The Last of the Finished Hats

This is the last of the hats that I was knitting up for Christmas and it'll go out in the mail tomorrow! :)

Sutro Heights Hat

This was such a cool pattern and was super easy to read the chart. I must say, it almost stayed with me! It only took me a day to knit up though and I have enough of the yarn left that I can make one for myself later if I start to miss it. hehe I love how the lace pattern lines up with the ribbing! Hope the recipient will enjoy this one! :)

I have another finished project, this time a simple Sunday Market Shawl to use up the rest of my handdyed yarn that was going to be socks but was a pain in the butt. lol It's blocking now, so I'll show you pictures tomorrow!

School starts tomorrow again. *sigh* I'm so not ready for my week long vacation to be over. How the heck did it go so fast?? I only have two weeks of class left, though... then it's finals and I'm home free! It's going to be a crazy couple of weeks....

Free Yarn for Charity Knitting

EDIT: WOW you guys. I am totally overwhelmed with the amount of response I've received! Thank you so much to everyone who has come to me with very worthy causes and I'm so super excited that I'll get to help out! I've got about 9 emails since this blog post was put up, and I think I've got enough requests that all the yarn will be given away now! Thank you so much to everyone. I'll update this post again if it happens that I still have some left. :)

Sooooo.... I don't know what I did right, but yesterday I picked up MORE FREE YARN. A couple of friends went home for Thanksgiving and somehow the topic of my knitting came up. My friend's mom was super excited that I knit and offered me her stash! Get a load of this:

stash unloaded

and another view:


Yes, that's my dining room table that it's covering!!

Most of it seems to be 100% acrylic and I really don't have anywhere to store all this yarn, so I would like to offer this yarn up to anyone willing to knit for charity. Any charity at all. If you're willing to pay the shipping for the flat rate box then I'll ship as much as I can stuff in to it for ya. You could even pick your colours if you wanted!

Send me a message or leave me a comment with your zip code and whether you want a small or large flat rate box and I'll get you the shipping price. 'Tis the Season, right? :)

Find a Deal Friday... Black Friday Edition!

Ack! Too many sales to features them all! I'm just going to make a huge list I think. LOL

Saffron Dyeworks is offering 15% off everything in the Etsy store, mostly sock weight yarns including ones like this fun holiday colour mix:

440 Yards, fingering weight, Merino/Nylon, regular $23.95, 15% off

Yarn4Socks.com is giving 30% off everything, including yarn, needles, stitch markers, patterns, and Kits, (excluding closeout) through Saturday night.

Handpaints by Artsygirl has a large offering of handpainted yarns and rovings for 15-25% off. I can't find on her site when that one ends... huh... weird.

Eat.Sleep.Knit is doing something way fun. They guarantee that you'll get at least 10% off your order, but during checkout you could get a surprise of up to 100% off your order! Yes, that's free! hehe Worth a try, right? She carries all the big names like Lorna's Lace, Malabrigio, and Unique Sheep.

SunSet Fibers on etsy has everything marked down at least 15%, valid through friday at 10PM. For anyone who spins, her coloured top is amazing looking:

Hand Painted Corrigale top, 4 oz for $10

Julia's Yarn is new to me, but it looks like she's having a huge Black Friday blow out with some prices more than half off of yarn in bags of 10 or individually. Up to 74% off if you're willing to buy wholesale, meaning 140 skeins at once! That's a LOT of knitting! LOL Tons of other good deals too though, available through friday.

The Loopy Ewe is closed at their brick and mortar store, but is offering some good deals online. From their blog, "30% off all Cherry Tree Hill, Creatively Dyed, Indie Dyer, J. Knits, and Opal. You’ll also find 20% off all Earthly Hues, All Things Heather, Sknitches, Sugar Bunny Blvd, Noro and Schaefer. "

The Interweave Knits store is offering 20% off of all patterns purchased this weekend.

And of course, one of my favorite Etsy stores, Yarntopia, has such amazing prices, she belongs in with this Black Friday grouping. Her prices are AMAZING and her yarn is so so so beautiful!

300 Yards of sport weight cotton/linen, handpainted, $7

This Week's Progress

Howdy everyone! I have some exciting finished objects to show you! My Christmas knitting is quickly coming to a close with only small package adornments and stocking stuffers being completed now.

