FO Friday 166

Hi everyone! I hope you've had a good week. It sure is hard to get back into the swing of things this week, waking up at 6:00 am again. Thank god it's Friday!


I finally get to post the dish cloths I've been working on for Christmas. We gave my mom and dad a big basket of goodies for the holiday (alcohol, whiskey stones, kitchen soap, bar glassware, etc) and I included these.

(sorry the pics are blurry. I'm not sure what's going on with my camera phone lately. I don't have these anymore, so I can't take better pics, but you'll get the idea)

Both patterns are from a book I got from Knit Picks called Hearth and Home Collection by Kerin Dimeler-Laurence and are the Flora Dishcloths. All items are gorgeous from the book and I'm also working on a dish towel for my mom as well from the collection. I'll show that to you next Wednesday.


I used Knit Picks Dishie, the yarn called for in the pattern book. It was the first time I've ever used the yarn and let me tell you, for 100% cotton it was a dream. It makes me want to donate/sell every ball of Peaches and Sugar and Cream in my stash. It's $3.99 a ball, and I got a full (BIG, I think they're 10x10" or 11x11") dish cloth out of each ball, with enough left over to probably make a small dish cloth. I made both of these back to back, and my hands only started aching half way through the second one. Pretty impressive since I was working on them exclusively toward the end. They blocked like a dream. I'll be interested to hear how they wash/dry and absorb. I want a full report Mom (yes she reads the blog. LOL)! Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend this yarn, at least the knitting aspect of it!


That's it for me today. Have a fantastic weekend! We're going to Disneyland on Sunday, as it's the last day for the Christmas decorations and our black out dates are lifted for our annual passes. :)

Share your FOs!

Work in Progress Wednesday 173

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday (for those in the US). I apologize that I didn't have FO Friday up. To be honest, my days got all messed up and forgot it was Friday with the holiday and I had family in town. I promise the post will be up this Friday and I'll actually have an FO to share!


I'm plugging along on the project you saw last week, but not too much so I didn't take a picture of it. I'm dividing my time between two Christmas presents so each gradually grows. This is my first time using Knit Picks Dishie yarn, a 100% cotton, and I will say, it's so much better than Sugar or Peach n Cream. My hands don't hurt while knitting (or at least as bad) and the yarn is just a lot silkier.  The stitch definition isn't great, but when is it ever with cotton? I'll be using this yarn for one more project coming up. :)

This is a new project to the blog I believe. I'm using Candy Skein Savory fingering in Poppyseed. This is a fingerless glove I'm making for my husband (hopefully he isn't reading this). He takes the train to and from work, and his commute is long. I thought he could use these waiting for the train in the morning and night this winter. Funny enough, I was at knit group last night working on this as he texted he was freezing waiting for the train. We all had a good laugh. If he only knew. ;) This is Dustland Mitts by Stephen West and it's a very fast and fun pattern. I've only really worked on it a few hours and I'm almost finished with one mitt/fingerless glove! I only have the thumb left! It's pretty baggy on me, so I hope it fits! (Sorry for the bad picture!)

That's it for me today. I hope you have a great rest of the week and I'll "see" you here on Friday!

For those that are new to WIPW, to share your WIPW post with us, just fill out the Mr. Linky below. Despite it saying you must comment, don't feel as if you do. That is something Mr. Linky automatically adds. I just ask you to check out a few of the links posted to see what everyone else is working on and comment there if you can. Everyone loves feedback and a little encouragement on their projects! Also, please link back to this post in your post to get the word out! The more the merrier!

FO Friday 87

Happy Friday! I'm off to Palm Springs for the weekend for a tiki event! I'm very excited to spend time with my husband, who has been traveling a lot for work, as well as just relax by the pool with good drinks, music and knitting! The socks I was working on for WIPW are FLYING off the needles. I'm already at the heel flap/turn of the first sock and will be picking up stitches tonight (Thursday). I'm hoping to finish one of the socks this weekend and maybe even start the second! I just started these socks Tuesday!

I actually have a few FOs finished, but I'm going to share the one I teased last week and save the Hermione socks for next week's FO Friday. I hope you don't mind. :)

I know a few of you guessed it in the comments last week! I was knitting a Mother's Day dishcloth/washcloth for my mom! Good call! I used this pattern, knitting it with Sugar N' Cream yarn in colorway Rose Pink. The pattern suggests a size US 3 needle, but I went up to a US 4, as 3 seems a little small. It ended up such a great size and my mom loved it! I also gave her a gift bag full of LoLo Bar products! It was a great Mother's Day as I was able to hang out with her all day, including going to a watch party for the LA Kings hockey game. SO fun!

