FO!

i have finished an object! the grown-up baby sweater is complete, minus the buttons. i will take a trip down to ye old len's and pick up some buttons to make it look a little less girl. no word yet on the baby gender, and i'd rather not present jen with a coral/orange/pink sweater for her brand new baby boy. i'll man it up with some fun buttons, bright colours or maybe shapes. and if it is a girl, every little girl needs reptile buttons on her first sweater. wanted to post a picture, but my camera is charging. apparently if you don't use it all the freakin' time, the battery wears down from sitting around and not being used. what evs, will post soon then, maybe when buttons are attached.

in the meantime, i have begun my felting journey. with the dusty and musty discount 100% wool from len's (which made me sneeze when i starting knitting with it), i created a swatch, and have since felted said swatch. the excitement is mounting. it measured 4"x4", just like it's supposed to be, according to the label. still waiting for it to dry, but it got at least a bit smaller. i could feel the little fibers tighten up when they went from the hot soapy water to the ice cold water bath. it was glorious.

ps. wet wool smells worse than wet dog (which is a smell i actually enjoy). as soon as my swatch touched the water, it unleashed sheepish barnyard odour, to the max. my hands still kinda smell like it. maybe next time i'll wear gloves.

i should document my experiments with felting, step by step. still not sure which project to start with. i don't really want to waste yarn with something lame and overly simple. i'm thinking the squid might be a nice first project. i thought about making the squid for sassy, but i'm pretty sure she would tear its legs off. sassy can't have nice things.

in the spirit of posting pictures, i present two projects recently completely for my fuzzy-headed boy:

the "coffee tea or me?" tea cozy to meet his tea drinking needs, a christmas present
the transformer mittens, because my poor boy never wore mitties and his hands suffered. this is a modified pattern from a very nice mitten pattern i've used at least 4 times. i found the tops to be too pointy in the original pattern, so i rounded them out a bit for these mittens.

until i post again!

my very first blog. oh man. let me start by defining what i hope this space will be for me. i hope to express my frustrations with life and everything in it, and to share the good things too. this will be a place to publish my self-reflections, so i can look back on them and maybe learn something. i also plan to share my knitting journeys, my projects both great and small, and my upcoming ideas for things to do.

had my dining room meeting with jean-paul this week, he figured we should know where we stand going into "exams". i'm doing better than expected, but he suggested i keep a journal of my dining room thoughts: things i think i did well, things to work on, etc, so i can keep track of how i'm doing. as lame as a journal about service seems, i really liked that idea, and i'm running with it. i only have 2 more weeks of service left, but i have a whole summer of co-op to practice my skills. i think i'll also use this space to discuss my growth towards management material. i'm working on it.

knitting meeting coming up on tuesday. super excited. i've been hyping this one up to all my coworkers, and i'm expecting a decent turn-out. i'm finishing the baby sweater very soon. last night i completed all the baby sweater parts, and tonight we sew! i hate finishing projects, tying in ends and doing nice careful stitches. but it's such a small project, it's not really that much work. as for project the next, i have a few to choose from. i have yarn and patterns to make some felted stuffed animals (first felting projects, woo!), and a cotton market bag. will look over patterns and start something new tomorrow.