Knit Makeup!

I am a little brat.  This week with all the rain and the impending visit from the boyfriend's parents means I'm temporarily scaling back on the knitting in favor for some heavy duty late spring cleaning around his house  So off and about I've been picking up cleaning supplies and just plowing through room for room with the boyfriend with moderate success.  We have the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen clean so those are just a matter of maintaining for the next few days but the next challenge is the living and dining room area. 

This doesn't necessarily mean though I haven't kept knitting SOMEWHERE in my mind though.  During my stop at the Super Target I was completely charmed by the makeup aisle for a buy 1, get 1 free coupon on certain Physicians Formula powders and fell in LOVE at first sight with the Cashmere collection.  Adorable!  The girl-girl in me nabbed up the blush in Natural since its easier for me from experience to just build up with a lighter shade than try to tone down when I accidentally add too much with a darker.  The Bronzer I got in regular Bronze by accident because I wanted the Light Bronze for a more honey golden look.  This mistake was not realized until AFTER I got home.  :(

Still, I figured since I opened the packages, I'd give both colors some love and it turns out I love these little guys.  They came in little velvety brown boxes with an adorable tassel and even better...purl, knit, and cabled imprints!  I didn't take a picture of them in their original sales package but you'll recognize them in most general makeup aisles otherwise just google and I'm sure someone has a picture of them in the original packaging.  I just tore into them when I got home. 

The blush was JUST the right shade for me without being too crazy dark or Mimi-reddish.  Just a nice, soft, warm pink that I can build up and play with.  The bronzer meanwhile ended up THANKFULLY looking good.  The Light Bronze may have ended up being almost too light because I have a weird skin tone that looks like a medium but some colors end up overreacting and looking too dark or uber-too light very easily because of my undertones so that's why I was a bit reluctant to have the regular Bronze at first.  Was it too dark?  Nope!  It went on perfectly and was blendable and felt smooth.

So that was my knitting makeup diversion!  I love these little guys so much that I may have to try and play with them in the morning and get a little dolled up for work.  <3

Cloud Drift, Drifting Away!

I'm zoom-zooming along through my Cloud Drift shawl.  It's definitely coming along very, very nicely and as I'm gauging how much of my Shadow Tonal Golden Glow yarn is left, I'm most certain that it'll use up a very good portion of my stash which is a sad thought to think about that after this shawl, I'll not have much if any at all left to knit with after growing so fond of this type of yarn.  So, the best logical step is to pick up more since it's being discontinued on Knitpicks.  It's been on the discontinued list for a while now but the price is at an all time low that I couldn't resist picking up a few more skeins while it's still available under the current price along with some in a red called Gypsy.  My total naughty treat even though I'm on a yarn diet.  :P 

Gosh, I love Knitpicks when yarn goes on sale.  The prices are within my range and while I still LOVE visiting my LYS to see and feel what I want to knit on a whim, there are a few staple yarns from Knitpicks that I adooooore.  Knitpicks, you complete me....and my yarn stash.

It reminds me heavily of one of the Worsted for Wear knitting web comics that popped up a few days ago.  Totally check them out here for the stash joke that came at the right time for me.  It's one of my favorite knitting centered web comics at the moment and they're usually spot on at poking fun with knitters and our obsessions in a way that I've been able to share clips of the comic with my non-knitting friends and they're able to get a light laugh out of it.  Or at me.  Whichever.  

I read Knit Princess too and it's enjoyable but they pick and drop artists every few months but my favorite was the artist they had briefly from January 2011 through January 2012 who had a kind of cute and whimsical style. Here's one of the archived months to get an idea of the artist's work at the time.  The current artist for Knit Princess has been working with a kind of Japanese manga-esque style but it sort of comes off sort of generic in a seaaaaaaa of manga-styled artists on the web.

I'll have to keep my eye open for an other knitting related comics.  I know of an actual comic book with superheroes that came out a while ago called Handknit Heroes.  Each issue comes with a pattern as well which is a cute idea although beyond that I don't know much more of it at the moment.

I'll keep my eye out for any other knitting web comics that pop up.  I so want for more!

