Maryland

Last weekend I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. It was, as usual, absolutely amazing.

Maryland Sheep and Wool is always just stunning because it's so overwhelming. There are probably thousands of fiber artists there, knitters and spinners and crocheters and who knows what else. And the booths? Don't even get me started. I could browse the festival for the entire weekend and still manage to miss a few.

We saw lots of great booths, well stocked with yarn and fiber. I managed to miss photographing most of them, especially the crowded ones in the main tent, but I got a few pictures of the outdoor booths.

Before we left, of I had to grab a few skeins of yarn and some fiber! I'll post pictures within the next few days, but before I finish up this post you have to see this adorable lamb...

Crafting Balance

And welcome back to the final day of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week! Today's topic is...

Crafting Balance 
Are you a knitter or a crocheter, or are you a bit of both? If you are monogamous in your yarn-based crafting, is it because you do not enjoy the other craft or have you simply never given yourself the push to learn it? Is it because the items that you best enjoy crafting are more suited to the needles or the hook? Do you plan on ever trying to take up and fully learn the other craft? If you are equally comfortable knitting as you are crocheting, how do you balance both crafts? Do you always have projects of each on the go, or do you go through periods of favouring one over the other? How did you come to learn and love your craft(s)?

I learned to knit when I was six. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but since I learned so young it began to come naturally to me. Now, knitting is almost like second nature to me. My hands naturally fall into a rhythm when I knit. It's not difficult or confusing. All because I began when I was six.

(Okay, maybe I'm more like eleven in this picture. But it gets the point across.) Crochet is a different story. I dabbled in crochet a little when I was around nine or ten, but it never caught on the way knitting did. It didn't feel like instinct to me.

In the past few months, when I've tried crocheting, my stitches look rough and uneven, and my gauge is too tight. I'm more of a perfectionist now, and even when I'm trying new things I want them to look perfect. I'll rip out a wonky piece of crochet over and over again if I have to. That's probably not a good way to start out, and it just frustrates me.

Time is starting to prove that crochet really isn't my thing- either that, or I have to let go of my perfectionism until I improve my crochet. Sometimes I can pull off a simple crochet project with easy stitches, but I don't think it'll ever feel the same as knitting. For now, I'll stitck with beginning crochet and maybe a few combination knitting and crochet projects at the most.

But in the future, if I keep trying my hand at crochet, I'm convinced that I could pick it up. Maybe it won't be the same as knitting, but it could be a second option for faster small projects. I'm definitely a knitter at heart, but crochet is part of the picture. A small part, yes, but it's there. And it's important.

Today's tag is {3KCBWDAY7} If you want to see similar blog posts from other bloggers, browse more blog posts with this tag.

Improving my Skillset

Welcome to the sixth day of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week! Make sure to check out the post from earlier today, which was supposed to be posted yesterday. Sorry about that! Anyways, here is today's topic...

Improving Your Skillset
How far down the road to learning your craft do you believe yourself to be? Are you comfortable with what you know or are you always striving to learn new skills and add to your knowledge base? Take a look at a few knitting or crochet books and have a look at some of the skills mentioned in the patterns. Can you start your amigurumi pieces with a magic circle, have you ever tried double knitting, how's your intarsia?

I consider myself to be an intermediate knitter. Intarsia? Cables? Lace? I can do them. It's safe to say that I've tried out a few different techniques.

However, I can't say that I'm an advanced knitter. There are definitely a lot of skills out there that I've never tried, even though I'm sure I could do them- entrelac, double knitting, and I'm sure plenty of others. It sounds a little crazy to say that I've tried advanced intarsia projects, but not some of the simpler techniques out there.

Someday I'll be able to try out some more techniques, I hope. My range of skills is tiny compared to the amount of new and exciting things out there.

So, no, I'm not an expert knitter. But someday, I hope I will be.

Today's tag is {3KCBWDAY6} If you want to see similar blog posts from other bloggers, browse more blog posts with this tag.

