A Return!

Did anyone else have a crazy November? I don't know what happened to that whole month. It seems like I had an event of some sort planned every weekend and the time just flew right on by...

I was also participating in National Novel Writing Month. I've participated a few times now and won 3 of those. If you're not familiar with NaNoWriMo, "winning" means I wrote 50,000 words or more in 30 days. It's a lot. At the end of it I have a big, messy pile of words that will need to be heavily edited and rewritten before they really become anything, but it's a start.  I did pretty good about writing in college, but when your grades depend upon whether or not you finish a poem or short story for workshop the next day, it's much easier to stay motivated. So I have been working this year on taking my writing more seriously and trying to develop daily habits instead of doing a mad dash once a year and then forgetting about it.

But somehow, I also had time for some crafts. Here's a short rundown.

I FINALLY finished this beast of a quilt last night. This picture shows how much I had left when I ran out of bobbin thread. OF COURSE. You may remember me starting this... in March of 2014! I know. It's shameful how long this has been in progress. Especially considering this was supposed to be a gift for my now-husband in 2014. But this is the year! It will finally be finished!

I know this picture sucks, but this hat was a gift and I sent it off before I took any decent pictures. Sorry! But this is a Vermonter made up in Manos Franca yarn. It is lovely and soft and the colors are just gorgeous. I had to make some changes to the pattern to get it to fit, which you can find on my Ravelry page if you're interested. I made this for a friend who lives in a much colder area than me. She's been going through some hard stuff, so I sent her a bit of warmth. Like you do.

And this little beauty is my first Hermione Everyday Sock! The other one is almost done. I've turned the heel, made the gusset, and now I just need to knit the foot. It got put on hold in favor of the Vermonter, but I will be returning to it soon!

There has been more stuff, but this is a little sampling. I plan to return to this space more often to share, so keep an eye out :)

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday!

I Have Too Many Hobbies

It's true. Way too many hobbies. I knit, sew, crochet, run, read, write, play video games and sometimes cross stitch. And there isn't enough time to devote the amount of attention I would like to each of them. So I go in phases, sometimes week by week, sometimes month by month. But in a perfect world I wouldn't need to go to work every day and I could just rotate hobbies all day long...

Anyway, here are some things I've been working on.

A teeny tiny version of the wedge bags I make for my Etsy store! Seriously adorable. I'm probably going to list them for sale soon :) I love tiny things!

I cast on a sock! They will be Hermione's Everyday Socks when they're finished. I forgot how much I enjoy sock knitting, so this one has been fun.

A new bag for my Etsy shop- this one for needles and such. And a larger size wedge bag in black. I would also like to make a needle roll, but I need to design it first. I'll get to it eventually.

I've been pretty steadily knitting this scarf. BUT THEN TRAGEDY. I can't for the life of me find the second ball of this yarn! It has disappeared completely. I know I bought two, though, because I had a specific pattern in mind when I bought it and it required two balls of yarn! So. I knit half of this and it is now set aside. I'm hoping time away from it will somehow magically make the other ball appear...

I made a hat!

I finished some things! Yes, more than one thing! What a joyous occasion this is! Here's one of the things!

Right, so. I've been knitting tons of winter stuff. Because winters in Tucson are bitterly cold (obviously) and I just won't survive unless I'm covered head to toe in hand knits. Or I'm crazy and belong somewhere with a colder climate. That could be it, too.

Crazy is probably a good description.

The pattern is the Capucine Hat and you may notice if you click through that link that my hat doesn't exactly look like hers. Well, let me tell you what happened.. This hat is written for both bulky and super bulky yarn. My yarn was bulky and I somehow misread the directions, which clearly state that the bulky directions are in [square brackets]. Ahem. So this was knit with the instruction intended for super bulky yarn, which means my hat ended up not so slouchy...

At first I was sad. But then I realized when I put it on that what I had really just done was made myself a PONYTAIL BEANIE. Yes folks, that's right. I can wear my head up all winter and still keep my ears warm! What a revelation! So then I went from disappointed in myself for failing at instructions to EXCITED!

So while the pattern didn't turn out as planned, it is still awesome and nice and toasty. Which may come in handy if I go anywhere cold this winter ;)

Isn't it nice when a mistake turns out to be just fine?