I did take a break from all that to cast on and complete Mr. Pie's long awaited bulky socks. My first completed pair of socks EVER! These were made from the latest recycled sweater and I certainly have enough for a couple more pairs of socks. I love how they turned out, but it's a super bulky wool and I knit them on size 7's so my hands were just aching after doing these for a bit. I think it took me a little longer because of that. They also don't have a lot of stretch in them which made it more like knitting cotton than knitting an acrylic/wool mix. I used up the rest of my Wool of the Andes Bulky for some contrasting toe action, and test dyed some of the cream recycled to see how well it would take colour, then used that swatch as the heel. hehe

Mr. Pie is very happy with them and has been wearing them every evening since they came off the needles. Yay! They were knit from the toe up on two circulars and I have to say, I'm totally and completely in love with this technique. ALL my socks will be knit like this from now on! I'm looking forward to diving in to more sock yarns and patterns now, too.

After those were done I cast on some more dishcloths for stocking stuffers and have these done so far, with only two more to go:


All other gifts for Canadian Family are wrapped and have either a little teddy bear ornament or a stocking ornament attached (sorry for the crappy photo, but it's dark outside this early! hehe) :



Here's a couple others that will go on packages to the other side of the family that aren't wrapped yet:


So I just have a piece of leather to attach to my Brother's gift (need to punch holes in the leather so I can sew it), finish two more dish clothes and then wrap Brother's gift and the package will be in the mail early next week! YAY!

New Yarn!

I can't count or express the number of times I've felt really truly blessed by my new knitting community friends, and when I got this package in the mail, it totally blew me away...


From the same lady, KnitaBit, who gave me my last batch of green fabulous yarn!! She was talking about how amazing this encore acrylic/wool mix is for doing wearable items like sweaters, or useful items like afghans, and she sent me some to let me try it out! Thank you so so so much!! I'm definitely planning on This sweater right here:


I can't wait to get started! I just have a few more christmas odds and ends I have to knit so I can get the package out to my family back home! I've also done a ton of knitting (and not so much homework *ahem!*) the past weekend because school is out for Thanksgiving, so tomorrow I'll show you more with that!

Also, don't forget to visit Blue Mountain Handcrafts and Beth 1818 during the weekend after thanksgiving and enter the code "Sarah's Blog" to receive free shipping on orders over $50! :) Enjoy!

Tomorrow I'll update you more on what I've been completing! :)

Find a Deal Friday!

And just in time for your Black Friday preparations right? Has everyone made their lists and checked them twice?

No? Well maybe I can help with a little FADF lovin'! I am so excited that Blue Mountain Handcrafts has agreed to be featured! Beth makes such beautiful yarns, stitch markers, bags, and needle cases.

Plus! A Student Knitter Exclusive!! Enter the code "Sarah's Blog"
in the message box at checkout during the sale dates of
November 27th,28th, & 29th,
and get free shipping on all orders over $50!!

Here are just a few of my favorites things in her shops:

NASTURTIUMS washable wool handspun and Navajo plyed
51 Yards Bulky, $9.00

Handspun Superwash Merino Yarn
133 yards Worsted, $19.00

MULLED WINE Handspun BFL Yarn
250 Yards Fingering, $35.00

Beautiful needle rolls:

$22.00

And project bags:

$29.00

Stitch markers recycled from broken vintage jewelry:

Set of 7, $6.00

AND THEN... the fun's not over! Beth also keeps an absolutely gorgeous vintage jewelry store on Etsy too called Beth1818 Vintage Costume and Fine Jewelry. She has some amazing pieces right now, and I'm not usually a big jewelry kinda gal, but check these out:

locket, $32.00

Brooch, $12.00

Bracelet, $39.00

She has given us who follow her blog a heads up! On Blackfriday she'll be
having a 25% off sale at her Jewelry store AND at her knitting store she is
having a giveaway for your choice of one of those amazing project bags!
Every purchase over $25 gets your name in for the drawing.

Only a week until I can start decorating my house my Christmas and I'm really excited! Enjoy your shopping everyone!

I Have the Coolest Yarn Friends EVER

Jenny, from Jenny's Blog on Knitting, You are the coolest in the whole world!! Look at this awesome care package I got from her!

Here's what it has:
Biggest one: Kunstgarn (25% wool/75% superwash wool)
Blue/green chunky: Hjertegarn Damans (50% acrylic, 50% superwash)
Black: Drops Merino (100% superwash wool)
Burgundy & Pink Chunky: Drops Eskimo (100% wool)
Self-Striping in Blue/green/red/yellow: Hjertegarn (100% wool?)
Tiny yellow/pink/orange: Milk Fiber yarn from Viking

I can not WAIT to have time to touch and play and knit these!! I think blue/green chunky might go in to Mr. Pie's other heel! hehehe!

Oh, and did I mention the chocolate?? This stuff is to DIE for! It'll be consumed in a bubble bath tonight with a glass of wine. ;)

Thank you so much, Jenny!!

