Sepp is Finished!

 

I finished my Sepp!  Unfortunately, I just about ran out of yarn which means no baby.  Maybe my Sepp is still looking for the right lady seahorse?  By just about running out of yarn though, I know I've used the required yardage.  This is my last project for Loopy Academy this semester; now I just have to get everything turned in for credit!

I used Malabrigo Arroyo in Lotus for the body and hood and I used Rosy Green Wool Cheeky Merino Joy in Edelweiss Undyed for the face and arms.  The Loopy Ewe had no fingering weight cream yarns when Loopy Academy started (I'm guessing the store was still picked over after camp), so I used sport weight yarns.  Using a heavier weight yarn meant less yardage per skein and it also meant I needed to use a bigger hook, hence the almost running out of yarn.  The eyes are from 6060 eyes.

This was a fun project but it wasn't an easy critter to make.  There were some new crochet techniques I had to learn and lots of little finishing details to add at the end.  I might make him a baby at some point in the future because the baby is super cute, but for now I'm calling him done!

More Seahorse-y by the Day!

 

Sepp now has a finished head and I've made his hood.  The next step is to sew his hood to his head and then I will start adding fins and flippers!  Sepp is my last project for this semester's Loopy Academy, and I really want to get him finished.

(That's your warning that it might be all Sepp all the time around here, except tomorrow - I have some finished socks to show you!)

This Seahorse Really Knows How to Get A-Head in Life!

 

I've gotten quite a lot done on Sepp's head - he even has eyes now!  I don't have any stuffing in his head yet, that's why it doesn't quite look right.  Next time I sit down to work on him, I'll be adding stuffing first.  I don't have too much more crochet to do to finish his head and then there's his hood, his arms, a pouch for his baby, fins, and all the finishing details.  Then I'll have to make his baby.

Sepp is clearly the most involved project I'm working on right now but I still think I can get him finished before the year is out.  He's technically the only project that has a deadline so I'd better get him finished before the year is out!  I hope to get some work done on him over the weekend.

Fun random fact that has nothing to do with this blog?  If you start doing puns around Caleb, he groans and leaves the room (or if I'm in his room causing trouble, he tells me to leave the room).  Teenagers are fun!

What Do Middle Earth and Seahorses Have In Common?

 

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we can take some time and wander off on whatever learning tangents we want to.  (Within reason of course.)  British Literature is one of Caleb's subjects this year and he is finishing up The Hobbit.  At some point we decided that after he had read it, we had discussed it, and he had finished the writing assignment for it, we should watch the movies and compare and contrast the book versus the movies.  (The compare and contrast part was my idea, he just wanted to veg out and watch the movies.)  One of us mentioned that it would be like a field trip to Middle Earth, so that's what we did yesterday!

We ended up eating our sack lunches (you always have to bring a sack lunch on a field trip, right?) in Rivendell and then tea and afternoon snacks were in the Woodland Realm.  In between all the meals though, I worked on Sepp the Seahorse.  He's my last project for Loopy Academy this semester and I need to get him finished.  I got quite a bit done yesterday in between the orcs and the spiders and the battles, and I've actually finished his body!  I'm ready to begin his head now, but I've got to find his eyes before I can start working on his head.  I think they're upstairs somewhere.  I've still got his head, hood, arms, and fins to make.  Then there's his baby.  Finishing his body means I'm most of the way done, but there's a lot of small details that get added before he's completely finished.  I've got one month to get everything done (oh, and there's also Christmas and four family birthdays in there too).  I better get hooking!

Loopy Academy Bobble Project Finished!

 

I finished my bobbles/nupps/popcorn project for Loopy Academy.  This is the Biscuit cowl and I really enjoyed knitting it!  If you're looking for a nice cowl pattern to knit for a gift (or yourself), this one is definitely worth looking at - quick and interesting.

I knit the pattern exactly as written in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Cloud Nine in Help Us Rhonda.  This was my first time using the yarn base and I really liked it.  I love BMFA Socks That Rock base, but it's a little more crisp than I like for shawls and those types of projects.  Cloud Nine might be the base I was looking for.

