For example, this month's Charms assignment was to complete a project already completed by a first-year player other than yourself. Transfiguration required players to create something based on a non-HP book. Flying's assignment was to create something to keep a person warm or something made out of animal fur. You get 15 points for each homework assignment you turn in (or 5 points for a project you started but didn't finish), and the house that earns the most points over the three-month term wins the competition. There's even a Detention category for WIPs ... each player gets points for the first Detention project they turn in each month. I used Koolhaas for a Detention project and got 10 points just for completing it. I've also turned in Charms (a Saroyan) and Transfiguration (earrings based on the Lord of the Rings) for 15 points each. I'm on a roll!

Charms (Saroyan):


Transfiguration (Lord of the Earrings):


Now I'm working on an earwarmer based on Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts, which I'm called my Earpaper. I needed something to match the convertible Endpapers I got in a mitten swap. I'm using pale pink alpaca and brown wool.

Progress so far:


I'm about halfway finished. I plan to turn this in for my 15 points in Flying when I finish it, which will hopefully be soon.

I'm also working on a bigger project, an OWL, which is just a big project that takes longer than a month but less than three months. I've promised some people some hats, so I'm making four hats for my OWL: a bearded Viking hat for my brother, a cable and eyelet "Hermione Loves Ron" hat for Mom, Luke's gamer hat (finally!) and a Robin's Egg Blue hat for myself. I haven't started those yet, but I'll need to start soon.

Most of these projects are available (with more information and photos) on my Ravelry.