Dead Stop

Last week I pulled the right trapezius muscle in my shoulder while walking my dogs. The smaller one saw a quail family and wanted to eat it and jerked my arm harder than I thought possible. This has rendered me basically useless. I haven't been able to knit, sew, or really use the computer at all. I missed a couple of days of work because most of what I do all day involves the use of the computer and it just hurt too much. I'm still not 100%, but the muscle relaxants prescribed by the doctor along with heat packs and pain killers have been slowly helping me heal.

This has been driving me absolutely insane, of course. I hate not doing things. I don't even like watching TV usually unless I'm also working on something. But that's been my week. When I take the muscle relaxant I can't even read much because I just fall asleep. In other words, I have been soooo bored and all I want is for my shoulder to get better so I can do things that I like to do again!

But in the meantime... Here is a picture of the shawl I'm working on. Or will be working on again once my shoulder heals.

The pattern in Zilver and it's free on Ravelry. It's a fairly simple pattern and easy to memorize, which I like. It's a nice project to work on when I just want to relax. I love it so far! I might even be finished if it weren't for my shoulder! I chose a free pattern for my first shawl just in case I didn't like knitting it. But! I've found I like knitting shawls so far. I definitely see more in my future.

You may be wondering how I managed to type all this out if typing is agony. ONE HANDED. Yes, this was all painstakingly and slowly typed out with my left hand. Here's hoping there's only a few more days of this and then I can get back to doing thing with both hands. That will be a wonderful day...

Knitting, knitting, knitting...

Craft-wise, that's all I've been doing lately. But I've also been reading a lot of books. And thinking about trying to find balance between all the things I like to do instead of obsessively doing just one and neglecting all the others for large chunks of time. Not that I've actually figured out how to do that, but I've been thinking about it...

I'm making a sweater for Mario. I don't know if he'll like it or wear it, but he picked out the pattern and the color. I chose an acrylic yarn to make him more likely to wear it. Things I know about Mario: (1) if an article of clothing is too expensive, he won't want to wear it for fear of ruining it and (2) if he has to hand wash it, it won't get washed. So acrylic seemed the best way to go. If anyone is curious, it's Lion Brand Heartland in Black Canyon. The pictures aren't great (it's really hard to photograph black, I'm finding). It's really just black with some gray flecks in it. It looks much better in person, trust me!

The pattern is from Knits Men Want. I think the title of the book is cheesey, but it was one of the few patterns I found that he actually liked. I showed him so many pictures of Ravelry! But this was THE ONE. So I bought the book and went to work.

I'm just about to put split the sleeves off on some scrap yarn and continue the torso. Exciting! The miles and miles of stockinette may not be incredibly entertaining, but it is meditative. Very enjoyable at the end of a long day. And it's helping me get faster with my continental knitting.

Other things that are difficult about sweater photography... I can't spread it out because my cable is too short :(

My goal is to have this be a wearable sweater by the end of the summer. The end of the summer in Tucson, of course, is pretty much mid-October, though, so I have plenty of time. I've made really good progress so far, so I'm very optimistic!

I'm also knitting a shawl, which is more interesting to look at. But I'll save that for another post :)

Rediscovering Knitting

First of all, thank you for the encouraging comments! You guys are the best :)

There are a couple of posts around here about things that I knit. Such as this Honey Cowl, this scarf and this sweater (which I actually finished... even though it's a pretty sad/weird sweater). But then I kind of stopped knitting for a while. And crocheting. I was a one trick pony for a period and that trick was sewing.

But now I've picked it up again and I have to wonder.. Why did I ever stop? I have been enjoying it immensely and have been finding myself trying to sneak time in here and there just for one more row or a few more stitches. The result? Well. I finished the ugly sweater mentioned previously. It's ugly mostly because I didn't follow a pattern, had no idea what I was doing, and picked it up after setting it down for months and I couldn't remember anything about it. So, it was a little wonky. The arms are too long and the ribbing on the cuffs and bottom don't really match in tension (I think I must have used different sized needles or something). But it was DONE and I was SO HAPPY.

So then I decided to re-knit some reading mitts. I made one once, not sure if I ever posted about it. But I made the wrong size and had to frog the whole thing. I was so sad! After that, I just shoved the whole thing in a bin in my sewing room and forgot about them. That may have been the moment I gave up on knitting for a while. All that hard work! And for what?? (Never mind that this was all my fault and the heartache could have been avoided had I just measured my hands).

