AtomicKnits

Lighthouse Dishcloth

I whipped up this quick dishcloth to include in the Mother's Day basket for Justin's mom.  She likes lighthouses!

Lighthouse Dishcloth
Pattern Source: Knitting Knonsense
Yarn: Jaeger Aqua, colorway 313
Needles: US 7

Turtle Dishcloth

A couple of days ago I knit up this dishcloth with a turtle on it!  I thought the turtle was appropriate for the bright green color of the yarn.

Embossed Turtle Cloth
Pattern Source: Smariek Knits
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Classic, colorway 3760 Bright Light Green
Needles: US 7

Wedding Washcloths

Today is my friend Megan's bridal shower, so Happy Bridal Shower, Megan!  I couldn't make it to the actual even this weekend, but I did knit Megan a small gift for the occasion.  It is a set of 6 washcloths in three colors made out of plain old cotton.

Washcloths are fun to make, because they are such a quick, small project, but every time I knit one, I am reminded why I don't like knitting with cotton nearly as much as with wool.  I hope Megan and Adam can use these cloths, and I'm looking forward to their wedding coming up in a couple of weeks!

Wedding Washcloths
Pattern Source: The Purl Bee
Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n Cream Solid, colorways Sage Green, Cream, and Soft Ecru
Needles: US 5

Spa & Bath Trio Finished!

I finished another WIP from 2007!  This is a bath set that features washcloths, a soap pouch, and a scrubby bath mitt.  I think I am going to give this set to my mom for Mother's Day.  I bought a pumice stone to fill the soap pouch with.  I think she will really like it.  She takes baths a lot, so I hope she'll enjoy using these items.  This set was pretty quick to finish, and I got several extra washcloths out of the kit!  I'm not really sure why I put this down and never picked it back up.  I didn't really like knitting with the hemp yarn, but I really love the quality of the fabric in this set.

Spa & Bath Trio
Pattern Source: Hemp for Knitting Spa & Bath Trio Kit
Yarn: Hemp for Knitting allhemp6 colorways dijon & foggy
Needles: US Size 6

TAKE ME TO ANOTHER PLACE

TAKE ME TO ANOTHER LAND
MAKE ME FORGET ALL THAT HURTS ME
LET ME UNDERSTAND YOUR PLAAANNNNNN

Yes, tomorrow morning I am heading on a plane to Knoxville, Tennessee to visit Justin's parents.  Justin will be arriving there a few hours before me.  I am really excited.  It's going to be awesome to spend time with him for 4 whole days.  It's also going to be nice just to get out of here and spend a few days in a place I have never been.  I'm staying up a bit late tonight to finish some things up before I head out.  I love this part.  Making the list of stuff to do before a trip and then doing each thing and getting more excited by the minute!

I finished the dishcloth set for Justin's parents just in time.  I really hope they like it.  You'll see there are two extra yellow cloths included.  I ran out of yellow yarn as I was about halfway done the 4th corner of the larger towel, so I ended up buying a whole other ball of yellow yarn to finish it up.  I used the rest of the ball to knit a woven washcloth and a butterfly lace washcloth.  Washcloths are cool to make because they are so quick, but I think I've had enough of them for now.  My sock has not progressed much farther than the last picture, but I will be able to take it with me to the airport and hopefully get some good work on it done tomorrow morning.  Maybe I'll take the October Tofutsies socks too, just in case I finish the Summer Daze.

Well, I participated in the Valentine's Day Swap on Ravelry, and my recipient loved her package which makes me super happy, but I am sort of bummed, because I didn't receive a package for myself. :(  My recipient was not support to buy for me.  The person buying for me remains a surprise before I open the package.  There are angels that I'm sure will be very good to me if my package does not arrive, but it's kind of crummy to participate in a swap and do a good job and not get a package in return.  I didn't get a nice gift in the mail, however.  Along with the swap, the Ravelry group had a Valentine's Day ravatar contest and I came in 2nd place!!  My prize was a package from Pick Up Sticks in Canada!  I won a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn in a beautiful muted blue/purple color, a CUTE mini sock blocker keychain, and a pattern to knit a tiny sock to block of the keychain.  What an adorable package, and thank you SO MUCH Connie and Pick Up Sticks!

