Peace to knit

Hello everyone,

Today I'm writing from an undisclosed location, on the opposite side of the country from my house. After spending a whole day in the airport yesterday I can finally relax. Aaron and I have really been looking forward to this trip, and with work becoming more tiring and stressful, I feel that I really need it.



Sooo, in preparation for the journey I cast on two new projects. Not pictured is a pair of socks, the Old Joe pattern, in a brown shade of dream in color smooshy. I've attempted to cast it on as two socks on one circular.... and I've knit about an inch of the ribbing. But I think I must be doing it wrong, because it is really hard and unpleasant o.0

The second project, is the crooked cathedral. I really really love this project, I think it's lovely. But, as a chart knitter, let me just say, not loving the chart in this pattern so much. I got so fed up with it that I'm actually knitting off of the written pattern. Weird, right?   We had a lot of time in the airport/ on the plane, so I thought I'd be able to get a lot done. I did end up sleeping a lot on the plane, so I got maybe 3-4 hours total knitting time out of it.



I also brought two older WIPS with me, so we'll see if I make any progress on them :)

Happy Crochet of Death

Hello everyone,

Yet another Wednesday that the blog goes up late in the day. I don't know why I try so hard to post in the morning, when I'm so clearly an evening blogger! Today's WIP is a little crazy.... I've mentioned before that I'm on a mission to learn to crochet so that I can knit some of the patterns out of a crochet book I got for my birthday a few years ago called Crochet So Fine.  Now in order to knit these patterns I need to both feel comfortable doing the crochet stitches in lace weight, and be able to read crochet charts like this :

(lifted from This Site. Hello Heidi! ) 

So what does all of this have to do with me? Meet my lace stash:

Some of this is Malabrigo lace that I intended to use to make scarfs, but most of it is left overs from other projects.  You might recognize the green from Bramble, and the Brown is from my jeweled cowl, ( but more on that Friday. )
I can't remember what that light purple stuff is, but I hate it. Hate it. It is soft and it has nice drape.... But it's SO SHINY. It looks like cheap acrylic (even though it is not ) and hurts my eyes. Everything I've tried to make with it looks tacky. I can't stand it.


So my goal with of of this is to make a lace weight version of the Happypotamus

Isn't that so crazy? I saw the African Flower granny square on another blog, and HAD to knit it. When I looked it up on Ravelry I found out that there were so many patterns that used it. The coolest and most interesting by far being the Hippo and it's Frog counterpart (whence came my idea for the lace weight. )

I'm not crazy. I started with a worsted weight practice piece, so I could learn the pattern and the join as you go method. Then I tried it on the lace weight....

We'll see what happens.

As always, check out Tami's for more WIPs!