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So, I needed a stitched copyright symbol. I picked a bunch of fonts, chose one I liked, and blew it up to 72pt type. I then ran it through Stitchboard.com's Free Pattern Wizard (a wonderful, wonderful resource!), and got this:
Now, I'm not actually cross-stitching, per se; I just needed a shape generated so I'd know what shape I was stitching. (Um, that was clear as mud. Hopefully you followed along anyway.) So, I backstitched the whole thing, and started filling in the backstitched area with Smyrna crosses, cross stitches and French Knots.
I then chose a fill stitch for the center background:
And then finished it up. I love the look of the French knot "flowers", and how the design gets warmer closer to the center. I think it came out great!
... I haz one.
A customer needed help finding a pattern for a thick-and-thin yarn. I found Cyn's Instant Gratification Scarf. Now, Cyn suggests some Malabrigo Aquarella to make this little gem... and there just happened to be two skeins (that's it! the last two!) in a lovely orangey-goldy-peach color left in the store.
Needless to say, they followed me home. And in two days, I had a new scarf! Mine is 12 stitches wide, done on size 10 needles (because it looked best with the way I knit), and I had just enough left to fringe the ends, which is A Thing I Do To Scarves.
As you can see, I really like it!
I made a cup cozy. This one is my own design (smaller needles than usual, so more stitches than my go-to cotton pattern. It worked well, gave me a chance to play with some Berroco RemixTM, and hey, I have a cup cozy!
(In the interests of full disclosure, the store actually has a cup cozy. Remix was on the Yarn Bar last month, so we're supposed to swatch up the yarn when the next month begins so customers can see how it works up. It's... um... a cup cozy-shaped swatch?)
So, more hats: I made another sparkly gray and [fill in whatever color here] hat, this one in red, and this time writing down exactly what I did. So, yay, pattern soon!
I used two strands together (Red Heart soft and Caron Party) to make two of this kind:
Unlike the two previous hats, this one does not have a fold-up brim. It didn't really need it, as it has the illusion of a brim anyway due to the double thickness of yarn - and I ran out of Caron Party on the second hat anyway!
Okay, both of these totally made me laugh!
WIP Wednesday - aka the Hedwig Memorial Society in the HPKCHC group on Ravelry. As I have a giant pile of WIPs, I picked out my Swiss Cheese scarf (which isn't made using the actual Swiss Cheese pattern, but if you want one similar, the Swiss Cheese pattern [Ravelry link] will work for you).
This is the first time in three years that my Sheep Incognito calendar will actually be up during the correct year!!
Hooray!!
So, another hat I tried was the Transsiberian Hat, a lovely free cabled hat pattern found on MadtownMammaKnits's blog (and it's also on Ravelry).
I really like the way it turned out, so score another hat for Project Frontlines!
Okay, seriously, it's time to get back to blogging. Especially since I now work at a knitting store part-time! I have lots of yarn to talk about, and projects, and....
... well, let's start with how I ended 2014. For a lot of reasons, it's a year I didn't mind seeing in the rear-view mirrors, but I did get some good knitting done.
To wit, the store is doing a giant knitalong/crochet-along/hat-along for Project Frontlines. The goal is to have 250 hats made by July 1, 2015, and we're already 10% of the way there! I've been using yarn that lost its original purpose from my stash, or charity/donated yarn from the shop, and just going to town. It's been a chance to try a lot of fun hat patterns. For my last hat of the year, I made up my own pattern.
Here it is about an hour before midnight:
And here it is all finished:
And, just for the heck of it, here are my pattern notes.... I was a bit groggy at this point due to a truly mixed up sleep schedule:
The pattern will be available shortly (once I've written it up and test-knit it once). Wheee!
