Eye Candy Friday - March 30, 2007

Well, it's been a while since I've posted for Eye Candy Friday so I decided to make it a good one.

This is an old church reflected off of a new office building in downtown Dallas this February. I love how the reflection of the church is distorted but you can still see some of the design elements.

Have a happy Friday!

Dementia Prevention

This baby bootie is so freakin' cute I can hardly stand it, despite the weird instructions to knit it flat and seam it up the middle of the sole. Bootie #2 will be knit in the round, partially to get rid of that annoying seam and partly as some knitterly dementia prevention. If all goes well, I can rip out Bootie #1 and re-do it in the round to match. When a knit is this small, it's not too painful to unravel it...even for a slow knitter like me!

Harry Potter Sock Yarn Alert!

If you are allowed to buy yarn in your Knit from Your Stash 2007 rules, you might want to do so at 11AM EDT tomorrow. Sunshine Yarns is making a bunch of her hand-dyed yarn available for sale at her Etsy shop and promises Harry Potter-inspired colorways. You may have seen these great Gryffindor socks around blogland. (Think Mr. Hipp will get the hint?)

We've Only Just Begun

From Wendee on the "Babies Babies Everywhere" post:

I hear that we are having one of the biggest baby booms since, well, the baby boom.

That certainly seems to be the case for people around me. I know five expectant mothers right now, one with twins! Look at what arrived in yesterday's mail...


It's time to start another baby knit! Now, if I were a savvy knitter, I would start on each baby knit when I learn of each pregnancy rather than when I learn of each baby shower. That would be quite smart and organized of me. That would also make Mr. Hipp cry out, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife!?!" Savvy, smart, and organized aren't words that are often applied to me...at least not the knitter in me. (I try to bring a bit of savvy, smarts, and organization to at least my work life...I think that about exhausts my supplies, though!)

So in an effort to be a bit more on the ball, I have started this baby knit ASAP. Always the rebel, I cast on for a non-beaded, non-fair isle, version of Debbie Bliss' Beaded Fair Isle Shoes.


These are coming along swimmingly so far. They are knit more or less flat and have a seam along the bottom of the sole and up the back of the heel; it seems odd to have this sort of construction when it could just be made in the round. Good thing babies aged 3-6 months don't do much walking or else that seam would get really uncomfortable really fast.

Molasses

The baby bonnet from my last post arrived in South Carolina yesterday, just in time for the baby shower today. I sent it off on Wednesday via Priority Mail with fingers crossed for a Saturday arrival (and toes crossed for arrival before the 2:00 PM start time for the shower!) and it gets there a whole day early. Gotta love the US Postal Service.

With this baby gift off my list, I was able to devote a bit of time to the Sunrise Circle Jacket. I am on Row 73 of the left sleeve/front.


Only four more rows before the turning row for the hem. Woot woot! But man oh man, those loooooong purl rows are about killing me. I timed myself this morning: eight minutes to do the 137 purl stitches of Row 72. Yeesh, slower than molasses.

Fickle Finger of Fate

A more fickle knitter you will never meet. The baby booties, despite the three versions -- plus one more (failed) test for a revised Robin-Hood bootie -- and some super soft cashmere-blend yarn, have been deemed a failure. The ribbed version just didn't look nice in the end. It looked so...home made. As a crafter this is painful to say, since "home made" is usually a motto of pride. But this poor little bootie was less "hand crafted especially for you" and more "you're auntie made this for you so you're going to wear it, no matter how much your friends laugh". I just couldn't bear the thought of starting this child on a path of ridicule.

So I turned to blogland and came upon the Top Down Bonnet at brooklyntweed. Yes!

It was done in about eight hours...not too bad for a last minute change of knitting plans.

Lacking an actual baby to model the bonnet, I hunted around the house for something else small and round. A vase from our Costa Rican honeymoon seemed close enough when turned upside down.


The vase enjoys wearing the bonnet while facing forward...


...and turned to the side.


I am in LOVE with this bonnet. It looks home made in the good way. The parents of this baby are leaving the baby's gender a surprise, so I figured the green stripes would be both gender-neutral and fun.

Now all I have to do is get this thing to South Carolina before Saturday. Ack! Think I have time to knit some baby tube socks before tomorrow's FedEx pick up? Heh heh.

Babies Babies Everywhere

It seems like everyone I know is having a baby nowadays. The Jaywalker socks, Sunrise Circle Jacket, and Knock Off Bag have been put on a three-day hiatus so I can make a quick gift for an upcoming baby shower. I can't attend the shower, but I figured I should send a little knitting love to the baby anyway. (If you know which baby I am talking about, please don't spill the beans before the shower!)