I now only have the toy project (my seahorse) left for this semester's Loopy Academy.  I have officially decided not to do the sewing Loopy Academy this semester.  I can always catch up later or maybe after I've completed the knitting version.  Doing both just meant I couldn't get anything else done and that was frustrating.  I'll see how things look in the spring.

Have a great weekend!  We're supposed to get cooler temperatures and some rain later this weekend.  I'm going to make soup!

The Seahorse

 

I didn't have much time to knit yesterday, but I did finally get a little bit of time to work on my seahorse a bit.  I'm still on his tail, but it's moving along.  Whoever suggested using a bobby pin for a marker is a genius!  It's so nice not to worry about the end of round marker falling out.  Thank you!

Someone else suggested a contrast yarn woven back and forth and while I'd like to try that at some point, I don't believe it will work with Max.  He's very particular about what he will and won't allow around here.  (Max is the cat that once grabbed a paper knitting chart and ran off down the hall with it streaming behind him.  He's interesting.)  He will occasionally "help" with yarn management for either my knitting or crochet and contrast colors of scrap yarn are just asking for kitten intervention.

I'm almost finished with the bobble cowl I showed you yesterday, so this will be my last project for Loopy Academy.  I've just about decided not to do the sewing version of Loopy Academy this fall.  I feel like there are other things I need to do and I don't need the added stress.  I haven't quite ruled it out, but I'm leaning that way.

The New Project

 

When I changed gears on my bobbles/nupps/popcorn project for Loopy Academy, I not only got a different yarn, I changed patterns.  I bought a skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Cloud Nine (their version of an MCN base) in Help Us Rhonda, which is a gorgeous, rich red violet color.  It has an almost velvety look.  The pattern I'm using is Biscuit, which is a cowl with bobbles in the border.

It's working up very quickly and the bobbles didn't permanently scar me.  I actually think they work well in this pattern.  There's a row of bobbles separating the lace border from the main cowl stitch pattern, and there's another row of bobbles just at the edge of the border, but those bobbles are hiding in the roll of the knitting and they're hard to see.  They should be more visible once I finish it and get it blocked.

Loopy Academy Gloves

 

I've completely finished my gloves for Loopy Academy!  It only took a couple of hours to weave in all the ends, but they're all woven in now and the gloves are finished.

The pattern is Three Oaks, but instead of knitting the little button tab cuffs, I just lengthened the ribbing.  I figured the ribbing would tuck into jackets and coats better anyway.  I used Malabrigo Sock in Ravelry Red.  This is my first time using this color and I really liked it.  I wouldn't mind a sweater in this red.

These were fun to knit and there wasn't really anything hard about them.  Fingers on gloves are fiddly, but they're not hard.  I've just got my toy project and my bobbles project left for this semester of Loopy Academy!

Gloves!

 

The knitting is finished on my gloves!

I still have to weave in a few ends though...

And There Shall Be Fingers!

 

I've started on the fingers for my gloves!  This is the first glove and there is much trying on and many notes.  Once I've finished the fingers there will be The Weaving In of Ends.  That should keep me out of trouble for a while.  I've probably got several more hours worth of work on these, but my gut is telling me that I'm on the home stretch and will soon be able to cast on something new.  I'm trying to ignore my gut until these are completely finished.  I do hope to get them done over the weekend.

Thanks for the hints on marking my end of round in crochet!  I'm going to give them a try.  I knew there had to be a better way to do that.

I'm going to go now, my brain is pretty sure I don't need spaces between the words this morning and also my spelling is rather unconventional.  I've retyped this enough times to have written two extra blog posts.  It's time for caffeine!

Sepp the Seahorse

 

I had some quiet time yesterday afternoon and I got a few more inches worked on Sepp the Seahorse.  Crochet involves more counting than knitting, and while I can usually figure out where I've gone wrong on blanket squares, when I'm making a creature, I tend to get confused.  Staying on top of my counting is the only way I stay reasonably sane, and that means no TV and it helps if the house is quiet.  On this project, the tail is shaped by the stitches (the stitches on the outside of the curl are taller than those on the inside), so that kind of helps when I need to figure out where I am, but if my end-of-round marker falls out, it's very scary.  The problem is that on Sepp (and most other amigurumi type of creatures), you don't work in rounds, you work in a single, giant spiral.  It's a lot like knitting in the round that way, except you can't use your double pointed needles to figure out where the rounds begin and end.  I usually hook a locking stitch marker through the last stitch of the round, but locking and unlocking it takes a lot of time, so I just loop it through the stitch and leave it unlocked.  This means I sometimes knock it out and then chaos ensues.