But I decided to give them another shot, this time with the benefit of actually knowing how big my hands are so I could choose the right size (I know, seems like such an obvious thing, right?). And well, now they're done! Both of them! And they fit! And I LOVE THEM SO MUCH OMG. Seriously, guys. The other day while I was sitting in the car with Mario waiting to meet a guy from the internets about trading cars (yes, that's pretty much my life), I was wearing my pretty new mitts (even though it's May in Tucson and woolen mitts are really not necessary) and reading a book about dyeing yarn. I was the picture of yarny contentment.

I haven't really put down the yarn since then. Right now I'm working on a sweater for Mario and am eyeballing shawl patterns. I'm thinking something easy and free for my first every shawl. Like maybe Zilver? I'll keep you posted!

More Yarny Things

On my hiatus from sewing, I found myself spending a lot more time with my yarn stash. I'm trying to get a jump on some Christmas presents, so you'll excuse me if I don't say who these items will be for ;)

First up, some nice, simple pot holders. In my kitchen, these ones are my favorite. My quilted ones just don't insulate as well as the two layers of cotton yarn, even though I added both cotton batting and Insulbrite to the middle. Ah well. At least those ones are still pretty, right? These will be a Christmas gift. I might make a couple more sets as well. I think they'll make good little add-ons and they're quick to make! Pattern here.

Next up. Some fingerless mitts. For these I used the Firecracker Gloves pattern.

I love the herringbone HDC stitch used for these, but they are a bit on the snug side. The pattern says they are for 3" to 4" wide hands. Mine fall into that range (albeit on the high end) and I checked my gauge, but they're still a bit of a struggle to get on. I was making these as a gift, but I don't want to give ones that may be too small. I think I will make them up again a little larger instead.

I also experimented with these on different starting methods. The glove on the bottom uses a regular chain to start and then a row of SC into it as the foundation. It's kind of ugly and wavy, probably partially because I'm not used to crocheting with fingering weight yarn. But the one on top uses a row of foundation single crochet. Look how nice and neat! It was really quick, too. I will definitely be using this method in the future.

And last but not least, sock progress! I have been working on these way too long. I gave up because I just didn't like doing 2 at once. Too much fiddling with each strand of yarn and turning and making sure your yarn doesn't get tangled.. Plus I just felt like I was treading water all the time. So! I took one toe off the needles and will finish them one at a time. I don't think these will be a Christmas present, though, as I started them in my own size ;)

It was nice to revisit my yarny projects! I will definitely be making more time for yarn in the winter months. There is just something so appealing about drinking a hot cup of tea while knitting in the dead of winter, you know? Not that Arizona gets much winter, but still. I can pretend!

Finished: Circular Knitting Needle Case

Hiiiiiii!

So. Here I am again. Without a tutorial, but WITH something pretty cool to show you! I have been knitting a lot lately and my collection of needles has been growing. Particularly since I decided to buy an interchangeable circular needle set from Knit Picks. Up until now, those needles have had various homes around the house... sometimes at the bottom of my project bag, stuffed into a drawer full of sewing notions, stuck inside bins full of yarn. You get the idea. I just stashed them where ever I found space. BUT NO LONGER.

BECAUSE NOW I HAVE THIS. It's a little roll up case to house all my needles! :D It isn't perfect, of course. This was my first attempt, and true to fashion, I decided not to follow a pattern. I knew the general shape I wanted and just decided to figure out the math myself... Well. My math isn't perfect yet. I put the magnetic snap in slightly wrong (okay, I was about an inch off with one of them, it's kind of a lot), which it why the bottom edge of the flap is curling a bit. I kind of have to strain to close it...

The back has a little zippy pocket to put my stitch markers and cabling needles and whatnot in. Not that I have used any of my cabling needles so far. But I have them for the next time I feel brave! I'm not totally happy with how it turned out. I don't like how much of the lining fabric you can see. But next time will be better!

The inside has 15 pockets. These aren't all my needles, by the way. I haven't yet gathered them all together. These are just the ones that had been lurking in my sewing notions drawer. In the next version I will change a couple of things about this. FIRST. I will make an even number of pocket rows so it more happily folds into thirds. That was a huuuuuge oversight! SECOND. I won't make the taller two rows of pockets end all the way at the bottom of the bag. That seam is super bulky. And even my biggest needles get almost swallowed by the top pockets.

So. Is it perfect? No. But do I love it? YES. I'm so proud of myself for figuring this out and making it functional! I learned a lot from this little bag and my next version will be waaaay better.

