good enough to eat

WARNING: EXTREMELY PICTURE HEAVY POST (in order to make up for my total disregard of my poor, sad, lonely knitting blog).

strawberries, citrus, apples, and sushi!

 my small feast of july knitting projects.  i had cheerleading camp, student governemnt camp, and school reading but i managed to get some fruit and sushi knit.  all of it done with acyrlic stash yarn that i aquired at that garage sale early summer.

each pattern was from Ravelry.com.  i actually have made a total of 9 strawberries but i left 6 of them at our place on Lake Erie where i’ve been hanging out since Saturday with some family.  while up there, i visited the yarn store near our cottage and purchased some fun yarn to make a cool scarf that was on display in the shop.  the woman working at the time said it was an original pattern and told me how to make it, but i’ve already run into a problem with the size needles she told me.  she told me CO with size 7s, then switch to size 9s when i started with the increases (you’ll see what i mean when i post pictures) but i ended up switching to size 5s to CO and size 7s when i increased.  i’ve got a decent start on the scarf, but the white yarn keeps tangling so its being difficult.

i’ll post pictures as soon as i’m done, but this might take awhile seeing as how i have nine more papers to write for english/AP History by Aug. 25.

wish me luck

i’ve been a bad blogger :(

my last post was june 20, while i was on vacation in texas.

it is now july 26, a full month and several days after, and i am just now posting.  and for that, i apologize

but, i have excuses! so don’t think so terribly of me until i tell you what this summer has been:

1. summer school work
i’m in AP History and Honors English this coming year, meaning i have eleven novels to read and eleven papers to write.  so i’ve been kicking my own butt trying to get through all of them. and yes, it is true, i’ve only read two of the books completely, but they were LONG. and i have SEVEN more to read. so trust me, it’s not because i’ve forgotten, just because i have no time.

2. traveling
sort of. i’ve been at the lake every weekend this summer, and been to two camps this month too.  leaving limited time for blogging.

but knitting, i have done a bit of that.  i’ve knitted elefante off ravelry, for a friend’s birthday, and i’ve knitted a few more MikKnit bags too.  my summer job babysitting will end august 25, so i need some other form of cash-flow.  i’m hoping if i can speed up the knitting, than i can sell them enough to get through the school year and have enough money for gas.

OH! speaking of, i got my LICENSE! finally lol. i won’t mention that i actually failed my first test, so i’m quite happy that i actually got it.

but now i must go, as i have TONS of reading to make up from not reading this week as i was at camp at Wright State University.

soooo ta!

VICTORY!

i finished my sock!

[pictures will be added sunday when i get home]

 

!!!

flight from HELL

someone really needs to stick a post-it note to my head with giant letters spelling out BLOG to my forehead or i swear, i might even forget i have this thing.  i meant to update on friday, but i got busy preparing for our vacation, which i am currently enjoying right now

my family from columbus drove up friday night, and we all met at my grandmother’s house early saturday morning, drove to the airport, and caught a flight to texas at around 12:30pm.  the first issue of the day was the fact that for some reason, my mother couldnt get her ticket.  so she waited in line with my aunt and when she finally got up to the ticket counter, northwest told her that her ticket was never paid for, therefore her reservation on the flight was cancelled.  it turns out, we used the points off my dad’s work credit card to get our tickets, and there werent enough points to pay for both,  so they paid for mine and instead of paying for the rest of my mom’s with the credit card, they just didnt pay at all and her ticket was cancelled.  so, she had to buy a new ticket right then and there, for freaking $874.00!!!!!

so if that didn’t suck enough, our flight was delayed.  and i’m not talking to oh-woe-is-us-our-flight-is-delayed-15-minutes.  no, i’m saying we were on a plane for SEVEN HOURS instead of the orginally planned THREE. and it wasn’t sitting on a runway-delayed, it was SCARY!

okay, so originally our flight was supposed to land at 2:15 central time, and supposed to take off at like 12:30pm (11:30am central time).  but we had delay, so once we were finally in the air, they announced that our new arrival time would be 2:50pm. then, in order to go around some bad weather, a new route added more time onto our flight, so we would be landing at 3:15pm.  so everything was supposedly fine then, and we were preparing to land.  as we were like going into the final stages of landing, with the landing gear out and everything and getting really dang close to the ground, we suddenly SHOOT BACK UP INTO THE SKY again.

so that was weird and scary.  so after that, we spent a long time flying around, going up and down, in and out of the clouds.  there was a LOT of turbulance too, so that made it ten times worse.  then, we try to land again, and the SAME THING HAPPENS AGAIN!  like, we’re landing then shoot straight back up again! finally, after flying around even LONGER in the clouds, the pilot comes on over the god-mic of the plane and says that there were wind sheres (spelling?) and that they were told to abort landing both those times.  and because of the constant circling around, waiting for a safe time to land, they were starting to run out of fuel and now we were flying to another airport in another city about 150 miles away to refuel!!!!!!