Lace Destashing!!

 I'm destashing lace and lo and behold...my Golden Glow Cloud Drift shawl! Original pattern located here.  It's still in its baby stages.  The pictures don't do the yellow justice.  It looks in real life like a lovely deep, golden yellow but right now it looks like "pale, undercooked scrambled egg" yellow.  Actually, I get all warm and fuzzy (pardon the pun) nostalgic when I knit this shawl because pre-blocking it looks all fluffy and so yellow that it reminds me of scrambled eggs cooked on a Sunday morning.

The lace itself on Cloud Drift opens up (again, hard to tell by the pictures pre-blocking) to this really simple yet dainty all knit garter with spots of of open lace that reminds me of little sun drops or cat paws.  Choosing a fluffy merino blended lace yarn was definitely a GOOD choice with this pattern to give it a soft and fluffy, delicate cloud look but I would be curious if anyone has any alpaca blended interpretations of the same pattern.  So far I checked Ravelry and I keep checking every so often but the number of knitters to this project are still population: ME.  As such and given how much I quickly grew to love this pattern, I'm excited to try and make notation as much as possible the progress on this shawl as a reference point for other knitters.  

Looking on Ravelry is actually the FIRST thing I always do when I'm considering a pattern.  Partly to get a gauge on what other folks have tried in terms of yarn and needle size and what alterations or adjustments people made as they went along but mostly to help me predict how my version may look like.  It's cut me time and heck, I'll even use that to explore how different yarns I intended to buy tend to look like when knitted up in a variety of patterns by different users in the colors I was considering.  It's actually caused me to reconsider some of my yarn choices but also rethink my current yarn stash in a different light when I see what others have played with.  My only sadness is when I see an amazing end result that just blows all other projects out of the water but the user makes no mention of needle size, yarn, or adjustment notes in their project and you can TELL they worked some sort of knitting voodoo magic outside the norm but you haven't got the foggiest idea of where to begin with.

Aliens and Knitting

Back from road trips and Memorial weekend weddings. I got some knitting done but not a whole lot as I would have thought but that can be made up this weekend.  Syfy Channel has a Alien movie marathon today preempting the upcoming Prometheus so after a fun day shopping at the mall earlier today (something I've been wanting to do for a while) I'm sitting back and relaxing with my lace destashing projects.

The "Good Morning Sunshine Shawlette" is in the boyfriend's car because I didn't want to risk its needles being confiscated when I flew back as he continued on his road trip to visit family for the next couple days.  In the meanwhile. I started "My Heaven" and "Cloud Drift" side by side.  "My Heaven" is definitely a treat to knit and I've finished about 10 of the first 22 or 27 repeats for one side of the edging.  I haven't decided if i want to do the small or the large version but I'll figure that out when I get to 22 if I want to move forwad or sit down and power through another 5 repeats.  Mostly likely I'll bunker down for the large side as its not that many more repeats as I have more than enough Alpaca Cloud in Carob Heather for it.

The second shawl, "Cloud Drift" is going smashingly faster than the "My Heaven" even though there are more stitches to work with per row (143 in "Cloud Drift" center panel vs 23-27 in the edge of "My Heaven") but it's just so mindnumbingly relaxing with "Cloud Drift' that those rows fly by vs the chart problems that arise in "My Heaven."  Let's just say that the writer for "My Heaven" wrote the chart in an odd way where the icons don't change meaning for even and odd rows which causes me a double-take when I see a "/" vs a "\" or even just a simple "o" symbol because I am so used to the symbol meaning changes when moving my eyes along the pattern in the charts reading left to right and right to left.  There is, however, written out directions for the charts which I really should just follow although I will scratch out when they mean to "k1 p1" in one stitch to just scratch out "into yo" because my fast knitting brain immediately things to make a yo everytime and thus making extra stitches without thinking only to get frustrated and either rip back or drop the extra stitch.  Thus..."Cloud Drift" has become my mindless knitting project with its simple rows and relaxing all knit alternate rows.  Pics will eventually follow when I get my camera back.