1.25.2013

Busy, busy, busy and sneak peeks!

Good afternoon my lovely's!

It's a winter wonderland yet again here in Ohio! So while it's doing this outside, I'm nice and cozy in my little apartment working on something new I've taken the time to finally learn!

With that being said, I have two different afghans started and somehow working on both at the same time ;) Who says you can not multitask while knitting and crocheting?

So with that being said here are a couple things I'm working on...

I love my purples..

bobbles..aka puff stitch..


With those 2 little sneak peaks in mind. How about a little photography from me and my mom's little in the middle of winter hiking trip to some haunted and old train tunnels in southern Ohio..


Well ok, first a little winter photography first. The night before we went down, it had ice stormed over night and so all of the trees were covered in ice and it was so beautiful!


This first tunnel we came across was the Haydenville Tunnel in Haydenville, Ohio which was one of the old mining towns of southern Ohio. This side of the tunnel is now caved in and you can not walk into to far unless you wanted to climb over rubble(which I wanted to do). Never go in there without a flash light!


The next stop of the day was Moonville Tunnel, outside of Zalesiki, Ohio. According to myths and the town this one is very haunted. But of course didn't get any ghost action. (Below is the bridge you had to cross to park the car to hike to the tunnel.



 
Oh and of course you have to pass over a creek to even get to this tunnel. And since they ripped out the old train rails that connected all of these tunnels there is no bridge to make it to this one. So you see that little nice green creek. Yes its a creek. But with all of the snow we've had, it was a little to high for us to walk across it. So.. We had to take the long way around and up a big hill to get to it.

But as you can see, we made it. I've been wanting to visit this tunnel ever since I was little, and I finally made it! (See the old rail-road wire pole? Cool!) And the trail was actually the old train tracks! You can see the train track rock still.

And then... You have Kings Tunnel. Which surprisingly you can still drive through. We didn't though, just walked through. Which I'm not gonna lie, I was scared of this one. Its made out of wood, so the sides of it have gaping holes in it. Hey! You never know what kind of animals or even humans who make those huge holes their homes. 



On a good note though, those holes still had a ton of coal still in them, so of course I had to snag some for a keepsake. Oh and the cool thing about this tunnel though, you could still smell the old train fumes from when they went through the tunnels.


And our last stop of the day were the old Berlin Coke Ovens, WAY back in the goonies, literally. This is were they would melt the coal back in the early 1900's. Should see the bridges that we had to cross!

I have much more hiking to do in my home state that's for sure!

Hope I didn't bore you guys to much! I'll much more yarn creations in the days to come :)


-Taylor




1.12.2013

Ripple baby Afghan/Matching newborn baby booties and Hat!

Good evening everyone! How is your weekend going so far? I've gotten a lot accomplished today, and I'm proud with myself at how amazing it looks!

My friends baby girl is going to look amazing swaddled up in this warm blanket!







I'll gladly share my pattern and write up a little tutorial tomorrow after/evening when I get home from work.

Next up, I think I'll finally make something for myself/ I'll decide tonight and present it tomorrow :D But for now I'm going to log off and spend some quality time with my hubby!




1.10.2013

WIP Baby Afghan, and another Ruffle Scarf!

Good evening my awesome followers! How's everyone doing tonight?

I've had a very peaceful and productive day off, spending some quality time with my yarn and oh I suppose my husband as well :)

I'm hoping I can get around to working on my facebook page this week and get photo's and whatnot on it!

I've been working a couple projects these past few days and they have been coming along nicely. One being another Ruffle Scarf. This one is for my lifesaver, my mom! And I have to say, I love it!


Patron's finally has their own brand of "ruffle" yarn and that's exactly what this scarf was made out of! I love the little fleece balls at the one edge of the yarn!

I am absolutely in love with these scarves and to be honest, they are really easy to make! I can have a scarf done in about 2-3 hours depending how long my attention span last ;)

My goal is to work up the other 8 skeins of ruffle yarn into scarves and then put them up for sale on my Etsy account. Why not make a little money out of what you love to do, right?

(Now if only I'd do that to my photography!)

So enough with the scarf! Onto the WIP baby afghan. WIP = works in progress just in case you didn't know.

A good childhood friend of my is having a little girl and she's defiantly all country and wanted a camo blanket. I got to thinking, "wait a second, I had a girly camouflage skein of RedHeart yarn a while back". Sure enough I found skeins of it at JoAnn's the other day.

Now came the designing part. Was it going to be all camo? Or stripes with another color?

And I choose to do...


Girly camouflage and white ripple stripes! And I couldn't be happier with how it is turning out! Its actually just about done! I may run out of white yarn before its done, but that's ok! I need to make a yarn run this weekend anyways :) Ran out of yarn for another baby afghan I've been working on for sometime now for another friend.

This blanket and how the ripples look is defiantly my most favorite thing I think I've made so far! I may have to make a ripple stripped blanket for my sofa. I do have tons of browns in my stash that would look mighty fine laying across my sofa!!!


There are so many new things I would love to attempt to do this year. And I plan to do them at some point. One idea I would like to do is take all of my extra balls of yarn leftover from projects, make granny squares and stitch them all together for a afghan. I think it would like not only ugly, but pretty at the same time.

Oh the possibilities you can do with your yarn and needles and looms!

With that being said, have a pleasant evening everyone. I'll be sure to post the finished baby afghan soon!



1.01.2013

First ever Ruffle Scarf

After sometime I finally figured out how to make a ruffle scarf! Many of my groups I follow on Facebook, tell me to use the Flower loom, I tried it multiple times but saw knitting the scarf to be much easier.

This yarn is a little tricky to work with since it's "netting" , it does like to turn as you are working with it. However, to get started I spread the yarn for a few inches so it's apart so you can pick up the stitches better.

Here's the pattern I used,

To pick up the first stitch holding the yarn in your left hand, and the knitting needle in your right:

-Insert the needle from back to the front through a hole at the top edge, then do this again 4 more time for a total of 5 cast on stiches
- Turn your work so that the needle with the stitches is now in your left hand.

To begin knitting:
-Insert your right-hand needle into the front of the first st(just as if you were making a knit st) on the left-hand needle, then through the next hole at the top of the working yarn, through the back. 
-Keep doing this for the next 4 stitches, turn, and continue working each row in the same manner.

To cast off:
Knit first 2 stitches of row, use the basic bind of method for casting off. Pick up the first knitted stitch, take it over the 2nd stitch and off the end of the needle. Knit another st, and repeat this process until the last st is left on the right-hand needle. Pull remaining yarn end through this stitch and pull firmly to fasten off.


If it's hard to follow my instructions, here's the video that helped me through this.


Enjoy! I have lots of this yarn to work with!




Happy 2013!





Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year! I've got a few resolutions this year that I tend to follow to the nose this year! 

One including my 13 13's in 2013 list! Which is a list of 13 projects or challenges 13 times in 2013! I'll share mine! There is a group on Raverly that started this, and here is my list:

1. Learn 13 new crochet techniques
2. Learn 13 new knitting techniques
3. 13 items for charity
4. 13 gifts
5. 13 squares
6. 13 for the home
7. 13 for the arms, hands, legs, or feet
8. 13 blankets
9. 13 dishcloths
10. 13 dishtowels
11. 13 hats
12. 13 scarves
13. 13 shawls

I plan to make a list to, either in excel or something other chart form so I can keep not of my progress and I will share each project I finish!

Happy 2013 Everyone! Let's all have a great and blessed New Year!