My first thought was to make these Robin-Hood-like booties from Debbie Bliss' The Baby Knits Book. The construction seemed simple but interesting. You knit three diamonds:one for the outside (black), one for the lining (tan), and one for the heel (both colors).


Wait a minute, black booties for a baby? I say you are never two young to have a good pair of basic black shoes. Besides, it's what I had in my stash. So there.

This bootie ended up sort of weird-looking, though. First, it's huge. Like toddler huge. The front is pretty cute (center bootie, below), but the diamonds come to a sharp point in the back that just doesn't make any sense. Unless babies have fighting blades attached to the backs of the their heels, a la cockfight?

So I moved on to just making a basic tow-up sock with the lining yarn (a yummy cashmere blend). I felt sort of bleh about the first one, too (left bootie, above). The second one has ribbing at the top (right bootie, above) that I think is going to be the big winner in the end. I think the ribbing will help it stay on Baby's teeny feet.

I'm going to have to work on that Robin-Hood bootie pattern. I can't get it out of my head! I feel like it has such potential...just need to get rid of those fighting cock blades...

New Time, New Color Scheme

In keeping with the sensory changes brought about by Daylight Savings Time, I've lightened up a few things around Hipp Crafts. Enjoy the new color scheme! It will be around until my mood changes again. :)

Lake Forest Knitting Society

My friends were so encouraged by their foray into knitting that we have established our own knitting society!


From L to R: J is swatching for a fuzzy fair isle hat, A is working on a wide scarf, M has started a narrow scarf, C has started baby booties (she has discovered Koigu, aka crack), and I am making headway on the Sunrise Circle Jacket.

Our last meeting was just four short weeks ago. So I was SHOCKED to see the amazing progress C has made on her own. The scarf she started last time? Um, yeah it's done and a totally huge and beautiful stole now.


C has also made a successful leap into more advanced knitting. She has now mastered ribbing and short rows. Check out her cute Calorimetry.


I've been eyeballing this pattern for a while. After seeing C's, I am definitely going to make one!

Mr. Hipp wants to join our society, but couldn't pass up the chance to try out somebody's Wii.


After trying on C's Calorimetry, though, he might decide to start knitting after all!

Kick in the Pants

Lolly Knitting Around posted recently about biting the bullet and finishing a sweater that has been "in progress" since last year.

Oh, if I had a nickel for every unfinished project in my bins...I would have tons of money to buy more yarn! (But not until 2008, of course.)

The winner for longest-wallowing-project is a sweater I started for Mr. Hipp before we were married. Actually, I started it before we were even engaged. Does anyone else have an unfinished project from 2001?


Yeah, six years. Pretty embarrassing. All it needs is a front, some seaming, and a neckband. For some unexplained reason, I just lost interest in the project. Maybe I was subconsciously worried about the sweater curse? Presumably not an issue now that we are married, so I guess I need to get my butt in gear and just finish the darn thing.

Also in the wallowing pool is a modified version of the Ram's Horn Jacket from Knitting Nature. I saw that I was running low on yarn, so I shortened the sleeves from full-length the three-quarters in hopes of having enough left over for the fabulous ram's horn collar, which is kind of the whole point of the jacket. The sleeves, fronts, and back are done, and I've started seaming it together.


I still have to knit the bands for the front edges of the cardigan and the collar. I am still worried that I don't have enough yarn for the collar. Putting the project aside for a while seemed easier than doing the math to know if I really don't have enough yarn or searching the internet for more yarn. My gosh, how lazy can I be!

I am going to take Lolly's example as inspiration and return these two projects to the "active" pile. I need more freaking finished objects to show you!

"American Idol", Eat Your Heart Out

Thanks again to all who voted on my Jaywalker poll. The results are in:

A whopping 12 votes were cast. I was quite impressed with this number. To be honest, I didn't think I would get even that many votes!

Then Mr. Hipp spilled the beans and told me that he voted four times, all for keeping on with the Jaywalkers as is. There is a saying in epidemiology: Garbage in, garbage out, meaning if the data you bring in is biased, invalid, unreliable, etc., then the results you get out of the data will be meaningless. Assuming no others cast multiple votes, I cleaned my data of Mr. Hipp's duplicate votes and came up with some adjusted results. The overall winner remains the same, but by a much narrower margin:

Onward with the Jaywalkers!

Eye Candy - Mardi Gras!

My amazing friend in New Orleans, Alison, celebrated Mardi Gras in fine crafting style this year. Check out just one of her costumes for the festivities. Alison is the one in the feathered headdress.


Gotta love the fleur-de-lis hot pants!