I probably won't post again until Tuesday when I get back, but I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day and have a great President's Day weekend (I hope you have the day off)!

Summer Daze socks started

So, I ran out of yellow about 10 rows short of being COMPLETELY done with the Pick-Me-Up Dishtowel.  Since I don't have to give this gift for about another week and a half, it immediately went into The Basket (never a good sign), and I cast on the Summer Daze socks - the Tofutsies Sock Club August yarn and pattern.  I love the color of this August yarn much better than I liked the June colorway.  It kind of looks like Saved by the Bell, but I am into that.  I also like the pattern much better.  The little cables are really cute and really easy.  As you can see, I am knitting these socks on two circular needles.  These are the first socks I have done using this technique and the two circs totally pwn bamboo dpns.  I have not left dpns forever, though.  I still want to knit some socks using  *metal* dpns.  After the Wild Kat Sock Not Fitting Catastrophe, I decided to go up a needle size (I'm using 2's) and knit the larger size offered in the pattern.  Now, I'm kind of afraid that these socks will be a little too loose.  We'll see

I have also found out that my Valentine's Day Swap package made it to its recipient, so that's great!  I still haven't received a package.  I can't wait to see what I get!

Less than stellar dishcloth corners (AND FANTASY METAL VIDEO!!!)

The Pick-Me-Up Dishcloth is almost done!  I thought I would have enough yarn leftover from this to maybe squeeze out one more ballband cloth, but it looks like this towel is going to use up exactly the amount of yarn I have left.  I wanted to do the corners striped like they are shown in this picture, but I don't have enough of each color of yarn to do this, so I am fudging it.  I don't think it looks as great, but I think it is ok.  So, the end result will be two ballband cloths and this one larger dishtowel.  I think it is a nice gift.  Now I just have to figure out a way to wrap it.  I usually do a nice newspaper-and-scotch-tape-with sharpie-marker-label combo, but I think I'll have to think of something better this time.  Also, the "nicer stuff" (aluminum foil) isn't going to cut it either.  Maybe I will craft a special kind of gift wrap.  I have a lot of artsy papers and stuff.  I will keep you posted.

In other breaking news, Tarja Turunen released the video for her new single "Die Alive."  I cannot wait for this album to come out.  Tarja was the lead singer of Nightwish (one of my favorite bands) until a couple of years ago, and now she is releasing a solo album, My Winter Storm, which comes out on February 8th.  I must have this album *the day* it comes out.  I am wicked excited, because most of what I've heard from it just sounds like Nightwish, which is totally cool with me.  I'm also really happy that she at least still has performing rights to all of the Nightwish songs she recorded.  If she ever tours the states, I want to see her SO BAD.  She is SO COOL, and I think this video is SO COOL.  I put right up there, so you should watch it.  I'm going to watch it again right now and tell you all of the cool things about it...ok so first of all, she's in this abandoned castle which is awesome.  Then there are these big dogs that look nice, but one of them bites her.  Then she finds this AWESOME goth-ey wizard cloak and puts it on and looks awesome in it (that's the best part).  So, she puts on the cloak and then tries to leave the building but she can't, because there's rats!  Eventually, the abandoned building gets destroyed (WITH BLUE FLAMES!!!).  After that, it rains and there's a hurricane.  SERIOUSLY, COOLEST VIDEO.  It's right there, you should watch it!  Tarja is SO COOL.

Last night I almost cast on the Summer Daze socks, the August Tofutsies sock club pattern with the corresponding yarn.  I didn't quite get to it, though.  I didn't really knit a lot yesterday.  I don't really know why, but that means that I'm psyched to get home and knit today.   I do know that I have been going ABSOLUTELY INSANE at work this week and last.  I just feel filled with crazy rage feelings and I can't focus.  I am seriously looking forward to the weekend.