now, seriously!? like we were all SOOOO ticked off.  so we sit there for the 45 minute flight to the place where we refueled, and then by the time we get onto a gate, sit ON THE PLANE and wait for them to refuel, and then get cleared for take off again, its like 5pm central time, a full THREE HOURS after we were have supposed to orginally landed.  we finally land in our original destination at 6:13pm. 

and keep in mind, my uncle and cousin were waiting at the airport for us since 2:30pm to pick us up.  wow, did we feel terrible for making them wait. 

so i guess i should be grateful that we didnt die, or something, but it still sucked.  and add in the fact that i HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE AM DESPERATELY SCARED OF TERRIFIED MORTIFIED HATE flying to the tenth degree squared.  like i can’t even describe to you how much i hate flying.  so i was pretty much white-knuckled, gripping the arm rests, biting onto my blanket i had brought with me the entire time, trying to avoid peeing myself or crying out of sheer terror.  my 10 year old cousin chloe was hyperventilating at the back of the plane, thanks to the constant up and down movements and turbulance on the plane. 

so i guess i’m just ganna hope that this is a very long week, so we dont have to fly back home again on SATURDAY. [cries softly]

PS: i meant to post pictures of my newest FO on friday, but things got too busy.  if you go look at my Ravelry account (KelsJoy), he’s under my projects as “Billy”.  i’ll post pictures as soon as i get back home and can upload them from my PC.

JACKPOT!

so, as our memorial day weekend of 2008 comes to a closing, i thought i should fill the three people who might skim over my blog ocassionally you all in on what i did for my weekend:

friday after school, my mom and i left for our place up at one of the fabulous Great Lakes, to celebrate the weekend with some family.  we usually spend every weekend up there, where it’s a totally great community.  days are spent at the beach, soaking up the sun, and nights are spent riding around on the golf-carts in our park, and watching the adults consume more and more alcohal, and eventually make total dorks out of themselves as they slowly become more and more drunk.  thank god they don’t pull over the golf-carts for DUI’s or the entire over-21 (and some not over 21) population would be screwed. 

but anyways, because it was REALLY cold on saturday and sunday, there was no swimming, but a lot of cornhole games amoung the adults, and lots of card games, drive-by silly string raids, and golf-cart tag among my friends.  it was a lot of fun, but slightly disappointing because the weather kinda made it a lot less fun than it could’ve been.  plus my cousin was a total party pooper, and decided that she’d go to sleep at 10:30pm, when our curfew was midnight, leaving me riding around on the golf-cart by myself for about an hour until one of my friends came back from Cedar Point.

and i tell you all this because, it was at this humble little community where my aunts and mother decided to go for a walk, where they discovered a garage sale at a nearby house.  and at this garage sale, as they told me when i woke up a few hours later, the woman running the sale had some yarn she was selling.  so my cousin and i jumped in her car, and drove down to the sale. 

bless her soul, this woman, who informed me that she was a crocheter, was selling a HUGE box of yarn.  only $3.00 if you took the entire thing.  it was all acrylic, some half-skiens, some full skiens, some just half-balled lumps of yarn, but i bought the box.

when we got back to our place, i pulled out a few garabage bags and tried to sort it somewhat.  the box filled FOUR big white garbage bags completely.  when i got home, i sorted it once more and attempted to organize in my room.

this is what i ended up with:

 

now, it may not look like much, but keep in mind that i had NO stash before this, AND, in order to make it all fit into the limited storage i have, it is squashed in there so jam tight that i literally cannot shove even one more tiny ball into those spaces.

and trust me, i have big plans for this yarn.  i’m planning on ordering that Food Knits or Knit Food (something of that sort) book offline, and trying my hand and making some knitted food, just for fun.  gosh knows i have a lot of different shades of EVERY SINGLE COLOR IN THE FREAKING WORLD to make it out of.

cept yellow.. i’m lacking a bit on yellow.

anyways, i must go now because now that i’ve used all my storage for yarn, i’m lacking now in the yarn-related organization: needles, books, etc.

YA!

OMG, WHAT’S THAT?!

  Anyone know what this is? anyone? anyone?

hm.. maybe you need a closer look..

 how bout now? got it yet? okay, i’ll tell you.

IT”S CROCHET!!!!!!!!

YES, oh YES INDEED FOLKS, i learned how to crochet. PSH-YAH! it only (yeah, right) took me 3 hours to teach myself how to do that full 2 inches, because i was too lazy to actually READ everything in the book i got, so i did the first row wrong, but it came out looking extactly the same.  and now, i will be adding crochet to my list of skills anddddd (drum roll please) crossing ‘Learn to Crochet’ off my 101 things list.

yes, yes, it is impressive, i know.

 anyways, i’m off to learn how to crochet those cute little flowers at the back of my Knit.1 book that i learned how to crochet from.