That's it for me today. Have a great weekend!

Share your FOs!

Work-in-progress Wednesday 92

Happy hump day, everyone! I hope you're have a great week. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a lot done this week work wise, as yarn that was supposed to be delivered was delayed. I won't receive it until today, after it being with UPS for 9 days. Nuts, right? Sorry for the rant, but it sucks to pay $40 for shipping on 26lbs of yarn and it take forever to get here. I've had overseas shipments arrive faster! Monday and Tuesday were lost days for me, as I have orders to fill and no yarn to dye. The yarn was ordered while I was still in Oregon! ::shakes head::

The good thing about not having yarn to dye is I was able to get knitting done. I finished the first of my Hermione's Everyday Socks and am working on the leg of my second. I'll share the finished sock this Friday, but this is what I've gotten done on the second. Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic. My camera battery is dead.

I've been working on a secret project that I started this weekend. Here's a picture of it. I'm not going to show more, as it's a gift and I don't want to give it away. I'm almost finished, as I just have to do a small finishing touch (it's already bound off) and block it. I'll share it once I've given the gift to the recipient. :)

That's it for me today! Thanks to everyone for the support/kind words regarding Candy Skein's 1st birthday! Remember, you can comment (on both the blog post or Ravelry group) and/or purchase yarn to be entered until the giveaway until May 31st.



For those that are new to WIPW, to share your WIPW post with us, just fill out the Mr. Linky below. Despite it saying you must comment, don't feel as if you do. That is something Mr. Linky automatically adds. I just ask you to check out a few of the links posted to see what everyone else is working on and comment there if you can. Everyone loves feedback and a little encouragement on their projects! Also, please link back to this post in your post to get the word out! The more the merrier!

FO Friday 30

Happy Friday! I've been feverishly working on my monster, but was unable to finish since I had to still do both legs, arms and assembly. On Thursday afternoon, I decided to finish the dishcloth that I started a few weeks ago and have been ignoring. This is the second one I've made from the pattern and I love it for multicolor yarn. It's an easy pattern and once you do a couple of repeats, it's easy to remember and just knit from memory, another plus.

I'm going to keep this pretty short, because my hockey team is tied 2-2 right now in the 3rd period and I'm a nervous wreck...so I will just say GO KINGS GO!

Have a great weekend!


Materials Used:

Knit Picks size US 8 needles
Lily Sugar'n Cream
Tapestry needle

The dishcloth is an actual square, it's just on a curve so looks a little wonky. :)

Share your FOs!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday 35

I can't believe it. I almost forgot to do this week's WIPW. I had my crochet/knitting meet up tonight and a weird day all around so it almost flew by me. How weird that would have been, not to have a post up in the morning for all of you! At least I remembered before bed (I write them on Tuesday so that it can post at 12:01 Wednesday for all of you across the pond).

Back to WIPW. I don't have a ton to show today unfortunately. I've been working on my scarf (still), but didn't want to show it since I plan for it to be done Friday (really this time, not like the last two weeks. LOL). I've also been dyeing a lot, and have 4 new skeins to show you in the coming weeks, one of them being self striping. That leads me to one of my WIPs.


I don't do this a lot, but since I don't have many things going on that I'm actively working on, I decided to share with you the swatch from the new self-striping. I just started on it at my crochet/knitting meet up and did a LOT of talking instead of knitting. LOL I won't tell you the name of the colorway yet, or the order the rest of the colors will go, but here's what I have so far and you can see a little portion of the ball of yarn in the picture to get an idea of what the other colors are.



I've worked a few rows of the dishcloth since the last time I showed you all, so I decided to post that too. Not the best pictures (sorry, I'm kind of doing this hasty). I hope to have this finished by the Friday after next since it's an easy knit, though I really have to work on that ripple blanket more. It's just so unwieldy.

That's it for me for this WIPW. Hope you all have a good day and the rest of the week (well, until I post again Friday!)

For those that are new to WIPW, to share your WIPW post with us, just fill out the Mr. Linky below. Despite it saying you must comment, don't feel as if you do. That is something Mr. Linky automatically adds. I just ask you to check out a few of the links posted to see what everyone else is working on and comment there if you can. Everyone loves feedback and a little encouragement on their projects! Also, please link back to this post in your post to get the word out! The more the merrier!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday 34

I hope everyone is having a great week! I am so far, and am excited because I just found out I don't have to watch my nieces tomorrow. That may sound terrible. I love watching them, but right now I'm on a huge roll with the blog and yarn dyeing. I've dyed 3 skeins in the last day and a half and love the results. I can't wait to share them with you all, but that's for another post.



