Blanket Teaser

These are just a couple of pictures of my mostly finished blanket. I plan on taking a picture where you can see all the squares clearly. If I get REALLY ambitious I will go through a label each square so you can all see where your square is. As of now, I have finished with the sewing and weaving in all the lose ends. I decided to hold off on the crochet border until I get back. I only have a few days before I go back to Shanghai and I don't want to leave it in the middle of the border.

These pictures are kind of goofy. I was thinking of submitting a picture for the Knitty calendar content but ended up not doing it. My mom basically took pictures of me at the cabin trying to be artsy with the blanket.

Here I am posing drinking "coffee" (the cups empty...shhhhh). Booboo behaved and posed for the picture too.
I like this one because I look very silly, but happy.
Now I should really get down to earth and start packing. Plane leaves around 4 on Friday. EEK.

Much love,
Stephanie

Knitting Update Nine

Well, this is it for now friends. I have knitted all the skeins I brought with me to China. There should be one square for every person that gave me yarn as a present. If you gave me yarn and did not see a square labeled from you, please tell me!

I will probably have to knit a couple more squares so that my final blanket can end up being the right shape. Right now I am pretty sure I have 33 squares total (there may be another one floating around there somewhere). If I knit two more I can have a 5x7 square blanket...

Anyway, here are the last of them! This is from Walt and Carolyn. Very pretty earth tones.
This is from my mom friend's Jean. She put a nice note in about "it's a small world" events that happened with her family and signed it "Jean (Vickie's bud) which I thought was cute. :-)
This is from the awesome Bethany and her friend Lynn.
And last but not least we have this square from George and Nora Santos, also from Kamatics.
So that's it for now until I get home. Part of me really wants to finish the blanket this summer while I'm home, but the more rational part of me realizes that working on an all wool blanket in the middle of the summer may not be the smartest idea...

THANK YOU SO MUCH again to everyone who generously gave me a skein of yarn for this blanket. I love it already and it's not even done yet!

If you want to see all the finished squares again I have them HERE in my facebook album.

Much love,
Stephanie

Knitting Update Eight

YAY! This time all four pictures behaved and uploaded in the same direction! Whoo!

I'm going to make this quick cuz I haven't posted in a while. This is very likely to be another multiple post day.

First up is a square with yarn from Donna.
This square was made with yarn from my Aunt Susan.
This square was made with yarn from Frank and Flo (who got me an unheard of TWELVE skeins of yarn as a grad gift. It was hard to choose which skein from them to use for my blanket.)
And the last for today is a square made with yarn from Twila.
You may have noticed I am kind of zipping through the squares lately. I made a promise to myself to have the squares all done after one year, regardless of my plans for the upcoming year. I only have three skeins left here, and after they are done I will have completed one square for every person who gave me yarn. I may have to make a couple more squares just so I have the right number of squares for a blanket, but my original plan will be finished in just three more squares...

Package From Elysse/Julia

Elysse sent me a package of awesomeness. It included a pretty ring from Cyprus, Cadbury creme eggs, scotch whiskey, an awesome drawing, a stuffed haggis, hand spun wool and more!

Here are two of my favorite things in the package. First is this picture she drew of our characters from our school's medieval festival in 2007. We were sisters, but I was playing a woman dressing up as a man so she could be a soldier, so she called me her sbrother. Her name was Julia and mine was Joseph(ine). Tom is in the bottom of the picture all bruised and scratched up because we beat him up on the living chessboard.
Just to show you how awesome Elysse is, here is a picture of the three of us that day just for comparison.She also sent me some hand spun wool (that still smells like SHEEP!). To all my knitter friends, if you have an idea for a good pattern with which to honor this fine wool, please let me know!
Also, here is the video of me opening me the package (since Elysse specifically asked). Youtube has been blocked in China for a while so I posted it on facebook instead.



Anyway, thanks to Elysse/Julia and once I travel out to a super secret location and buy super secret gifts, your package will be put in the mail.

Love,
Stephanie/Sproffee/Joseph(ine)

Knitting Update, Lucky Seven

I have been obsessed with knitting the past couple of days. (Yeah, ok, what's new...right?)

I'm not exactly sure what started it. I've been flying through some blanket squares since I realized I intended to finish all of them within the year and I only have two months left in the school year. Elysse also mentioned that she might be sending me Scottish wool. And the Spring 2009 Knitty went up recently. I've also been hugely distracted by the Yarn Harlot's blog for the last few days. It got so bad that I told myself I wouldn't even turn on my laptop today at work until I corrected at least 20 midterms. My newest dream is to start spinning my own yarn one day.

Every time I finish a blanket square there is always a tiny amount of yarn leftover. Too much for me to even consider throwing it away, but too little to do ANYTHING with. So I'm trying to be creative with ways to use it up. The first was making a scarf for my mother for Christmas out of all the scraps I had at that point. (I didn't take a picture of it, sorry.) The most recent thing I did was make a guitar strap. I did a similar pattern to the blanket and then felted it and sewed it into a tube. (That was my excitement for Easter, by the way) It's probably not strong enough to hold up the guitar by itself so my plan is to buy a cheap, plain guitar strap when I get home and cover it with this colorful tube.
Isn't it pretty? Yinglong (my guitar) said he liked it very much and wanted me to use it right away. I explained he would have to wait until I got a base strap to use. Then I realized I was talking to my guitar and made sure to leave my apartment and talk to real people.