What have you been working on? Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

WOW. 2014.

Such busy. So time...

Okay, done with the doge references. But HI GUYS. I'm still alive! I have spent most of this first month of the new year moving into my new house, so not much sewing progress or blogging has been done. And there was also illness... There is a really nasty flu virus going around and I was out of work for almost a whole week. It was pretty miserable. But I got to be sick in my beautiful new house! It was a slight silver lining to an otherwise terrible week. So I'm happy. And things are finally starting to settle into a routine, so the hobbies I love can start back up again! YAY!

I have been knitting more than anything... I am soooo close to being done with this scarf:

Seriously. 3 more stripes. 5 TOPS. and I am doooone! Finally! I have been using this scarf to master the continental knitting style. It is a lot faster once you get the hang of it! Some early benchmarking showed that this new knitting style was at least 16% faster. And I'm even faster now, so I need to test again. (Am I a huge dork for admitting that I calculated that?) Anyway, highly recommend it for when you have miles and miles of stockinette to do! Here's a tutorial/demo.

I have also made progress on my scrappy chevrons quilt! I am almost halfway through piecing the top together. I can't WAIT to get this one done. It has haunted me for soooo long. But it is going to look so awesome when it's done, I can't complain too much!!

So. Updates. I'll have to get some pictures of the house to show you. I am in the process of setting up my new sewing room now. There is so much light! It makes me so happy! I actually took the above pictures indoors and didn't have to wait for the exact right hour of the day and stand very carefully to not cast shadows. Amaaaazing.

Okay. Sorry I have been absent for so long, but sometimes life just happens. I should be back much more regularly now. I have some exciting things going on this year! I'll have to write up a post just dedicated to those. Because they deserve it.

How has your January been?

Linking up to WiP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced!

Progress!

Well kids, it's Wednesday. Shall we see what kind of progress I've made this past week?

Quilting of the Low Volume Pinwheels quilt has begun:

I am keeping it simple with this quilt. Just straight lines on either side of the seams in the pinwheel and 4 patch blocks. I am halfway done- I have quilted all the lines going one direction. Hoping to finish this up this weekend if I can decide on a binding!

I have also been working on a scarf for a friend.

It's a Hufflepuff scarf! I'm knitting it in the round so it's nice and thick and looks nice on both sides. It is slow going this way, but I love the way it's turning out!

So that's what I've been up to this week. How about you?

Linking up to WiP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced and Keep Calm and Craft On at Frontier Dreams!

Frustration

Well, progress has ground to a halt. I thought I would spend my day off sewing ALL THE THINGS and then being regarded as a hero. Sadly, my sewing machine had other plans...

At first when it made noises and stopped sewing, I thought it just needed to be rethreaded. The threads were all tangled and weird on the bottom of the fabric, which has happened before and been solved by rethreading. And it did, I guess. That solved the issue for a little while... But then it came back. So I opened it up and brushed out as much lint as I could. And rethreaded it again for good measure. And it worked for a little while longer. The third time I threw my hands in the air and walked away.

I was so upset and frustrated and discouraged, I just stayed out of my sewing room the rest of the day and worked on knitting, TV watching, and play Skyward Sword the rest of the day. My sweater is coming along nicely:

It even looks like a sweater!

But I still have deadlines looming. And now I wasted my best sewing day.

BUT HAVE NO FEARS. Tonight I plan to break out the back up machine if I can't get mine running properly. PROGRESS SHALL BE MADE.

If my machine is still throwing fits, I'll take pictures and maybe you lovely people can help me figure it out... I suspect it really does need a good cleaning by a professional. But I have no idea how much that might cost and really, I have no money. Especially if I end up taking that Spanish class this semester, which I really, really want to do. I get an amazing discount on tuition thanks to my job, but between fees and books, I will still be cutting it close on the budget front. So yes. We shall see. But any advice would be appreciated!

Finished Wall Hanging

Yes, I did it! I finished my little Tardis wall hanging! Once I decided how to quilt it, it was smooth sailing.

I free motion quilted some (not great) swirls in variegated purple thread (leftovers from my houndstooth quilt) to represent all that wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff in the time vortex. Yeah. I'm a nerd. :D I bound it in the same purple because I had nothing really better... But I think it works.

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the back! I added little corner pockets so it would be easy to hang, but totally forgot to snap a picture before handing it over. Oops! The pockets weren't super exciting. Mostly just functional. So you're not missing much, promise.