I don't have a ton to share this week, as I've spent most of my time with said yarn and website. That being said, I thought I would take some new pics of my Chroma scarf (no, really, it WILL be done this week) in my new light box. This pic matches the color really well, so you can get a good look at what it REALLY looks like. Pretty, isn't it? (Seriously, you must be so sick of this scarf by now. You're probably thinking, oh my god, just finish it already!)




I know this isn't a project just yet, but I have six balls of this beautiful yarn. I started swatching to make this tank top yesterday, but my gauge was off so I have to go up a needle size. I don't have size US 10 that I like, so I may just ask my neighbor if I could borrow hers. We'll see. I've never done that before, but I DID just babysit her cat. I thought this was a great pattern to start clothing on, nice and simple. I think I'm going to do a few rows of ribbing so it doesn't curl at the bottom.



Old pic from yesterday on the left, new one on the right.

I thought you would all enjoy these pics. I went and got a different light bulb for my light box yesterday and loved to see the change between pictures. I also changed the setting a little on the camera. The new pic is a much closer representation of the true color of the yarn.



For those that are new to WIPW, to share your WIPW post with us, just fill out the Mr. Linky below. Despite it saying you must comment, don't feel as if you do. That is something Mr. Linky automatically adds. I just ask you to check out a few of the links posted to see what everyone else is working on and comment there if you can. Everyone loves feedback and a little encouragement on their projects! Also, please link back to this post in your post to get the word out! The more the merrier!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday 33

Are we in a time warp where Wednesday comes around faster than the other days? Maybe it was because I didn't get any crochet/knitting done this weekend except for the trip up to Long Beach to take my in laws to the Queen Mary and a tiki bar. Who knows, but I can't believe it's Wednesday AGAIN!

First off, before I get to WIPW, I want to say how happy I am that Denise's husband is getting better! I'm not sure if you have all been keeping up with her blog, but I'm sitting here typing this with a huge smile on my face to hear such wonderful news. SO YAYAY for that! Denise, please send me your address via email (link in the sidebar).

Okay, back to WIPW:



I'm still working on the blanket of course, and really haven't done much with it. BUT, I did get to two rows of the 3rd color, so I figured I could show you that. :) So here it is. After one more row of that, I'll be repeating back to blue. I made it so wide that I have decided that ripples will go lengthwise. Should be interesting. The length is the size of my couch, so I think it will be a nice length.




Here is my scarf as of yesterday afternoon. I took it to my meet up group, so it's a little longer as I type this. I hope to finish it by FO Friday, but my yarn balls never seem to shrink. It's like the never ending yarn. I'm sure I'll be surprised once I get close to the end. I love it. As you can see, the two colorways have restarted. Sorry for the crap picture of the whole thing, but it was rainy today so it's weird lighting the blew out the colors. I also took a closeup looking away from the scarf so you can get a better idea of the fuzziness and texture of Chroma since a lot of people seemed interested in it. I still plan to write a review up on it when I finish my scarf.




I probably shouldn't have started something else, but I haven't made a dishcloth/washcloth in awhile and I was itching to make another one. I'm using the same pattern I used for this dishcloth, because I love how it turned out. I fell in love with the colors of this particular yarn, so I hope I'm just as happy with this one as the last.

I hope you have a great rest of the week!

For those that are new to WIPW, to share your WIPW post with us, just fill out the Mr. Linky below. Despite it saying you must comment, don't feel as if you do. That is something Mr. Linky automatically adds. I just ask you to check out a few of the links posted to see what everyone else is working on and comment there if you can. Everyone loves feedback and a little encouragement on their projects! Also, please link back to this post in your post to get the word out! The more the merrier!

FO Friday 16

It's nice to be back home and participating in FO Friday instead of scheduling it way in advance. I have a few FOs to share, and hope to have even more next week! YAY! I've decided I want to most of the project I'm working on before starting something new (except for the purse I still have to make for Christmas of course).

Here are my FOs this week! Sorry for the dark pictures, but I finished 2 of the 3 projects tonight and it's crazy dark in my house right now, and the only light I have is very yellow. I hope to take better pics today with sunlight.

Here it is! The bamboo bar cloth I made for my husband for part of his Christmas gifts. If it wasn't going to get wet and washed all the time, I probably would block it, but it seems like there is no point since it would need to be blocked every time it is washed, correct? Anyway, I love how it turned out, and so did Kurt!