TA!

it looks like a hat

i finished the bottom of my cell. and my plan to actually writing out the pattern kind of backfired, because i was too lazy forgot to measure how long the strip i knitted for the side was, and forgot to keep track of how i picked up stitches along the sides to make the bottom.  when i add the top and stuff it, it’ll look a lot better and the sides won’t be rolled over.  i honestly can’t wait, (as nerdy as i sound) for my teacher to annouce the assignment so i know exactly which organelles to add to the top.

i should also add that the reason that i got this far on my cell is because i managed to make a TOTALLY stupid mistake on the beginning ribbing of the socks i’ve started (from the Yarn Harlot’s Basic Sock Recipe, and the actual pattern from diynetwork.com, from a link on Ravelry, ).  somehow, i managed to string the yarn across the inside of the ribbing, and then knit like 10092834 rows afterwards.  it was so close after i had started, that i didn’t feel like attempting to just frog it all back, so i just ripped it all out.  and because i was so @%$&ing ticked off about that, i just kinda threw it aside and pulled out the cell.

i think i’ll cast back on for the socks tonight, or tomorrow, depending on how soon i plan on going to bed.  it’s like 12:30am right now, but i’m not ready for sleep, you know? kind of sucks, because i’m tired, but oh well. i really need to get new yarn for a new project, because i’m pretty much out of things to knit, with the exception of more knitted bags, and those socks.  i have another skien of the sock yarn that i’ll probably use for a different sock pattern once i get used to knitting socks. or if i ever survive my first pair.. ugh.

anywhoozle, i’m ganna go get ready for bed. 

TA!

biology, anyone?

every semester my biology teacher assigns the same project: make a model of a eukaryotic cell.

well, he hasn’t even mentioned it yet offically announced the project, but i know it’ll be coming soon, since we only have 4 weeks (not even) left of the school year. it’s well known that he gives out a LOT of extra credit for creativity.  and, because i’m that type of keener/wanna-be-the-best-in-the-class kind of student, i’ve planned to make the coolest model ever: a 3-d, stuffed KNITTED cell!

yes, yes, hold your applause please.

i’ve got it pictured exactly in my head -in full detail, i might add- down to how i’ll attach the three main pieces together (crochet them together the same way i did on Peanut’s shell) and i’ve already started knitting part of the base of it.  and thanks to some knittinghelp.com-ers, i’ve gotten TONS of ideas for all the goodies that are inside my cell.  my original plan was to just knit everything in a few different pieces: the bottem, the sides, and the top, and have it look basically like a cell was cut through the middle (kind of in the same way you’d cut open a buscuit), with a 3-d nucleus and nucleolus and all the inside goodies.  but some kh.com-ers suggested some felted goodies for the inside, which might actually be good because i have a lot of felting yarn left over from the sweater-turned-Geometric bag, and the booga bag i sort of made last summer.  and if i do add seperate felted pieces, than i’d have to find a way to attach them, which could look sloppy though. 

so, in short, the overall design is still sketchy, because i don’t know EXACTLY what i need to have included yet.  but i know i want to knit it, and get a bunch of extra credit.  actually, my main goal with this project is to have him ask to keep it for an example.  and i’ll probably post the pattern up here when i’m done with it, because i think it’d be a fun pattern to have.  specially if you ever need extra credit in biology

but now i must go because i have a MONSTER test tomorrow in that class that i’ve hardly studied for so i should probably go look over my notes once more before bed.

TA!

knitting update- finally!

i’ve finally got pictures of my most recent FO, after i’ve been promising to post them since like, um.. march? sooo yeah, sorry ’bout that.

Peanut

 

 (Pattern is Sheldon from Knitty.com, made in Shine Sport from knitpicks.com, CW Grass and Greenapple.)

i deviated from the pattern a bit too, which i was pretty damn proud of myself for.  instead of attaching the shell bottem to the shell top with an i-cord thingy like the pattern said, i attached it by crocheting it on, after learning how to crochet 3 seconds before but there was something weird about the way the body fit into the shell, because i think i might’ve over stuffed it, so i ended up stringing the shell through the top of the neck, to give it more support.  i wont be able to take him out of the shell anymore, but i never really planned on it anyways.  overall, i’m happy with how he came out, because it was my first project with DPN’s (that turned out right, anyways, if you count the evil socks that i somehow managed to screw up by counting wrong), and it didn’t end up looking like a dead turtle.

i also felted my Geometric bag, but it’s currently drying in a corner of my room, so the pictures didn’t come out that great.  there was a slight problem with the yarn that i carried along the inside of the bag bleeding through, so you can see it along the squares.  it really kind ticked me off, but it was only my first try with doing colorwork and felting, and my weaving in the ends was really sloppy, so i knew that the color showing through was a possiblity.  i’ll take a picture of it when it’s 100% finished, and hopefully it’ll look okay. at least now i know for future reference that i need to be a LOT more careful with colorwork and felting.

yeah, so i should go now because i have to do some cleaning and studying, and maybe some more knitting tonight. i promise i’ll try to update tomorrow.

ta!

 

101 Things

I FINISHED MY LISTTT!

i finally finished my 101 Things in 1001 Days list! i’m starting tomorrow, meaning my end date will be Feburary 5, 2011. because i want this to be mainly a knitting blog (if i’d just ever update it), i’m going to start a second blog specifically for the 101 things list. i’ll post the link for it tomorrow, once i create it.

there’ll be a totally updated post tomorrow, i promise.

until then.. have a good night !