More Baby Knitting

I made some hats for my cousin's baby, who was born healthy on last Sunday! Yay!



I used two patterns in the making of these - the tinkerbell hat pattern (the one with the crown in my photo), and this beanie pattern. I changed this pattern a bit - cast on 80 sts instead of 92, and then I used this formula for making the larger one - same pattern just with bigger yarn and needles. I've no idea what the yarn was, it was just in the stash, and is now gone! Yippee!

So that's my baby knitting done for a while. The sproglet has loads of clothes given as gifts from various people, plus what my cousin bought herself, so I don't think she'll need any more for quite a while! There's another baby due, but that's in the bf's family, and frankly I can't be bothered making the effort knitting for it. I think my cousin will appreciate the hats and other knitting, whereas I don't think the other soon-to-be-parents would. So I'll just buy them something instead. I'm too busy knitting for myself!

Scheherazade is finished but not blocked. I cast on for the celtic knot stole, but then realised I'd made a mistake about 20 rows ago, and threw it in a corner, where it is ahem, 'resting'. I cast on for that one so quick cos I had to go to my parents' house overnight (when I also dropped off all the baby knitting), and I have this weird fear that if I leave the house on a big journey and don't have anything on the needles, then I won't be coming back. Weird, I know. So, the celtic knot stole was the thing I cast on to ensure my survival on the trip. God, writing that makes me sound so weird, but I guess everyone has theire little quirks, right? Right? (looks round to see everyone backing away slowly)

365/08 15-21

Tuesday 15/01 - Dave the cactus. Yes, he has a name. :) My bf thinks I'm super weird for this, but I've always named things - plants, teddies, just about anything. Hmm, thinking about it, my sword doesn't have a name yet ;)



Wednesday 16/01 - Tupac standing under the weight bench to eat. He's weird :)



Thursday 17/01 - Sorry! This week is full of crap photos. This one is a close up of some rolls. I was trying to be all artistic and stuff, and took like, a billion pictures of these rolls, and they all were just - well, just pictures of rolls.



Friday 18/01 - Another trying-to-artistic shot. Well, I was trying to capture how pretty this light is through the window in my door. I'm not sure it turned out so good.



Saturday 19/01 - This is a bit nicer :) It's a close up of a bag.



Sunday 20/01 - I made a pomander with instructions from Beauty and the East, an orange and some cloves.




Monday 21/01 - Erp! I forgot to take a picture! So as filler, here's a picture of the cloves from yesterday. I thought the name was funny :) Fudco! I just want to do the Beavis and Butthead laugh every time I say it! But (hanging head in shame) I still forgot to take a picture :( That, combined with all the crapola pictures I took this week, makes me realise it's actually pretty hard to take a picture every day, without resorting to crap macros or pictures of the dog. I can see there's a danger of this turning into the Tupac show, which wouldn't really be the point in the whole thing. I want to take pretty photos, of things I normally wouldn't take pictures of, to stretch myself in terms of photography and art. So I'll have to try to think of imaginative things, which is quite hard. I'm sure there will be lots of Tupac filler days, but I suppose even if I take a few nice pics then it'll be worth it.

Sword Practice In Progress!

And boy, is it needed! Thanks to Natalia's kind advice, I tied my hair back, tried to relax and practiced. I can balance it pretty much all the time now, and can even walk forward with it on my head, do vertical hip figure 8s, and sometimes even shimmy when I'm feeling confident! I'm still finding it hard to relax enough to allow my chest to move independantly of my head. It's really annoying! I can do it fine without the sword, my isolations are pretty good if I do say so myself, but I just go too rigid! :) Oh well, more practice. I think it'll just take some time before I'm confident enough with it.

We tried using them in the class yesterday, which was interesting. We balanced and moved around the room, and did some basic moves, then the teacher through this move in where we balanced on one foot, and sort of slid out to the side. Not sideways walking, just a sort of pose, but there was no way I could do that! I just concentrated on standing still! It's harder to do it with the distraction of other people in the class as well, so I just did what I could do. That's what I love about my tribal class. Our teacher lets us go at our own speed, and doesn't mind if we do basic moves if that's all we can remember. She just takes it on board and remembers to drill some of the other moves with us, without pointing out why! It's so different from when I learned things when I was younger, when the teacher would point out (very loudly) that you were making a mistake, and everyone would look at you (usually laughing) while the teacher explained (equally loudly) how to do it right, whether it was maths, dancing (I did tap when I was little), or anything else. My teachers always seemed to do this, but I love it now I have nice teachers!

Scheherazade Halfway Done!

