Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Slowly but surely making progress...

...with an emphasis on "SLOWLY" because progress has been slow!

I'm kind of, sort of in the middle of two projects that I picked up over the past few weeks... the first of which is almost done, the second of which is almost past beginning, and the third of which is... a major learning experience.

Project #1 is a free project I found on my favorite website these days (Ravelry) called the Lacy Crochet Kerchief. After completing my attempt at making a very basic baby blanket, I decided I needed a new challenge that would force me to learn how to read a crochet pattern... and this was a very good challenge for me. The first try came out... so-so. It was a bit asymmetrical (due to some confusion with the wording), but it still looked okay. I took a picture of it on my head, just to show how it (somewhat ideally) should fit on my (irregularly-shaped) head:



I took a quick look at it and hen took a quick look at what it should *REALLY* look like... and realized that my approach wasn't the most effective one I could have taken... which took me back to the drawing board. I mean, come on.. I was an engineer, and I used to design communication networks for the military... this couldn't be THAT difficult to decipher compared to complex network charts, right?!?!

Right. So I sat down at my desk-turned-temporary kitchen table (at least, until we own a nice enough place of our own to justify getting nice furniture) and started mapping out the design into a visual diagram. From there, I made some adjustments to (my interpretation of) the pattern and tried once again, starting from leftover blue yarn, which I realized wasn't enough to complete the project... so, once again, I had to improvise:



Ah, much nicer... and the contrasting colors added a great added touch to the "aesthetics" (for lack of a better term) of the kerchief! These are just about finished, but I wanted to add a little embellishments to them before I sent them off to my sisters (who probably won't wear them).

Project #2 is an attempt at making an amigurumi-based mini acorn purse/bag. Kinda totoro-esque, in a way, in anticipation of our baby boy arriving in July. I was hoping to go with a forest/animal theme for his room, with hopes of figuring out how to decorate it Totoro-style. Unfortunately, Totoro didn't reach much popularity in the US, so it's difficult to find Totoro-themed baby items. *sigh*

Project #3 is my attempt at self-teaching myself knitting: a very basic cabled scarf, which combines the basic knit and purl stitches with a little cabling. I was planning to take a knitting class, but I haven't been able to schedule one since my schedule is up in the air for the next month. I'm switching from being a NOCS-shift nurse on my floor to a day-shift nurse, which means that I finally get to enjoy a semi-normal sleep cycle and the comfort of being able to sleep with my warm (and cuddly) husband every night of the week. :)

One thing I'm definitely learning is the fact that while being a self-taught crochet-er (mom taught me how to make a chain when I was tiny, but I never really got far past that) is pretty difficult, being a self-taught knitter is INSANELY DIFFICULT!!! Wow. Thank goodness that youtube has free how-to videos on each of the stitches because it's almost impossible to learn it while reading from a book. ><

Maybe I'll update this with a recipe next week... I've been cooking without giving much thought to posting recipes on the blog (which kind of sucks because this is partially my way of saving/bookmarking my recipes as a backup to them being saved on my computer), but I'll try to find some time to put up another one. :)