If there's an easier way to deal with this, the keeping up with where you are in crochet, I'd love to hear about it.  Maybe crocheters just figure out how to read their work better than I can at this point.  I'm working on it though.  If I keep dropping my marker, I'm going to get pretty good at it!

The Crown Tee

 

I've begun the body of my Crown Tee, which is my nupps project for Loopy Academy.  It also involves a provisional cast on and a hem, and just like the sleeves, it's rolling up and looking sad.  Also, the color is proving impossible to photograph correctly.  Overall, this might be an ugly duckling project while it's in process.  Once it's all finished, the hems are sewn down, and it's blocked, hopefully it will be a different story.

In the meantime, have a great weekend!

The Other Loopy Academy Project

 

I've already shown you my gloves and the sleeves for my nupps project for Loopy Academy, but there's one more project for this semester:  a stuffed toy!  I had so much fun making Lorelai the Mermaid, I decided to make another Lalylala toy for Loopy Academy.  This is the beginning of Sepp the Seahorse, her newest big creature (she also has small, seasonal things which are also super cute).  I'm using sport weight yarn because I couldn't find fingering weight in cream when Loopy Academy started (I'm guessing Camp Loopy used it all up).

Sepp's body is Malabrigo Arroyo in Lotus and I'm loving the little stripes that are showing up as I work.  His face and hands will be Rosy Green Wool Cheeky Merino Joy in Edelweiss.  (I haven't used this yarn yet, but just from squeezing it, it's really nice!)  I do plan on making his baby as well because they're just so cute together.

A Little Bit of Glove, Some Bad News, And Some Good News

I'm just about to start the hand section on my glove.  This is the cuff of the second glove.  It's moving slower than the first glove because I'm having eye issues.  You know the commercials you see on TV about dry eye?  Well, I realized that I might be having it, so I went to the eye doctor and yes, I have dry eye.

The good news is that I'm on the medicine to treat it and I've started early enough that there's no damage to my eyes due to being dry.  I also still have 20/20 vision.  The bad news is that the medicine takes a couple of months before I'll start producing more tears, so in the meantime, I'm still using artificial tears.  The reason I bring this up on the blog is that when I'm having really dry eyes, I can't really see clearly and knitting isn't any fun.  This means there's not much to feed the blog.  Eye allergies (which I also have) make the whole thing worse because allergy eye drops dry out your eye.

So, while I did find out what was going on with my eyes, there's not much I can do until the medicine starts working.  On days where my eyes are really miserable, I can't do much beyond watching TV.  Hopefully things will start to improve before Thanksgiving, and not every day is a bad eye day.  In the grand scheme of health issues, this is very, very minor, but I need to take care of my eyes, and sometimes, that's going to mean the blog will be quiet.

Sleeves

 

These are sleeves.  They don't look like sleeves, but that's because they're short sleeves with a provisional cast on for the hem that hasn't been turned under and sewn down.  They are sleeves though.  Sleeves for my Crown Tee which is my nupps/bobbles/popcorn project for Loopy Academy.  I had a lot of trouble deciding what to make for this project because I'm not a fan of bobbles.  Nupps are flatter and slightly less offensive, and I really like the way they are used in this pattern.

I'm using Wollmeise Pure in Dunkle Kirsche which is not photographing well at all.  It's a deep, wine red, the color of fresh cherries (the dark ones in the produce section in the summer, not the bright red kind you get on your sundae).  I will be alternating skeins even though they look identical.  I'm afraid if I don't then when I start the second skein it will be just different enough that I'll wish I had alternated.  It's easier to alternate from the start and not really need to than find out at the end that I should have alternated.