Better Late Than Never

Time for the next topic in blog week, the one from Friday. Sorry for the late post- I had unexpected plans last night and didn't get to write up a post in time. This one is another challenging topic. Here's part of the summary, describing what to do...

Something A Bit Different
It's back, and this time it has the most amazing of prizes (look for the prize for 'most creative post'). This was a massive success last year, and for many it was the highlight of the Blog Week, so this year you are challenged, again, to find a new way of blogging. This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create.There are no rules of a topic to blog about but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog.

So, looks like it's time to try something new... a poem!

There once was a pig named Dudley,
A pig that was warm and cuddly. 
Dudley often liked to munch on figs,
He was knit from the pattern Pigs With Wigs. 

Dudley was made as a Christmas gift,
But as he grew older he began to drift.
See, he had a problem, it made him feel frail
From the top of his nose to the tip of his tail.

It turned life dark and dreary and gray,
It spoiled every moment, every day. 
On his face it put a frown,
And it turned him upside down. (Literally.)

Dudley hoped and prayed for a fix,
The problem weighed on him like a pile of bricks.
It made him scared, made him feel bare...
See, the problem was, he had no hair.

Dudley begged Emma to make him greater,
But Emma just said, "I'll do it later."
Days, weeks, even months passed,
Without a change from the time Dudley had asked.

Dudley began to slowly lose hope,
He started to cry, started to mope,
Emma felt guilty, but she was still at her calmest,
She was too lazy to do what she promised.

 

Now, readers, it's up to you to decide
Whether or not Dudley's dream will survive.
Can you somehow change the way Emma stalled?
Or will Dudley remain hairless, forever bald? 

Once again, sorry for the late post! I'll be getting today's post up in a few hours. Today's (well, yesterday's) tag is {3KCBWDAY5} If you want to see similar blog posts from other bloggers, browse more blog posts with this tag.

A Knitter for All Seasons

Here we are with the fourth day of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week! Yesterday's post was a little short since it was such a challenging topic for me, so I'll try to put a little more effort into today's post. And the topic for today is...

A Knitter or Crocheter For All Seasons?
As spring is in the air in the northern hemisphere and those in the southern hemisphere start setting their sights for the arrival of winter, a lot of crocheters and knitters find that their crafting changes along with their wardrobe. Have a look through your finished projects and explain the seasonality of your craft to your readers. Do you make warm woollens the whole year through in preparation for the colder months, or do you live somewhere that never feels the chill and so invest your time in beautiful homewares and delicate lace items. How does your local seasonal weather affect your craft?

Taking a few ideas I had seen on other blogs, I decided to chart out the number of projects I completed each month in 2010. I'm not a very prolific knitter. I'm very slow at knitting, and the number of extracurricular activities I have doesn't help much. I only finish about two or three projects a month on average. So, here's the chart!

As you can see, there's not a very obvious pattern to my number of finished projects. I have a slight increase on the number of projects aroudn August, but that's not because of the type of project. It's actually just because I have more free time during the summer, so I'm able to work on projects more often. 

Here are my projects from August 2010. As you can see, there's nothing strictly summery about any of them. In summer, I tend to knit projects that are preparing for the winter and the holiday season, such as hats and scarves, or small toys and stuffies. So how about fall and winter?

These are all of my projects from February, both in 2010 and 2011. (I had a distinct lack of projects in 2012.) If you can tell, I tend to use a lot of blues and purples, only a few of projects are aimed directly at winter. Earrings? Shawls? Rabbits? None of those really say "winter." 

So, am I a seasonal knitter? I'm going to have to say no. Maybe I look ahead, or maybe I just take inspiration from the seasons, but I think that the best explanation is that I knit whatever I feel like knitting. Most of that doesn't involve the seasons. I end up with things for all seasons, but sometimes it's a shawl knit in dead winter or a sweater stitched in the summer. It's crazy, but it's me.

Today's tag is {3KCBWDAY4} If you want to see similar blog posts from other bloggers, browse more blog posts with this tag.