Well, more than actually! Here's a photo (unblocked of course!) of the centre detail:



The edges are rolled in too (blocking will take care of all of that), but I'm well chuffed with how it's turning out. And the provisional cast on went brilliantly! I picked up the stitches, and I had the exact number I was supposed to have! I was very surprised at this, because something always goes wrong just when you think it's all working out ok, doesn't it? But it worked fine, and the join is utterly seamless! Yay! I'm totally going to use this as an alternative to grafting from now on, since my grafting is all crap and seamy :) Assuming I can reverse whatever pattern it is, of course!

362/08 8-14

OK, I just noticed that I got all the days wrong for last week. I must have thought the New Year started on Monday or something instead of Tuesday, when it started in reality. For some reason reality did not figure in my interpretation of last week :) I'll try to get things right this week.



Tuesday 08/01 - It had been snowing the night before. Not much snow lay on the ground except on the hills. This is a hill near where I live. Even though it hasn't been snowing since, there is still a little bit of snow on that hill. This is my favourite picture so far - I love landscape shots.



Wednesday 09/01 - Lego Star Wars for the DS! I went out to the shops and spent some of my Christmas money. I love this game! I have it for the playstation 2 but my TV is broken right now, so I bought it for the DS. It meant I'd actually have a game I'd want to play on it, since my bf bought it ages ago, and I didn't like the game he had for it. Now I control the DS, mwhaha!



Thursday 10/01 - The local 'burn' at full flow following the rain the night before. This picture was actually taken during the day, but the clouds were so heavy that it looks like night.



Friday 11/01 - I spent all Friday making a new belt for my tribal class, and really did nothing else since I wanted to get it finished for Saturday. So here's me putting on the fringe. I'll make a whole seperate post about the belt soon, promise!




Saturday 12/01 - My new sword! I know, you've already seen this picture but it still counts as a picture for this day, doesn't it? :)



Sunday 13/01 - Another "I couldn't think of anything else to take a picture of, so I macro-ed something" picture. This time it's a cushion.



Monday 14/01 - The bf's new toy - a multigym. It was supposed to be his xmas present but some unexpected bills came up and he only just got it today. It's huge! It took 4 hours to build. The instructions weren't too bad, it was just that some steps were missed out in the written instructions, and the numbers of the screw parts sometimes differed in the picture from the written instructions (the picture ones were right, but it took a while to realise this). It's quite fun to play on, and hopefully I'll lose some weight using it (the bf wants it for the opposite reason, to build himself up and put on weight). It's a bit more convenient than free weights cos I don't have to wait for him to be free to watch me so I don't squash myself with the weight, but there are some exercises that the free weights are better for.

New Dance Sword! Yay!!!

Yay!!! Dance classes started back up again last week! (That's probably why I haven't updated the blog much during the past week - sorry!) They all started in the same week, Thursday night, then all day Saturday! I was bouncing around all the end of last week, so excited to be going back - I really miss it when I don't have class. I miss the learning, and the people in my class, which is really weird for me since I'm usually terrified of social situations, and don't like people in general much, but the women in my class are so nice!

The classes were just as good as I'd hoped they'd be too. We're starting new routines, which is good - it felt like we'd been doing the last ones for ages, going over and over and over. It's good to learn routines, but I get a bit bored if we go over them for too long - more than a term and I get bored. I don't mind doing it every now and then to get the practice, and to keep it in the memory, but seriously, we went over one routine every week for a year last time. We're also learning new moves in my Saturday class, cos we've got a teacher we don't normally have. It's good to learn new stuff. :) And I discovered that all of my tribal moves have disappeared from my head. Gone. Nothing there. So I'll be practicing them again this year, well, learning them again to be honest.

And . . . we got swords!



A close up of the handle:



I've been looking forward to dancing with swords since like, forever! And now I have one, yay!! It's so hard to balance it though! :) I thought I had pretty good balance, but I get it on my head, and just go absolutely rigid, terrified to move. I don't know why, it's not even sharp at all - I guess I just haven't got used to the feeling of it. It's a lot heavier than I expected, but it seems easier to balance it with a scarf on my head. But somehow that feels like cheating! :) I just want to stick it on my head and dance away! I guess it's just one of those things that I'll need to practice until I get comfortable with it.

Scheherazade (the stole)

Last year I took part in the Mystery Stole 3 KAL, and I loved it! The pattern was really pretty, and it was my first 'proper' lace project. I had problems, documented previously, but overall, I had fun. So around that time I bought the pattern that Melanie had created for the Mystery Stole 2 KAL - Scheherazade. I mean, it's really pretty, AND it's named after the heroine from Arabian Nights! How could I resist?

And now, after what feels like ages, I've finally got around to knitting it. Here's a couple of (unblocked) detail shots:




It has a provisional cast on, which I got much practice doing when I was trying to do the Print O' The Wave Stole (update on that: it's waiting to be frogged, because I didn't have enough yarn, and it looked silly being so small. I will make the pattern again, with enough yarn, but not yet. Too busy with Sheherazade.)

