Might as well face it, I'm addicted to yarn

Just got back from my lunch hour, and what did I do? After picking up a falafel sandwich, I walked over to Knitty City and picked up Stitch N' Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook, 2 skeins of absolutely beautiful red soy-silk yarn, a set of #7 needles, a knit counter, and those little rubber thingies that go on the ends of needles so you don't poke someone's eye out. It is sort of dangerous to have such a nice yarn shop so close to my office. The temptation is terrible. I can't go in there and not buy something.

While I was off on Columbus day, I sorted through a bunch of yarn, rolling a few long oblong skeins into balls, and making room for the yarn stash I bought last weekend. Now I just bought more. More yarn. With the amount of yarn I have right now, I could probably knit/crochet socks, sweaters, and blankets for my whole block. I'm already thinking of converting the bushel we got when we went apple picking two weekends ago into a new yarn storage container (surely it would be perfect--just line that bad boy with calico in a cute print a viola! Yarn storgage!), and god-forbid I should finish the container before buying yarn to store in it. Too much yarn. I have too much yarn. Then again, is there ever such thing as too much yarn?

Our Krafty-scary Halloween Wedding...

It's true. Hubby and I got married on Halloween, 2004. Some people thought we were crazy. Others thought that it was the coolest thing ever. I'm with the later of course (as though you could even question it!). Since it's a beautiful fall day in NYC, and the temperature is close to the 72 degrees we were blessed with on our wedding day, I've been thinking about it quite a bit today and thought that I'd post a couple of pictures of some of the krafty things we did to make our Halloween wedding so special.

Our bridesmaids all wore the same black corset dress, but I wanted them each to look slightly different since each girl had a blessing during the ceremony which represented and element/season. Purple was winter/air; Green was spring/earth; peach was summer/fire; and blue was autumn/water. I hand sewed all of the shawls and gave my father, the florist (believe it or not, I did floral design in high school), long pieces of the same fabric from the shawls to wrap around each floral bouquet. Hubby spent quite a bit of time making 20 little "poofs" of fabric for each bouquet to frame the flowers. I though the effect was really pretty and we got lots of compliments on how great everyone looked!



Our infamous Halloween wedding cake. You have no idea what a pain in the pa-tooty these cake toppers were to make. Each cake had a Styrofoam circle that I covered in saran wrap, glued faux grass to, mounted the moving and/or light up Halloween fixtures, completed decorating the Halloween scene, and wrapped the rim of each piece of Styrofoam in Halloween ribbon. I cannot even explain to you how many people took pictures of this cake--they had never seen anything like it!!!



There is more to come... I have to find a good picture of our table centerpieces that I also made, and the innumerable other things we did. It was a very unique wedding!

New Shadow Box...

I made a bridal shadow box for myself a while back, and ever since I did, my mom has been begging me to make one for her. The one I did for my hubby and I is very basic--a I dried the flowers from my bouquet and used some of those, some silk flowers (for the flowers that fell apart), fabric from my bridesmaid's shawls and bouquets (which I also made), and styrofoam, pretty paper, and our wedding invitation in the center, and viola! A pretty shadow box:



My mom wanted one that was similar, but one that also had her and her boyfriend's masks. For anyone who doesn't know, my hubby and I got married on Halloween, so we had a masquerade reception and asked people to dress up (elegantly of course). Everyone in our bridal party work fancy masks--us, the family, everyone. It looked awesome and was so much fun. We tried really hard to make sure that our Halloween-themed masqurade reception was fun, but not tacky and I think we suceeded. Anyway, I bought a ready-made shadow box for my mother, and glue gun in hand, went about inserting the things she wanted showcased. Her shadow box also has our wedding invitaion (with the fancy paper/styrofoam combo), but also has her masks, her corsage, and the place cards we made for the tables. Hubby and I loved the idea of having each table named for a particular horror movie, so instead of numbers, we had laminated mimi-movie posters and all the place cards had miniature movie picks to correspond to the table the guest was sitting at. My mom is terrified of The Exorcist, so of course we had to sit her at that table!




The interesting thing about the little castle place card holder in there...I actually had to chop the front and back of it off in order for it to fit. I like to think that you can't really tell that I sat the thing on my cutting board and hacked pieces of it off with a butcher knife and then sanded it down and painted it...but if you're really looking at it, I think you can tell. But honestly, who in their right mind is looking that closely at a place card holder???

To knit or not to knit...

Many die-hard happy hookers look distainfully on knitting. "It's only two stitches;" "It's harder to work in pieces when knitting;" "Two sticks + yarn = confusion. I only have two hands;" "It's cooler to say your a hooker than a knitter." I never had an opinion one way or the other to tell you the truth. It's all yarn. Can't we all just get along? I just didn't know how to knit. Then again, a little less than a year ago I didn't know how to crochet either. Go figure. Well I've decided that I absolutely must learn how to knit. Why you might ask? It's not like I don't have plenty of crochet projects I want to work on; I've got the huge yarn stash, the multitude of hooks, the patterns I gaze longingly at and think "Oh yes, it will be mine." It's simple really. I want to knit socks. Socks! Yes, I've heard of crocheting socks, but somehow, all the holes make me think that it is probably not such a good idea. None of the crochet patterns for socks that I've come across seem like they are better in theory than in practice. So yes, I'm going to attempt to teach myself how to knit. I found this really cute blog on the Bust website, called Knitting with Cat Hair...a woman after my own heart. She recommends checking out KnittingHelp.com...so that is what I shall do. (By the way--how cool is that blog title? And how much do I covet her logo??)I'll keep you posted!

Grrrr...What about me?

