Tag , I'm it!

Katie tagged me the other day and it has taken me a bit to come up with some answers. :-)

Like she said with hers, these aren't my top five favorite posts but they are the top five that fit the categories!

Rules:Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you’ve written. Link 1 must be about family. Link 2 must be about friends. Link 3 must be about yourself. Link 4 must be about something you love. Link 5 can be anything you choose. Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better. (Readers - don’t forget to read the archive posts and leave comments.)

1. Family: My husband at his surprise birthday party last fall

2. Friends: This is cheating maybe, but if you are on ravelry and we aren't friends yet, friend away! ;-)

3. Myself: I started a new job in November

4. Something I love: Knitting and kittens

5. Random: Here's a great sweet potato pancake recipe. Last summer was the summer of the pancake, what will this summer be? hmm.

I'm not going to tag anybody this time but if you read this and feel like participating, consider yourself tagged and comment on this post to let us know you did it!

A day of packages!

On Friday I had a very good mail day! I got my Defeat the Winter Doldrums Dishcloth Swap package from Georgi (Thank you!), and my prize package from winning the drawing on the swap blog.

First, the swap package:
We have here not one but two lovely pink dishcloths that Georgi knit for me (the dark pink one has a heart on it), lavendar soap, two yummy sugar n' cream yarns, a smiley card, a Godiva chocolate bar!, and the little tube is a batch of lovely stitch markers!

Here is a closeup of the two dishcloths
And here is a closeup of the lovely glass stitch markers. The best part is they are a larger size (up to a 10 needle) and the set I already have is for smaller needles. So now I'm pretty well covered. They are made by Julie Beers Designs and are called "Field of Flowers". Pretty, aren't they?

And now for my prize, here's the bag all buttoned up. This is a really great, well made little bag! For an idea of the size, it is holding three balls of sugar n' cream with a bit of room to spare. It has that great button closure and a pocket on the outside as well. I'm currently using it as a project bag for a scarf project.

And now here's the bag opened up and showing off the contents! Two balls of sugar n' cream (blue and green twist) and a yellow and white ball of peaches n' cream.
Yay! Thanks again to Anne and Holly and the entire Winter Doldrums gang especially Cindy who made the bag and donated it all to the swap.

Shrug this!

That sounds like a rude exclamation, but it actually is the name of the pattern. We are going to a friend's wedding in March and my snazzy new dress is sleeveless so I just wanted a little something to go with it. I thought about a wrap (and would buy one probably) but I like something that stays on me without me holding it. So I hit ravelry for shrug patterns and hit my stash for appropriate yarns. I decided on Shrug This which is from One-Skein Wonders but is also available for free as a PDF on the publisher's website. (Link to the html pattern, pdf available on the left) This is a nice and easy pattern but it comes out small. This was not just my problem, a few people mentioned this problem on ravelry (but did I listen? um, no.). I even swatched, people! I'm not a great one for swatching but I did it! And, just like the Yarn Harlot says, the swatch lied. Or the pattern did, or the knitting muses just hated me, whatever. Either way, the shrug turned out for a very tiny person. I could put it on, but it was just not right (unless you enjoy possibly cutting off the feeling to your arms. Then, go for it.). First, I was pissed. Then I was sad. Wasted yarn! Wasted knitting time! Then I decided to do something about it Mad Scientist/Frankenstein style. And now it fits! Here it is:

And again, on me. (ignore the crappy photo. Really. I took it myself, in a (apparently dirty) mirror, and I haven't done the little sewing job the dress needs)
Here are the problems and my solutions:

1. The armholes were too tight. This was the real mad scientisty part - I cut my knitting. gasp! I took hope from seeing the Yarn Harlot do it many a time and thought of it as a steek of sorts (it isn't exactly, but that's the idea I followed). I took matching thread and needle and sewed all around the underarm stitches that I would be cutting to reinforce them and make sure they didn't come apart on me after cutting. Then I cut them. I believe it was five stitches in the middle of each underarm.
   
2. It was too short. It was really too short after I cut the stitches which pulled it up more. For this I added an edging. I decided to do a crochet edging since it would be quicker than picking up the stitches for knitting, I think, and double crochet almost perfectly matched the pattern that was already on the bottom of the shrug. I added one row of double crochet edging to the front panels and two rows of double crochet edging to the bottom. Now it was the perfect length for this dress!

Yay! Problem solved. :-) Oh, info on the yarn: It is Plymouth Fantasy Naturale, a mercerized cotton. The tiny shrug took the first skein so then I had to go into the second one for the edging. This is the same yarn I used for one pair of Fetching, which erm, apparently I never blogged! O.k., here are the gloves too, they were for my sister for Christmas.

Olive You!

This craft and food filled post is brought to you by Valentine's Day! I had to make something for him (not a problem), and he had to make something for me (this was unusual)! ;-)

I made him a jar of knitted olives! They are adorable! The pattern comes from here, and some other ideas if you don't want to do a jar (taken from ravelry projects): Put a pin backing on it for a pin, or put it on a pin or something else with some curly wire etc. made to look like fuccilli pasta (Olive Fuccilli = I love you, silly!)
Sorry the picture is a bit dark but I was avoiding a glare off the jar and the label (which is metallic)
Here they are again without the jar, this is pre-felting but there isn't a huge difference. They just tighten up a bit with the felting.

He made me yarnlibrarian tshirts! A pink one and a green one, with a graffiti style font.

a heart shaped apple pie (that's a pie bird in the middle), which was scrumptious by the way, he's now the official apple pie baker whether he likes it or not
and valentine sugar cookies!
Yummy! I wish I had some more of that pie right now. And I wish I was making a few more olives, but on to a new project for now...

Half a dashing down... and an almost done pair of baby socks

100_3697, originally uploaded by Alissao.

I have one of Trevor's Dashing gloves done and it looks really good! This went smoother than the first grey dashing I made in the fall - I'm not sure if it was just from having already made one or if it was the yarn or what. This is the Rowan Summer Tweed, the same as I did a few pairs of Fetching out of.

And, following the green theme, here is a pair of toddler socks that are about 15 minutes from being done, but they just got waylaid by other projects... (I don't need them any time soon anyway).

Cable socks are so cute, I have to make myself some sometime. These won't be finished for the next month at least though since I stuck them into a display case! ;-) I put up a knitting display at work to advertise for the knitting group I'm starting at one of our branches and these cuties are in the display. (display photos coming, I just keep forgetting the camera)