Gloves

 

I've finished the first glove to the point where I'm ready to knit fingers!  I decided to put the stitches on scrap yarn (to hold them) and knit the second glove to that point before beginning fingers.  This way I can knit fingers on the right and left glove together, so they're the same size.  On fingerless mitts, I always do the thumbs last, after everything else, so it makes sense (to me) to work the fingers together, at the end.

I'm hoping to get started on my other two Loopy Academy knitting projects this week.  I've got the yarn wound and patterns picked!

And Then There Was A Thumb!

 

I've made it past the thumb gusset on my first Three Oaks glove!  My next big event will be putting the pinky stitches on a holder.  (If you look at the back of your hand with your fingers together, you can see that your pinky actually separates from your palm about 1/2 an inch or so lower than the other fingers.  In order for the gloves to fit, the pinkies have to start lower too.)  Then I'll be on to the other fingers.  I think I'll wait until I've knit the second glove to do the thumbs though.  Thumbs are always last and I see no reason to change that.

Have a great weekend!

Loopy Academy, Knitting

With the beginning of September, Loopy Academy has begun again as well!  I'm working on the first semester of my Junior year for the knitting version of Loopy Academy.  The projects for this semester are gloves, a toy using two or more colors, and a project with nupps (or bobbles or popcorn stitches).  I've gotten my yarn for all three projects, but the only one I've started is the gloves.

I'm making the Three Oaks gloves in Malabrigo Sock in Ravelry Red.  Can I just take a minute and tell you how much I love this red?  It's the perfect red, and I want an entire hoodie out of it!

OK, back to the gloves.  I'm not doing the cute little button tab thing on the cuff because I think it's going to get smooshed and clumped up in a sleeve.  Instead, I just worked the cuff in ribbing.  I'm just about to start the hand chart in this picture and this thing is flying off the needles!  There's just enough pattern with the cables, but not so much that it's slow to knit.  I wanted to start the gloves first because I think they're the most involved of the three projects I chose, and I didn't want to be trying to finish them at the end of the semester.  As I finish up Lorelai (Mici) the Mermaid and my Toujours pullover, I'll start the Loopy Academy toy project and the Loopy Academy nupp project.

Loopy Academy Extra Credit, Finished!

 

I've finished my extra credit for Loopy Academy!  I made On the Spice Market with Loopy's Solid Series yarns.  I love these yarns because they have a pretty complete color range, but they're also a nice quality superwash, soften up quite a bit when they are washed, and the fact that they come in 50g skeins, makes them affordable for color work.

One of the fun things about this design is all the colors you get to use, and this was a project that made me glad I had bought the color cards!  I used Cornflower for the main color and the contrast colors (in order from CC1 to CC6) are Pesto, Olive, Pine, Evergreen, Lake, and Navy.  This was such a fun project to knit, even though it was a lot of knitting.  I kept going just to see the next color change!

I did make one change to the pattern, on the second set of stripes, I made mine all the same size.  I had plenty of yarn, so I just worked three repeats of Section 4 in each of the colors.  This probably made my shawl a little bit bigger, but since it's essentially a wearable blanket anyway, I'm not going to sweat it.

I'm now finished with Loopy Academy for another year (Year One for sewing and Year Two for knitting), all my pictures and project details are turned in and awaiting approval!  I've decided not to do Camp Loopy this summer, but I'll be back in Loopy Academy this fall.  I'm going to be working on some random stash projects, and finishing up a few things, and sewing this summer!

Have a great weekend!

Stripes

 

My Loopy Academy Extra Credit project is slowly creeping to its end.  I'm about halfway through the second to last stripe, but each row is VERY long.  This thing is already huge!  I had to stand on the table to get the whole thing into the picture frame, and I didn't really even stretch it out to its full length and width.  (Sorry about yet another super dark picture.  As soon as I got back from my run this morning the sky opened up and it got very dark, which is not great for pictures, but I was glad it waited until I got home.)

I'm hoping to get the knitting finished in the next few days so I can get the ends woven in and get it blocked.  It doesn't need a hard stretching, and I might just take Sir Steamy (my iron) to it and give it a good overall steaming.  I can decide that after I finish all the knitting.  I've got until May 31 to get the photo uploaded, but that's coming faster than I think.