Man vs. the Machines

On two separate weekends in June of last year, I caught my husband doing something that reminded me of a young boy being totally fascinated. First, I spotted him staring into the washing machine and then one week later, it was him staring into the dryer. It completely warmed my heart and was thankful I had my phone on hand to snap the photos without him knowing!

While I found myself in a super scrappy mood, I decided it was time to get these pictures on a layout. I dug into my stash and decided to use several papers from Amy Tangerine's "Stitched" collection. Here is the final product:

I was completely drawn to the heart paper to be my background right away. I loved the random yellow hearts. From there, I decided that I would accent the layout with grey, yellow and orange from the collection.

For my clustering, I wanted to create three clusters directly around the photo to get the visual triangle and help bring your eyes to the photos, since the background was quite busy. I then knew I needed to bring elements (colors and texture) from the body of the layout to the upper top right hand corner. Someplace for your eyes to start on the page and naturally flow down and around it.

I knew I wanted man and machine in my title, to be different fonts, but both to be Thickers. I chose Eclair and Kal Barteski. The remainder of the title is Tim Holtz's tiny letter tiles.

Right after I chose my papers for this layout, I knew this double heart cut apart had to be included somewhere on my layout. I loved the stitched hearts and the bright orange color. However, by doing this I knew I would be losing my journaling spot.

Then the bright idea came to me to do hidden journaling! I took a premade tag from my stash and adhered it to the grey patterned paper I used in matting my photo on both sides of the tag. The reinforcer for the tag was cut from my Tim Holtz tag Thinlet die set.

There wasn't much space for embellishments on the lower right corner. I kept it very simple with just a few elements consistent with the rest of the page.

In the beginning I wasn't sure where exactly I was going with this layout. In the end, I love how it all came together and most importantly, another story has been told!

5 Days

When I received a very modest package filled with a some of my favorite pieces from a few of the new scrapbooking releases, I couldn't wait to sit down and create.

I was immediately drawn to all the pretty papers from Shimelle's Starshine Collection. I think what I love most about her new collection is all the gorgeous pink and coral toned papers!

After choosing the perfect picture, I set out to select my papers. I used three papers from the Starshine Collection, one from Maggie Holmes Bloom Collection, and an old one from October Afternoon Girl Talk Collection.

When I first started to plan my page I knew I wanted to use the gorgeous floral paper from Starshine as my background, the text paper from Bloom as a layer and black cardstock to mount my page and mat my picture.

From there, I selected two more patterned papers to go with my large layers and one cut apart paper from Starshine to use as embellishments.

For my main cluster I chose a few of my favorite phrases/words from the cut apart sheet. I liked them not only for what they said, but their color too. I also cut a 3x4 card from the yellow October Afternoon paper to house my journaling.

Some items from my stash also made it on to the page: chipboard floral from Crate Paper Craft Market, gold foiled heart die cuts from We R Memory Keepers Crush, and a Valentine's tag from Crate Paper Kiss Kiss.

My layers are sitting on top of two manufacturing strips from the Starshine papers that brought in more of the floral and navy blue found in the collection. The coral striped paper is from the cut apart paper. Oh how I loved using all those cut aparts!

After getting all my layers how I wanted them, I decided I needed to add a circular element. In came my scalloped punch to the rescue! It helped give me a place to anchor my title.

For the cluster at the top of the page, I added a couple more phrases from the cut apart paper and layered them on top of the gold heart washi tape, which also made a small appearance in the main cluster.

You can also see I added a couple little snippets of the two manufacturer strips that were also in my main cluster. I found the flair buttons from Starshine so cute and thought it made the perfect circular addition to the cluster. Enamel dots were my finishing touches added to both clusters!

Overall my layout turned out to be quite simple in embellishing. I didn't want to overwhelm the page and take away from my picture and story.

The story behind my picture is quite simple. I wanted to document that just five days earlier we had gotten married at City Hall, and now we were becoming Godparents. It had been quite an exciting week for us. So much to celebrate!

Fiber Family

I decided to spend our negative degree weather day inside scrapbooking. To me the chilly weather just gave me an excellent excuse to spend time at my craft desk guilt free. A winning situation if you ask me!

I have a serious backlog of untouched scrapbooking kits and one of my goals for this wonderfully long weekend, was to break into one of them.