My next Cast On

I decided to go ahead and cast on the last hat that I'll need to knit for Christmas gifts. I decided on this one here:

The Meret (Ravelry Link)

Here's a top down view:

It's an extremely popular free design on Ravelry with over 1800 projects listed! The yarn I chose for it was this recycled yarn that decided it didn't want to be a sweater. It's an angora blend, so it'll be a little bit more... fluffy. hehe I hope it works out! As usual, I'll keep you guys posted! :)

Christmas Knitting Continues

Hey guys! How is everyone's Christmas knitting coming along? I feel like I've been at it forever now. It's been months that I've been getting all this stuff together! lol

I'm almost done though. I have a few other projects I can cross off my list, including socks for Mr. Pie. He's been asking for socks for ages and ages, since I first started learning to knit. I tried with double pointed needles and hated HATED doing that, so I gave up. Now, with my new discovery of Silver's Sock Class, which is a step-by-step free guide to knitting socks from the toe up and on two circle needles, I'm actually enjoying knitting socks! I've got my first one done so far:


I love how I'm able to custom size them to his feet when they're toe up like this! I'm making these primarily from left over Knit Picks Wool of the Andes (the orange toes) and the white chunky sweater that I unraveled last week. They are coming out so thick and comfy, but they're hard on the hands to knit because I'm doing these on #7 needles. lol It's a very dense fabric!

Also, I took a short break to knit another one of these cute little bunnies. All the little girls in my family (and I have 4. lol) are getting a little bunny in their stocking:


These little bunnies are the only toys I've ever made because they're knit flat and then sewn. Again with the DPN phobia. hehe Maybe I'll branch out a little more now!

I have one more hat to knit, and then maybe another pair of socks like this for another family member. I have a whole bunch of the Simply Soft Caron still in both brown and green so I think I might want to try some stranded colour work! Wish me luck!

School is almost done! Can you believe it? I have one week of class, then the week of thanksgiving I have off. I'll have two weeks once I go back and after that it's finals! How crazy is that? I just have three more weeks to hang in there! I have a feeling I'll be spending much of my break knitting. hehe ;)

Drum Roll Please....

And The Winner Is....


LISA from Molta Di Moda Designs!!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered! I'm feeling the love from all my new followers! I look forward to clicking through on many of your names and seeing who has a blog and who is on Ravelry that I can stalk and look at projects. hehe

Congratulations Lisa! Email me your address and I'll get all that out to you asap!

I have another Ravelry friend!

I want to tell you about the sweetest lady I met today! She's on a quick overnight visit to the little tiny town I live in and came for a cup of tea. I love meeting new people, but I especially love meeting new yarnie types. They are all the nicest sweetest people and my new friend is no exception!

She came bearing gifts!

Nuna by Mirasol

This has got to be some of the nicest yarn I have ever owned. It's 40% Merino wool, 40% silk and 20% bamboo and it is SO. SOFT. I have no idea what I'm going to knit with it, but I'll tell ya something: It's gonna be something for Me. hehe!

Thank you Knitabit!! I feel so spoiled and I can't tell you thank you enough! :D

Projects Started and Projects Updated

Before I talk about anything I'd like to remind one and all, before Monday:

Do Not Forget to enter my Yarn Giveaway to
celebrate my 100th post!

I'll draw probably about 5:00pm EST I think, and I'll count all entries up until I've run the numbers through random.com.

So, on to other cool business! I've been a busy bee so far this weekend! On top of a TON of homework that needs to get done, I've been taking time out to both finish up a few projects around the house, and then to start a few new ones.

Remember when I posted about my room change around? You've seen pictures of how the dining room came out, but here's the other end of the house where the credenza came from and the chest got moved to.


The picture was there originally over top of the credenza; we just swapped out for the chest in the same spot. The peg rack we made and hung last weekend out of just a 1x4 and some wooden pegs painted green. Just 10 minutes ago I finished throwing together that little no-sew slip cover for the piece of foam on top of the chest. Now I have a cute spot for people to take their shoes off and hang up their coats! All in all this project cost me maybe $20 in fabric (entry and dining room together) for a look that has really made me feel like the house has been jazzed up!

Does this little bird guy look familiar? He was a left over scrap from the blinds re-do that is in the picture above. I liked him so much I put him in a frame and hung in the next room!


So that was tonight. hehe LAST night I decided to take my own advice and I started to unravel one of the sweaters that was in my frog pond. This one was 50/50 Wool and acrylic and it's VERY bulky. I've been enjoying knitting in bulky lately so I thought this would energize me. And has it ever!


As you can see I'm not quite done and I already have a whole lot of this stuff. I love it! This morning I decided to try and see if wool/acrylic blends could take colour and the answer is well... yes. But not how you would expect it to.