Right now, I've nearly done the first half - you do the provisional cast on in the middle, the do both halves outward from that, so I'm nearly at the top edge. Or the bottom. Whatever, they're both the same. :) I'm using many lifelines, since I learned from at least some of my mistakes with the last lace stole. I've only had to rip back a couple of times, but I'm not getting complacent. That was one of the mistakes last time :)

365/08 : photos 1-7

My first photos from this year! I gotta say, taking even one picture every day is hard! It sounds easy, but it's quite hard to think of something new, even in the first week. It also seems to make the days more distinct. You know how time seems to go so fast sometimes - you blink and a week's over? Well, not this week, cos I've been trying to get a picture that shows something about every day.



Monday 01/01 - an easy day to take a picture for. Calenders!



Tuesday 02/01 - My Dad bought a new computer last week, so he kindly brought me his old one. Of course, I don't have a proper desk for it yet, so it's sat on a TV unit he gave me before Christmas. It's set up in the bedroom, so I can watch DVDs on it, but it's also good for games, better than the PC I'm using just now.



Wednesday 03/01 - Snow! It didn't lie for very long, but it was snow anyway. (I love snow!) My dog was also very excited, running up and down the garden. I had to call him in eventually cos he was liable to hurt himself sliding about, but I think he had fun.



Thursday 04/01 - Part of my new years resolution was to be more beautified, so I plucked my eyebrows. I know, not very exciting for the rest of you normal people, but this is the first time I've done it like, ever! I know, I'm weird, but I just could never be bothered. But this year I'm going to sort all that out and be beautiful!



Friday 05/01 - My first cop-out picture of the year - the dog's hair on my camera's macro setting. I love how the individual hairs can be seen. I'm not much of a camera techie - this is as technical as I get, but I do like macro.



Saturday 06/01 - My friend was clearing out her dance drawer, so I got a lot of new veils. They're very pretty.



Sunday 07/01 - Another cop-out shot, but I thought it was funny.


And that's the first week of the year over. I think it's kind of interesting how I've got different shots for each day, and I like having to think about my day instead of just letting it drift by.

Baby Knitting

No, not for me!!!!

My cousin's expecting in January, so I thought I'd better get cracking with the baby knitting, since it is January already. OMG, I only just realised that the sprog's coming so soon. I've still got hats to make! Eeek!

Anyway, sudden realistions aside, this is what I've made so far:



Booties (pattern: Saartje's Bootees) I made these out of some leftover dk crepe type yarn I had in the stash. I made the button tag things a little longer than the pattern called for, cos they were too small casting on only 10 extra stitches, and I still need to actually put buttons on them, but I saw the pattern on Ravelry and thought they were cute, so I whipped them up (they knit really fast, which is good). I also used the leftover yarn to make mittens:



My own pattern, which will be coming up later. Yay!

I also made a jumper for the baby



using this pattern from the ever increasing pattern stash (I just can't resist those charity shops!)



It's a Sirdar Snuggly Baby Yarns pattern design no 3297 in case you're interested. I did keep the ball band this time - Wendy Peter Pan Mischief DK. It's really weird working from old patterns - the only decrease it tells you to do is a K2tog. I was reading it thinking "this should be a ssk!" but old patterns don't seem to use any fancy terms like that lol! (I just went ahead and did the ssk!)

Now to get to work on those hats!

What I Got For Christmas

A knitting book:



Some books on bellydance, bollywood, and related stuff:







(pictures shamelessly blagged from amazon.co.uk :)

I've been reading through most of them, whenever I pick one of them up. Just now I'm nearly 3/4 of the way through Snake Hips, about 1/2 way through Belly Dancing, and 1/4 of the way through Bollywood Saga. I'll leave reviews as I finish them :) I haven't tried any of the patterns from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders yet, but I like looking through the pictures.

Happy New Year!

So, if you've been checking out the links on the right, you'll have noticed another ring I've joined. I've joined the project 365/52 group (the link links to the blogspot page, not the ring. You can get to that via the link on the right, I'm sure) The aim is to take a picture every day of 2008 (or every week, but I'm going for every day), and post it on your blog. Kind of like FroggieMeanie's blog the shots thing she did last year, which was very cool and I wanted to do it too, but I didn't have the motivation she did. I'm hoping joining the group will give me the motivation I need. So, I've taken todays picture already, but I'm going to post them every Tuesday, so there'll be 7 pictures next week (keeping fingers and toes and pointy knitting sticks crossed!)

So how was everyone's Christmas and New Year? It was pretty quiet here, but I got lots of lovely presents, including some knitting and dancing related. I'll post about them tomorrow, I just wanted to get my plans out here first. Keeping the motivation up, and all that. Plus, I need to take pictures of them, lol!