I'm in a fairly crabby mood today and I've come to the conclusion that it is because I rarely do/craft nice things for myself. There are other reasons beyond that, but that is the main reason at this very moment. My mood is probably caused (besides the PMS) by me going to Knitty City during lunch, and while browsing, all I could think about was what I needed to get for future projects for other people. Now mind you, I love making things for people I love. I really do. It makes me happy to make something for someone and give it to them and see how much they like it too (case in point--Viv's scarf which was fun to do [because I got to work with a new stitch] and since she's one of my dearest friends, truly a pleasure). It's one of my favorite things in the world. However, probably because I'm working on yet another baby blanket (this one isn't even one I'm going to be giving--it's one my mom is going to be giving to someone), I'm feeling grumpy and annoyed and generally bored out of my goddamned mind with blankets. I think I might be posting quite a lot of the "I hate making this blanket" type of blogs until I finish it.

Anyway, the point? I'm going to purchase new yarn this weekend and commence making a cute bolero sweater for myself before I finish working on the dreaded blanket because if I don't, I might tell my mom that she can stick the baby blanket where the sun doesn't shine. And that my dear readers, is just not an option.

Vivian's scarf

My friend Vivian's birthday was a couple of days ago and I was determined to make her an awesome, useable, very cool homemade present. Of course I was going to crochet her something--like I would do anything else!

Well, I found a very cute pattern in my tried and true Stich n' Bitch: Happy Hooker book, and I altered it slightly to make it more frilly. I also added my very favorite little crochet flowers (not fleurchons, PR fans) with a splash of glitzy sequins in the center.

Hubby and I went to Viv's house last night to give her her presents, and I'm so glad she liked it! I have to admit, I almost wanted to keep it for myself!

Here are the results!



My fabulous friend with her new scarf!

Another freaking blanket...

I finished (well, almost) the present for Vivian last night and had the Hubby start helping roll yarn balls for the next baby blanket. I'm going to pretty much make the same exact blanket I did for Olessia and Roman, but this time, I won't enjoy it half as much because it's not really a new project for me, and I'm quite sick of making blankets. I'm not doing the green, blue, and multi though--this time I'm using cream, light blue, and a slightly darker blue. Really pretty, but I think it will be a very long time before I willingly crochet anything else blue--especially not a blanket! After this one, no more blankets. I need at least six months before the concept of making a blanket becomes remotely enticing. It's fall! I've got scarves, sweaters, and hats to make!

The Latest Baby Blanket--New Pics!

I meant to post these earlier, but I just got around to uploading them yesterday.

This baby blanket is for my friends Olessia and Roman. Olessia is due in November, so it's done in plenty of time! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I used Bernat Cotton Tots yarn, and it worked up so soft and so quickly that I decided to use it again on my next baby blanket project! I cannot explain how much I love this yarn. I wish that it came in more colors because I would use it for other things besides baby blankets.

This is a basic granny-square pattern; the main square alternates three rows of each color, three times (multi, blue, green), and then the three squares at either side of the square. I crochet-joined everything together. The boarder is three rows of single crochet in the multi yarn.

I love, love, love the way this blanket turned out and cannot wait to give it to Olessia and Roman.

Now onto my next blanket--for a boy again. I really cannot wait for someone to have a girl so I can switch to pinks and purples for awhile. Though I love blue, green, and yellow, I have to admit, I'm getting sort of bored from working with those colors so much.

The good thing is that I usually take a break between blanket projects to work on other, smaller things. Right now I'm working on a birthday present for my friend Vivian. When it's finished (and after I give it to her), I'll post pictures of it. Then it'll be back to blue and cream yarn, and hopefully the last baby boy blanket for awhile.

Nah, nah, nah!

I finished the latest baby blanket. Finished it! A mere two weeks after I started the project mind you. How cool is that? I would be posting pictures right now, but because I was up late watching RS: Supernova (don't even get me started) and Project Runway (I am throughly addicted) I didn't have time to upload them last night before falling into a Benadryl coma. Tonight I'll post pics...and my original plan of the blanket. Hooray!

Next project!

Update on next baby blanket!

This weekend I bought the yarn to get started on Olessia's baby blanket--it's absolutely beautiful yarn--Bernat Cotton Tots:


I'm using Sweet Green, Little Boy Blue, and Wonder Dreams (a light blue, light green, pale yellow, and white blend). I love this yarn because it is 100% cotton and so soft. I think it will wear really well too.

Tuesday night, Brad and I started yarn ball rolling while watching TV. After I had a ball of each color, I looked through my hooks to find the one that the label recommended--4.5 mm/US 7. I didn't have it. I tried a 4.0 hook. Too tight. Then I tried a 5.0 hook. Too loose. Sigh. So began a quest for a 4.5 hook. I could special order it from Michael's or Susan Bates, but that could take a while. I wanted to get started right away! So I checke the yarn shop, The Yarn Company, right down the block from my office, but since it's a knitter-friendly shop, they don't really cater much to us happy hookers. I pressed on and walked down to this new place that my google search for yarn turned up: Knitty City. There, I met an awesome lady named Amanda who not only went out of her way to unearth the strange hook that noone else seemed to carry, but she was also told me that they do intermediate crochet classes! Score! I need to get another person to go with me, but they do have intermediate crochet classes. I am so excited! Now I'll be able to bring my dilemmas to Amanda whenever they come up, and hopefully I'll get to go to a class soon.

Happily, last night I not only started on Olessia's baby blanket, but I also mananged to figure out a motif called "Italian motif" which uses the dreaded puff stitch. I'm happy to say that I figured it out, but won't be making blankets with this motif any time soon. Way too intricate--at the most, I think it might make a nice shawl...hmmmm, now who can I make one of those for?