Materials used:

7 US needles
Lily's Sugar'n Cream (Sage)
Yarn needle




And another dishcloth/washcloth. LOL, are you tired of them yet? I love them because they are practical (I used the dragonfly one on our trip since I can't use hotel towels due to my crazy sensitive skin and it was AWESOME), there are so many great free patterns out there, I can practice my knitting with different techniques and they are quick small projects that I can finish pretty quickly. I really love the way this one turned out. I bought the yarn, as I mentioned previously, on a whim when I was ordering cotton on Cyber Monday from Joanns. I just thought it was pretty but had NO clue what to do with it until I saw this pattern. It was perfect!

Materials used:

8 US needles
Lily's Sugar'n Cream (Painted Desert)
Yarn needle






My fingerless gloves are finished! I love the second one, but am not crazy about the first one because I did it with a smaller needle and also bound it off tightly. I have some of my hand-dyed yarn left, so I may knit a third glove with the bigger needle like I did the second. The first one fits, they're just not as comfortable. That being said, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone who suggested a stretchier cast off. I used this one and it was AMAZING. It is such a great way to do it. Easy, yet very very stretchy. I'm stoked! Anyway, I'm going to call these done, and contemplate making the 3rd. I want to be happy and use them, you know? They I did use them to go out to dinner tonight, just because I wanted to try them out. :)


Materials used:

6 & 7 US needles
Lion's Brand Fisherman's Wool (Hand dyed- Berry)
Yarn needle

Share your FOs with me!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday 22

My life is passing me by. How is it another Wednesday? How is it 2011? Scary, isn't it? I don't have a ton of WIPs to show you (okay, I actually have 3, so that's something, right?) because I've been busy completing projects, which is a good thing I guess. I still have Christmas presents to finish and ship off. My sickness and vacation sure turned that upside down. I feel bad, but then again, we never seem to send gifts to my in-laws on time for some reason. It's so much easier when family lives close and you have the stress of having to give their gifts in person. In the end, it's the thought that counts, right? Who cares if it's a little late. Let's hope they don't. LOL

Another piece of news that I wanted to share. I got a message on Ravelry the other day, Lion Brand wanted to use my reindeer I made last year as one of the pictures on the pattern page for Ravelry! I was SOOOO excited (and still am), maybe a little more excited than that warranted, but LOOK! They used my picture as the second one, right below THEIRS! Cool, right? I always wondered how they picked the pictures for the front pages of patterns. Now I know!

Now on to WIPW 22:



First off, sorry for the crappy picture, but I worked a little on it at my crochet meetup, so I couldn't take the pic until tonight with no lighting! Yep, here's the corgi (even though it doesn't look like one yet)! I haven't done much to it, but still wanted to add it to my WIPs since I'm still working on it. It's coming along good, though not fast since I have to keep changing colors. Normally that doesn't slow me down as much, but it's so small, that it's hard to get my fingers in there to swap the yarn, etc. I hope to have this finished by the weekend so that we can package them up and send them off with the other gifts going to my in-laws in Illinois.



After I finished the first fingerless glove, I didn't work on the second right away because I had all of the Christmas gifts to worry about. Now, I still have Christmas gifts to worry about but the stress has been taken away with them, so I thought it would be nice to have a mate for the first one. I decided to go up a needle size as the first one is a little snug at the finger area where I casted off and in the squishy part of my thumb. I can already see the difference in size, so that's a good thing! I think this one will fit perfect. At least one of my hands will be happy when wearing them. I'm still in love with this yarn color. I wish I could duplicate it again exactly, but unfortunately, with hand-dyed, that's not really possible. That's the blessing and the curse of it, right?



In last week's WIPW, I said I'd hoped to have both dishcloths finished by that post. I didn't get as much knitting done as I thought or wanted to on the trip, so I didn't finish this guy (pattern here). I hope to finish it this week, but we'll see. I don't have THAT much more to go, so if I just sit and concentrate on it, I can probably finish in an afternoon or evening.


For those that are new to WIPW, to share your WIPW post with us, just fill out the Mr. Linky below. Despite it saying you must comment, don't feel as if you do. That is something Mr. Linky automatically adds. I just ask you to check out a few of the links posted to see what everyone else is working on and comment there if you can. Everyone loves feedback and a little encouragement on their projects! Also, please link back to this post in your post to get the word out! The more the merrier!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday 21

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I'm actually writing this last week, since I knew I wouldn't be able to post it this week, so I actually haven't had Christmas yet. LOL, I'm sure it was great. I'll share what I got when I'm back home and have time to blog. :)

This will be short, but I wanted to share something with you. By now, I hope these are finished, but since you wouldn't have been able to see them in their WIP state, I thought I would share.



