I finished off the term, but no final grades yet as those aren’t released until the day after the last day of finals. In a way, I’ve found this to be both good and bad. Good in the fact that if you have later exams, you don’t become distracted with obsessively refreshing the page to see if grades are up. Bad because if you’re done early (like I was), you have to wait over a week before final grades are available. Either way, I know that I had at least passed everything and I know I did okay in all of my classes this term. So in lieu of finding a job or going on fancy trips (like some of my friends), I’ve been sewing!

All of my crafting lately has been for Blythe – I’ve been using the Doll Coordinate Recipe books that I have as they’re a great resource for patterns. I’ve been on a bit of a sewing kick lately, but I’m sure that’ll switch to knitting soon as I’ve been queuing up a bunch of sock patterns that I want to try and I’ve been crocheting as well and writing down steps as I do them – so patterns will be up in the near future!

The first two are from DCR #5, the third is from DCR #1. I did make some adjustments to all three of them.

First dress: I added ribbon ties at the bodies to go around the neck. For the second dress, I added a lining because I really didn’t want to clip and turn the arm holes without a lining. I probably could have done it without, but I didn’t want to. For dress number 3, the pattern is actually for a top (think camisole), but I added a longer ‘skirt’ to it to make it into a dress.

Modeled by Sophie.

Modeled by Primrose.

Modeled by Eden Mouse.

So the socks that I mentioned in my last post? I’m frogging them. It’s a fantastic pattern, but I was nearly done the first sock (and by “nearly done”, I mean I was able to do the toe) and I realized that I really hated it. I love the yarn, I love the pattern, but I just didn’t love the two of them together. I’m definitely going to do the Knot Socks sometime again in the future in a different type of sock yarn – probably some kind of gradient or semi-solid (not something that’s self-striping and self-patterning, too busy for the cable pattern). I think I’ll be using the yarn in simple ribbed socks (for me!). It’s kind of a relief, in a way, to frog them. Even though I spent around 20 hours on the (incomplete) first sock, it’s still worth it to me to frog it then to continue and spend another 20+ hours to complete the pair and then just to hate the socks in how they look. So – plain, ribbed, stockinette socks. That’s what that yarn is destined to be.

Besides those failed/frogged socks, I haven’t had a lot of time to craft. The term is ending soon (finals this week!) so obviously I’ve been busy with that. I do have quite a few projects that are currently on a mini-break while I’m busy studying, doing notes and such, but I do hope to share some progress with you all soon (possibly next week?). I have some doll clothes to share, as well as some other projects that have been sitting in time out for a while now that I really want to get out and finish!

I also want to share a list of crafting-related podcasts that I like to listen/watch, so I’ll be working on compiling a list of those as well (just a heads up – most of them are knitting related. There’s a lot of knitting-related podcasts, I need to find more crocheting and general crafts ones!).

I thought I’d give the whole WIP Wednesday thing a go. I’m not entirely sure where it originated, but it sounds cute. And if I don’t do a WIP post, no one will be seeing the socks that I’m working on for a long, long time!

I am currently working on the Knot Socks by Nancy Bush on 2.25mm/US1 circulars with Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett in colour #04453 which is self-striping/self-patterning yarn.

The pattern is from Sock Knitting Master Class: Innovative Techniques & Patterns. So far it’s knitting up fantastically, I’ve finished cable pattern 4 times and need to do it just once more before I go onto the heel. It’s a cuff-down pattern and written for dpns. I’m knitting it on my new ChiagoGoo Red Lace circulars (2.25mm/US 1 – 40″) with the magic loop method (which I adore now that I have needles with great cables). I haven’t decided how I’m going to do the heel yet, I haven’t figured out how to do the heel flap and gusset with magic loop so I may end up doing an afterthought heel.

Each pattern repeat takes about 2.5-3 hours, so I estimate that I’ve spent around 11-13.5 hours on Sock #1 so far. I knit whenever I’m watching podcasts.

I currently have no other knitting projects on the needles – I’m waiting for a Blythe friend to choose yarn colours and then I’ll be knitting two cardigans with pockets for her in exchange for a very lovely dress.

For crochet projects, it’s currently a secret… I’m designing an amigurumi so it’ll be secret for a bit until I finish it and duplicate it with the notes that I’ve got. I’ve been slowly working on getting the pattern shop for Chelle-Chelle.com up and running and have been tweaking with coding for the last little bit – but I hope it get it open at the same time that the pattern is finished.

Upcoming miscellaneous things: I’ll be doing a review on the ChiaoGoo Red Lace needles (I feel that 10+ hours is a decent amount of time to try something out before reviewing it) and also a post soon about all the podcasts that I listen to regularly.

These have been a long, long, long time in the making. I completed the first sock fairly quickly but then spent forever on not doing the second sock. There’s a term for that: Second Sock Syndrome. I finished both socks back in the end of December, but just got around to posting about it now.

These socks are knit from the Basic Ribbed Socks pattern by Kate Atherley. It is a free pattern that is available on Ravelry.

I knit on 2.75mm (US 2) double pointed needles. I didn’t actually have a set of dpns in 2.75mm, but I did have several from thrift store baggies so I found 4 mismatched dpns in the right size.

I used Regia’s Design Line by Kaffe Fassett in colourway 04450. I affectionately referred to the colour as ‘clown barf’ after I had knitted enough of the first sock to see how the colours were coming along. I had bought 2 balls of the yarn (460.0yds or 420.6m per 50g) and had, as you can see from the first photo, a lot left over. I used the excess amount of yarn for knitting other things (primarily doll clothing).

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I’m almost done with 2011 projects, promise! (There’ll be two more posts about 2011 projects after this one.)

These two sweaters are made from the same McCall’s pattern packet as the hooded cardigan from yesterday’s post. This one is Sweater B.

The yarns used are primarily yarns from a Japanese store (in other words, I cannot read the labels very well). The yarn content is 80% acrylic, 20% mohair in both the blue, pink and grey. The white yarn was 70% acrylic and 30% wool. All are sock-weight yarns. They were knit on 3mm (2½ US) needles.

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