This came out much greyer than I imagined it would, but that's okay. It's not a large piece and I used a TON of colour (both Kool Aid and food colouring) in blue with a touch of red added so it wasn't so bright. I think I'm going to use it as a contrast for my first project.

Which was to be, I decided with yarn in hand, to start those sock-slippers that I've been promising Mr. Pie. My problem in the past is I've always hated doing the whole double pointed needles thing. This time I went in search of a Two Circulars pattern for socks and found Silver's Toe-Up on Circulars Tutorial.


I can not tell you guys how stoked I am about this. I am SO excited I found a way I actually LIKE to knit socks! I only have two circulars in the right size and length in about two sizes, so I'm really really hoping that Santa is going to bring me a set of Knit Picks Interchangables for Christmas! ;)

I only have a few Christmas items left to finish, but mostly small stuff. Package toppers and some smaller gifts. I love it! I just have Mr. Pie to worry about now!

What to Knit... What to Knit...

After finishing a pretty spectacular weekend of knitting, I'm sort of uninspired as to what to start next. Here's just a few patterns that I have the yarn for, yet feel uninspired to cast on:

Flora Hat


Foliage


Meret Snuggler

May I'm just done with cowls and hats for a while? I'm seriously not sure what else I want to knit. I also have a few sweaters that are waiting to be taken apart. Maybe I'll get started on those. I'll let you guys know!

I apologize for not having a Find a Deal Friday for you today. School is absolutely kicking my butt. The good news? I only have 4 weeks of class left! AHHH!

More Finished Christmas Stuffs

First of all, thanks to everyone who has entered the giveaway so far! Remember - I'm going to leave it running for a week so keep the entries coming!

But now - Finished objects! I've been a very busy knitter over the last few days. I've got two more hat projects done. The first one is an orange ear flap hat that was knit in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky, which I have fallen in LOVE with. This stuff is so wonderful to knit! It's not scratchy like other 100% wool yarns at all!

Thorpe

The cool thing about this pattern is that it was knit from the top down and the ear flaps aren't knit separately. I also got to try knitting in the round with two circular needles for the first time! It was kind of confusing at first, but then once I got in to it I fell in love. I absolutely adore this method and I really really hope I get a Knit Picks kit of interchangables so that I can try socks like this! Then for finishing I crocheted a couple of rows of single crochet in brown, which I think finishes it nicely.

The second was a fun cabled pattern that I can't find the pattern to. Ugh. I think it was a Drops design from on Ravelry and I didn't save it in favorites! I used my Knit Picks City Tweek DK for this one and I think it came out really great! This yarn was an absolute delight to knit with, I'm telling you. I think it was a tad splitty, but I love love love the look of it. The button was an afterthought that I really enjoy.

modeling with no makeup

And Yes, that's me out in the late fall with a tank top on. There's something wrong with that, right? I think so too!

So, other than hats, I've been making some headway on another goal. I want to make little knitted ornaments to go on each of my family member's packages. (Mom, if you're reading this you can't tell!!)

Christmas Tree Bear Ornaments

These little bears are so freakin' cute!! They're about 2 or 3 inches tall and only take a little bit of scrap yarn to make. Each one took me about an hour including the stuffing and sewing. Then, I've also found a pattern for little tiny stockings!!

Stocking Ornament

These ones are a little more complicated than the bears because they're actually knit flat and then sewn up. I'm using some Knit Picks Telemark in sport weight because I loved the reds and greens together, but also because it's way way cheap and I didn't mind if the quality wasn't the best for these ornaments. But guys!! It's only $2 for 100 yards of 100% wool! It's not all that bad to knit with, either! I'll definitely be buying more of this in the future. :)

So that's what I finished since about middle of last week. hehe! My goal is to get all these gifts wrapped and packaged for December 1st when I can send them away to my family in Canada!

100th Post

Hi Everyone! I have had an awesome knitting-packed weekend, but all that news can wait for later. Right now, I want to have my very first

Giveaway!

And just in time for Christmas knitting to begin! In honour of 100 posts here at studentknitter.blogspot.com I want to send to one random person...


Yarn of course!! Because what do we love more than yarn, really? This is one whole sweater's worth of recycled light fingering to fingering weight, 100% cotton yarn in a beautiful dark grey and light grey heather. I'm don't know precisely how much there is, but it's definitely more than 2000 yards I'd say. It's a LOT.

So! Here's how I'm thinkin' it'll work:
1. Subscribe to my blog and you'll get one entry
2. Link to me from your blog and get one entry (don't forget to leave your blog address for me to see!)
3. Leave me a message in this post about what you love about the blog for one entry
4. Leave a message about what you think I could do better and it'll earn you one more

For a total of 4 possible entries in my Random.com list! I'll make the drawing one week from today on Monday, November 9th!

Good Luck!!