Holy buckaroos! April 22, 2009

It’s a good thing (and possibly a bad thing) that I didn’t go outside and check the mail when I thought I saw the mail carrier pass by. If I had, you can be sure I would not have left the couch for the rest of the day. Which is bad because our library books were coming close to being due and I had lost the receipt saying when exactly they were due. But, crisis averted, we ran our errands in surprisingly record time and guess what I found on my front door step!

World of Knitted Toys by Kath Dalmeny!!!! I am sooo excited! My little one helped me page through it and I totally and absolutely want to knit every last toy in the book. Everything is adorable! And, from my brief thumbing through, it seems that nothing is knit in the round. That may be a bad thing as I really dislike seaming. But we’ll see how the first project or ten go before I really decide one way or the other. 🙂

The main reason I wanted to buy the book is because I had queued the platypus toy and saw that in relation there were at least a handful of other things I wanted to knit. But this is awesome that everything in this book really grabs my attention.

Plans are going to have to change on what exactly I’m going to knit next and what yarn I’ll be ordering on Friday!!!!

Surprise gift! December 20, 2008

My aunt is so sweet for thinking of me!!!  Today the UPS man surprised me with a gift delivery!  At first I thought that it was probably another present for Jax, but upon opening it, I was pleasantly surprised to see the book “One Skein Wonders, 101 designs”!  I was so excited that I had to thumb through it during dinner and mentally mark which ones I want to c/o immediately!  This will be a great book to use to get through all of my leftover skeins.  I hope someone I know will be having babies soon so I can knit the adorable booties in there.  🙂  Tonight I’ll be sure to show off my book to my knitting group!

Gathering inspiration from Victoria’s Secret October 9, 2008

I got the ‘Winter Casual’ catalogue from VS today and I am in LOVE with the sweaters.  Luckily for me, being a knitter, that means I can sit here and say “Hey, instead of paying $100 for that, I could *knit it* for half the price!”  But then again, being still a relatively new knitter, I can also say “Hey, that means I need to learn to knit with circular needles and work with constructing my own sweater!”  As you can see, I have lots of inner dialogue to work with 🙂

So far I really like this crewneck sweater that has 3 buttons on the left shoulder.  It looks really comfy and so sweet.  And while it doesn’t seem terribly sensible, I think the Crochet Turtleneck on the back is just adorable.  Although instead of wearing a sexy Ipex bra under it, I’m sure a long sleeved t would be warmer.  I’m also beginning to think that I will invest in some turtleneck sweaters.  They are warm and look super cozy in the pictures.

As you may or may not know, I picked up a Vogue Knitting book from the library and started writing down notes on how to put together a sweater of my own creation.  I’ve already started on some preliminary things, but am thinking I might look for a program to install on my computer.  If there’s an easier way to do the math, I’m totally taking it.  But the book has some good insights on what works best for certain types of sweaters (like how to do armhole shaping, shoulder shaping, etc.) and I don’t think I could get that from a program.

Now that it’s cooler outside, I want to start getting into the sweater making business so I can stay warm at home!

And the inspiration just keeps on flowin’ July 2, 2008

I’ve been anxiously anticipating the arrival of my book from KnitPicks.  Finally it came today and I have just been concocting patterns in my head from the stitches in this book!!!  I only wish there was an actual yarn store in town here so I could bring my ideas into fruitation.  Unfortunately there’s only a Wal-Mart, so I feel many trial runs coming into being soon.

Which book is it that I got?  “Knit & Purl, 250 stitches to knit” from Interweave Pres/The Harmony Guides.  The pictures are fabulous and I’m in love with every single stitch!

This is good for me because I haven’t even begun any work on a project for the Summer KAL/CAL and now that I know it runs ’til September, I have no fear of letting (some of) my projects go uncast on ’til I can get to Boucle’ Yarns in Fargo.  But the one I just thought up of, I may have to run back to Wal-Mart and pick up a few things because the idea is just too good to pass up.  *sigh*

Good thing the hubby’s staying home tonight because then my girlfriend and I can spend a few hours in peacefulness knitting/crocheting!