My kit of choice was November's Clique Kit which featured We R Memory Keepers Wildflower collection. When I first saw this collection I loved it immediately, even though it's not typically my style.

It didn't take me long to choose a picture that I felt went well with the collection. I chose it specifically because of all the wonderful colors displayed in our handknit items we are wearing. The orange, green, blue and pink colors are all found in the papers.

Even though there is a lot going on in this spread, I feel you don't loose focus on the picture itself.

To achieve this, I specifically matted my picture in the same card stock (from my stash) as my page border and placed the picture on top of the gorgeous blue and white patterned paper. I then added a slight mint green border (from my stash) on either side to further breakup the picture from the dark floral background paper.

Even  though this picture was taken in the middle of a Fall October afternoon, I knew I wanted to fussy cut the floral from the "Wildflowers" patterned paper. I dread fussy cutting, simply because I think I'm not very good at it, but the end result always makes me happy I took the time to do it.

For my cluster to the right, I rummaged through my Project Life cards and found this 4x6 card in the "Vintage Travel" collection to be my base.

I knew I wanted to add a little something around the fussy cut flower at the top right of the photo and the Pink Paislee gold frame was perfect.

I included a couple of Martha Stewart floral stickers from my stash to add a different texture to the spread behind the floral die cut. Adding a little gold glitter washi tape, the "Life is an Adventure" flair badge and a few additional die cuts from the collection, helped bring everything together.

For the title, I used a combination of the block alpha letters from the Wildflower sticker sheet included in the kit and Amy Tangerine's foam thickers in Kal Barteski from my stash.

Overall, I am really pleased with how everything came together!

How to Feel Stupid In One Easy Step

I've been a knitter since 2002.

I have knitted a wide variety of items during the 13 years I've been knitting, including a sweater I knit from scratch based on a sample provided to me by my now husband.

I know I do not know everything there is about knitting. I am always learning and trying to challenge myself. But, I do think I've been around the block a few times with my knitting needles and have some knowledge and experience under my belt.

So what does one do to make themselves feel like they are a stupid knitter and know absolutely nothing about knitting?

It's really simple. One easy step. Just decide to knit the Pinoli Cardigan!

Oh my word!

Last night I sat down eager to cast on for this lovely little cardigan. At first glance this beauty looks like it will be a quick and simple knit. However, once you delve into actually knitting it, you realize very quickly just how not simple and not quick and not easy you initially thought it was going to be. Oh no.

Want to know just how quickly I realized this? Ummm row 2. Yup. That's right. Row 2.

The increase abbreviations, and the description of these abbreviations, had me at a total loss. I quickly looked up the abbreviations online to see if there was some new knitting lingo I was lacking. Nope. There isn't any new lingo. My vocabulary seems to be up to date.

My next step was to check with my knitting peeps on Ravelry who've knit this to see if there is any mention of these "new to me" abbreviations. Nope. Seems like everyone BUT me had no problem. Argh.

Last, but not least, I knew there was one more place I could check before I decided this cardigan was not going to be knit by me. My sister.

See, she is knitting it too and has about 4 weeks of work on it ahead of me. After a bazillion text messages back and forth, she pointed me in the right direction. My response was, why couldn't the pattern just say the increases are a "Right bar increase" and a "Left bar increase"? Hello!!!!

With my new found clarification, I immediately started knitting again. All was going well until I tried to complete row 3. My thought process went a little like this:

"Hmmmm. What now?" "Did I not do enough increases" "Let me count all 119 stitches again to make sure they are all there" "Seems like they are all there, but let me just start all over just in case I didn't do something correctly."

Yup, I ripped ripped ripped. Casted on again. Redid the increase row. Counted my stitches. Yup 119 present and accounted for and by this time it was past my bedtime so I decided to leave the row 3 knitting until today.

I had a little time before work this morning. I decided to pick my knitting back up and at least get the third row done. I am knit, knit, knitting along on row 3 and then BAM!  I get towards the end of the row and realize I still have a problem. It seems I am short two freaking stitches again. ARGH!

By this time I am really over knitting this cardigan. I am seeing my sweaterless body roaming through Rhinebeck envying all the other knitters who were smart enough to knit their sweaters way in advance of the fiber festival. I have lost all hope. I am depressed.

