Beads and Beastie

A Photo Blog to start off your week:

Yesterday we tried our hand with FIMO clay.


I almost forgot to mention my original inspiration for this project. It was Kimberly who told me about FIMO and her stitch markers looked so cute, I had to try it for myself.

I even found some great tips and tutorials online.






Today, we attached wire.....














and made them into stitch markers :)














Here's my favorite one here - marking my place on Beastie (the Aran-knit sweater I'm knitting for Irishman's brother).











This thing started pretty quickly: I knit up the arms, front and back until the yoke and then joined them all up on one needle. That's when I hit the black hole and seem to advance mere millimeters after hours of knitting. Luckily, my new stitch markers are very inspiring :)






Did I mention he's just as big as my Irishman? I think I could have knit a house-cosy twice as quickly ;)

Granny Loop

For some reason, this turkish stitch looks like I tried to knit a Granny Square...
I ripped, cast on with an extra 25 stitches and am knitting with a half mm bigger.

But look at the chevrony-thing at the end of the scarf - I'm hoping, once this baby's blocked, she's gonna look way too stylish for Granny :)

Big City, Little Knitter

Alternative Title: Berlin Totally Rocks!!!
Last Thursday, I accompanied the Irishman up to Berlin and had all day Friday to find as much trouble as possible.
After a hearty breakfast, me, the camera and a pocket city map left the hotel to look for the yarn shops on Kimberly's website.
On my way, I got side-tracked by the street with Cartier, Gucci and the like. That's where I found the Cartier cigarrettes (no, Mum, didn't buy them - I just happened to see them...) Kimberly called and got me back on track and en-route to Lalaine's to check out Berlin's yarn selection.



I have to say, I was really impressed that Kimberly made time so quickly to meet up with me. I didn't find out until right before that I'd be going up but we managed an hour and a half of non-stop chat, knit tips, FO-and-Tell and "ohmigod did you see this yarn?"
Speaking of which, does anyone spot a recently started FO?? This has got to be one of my fastest knits - the moebius scarf I started for Mum was finished in the car on Thursday and sorely needed on Friday when I realized that Berlin was in the middle of a one-day blizzard during my visit. (that's my story anyway)
And just when I thought it was safe to pop into a shop and pick up a ball of sock yarn or two, the stinking shop goes and puts camel-hair/wool mix on sale! So I might have picked up a handful for another moebius scarf - it's definitely one of the most fun things I've knit so far.

We also found a great Mexican restaraunt at Potsdamer Platz. Not only was the food first class, the margaritas were quite drinkable as well :) Here's me and my neighbor's daughter, Nicole who is in Berlin for school. I met up with her in the afternoon and we did some of the touristy things. There might have been a Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks visit in there somewhere, too. Just had to be done.

So, still recovering from my adventures, but I think I might have time to cast on some camel/wool for a moebius as I casually scan Berlin websites for apartments :)

Re-Blogovating

I promised myself tonight I would come up with a button if it killed me.
I'm glad to report no serious injuries, but some advice wouldn't go astray. I googled far and wide, but still haven't figured out how to get the entries to scooch down so that we can all see the bleeding banner.

Any suggestions Blogland???

Update: writing "margin-top: XXXpx" gets whichever section you want to scooch a scoche :)

Moebius Mayhem

Last year, I started a Moebius scarf for the Moms the only way I knew how. I start knitting back and forth like mad to make a long strip whose ends would be sewn together after a half twist. Mere words can't describe my excitement at the idea of knitting 5 feet of garter stitch. At lease 12 inches was knit in Ireland with a Strongbow cider sitting next to me (and possibly a Guinness or two to keep it company).

Enter: Yarn Harlot (stage left) with her Cat Bordhi blog about Moebius scarves. I was trying to imagine what she was going on about so I googled Moebius scarves and found Linda's pattern. It sounded straight forward enough so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I had an absolute ball last night casting this thing on while half-watching ER reruns. The cat decided his new game was to sit and stare at me for 30 seconds and then run across my knitting (hitting the tin with the stitch markers for maximum impact) like mad, sit on the other side and do it again. It was like cat tennis and no amount of toe-under-the-blanket-twitching or "Look! There's the pope" was going to deter him from winning Wimbeldon as I started this blasted thing late last night.

So, I locked the cat in the bathroom for 10 minutes, got cast-on, knit-on and did my half twist. After all that effort, my needles didn't want to move anymore. They were locked up in the twisted-curl that the directions say are my goal. I bullied my way through the first row, one stubborn stitch at a time and then went back to read ALL of the directions (RTFM????). She says it gets looser further into the scarf. I'm also hoping this will actually fit my mother instead of just my cat. Because, after last night, that Aran-blanket-for-kitty project was pushed down the list - and he's definitely not getting my handspun from the SockLady.

Love This!!