The colors of both pictures are going to kind of suck. Today is the first day it hasn't rained in a week, but the sun still doesn't want to come out. Anyway, this is a pretty green Sage. My husband is HUGE into tiki, so when I saw this pattern, I knew I had to plop down the money to get the pattern. I hoped to finish it by Christmas, but that probably didn't happen. Anyway, at least I have a start and will be giving it to him in whatever state it is in before completing it. It will go as a set along with the daiquiri one I made. If anyone knows of any other tiki themed knitting or crochet patterns out there, let me know. There aren't that many on Ravelry.



This was a skein of cotton I ordered during Cyber Monday from Joann's. I had no clue what it would look like, but in the picture it looked fun and I was right! I wasn't going to start anything new, but I wanted to knit the other night (actually it was last week) and my husband was home so I couldn't work on the tiki bar cloth. This is the pattern I'm using. It's easy, yet I learned something new, so that's cool. I have no clue what I'll do with it after, probably use it in the kitchen. This is the first project I've used with the nickel plated needles from my Knit Pick's try me pack. I like them, but not a huge fan of how slippery they are. I think, after trying all three of their needles, the Harmony wood ones win out. Each one has a good quality, but I think across the board, the Harmonys have decent slide, grip and have nice points to them.

For those that are new to WIPW, to share your WIPW post with us, just fill out the Mr. Linky below. Despite it saying you must comment, don't feel as if you do. That is something Mr. Linky automatically adds. I just ask you to check out a few of the links posted to see what everyone else is working on and comment there if you can. Everyone loves feedback and a little encouragement on their projects! Also, please link back to this post in your post to get the word out! The more the merrier!

FO Friday 15

Happy Christmas Eve!!! Soo excited! I hope you all finished the gifts that were last minute. I LOVE Christmas, and love giving presents. I think that's the best part, to watch people open things that I've bought/made for them. It's so rewarding. This year it will be even more so, because of all the hard work I put into each gift, though that makes me a little more nervous!

Next week, I will have WIPW posted, as well as FO Friday, but will only be participating in WIPW. I will be traveling and hope to have a chance to stop at a few yarn stores and have a little time to knit/crochet while I'm away. I will also have a post scheduled with the details of the yarn diet I will partaking in starting January 1st. I will have a follow up post on January 2nd or 3rd with pictures to show my stash as a way to document it at the start. Hope you have a chance to stop by and check it out!

Now onto FO Friday.

I have quite a few projects to share, thankfully! I wasn't able to finish everything of course, due to being sick, but at least everyone who needed a gift on Christmas, had one.


This is the love bug/lady bug I mentioned on Wednesday. I made it for my little niece. My sister loves ladybugs so I think it will be a hit, though I hope they will let her play with it a little. It took me no time at all, as I made it in a few hours. I think the best way to go was I assembled as I went instead of making all the pieces and then having to put it together. I hate that part!

The pattern was this, but instead of the whole kit and kaboodle, I decided to just make one of the bugs. Because of that, I increased the size of the hook to make it a little larger.

Materials used:

5.00 mm (H) hook
Red Heart Super Saver (body- Black)
Red Heart Super Saver (wings- Red)
White felt
Poly Fluff Stuffing
Safety eyes- Brown 9mm
Embroidery floss- Pink
Yarn needle





I've been working on this way too long, but I like how it turned out, despite my little mistake in the stem of the glass. It's funny how this turned out compared to the dragonfly. It's knitted a little looser, so it doesn't curl as much as the dragonfly. On the other than, this pattern, along with the colorway doesn't lend itself to it being very double-sided. Here's a link to the pattern.

Materials used:

Size 7 needles (Knit Picks Harmony interchangeable)
Lily Sugar'n Cream (Potpourri Ombre)
Yarn needle

Last week

Finished. There is a weird bump in it because I have had to fold it up to hide it from my husband!

Last you saw this purse, it was almost finished but needed the final touches, the lining and the ribbon. I wanted to finish it for last FO Friday, but unfortunately with being sick, I just got around to it on Wednesday of this week. I'm pretty happy with it. If I had time, I think I would make the lining inside a little smaller so that there isn't any wrinkling at the top where it's sewn in. I hope my sister likes it, because I worked hard on it and like it myself. I have one more of these purses to make soon, a present for my sister-in-law.

Materials used:
5.00 mm (H) hook
6.00 mm (J) hook
6.50 mm (K) hook
Red Heart Super Saver (purse- Black)
Wooden Bamboo handles- Black
Pink flower fabric (lining)
Sewing Machine
Black thread
Yarn needle
Ribbon (for decoration)

Last week

And finished! The lining looks really saggy in the pic due to the way I had to prop it open to take a picture of the inside.

Share your FOs!