Germany has been very good for my crafting life. I did not get my normal summer break this year. Almost as soon as the semester ended I started teaching in the summer session and immediately following that I taught a professional development class for two weeks. I then had just enough time to get the house packed up and put into storage before we left for Germany and began our language class. Well, now the language class is over and while this is bad for my goal of learning German it is excellent for my goal of quality craft time.
I completed my first bit of color work with this fair isle pattern. I had to tear it out several times, not because of the fair isle stitches but because I didn't like the rolled brim of the pattern. I decided to make a boucle brim but I had never really knit with this before and it took some working through.
Using some stash yarn (yes I brought a bit of my stash with me) I knit some pot holders. Our apartment did not have any and I am not very good at using towels as pot holders. I also knitted a slip stitch scarf with both the white and a purple boucle yarn. It is very warm and cozy. On my needles now is another hat. I saw this hat on Etsy and thought I could recreate it. So far it is going well, I am just about to start the decreases so we will see. I think this one will be my size so once it is finished I will see how much bigger I need to make it to fit Arlo. He doesn't like the yarn in my stash however so we will have to go yarn shopping -- terrible, I know. I am also starting a jacket for Isobel (Sheri's baby, in Ireland), knitting a present for my niece, and some washcloths (the washcloths here are like mitts and since things don't dry here as fast as they did in Tucson I don't like these very much. I had some cotton so I though I would try a washcloth pattern. My first one came out wide enough but not long enough so I am working on version number two.
I am also resurrecting my love of paper crafts. I saw some beautiful journals on Craftster (can you tell I've been spending a lot of time on crafting websites?) and thought I would make one for my self.
Here are two pictures of the calendar pages that I've water- colored. The nice thing about water colors is that you can either write first or paint first. It comes out either way. My goal is to write in a square each day at the very least. I also have other pages for books, crafts and of course general thoughts.
I finished my hat on Friday. While I am happy with how it turned out it is not quite like the hat I saw on Etsy that I was trying to model. I've included a picture of that hat and the top view of my hat for comparison purposes. I think this knitter used a smaller needle (or thicker yarn) and he definitely did his decreases differently than I did. I don't feel I can just post a picture of someone else's hat so here is the link to his Etsy store. As you may recall, this is the prototype for making Arlo a warm winter hat. All I have to do now is get him into a yarn store to pick out the color he wants.