The best part? Giving it to my friend (finally) for her birthday:

Look at that happy face! How do you make a nerd happy? Give them a quilted Tardis :D It is now hanging on a wall next to a picture of Totorro. I have awesome friends.

In other news, I cast on a sweater! Because a sweater is a totally awesome idea for a third knitting project, right?

Can you tell I like purple? And bananas? Mmmm bananas... And sweaters. And learning new things. This is going to be an awesome project.

That's all for today! I will have more to show you later in the week if all goes to plan...

Remember to go check out this week's line up of new bloggers for the blog hop!

Friday, June 28:

Green @ So Sew Green

Gwendellyn @ The Rainbow Revolts

Jessica @ Stitched In Thyme

Amira @ Little Mushroom Cap

Kathy @ Kayak Quilting

Michelle @ Factotum Of Arts

Paula @ The Sassy Quilter

Kris @ Sew Sunshine

Camilla @ Faffling

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday over at Better Off Thread today. My Tardis block from last week was one of the things featured in Janice's blog post today! YAY! Go check it out and then look at all the cute projects linked up!

Tuesday/Monday News!

I know it's Tuesday, but it sure doesn't feel like it to me. I work Tues-Sat now, so Tuesday really feels like Monday. Which is rather blah...

So to cheer me up, I am going to show you some things I'm really happy about!


The first thing making me happy: BIG NEWS. I am going to be part of the Let's Get Acquainted New Blogger Blog Hop this year! :D

 

This is an excellent hop hosted by Beth over at Plum and June. Last year's hop was fabulous! I found a lot of the blogs I follow now through that hop and it is part of what made me decide to start my own blog. I saw how supportive and inviting all these modern quilters were and it made me much more comfortable with the idea of jumping in and joining that community. I am so excited to be included this year! I'll post some more details soon, so stay tuned!

Secnd, SOCKS.

Yes, there is already white dog hair stuck to my just-finished socks. Joys of owning a husky!

Look! I finished them both! I guess it was a really good thing I was impatient and decided to go with ankle socks- I was able to finish them both with just the one ball of yarn! It was getting pretty close down there at the end, but I still had a tiny bit leftover when all was said and done. So YAY!

I just love them.

For these I used some unknown color (thanks to my puppy) of Deborah Norville's sock yarn. I know it was some sort of wool blend and I'm almost certain they're machine washable (my other sock yarn of the same brand are!). What else can I tell you? I didn't use a "pattern" per se. I just followed the excellent directions in Kelley's Socks Class at Knit Picks. I highly recommend this resource if you have never knitted a sock before and are a visual learner like me. She goes over all the basics of knitting socks from the cuff down and it is all very easy to follow. These socks aren't fancy (although I did use the slightly fancier "Eye of the Partridge" stitch for the heel flap, which she goes over in the video), but they are functional and they fit perfectly!

I really liked making socks, which surprised me. I found they're a really good small project to bring with me to work to work on during my lunch break. I can easily fit a little pouch with a sock and a ball of yarn in my purse! It's a little more difficult to fit a sewing machine and several yards of fabric, say, or a half-completed afghan. Maybe I should take up EPP so I can bring a little sewing project to work sometimes, though. There are days when all I want to do is SEW and knitting and crocheting do not satisfy that urge!

I'm linking up today with Sew Cute Tuesday at Better Off Thread! Go see what other cute projects are linked up today!

The One with All the Sickness

I have been sick since Saturday. What was supposed to be a fun weekend for Mario's birthday turned into The Weekend of Sickness, culminating in Mario getting food poisoning on his actual birthday (Memorial Day) and being absolutely miserable for a day and a half. Sometimes things don't go as planned... I am not feeling any better so today I decided that rather than struggling through another day at work and subjecting my coworkers to my drippy nose and frequent sneezing fits, I'd just stay home and sleep the day away. That is my plan. I just had to get up and feed the dogs so I thought I'd pop in here to let you know what's been going on.

Then guess what happened? My SD card reader decided to stop working. I haven't been able to find my transfer cable for the fancy camera, so today you'll have to settle for crappy cell phone pictures of things I've been working on.

My biggest news? I FINISHED A SOCK.