Mouse Update!

Just a quick update on the mouse situation.  Also, FYI, I have been using peanut butter.  The piece of advice that I received the most from people re: this crisis was to USE PEANUT BUTTER.  The peanut butter has been in the traps since about 10 minutes after I got home from the Home Depot that fateful night.  Still nothing.  The mouse guy came today.  He was a little weird, but tolerable weird.  He set up lots of traps and poison stations and things like that and also found a hole where he thinks mice could get in.  My landlord will be patching this hole up tomorrow.  The mouse guy said that there was only evidence of very light mouse activity in my apt.  He only found droppings under the dishwasher and the fridge (EW).  He said that my apartment was really clean for one of the apartments in my complex.  I found that really odd, because I think my apartment is so gross sometimes.  There is like caked on dust and dirt from years of not cleaning in some areas of the unit that sometimes makes me gag when I look at it for too long.  I cleaned a lot of it up right after I moved in, but there is just so much that cleaning up all of the years of gross got old and felt like a losing battle pretty quickly.  Also, now that I pretty much know I'm not going to be in this unit for *that* much longer, it makes it hard for me to care about it at all.  IN CONCLUSION, it seems like the mouse problem is taken care of for now pending ME FINDING DEAD MICE AND HAVING TO PROBABLY PICK THEM UP WITH MY OWN HANDS AND PUT THEM IN SOME KIND OF A CONTAINER AND BRING THEM DOWN TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS AND THEN THROW THEM IN THE DUMPSTER IN SUCH A WAY THAT THEY DON'T COME BACK TO LIFE AND EAT MY FACE AND EYES OUT.  But, I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

As for the knitting, I started a Pick-Me-Up dishtowel to go with the ballband dishcloth set, and that is moving along quite nicely.  I will have pictures of it probably tomorrow.

Dishcloths & MOUSE ADVENTURE!

So, I haven't gotten very much knitting done during the past couple of days because I have been having sort of a crisis.  A first world crisis.  Wednesday night, I was knitting and watching American Idol and having a very pleasant evening.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.  I looked over and didn't see anything at first.  I looked over again AND THERE WAS TOTALLY A MOUSE RUNNING ACROSS MY HALLWAY!!  A real mouse.  It was so scary.  SO SCARY.  My heart immediately started racing, and after my initial panic, I sat down at my computer to check how late my nearest Home Depot was open.  It was still open, so I get up with the intention of putting on my shoes and going to Home Depot to buy mouse traps.  As soon as I get up from the chair, I SEE THE MOUSE JUST SITTING RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIVING ROOM.   That's when I let out a ridiculous scream.  I quickly gathered up my garbage, and left my apt in search of mouse traps.  While standing in an almost empty Home Depot in my pajamas, I pick out some of these, and some of these.  I go home and I set 6 of the traps (a little excessive, but I am SCARED).  I don't catch anything immediately and eventually I get into my bed and fall asleep.  I still haven't caught anything, and the exterminators are coming on Monday, so hopefully I will be mouse free soon.

I am almost finished with one of the dishcloths.  I LOVE the way these look, and the texture is great too.  I'm going to make a few of these in different color combos and then I think I'm going to knit this larger dishtowel to go with them.  Hopefully, I will be able to finish all of these during this weekend pending my face getting eaten by a mouse.

Argosy almost offically done!

Last night I finished knitting Argosy.  I washed it and laid it out to block.  It's such a cool scarf!  I don't think it will be that great for the colder months, but as spring approaches it should be great.  I LOVE the color of this yarn SO MUCH!  I also started on some Ballband dishcloths for Justin's folks to give to them when we go visit them next month.  They have already been very sweet and generous towards me even though I have not spent a lot of time with them.  I hope they can use the dishcloths.  It is a small gift, but for me, knitting something for someone is probably the most significant way that I can express appreciation, so it will make me feel good.