movin' on up

Much has been going on behind the scenes chez Caffeinated Yarn. First of all, we're moving! Again!  Egads... change makes me anxious, and the process of moving is terrible, but there are some upsides.

Such as the back garden, a peaceful oasis in the middle of Chicago. Plus we're just moving half a mile east, near the heart of Lincoln Square, a charming German neighborhood. We started packing boxes of books this past weekend, fueled by thoughts of the floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases in our new living room and master bedroom. :-) Not all bad, indeed.

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Hot off the hook:

Oh yes, at long last I'm done crocheting the rustic Noro giant granny! All the ends have been carefully tucked to the wrong side, ready for me to weave them in before blocking this bad boy. It's a fantastic feeling to have it almost complete, as I started it back in February of 2010. Full details forthcoming after it's blocked.

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a Monday miscellany

- interesting article on Trader Joe's

- tutorial on using paint to transform a ho-hum office organizer into something beautiful
- tutorial on crocheting a cute, vintage-inspired rag rug (I did some googling after spotting this gorgeous crocheted rag rug)

preparing for the next onslaught of new babies

When you hit your early 30s, it begins to seem as if babies are lurking behind every corner, ready to pop up anywhere, anytime! I'm working on some projects for the next round of my friends' wee new arrivals:

Pattern: Hip to Be Square Blanket, by Jennifer Braico

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky, color #17007, 7? skeins
Needles: Clover US 10.5 bamboo circs
~ on Ravelry ~

Notes:

Quite a few skeins of the Cashmerino Chunky had knots. Boo! It's a soft, squishy, cozy yarn nevertheless. 71 yds per skein means a lot of joins and ends to weave in.

Easy pattern. The 4-stitch applied i-cord edging looks nice, but it’s not my favorite thing to do. I checked out both tutorials recommended by the pattern designer, among others. The k3, sl1, k1, psso method worked best for me.

When working parallel to the blanket for the i-cord border, I picked up 3 sts for every 4. When working perpendicular, I picked up every stitch.

I would recommend going up a needle size or two for the i-cord edging. Also, don’t pull too tight, or it ends up distorting the blanket.

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So I had a good amount of Cashmerino Chunky leftover from the blanket, plus a bunch of partial skeins and odd bits from my beloved giant granny square. Wouldn't it be great to use up all of this Cashmerino? Maybe with some granny squares for a stroller blanket?

If you're a long-term Caffeinated Yarn reader, you know exactly where this is going... Using up stash yarn never goes as smoothly as I anticipate:

Yep, while I do have enough dark pink for the borders, I'm out of contrasting yarn with two squares left to finish:
Typical. However, a couple of Ravelers are coming to the rescue! Knitters truly are the nicest people.

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You'll never guess what Colin Meloy (of Decemberists fame) and Carson Ellis are up to! Carson (a knitter, of course) has blogged about it here.

the stashbusting curse strikes once again

Stashbusting projects generally don't turn out so well for me. OK, the finished projects themselves may be lovely, but more often that not I run out of yarn and then am wracked with guilt as I try to figure out what to do. Plus I don't want to spend much money to acquire more yarn to finish, as the whole point of the exercise was to knit from my stash.

In sum, stashbusting is stressful.

One more case in point:Another giant granny square, this time using all my Noro leftovers and odd skeins, mostly Kureyon and Cashmere Island. As you may have guessed, I've already run out of yarn at just 30" square.

What to do? Just crochet a big-a@% contrast border using nature's brown or oatmeal Fishermen's Wool? Buy more Noro? Anybody have any tips for a great source of discount Noro? Webs (which is where I usually get my closeout/discount Noro fix) doesn't have any right now.

hooked

Last weekend my knitting circle friends came over to my place for Crochet Fest 2010. A few of them graciously volunteered to teach us how to wield a crochet hook.It was quite fun, and I'm cranking along on a giant granny square, a la Fricknits, helloyarn and the Ravelry giant granny CAL group. I started off with this tutorial at craftstylish, then checked out this free pattern from Lion Brand.

The yarn is some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky that I bought on sale 3 years ago with the intention of learning to crochet and make a ripple afghan. Yeah, that didn't happen...

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Kylie cat trying to blend in with her surroundings...
That is one big fuzzy tummy! We put her on a diet when we first adopted her (she was 7 or 8 at the time), and this is the slimmed-down version of Kylie. Yikes!