After sending yet another 911 text to my sister and having a 15 minute phone conversation with her, all has been revealed to me. I am not stupid after all. I do have knitting brains.

It appears there is a lot you have to figure out on your own with this pattern. It's not all crystal clear. You have to have your knitting thinking cap on for sure.

Fear not, my sister has set my knitting sail in the right direction and I believe I can knit the right course now.

We shall see! I will be back with another update soon!

Rhinebeck 2015

Two weeks and six days until Rhinebeck! What is a girl to do? Oh maybe knit a sweater?

My life has been consumed with other things lately and I procrastinated in starting my Rhinebeck sweater. As a matter of fact, yesterday it looked like this...

Yup that's right. Not. Even. Started.

I am not new to deadline knitting, but I think I am cutting this one really close. I have received the vote of confidence from my fellow loved ones, but am I really that fast of a knitter?

We shall see. My hope is that I am able to turn all nine of those skeins containing 220 yards of fiber-y goodness into a Pinoli Cardigan in time for our yarn-y adventure on the 16th!

Stay tuned!

Revisiting the Old

After completing the Antarktis shawl, I decided it was high time I revisited some of my old unfinished knits.

I didn't want to dig through all my bags (yes plural) containing all the UFO's, so I just grabbed for the first little project bag on top. Fortunately for me, it contained a sock, Yes!!! My thoughts were, "I can finish this one quickly!"

After completing my first two pairs of socks within the first 2 months of this year, I had immediately started the TTL Mystery Sock 2015, which isn't a mystery anymore as the last clue came out in, ohhhh February!

I first mentioned the sock here at the end of January and revisited my progress here in March. You can even see in the March post that I had casted on for Mr. Second Sock!

Then we totally went off the grid with these babies! MIA. Send out a search party ASAP!

While I knew there was no way I would be completing these socks during the actual knit along, I had hoped they would of been done back in April.

I had been cruising towards completedville very nicely until I hit a little snag. It was a second sock issue. I completely messed up the leg chart and had to rip back. When I made the mistake my focus was elsewhere and I didn't realize it until the next time I sat down to knit.

I only had to rip back 8 rows of 64 stitches each. Really it wasn't that much. I could of completed that in a short amount of time. However, for whatever reason, I didn't.

So let's fast forward 4 months shall we?

Today Mr. Second Sock looks a little like this...

I worked on this over a 2 day period during my lunch breaks. First knitting session was to rip it and the second was to put back what I ripped.

Now I am thinking of when I can realistically finish it. After consulting the calendar, counting days, taking my other crafty adventures into consideration, looking at the full moon, I am reaching for completion on or before, September 15th.

While giving myself a little over 3 weeks is a wee bit generous for my knitting speed, I'd rather put a little extra time in there so I don't put a huge amount of pressure on myself to get it done in a short period of time. There is nothing worse than doing that to yourself and then not succeeding. Knitting depressionville is where I would be headed!

So that's it! I am throwing down the gauntlet. I'm going to get 'em done!

FO Chronicles: Antarktis

I knew for my Summer Swap package I wanted to knit a simple, one skein shawl for my partner. I had the perfect skein of sock yarn in hand, but needed to find the perfect pattern for it.

After much Ravelry research, I decided to knit Antarktis. I chose this pattern because not only would it be a quick knit, but it would surely be great for someone that may not like lace shawls. As this was going in my swap package, I wanted to make sure it would be something that would be used.

After several false starts...

...this was number three,  I finally managed to really get past my prior issues and move forward with the shawl.

It took me only a couple weeks of inconsistent knitting to complete it after that.

Finding time to wet block it was another story. But I managed:

It's not pretty and I can tell my blocking techniques are rusty, but I am really happy with how it turned out in the end.

While I have seen some shawls on Ravelry that blocked out rather large (they used the same yarn and amount as I did), mine turned out to be more of a small shawlette. It's still pretty, useable and I am happy to have another finished knit for the year.

FO Details

Pattern: Antarktis by Janina Kallio
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock Yarn (Impressionist Sky); 1 skein
Needles: US Size 5
Started: May 30, 2015
Finished: July 6, 2015

Now I am in the process of analyzing all the projects I have currently on my needles. I definitely need to get more off, before I put more on!

Tell me, what is on your needles right now? Anything you really want to finish that's been hanging around a tad too long?