Anyway, on to what you all actually want to see...the blanket squares!

This first square is made with yarn from Debbie Knapp.
This one is yarn from Alice G. over at Kamatics. This square gets bonus points because it is behaving and uploaded horizontal. Stupid blogspot, why do you keep rotating my pictures??
And the last finished one in this batch is from my Aunt Lynn.
I just have to knit about three more rows on the square that's on my needles right now (from Donna) and then I am moving on to Frank and Flo's yarn.

Love,
Stephanie

P.S. OMG I just discovered Wikiknitting! You may not hear from me for a few days...

Knitting Update Six

Time for a knitting update!

This square is yarn from Emily Gaudinski.
This is from Kathy Pelky.
This is from Cori Brauer (told you I would get to it eventually, Cor).
And this square is yarn from the Socolosky family.
I am pretty sure the yarn I am working on now is from Debbie Knapp but I'm not 100% sure..

Knitting Update Five

First off, Happy Birthday Mama-San! :-)

I am a bit behind in my knitting updates. I got some squares mixed up but I am about 95% sure I got it all figured out. For some reason blogger is being stupid and even though I rotated and saved these pictures in the correct position three times, they still have half the pictures flipped one way and half the other. Bah.

First off, we have this square from Sabrina and Mike. I worked on it while I was on the plane both heading home for my visit and on the way back.
This is the first square I finished after my trip back to Shanghai. It's from Alice Powers at Kamatics.
This square is kinda special because I knit it on my trip to Harbin. It's from Emanuela from my mom's work.
And this square is from Auntie Bonnie. The colors in the yarn look so much better when I take the pictures in sunlight. I should do that from now on.
I am currently knitting up a square with yarn from Emily G.

Love,
Steph

Knitting Update Four, Nanjing Pictures Link

I was a speed demon and went right through four more squares. Here they are!

This is from Dawn at Kamatics. She wrote a really sweet note and stuck it in the yarn. Now the note is on my wall of love and here is the finished square.
This yarn is from my Grandpa and Grandma Stebbins. I really love this color combination. Like a sunset.
This is yarn from my cousin Savannah. This color skein seemed to be a popular choice. I'm guessing because I like blue so much. :-)
Annnnd this one is from Kim! This was one of the ones I got in the mail. Mmm purple and pink.
That's it for knitting for now. Currently working on a square from Auntie Bonnie.

Also, if you want to see more pictures from my Nanjing trip you can see my albums HERE and HERE.

Knitting Update Three, and Other Pictures

I like doing these so here is another post made up mostly of pictures!

First of all, I bought another bootleg book. I didn't even notice what was so special about this book until this weekend. I think unless you have been living under a rock you know what name/words should be in the big blank space on the cover. I guess my mind just filled in the blank automatically when I bought it. Apparently I am reading J.K. Rowling and the Deathly Hallows.
I got some yarn this weekend at the craft market since some people were interested in a knitting group but didn't know where to get yarn. I figured I would get the yarn and needles and have them pay me back. Here is my pseudo-artsy picture of the materials I got.
While I was at the craft market I bought these gloves. I know you are saying "Stephanie, you just bought those fingerless glove/mitten things, why do you need those?" Well, the gloves I already have are too thick to wear while typing and sometimes it gets cold enough in the office that I just want a little extra warmth. Plus they were only 10rmb.
I haven't posted a knitting update in a while, mostly because I have been doing other crafty stuff. Here are the two lasted completed squares of my epic blanket.

This square is made from yarn from my Grandma Rice.
This square is made from yarn that Lee gave me.
Now to post a real update!

Love,
Stephanie

Knitting Update: The Deuce

Here are some more finished squares (I have to slow down or this blanket is going to be finished much too quickly).



I have no idea why this picture is rotated differently. This square is yarn from the MacPhail family.

This is made from the skein of yarn from Patty Chung from Kamatics.


This was made with a skein from the Morton family. :-)

Knitting Update

Just wanted to put up the pictures of the squares I've already completed for the blanket!

I know they look kind of lumpy, but once I steam them, they will flatten out and be easier to connect.


This first square is made from the skein of yarn given to me after I gave a talk about China at Jessica's (Donna's daughter) school. I don't know if it was from Jessica or the school, but here it is!

This square was knitting from a skein of yarn given to me by John Martin and his family.
This square is from Bruce (from Kamatics) and Jen.
This was the first square I made en-route to and in China. It's a skein from Chelsea Rowe.
I finished this square last night. The yarn was from the Millers.

I am picking which yarn to work on by random. I reach my hand in the bag and work with whatever comes out. Now I am working on a square with yarn from Patty Chung (also from Kamatics). Of course I didn't realize until I started it that it's the same color scheme as the yarn from the Miller's. Oh well!