Not a super fancy sock, but it is functional and it fits and it has PURPLE on it :D I used these videos from Knitpicks to help me figure it out. Super clear step by step instructions to make a basic sock. Now I understand what things like "gusset" and "heel turn" mean and they aren't nearly as scary as they sound! I think now I might be ready to tackle something slightly more complicated from my Sock Knitting Master Class book. Maybe.

Seriously terrible picture, I know. But I wanted to prove it fits!

I have started work on the second of the pair... but I don't know if I'll have enough yarn to finish. Because this happened.

My little demon puppy got a hold of the other ball and now it is hopelessly tangled... Probably my fault, really, as I left it on the couch. What else is a puppy to do with an unattended ball of yarn? It would be nice if she had picked it up and knitted the other sock of me... but I guess that's a little too much to ask. I have less than half of the first ball left and I was able to get some yarn from this tangled mess, so I might pull it off. I got the yarn on clearance at Joann, though, and I can't find this color anywhere. Not that I even know what it's called because she ate the label, too... But I know it is no longer available at Joann either locally or online. So I'll see what I can do with what I have. If worse comes to worst, I will just pick up some gray or purple yarn and finish the toe with that. It's my first pair, so I'm not stressing over it too much.

Other than that I have just been steadily increasing my pile of pinwheels. Oh, and I started a new project with stitch and flip triangles...

That is one dark picture. But you get the idea! I'm going to make them into butterflies, I think... Or something. I'll probably make a whole bunch of blocks and decide on a layout later. I was looking through Quilting Modern by Jacquie Gering and Katie Pederson (you can see it at the top of the picture) and I just loved all the quilts with stitch and flip triangles. I would one day love to make a Supernova quilt from that book, but  I would definitely need to buy a lot of fabric for that. So right now I am happy using scraps and some Kona Ash :)

Okay. I've rambled enough. I need to go take some cough syrup and lay down for a while... Hopefully I will have some decent pictures next week.

Oh yeah. There's still a day or so to vote for your favorites in each category in the Blogger's Quilt Festival! You should totally go do that! There are soooo many pretty entries!

Yarn and Things

You might think from the title of this post that I haven't gotten any sewing done so I am showing you what I've been doing with yarn. And you'd be mostly right. Technically, I haven't sewed a stitch. But! I have downloaded a pattern, cut it out, taped it together, and cut out my fabric for a shirt!

I am making myself a Scoop Top, a free pattern from Skirt as Top.I am using some blue knit fabric that I bought on clearance at Joann... and that is all I can tell you about it. It is soft and light and probably a little see-through, which will require me to wear an undershirt. But I don't care! I just want to be able to say I made a shirt!

Here's a close-ish shot of the fabric. Not the most exciting, maybe, but I wanted to use my least favorite fabric first in case everything went horrible wrong :)

I have also been yarning. And by that I mean both knitting and crocheting. In knitting, I finished my (poorly executed) Honey Cowl!

I sort of messed up the honeycomb pattern for a few rows in the middle there... But oh well. I wasn't going to go back and fix it. It is my first knitting project, after all, and I am okay with imperfection. It keeps my neck warm, so that's all that matters, right?

This is my "I just took my morning shower and haven't finished my coffee..." face. I am le tired.

And in the interest of keeping things real, I will show you how I really messed up. I could have sworn I didn't twist the yarn when I joined the first row together. Really. I remember being very proud of myself for keeping everything straight. It wasn't until half way through that I realized my mistake and by then... I just pressed on. So what if it's twisted? I just put the twist in the back under my hair and I'm good to go! Next time I'll be more careful, though.

In crocheting, I started yet another blanket. Because working on three simultaneously is a good idea. Obviously.

I am a big fan of this one, though. I'm using the ripple pattern from Attic24 and some Bernat Mosaic yarn. I don't remember what the yarn color is called. I call it rainbow. Because it is. But I think it has some silly name like Calypso or something. I love it so far! I love the pattern and the yarn and the bright happy colors. I was getting a little annoyed at one point where all the yellow/orange are bunched up on one side.. but then I started a new ball of yarn and that went away. Yay! I think it will be a fun little blanket when it's all done. I just ordered enough yarn to finish it while it was on sale- score! I had been buying it one ball at a time, but now I have paychecks again. YAY.

My hands have not been idle, don't worry. Not that you were worrying. Ahem. It's still early. I am hoping to get my shirt all done tonight. We'll see how that goes. If I am successful, maybe I'll have a finish to share with you tomorrow! Fingers crossed!