snow, teddy bears, and lovely things

it snowed while chris and i were in conway a few weeks ago, and we couldn't resist! chris is wearing the turn-a-square hat, and the snowman is rocking a sweet leaf-tie! and then it snowed again last week here in fayetteville. but that day we just stayed in and drank cocoa and played video games.i made some simple socks for anna using opal's harry potter yarn in the malfoy colorway:
and here's a little bear for Baby Maybe Marriott, who seems due any day now! the pattern is Susan B. Anderson's (i adore her patterns!), and regia silk sock yarn. it ended up taking just a little over one skein, definitely not what the pattern calls for, so i'm not entirely sure what's up with that...but i love how he turned out!i've decided that, with all the fluff that i have left over from Izzy's giraffe and Maybe's bear, i want to keep making stuffed animals until i run out of fluff!

anyone out there on the internet care to teach me to crochet?

credit: lucyravenscar @ etsy

or how to sew something so cute as this:credit: talkproof @ etsy

or someone who's just dying to buy me one ;)

and i think i might pick up this months' copy of Stuffed Magazine, as talkproof is featured on the cover!
cheers, blogland!
<3 Kstitch

2010: a year of travel

I was fortunate to travel a lot of fun this year. I went someplace every month! Even if it was a few hours away to the beach or to my Grandparents house, I was a traveling fool. A handful of favorites from the year:

Best way to end the year:

Best big city weekend:

Best campus visit and sister time:

Best lake to visit multiple times during the summer:

Best historic 2 hour tour:

Best spring renewal at the beach:

2010: a year of knitting

i was looking through my ravelry projects, and i realized that, since starting this blog and starting work at Hand Held, my knitting has increased exponentially since mum first taught me how.

so here's a mash-up of this past year (in order of when ravelry says i started the project):

preemie hats, fair-isle hat for chris, 1st fingerless gloves, wide rib hoodie, welted fingerless gloves, ribbed lace bolero for the shop, giraffe for izzy, hoodwink for gayle, turkish bed socks (and pairs for aunt nancy, jacob, and chris' mom), mermaid scarf for anna, linen stitch scarf for mum, autumn phoenix fair isle hat, 1st toe-up socks, luna's moonlight socks, turn a square hat for chris, green lantern socks for hunter, reversible biking hat for dad, jayen hat, r2d2 hat, hermione's cable and eyelet fingerless gloves

i'm not sure if this is everything, or if i've forgotten something, but it all looks pretty good to me!

crafty highlights of 2010:
~starting work at Hand Held in may!
~making my first sweater!
~making a giraffe for izzy
~learning how to do socks, and in two different ways (in a week or so i hope to figure out a third!)!
~entering the sublime stitching embroidery contest
~designing my own fair-isle pattern
~cultivated the ability to knit and read at the same time

2011 crafting goals:
~take better pictures with my new nikon coolpix L110 (it's my baby!)
~take pictures of things on people, not just take awkward pictures of myself trying to model and photograph at the same time
~embroider more
~work my way through the Joy of Sox by Linda Kopp

happy 2011, blogland, and happy crafting!
<3 K-stitch

have your self a merry, knitted xmas!

dear blogland, i've been so remiss in updating you. so now i have a post for you, sharing 90% of what i knit for people this christmas (the other 10% is a half-done pair of socks, and a pair of turkish bedsocks i don't have pics of)

from left to right, starting at the top:
1) green lantern socks for hunter! men's size 10.5, koigu prettiness, symbol purled into the ankle, two-at-once, toe-up

2) 'reversible biking hat' for dad, used bigger yarn (Qina) and bigger needles (size 6) and upped the stitch recount and pattern repeat. i like this 'wrong side' best

3) hoodwink! for gayle; amy butler belle organic dk, thanks for the fun seed stitch pattern amy butler!

4) 'jayne' hat in spud & chloe sweater, moss stitch around the brim, watched the episode and looked at what everyone else was doing, used jared flood turn a square formula, and i learned i hate pompoms

5) linen stitch scarf for mum, 450 stitches for five inches (never going to make this scarf ever again, just this once for the woman who taught me to do all of this stuff), but lovely, lovely koigu

6) r2d2 hat, enlarged and expanded the pattern for worsted weight and adult head, more spud & chloe

i've got a some pictures of recipients wearing the accessories i knit, but i'm going to leave a mosaic of that until they all get in. i also just bought myself a better camera, so better macro shots will be up before too long!

for more pictures and details, check out my ravelry (my user name is KKPwnall).
tell me what you think!

(still technically) Friday Feature: doodles!

hey blogland, long time no post! this semester has gotten crazy, and i am itching for a break (not that last week's adventure to the nation's capital wasn't a fantastic mini-vacation, i just can't wait for a longer stretch).

i've done quite a bit of knitting, but none of it has been blocked or photographed yet, and as i have been neglecting our little crafty blog, i thought i'd share a bit of what i do when i'm not diligently taking notes or studiously...studying. or when lectures are boring or moronic...

click for bigger, doodle (c) Karen Pownall 2010
inspiration: hot air balloon/dirigible race = steampunkery; young sheldon = big bang theory; narwhal= narwhals; flowers =boredom; high cheeked angry man that turned out much creepier than i ever intended = harry potter? probably...; cute yoda & flower r2d2 = discovering and reading much of EPBOT's geekery and girliness blog, and this post in particular

i have a secret for you blog-readers, whoever you may be: for years i have been wanting to author and illustrate a webcomic. and i try to think of a really good story, and work at drawing people the same way multiple times, and somehow, i just can't make it past more than 5 or so strips before i lose motivation. so here's my most recent attempt: a strip without a plot, without context, that i spent four days 'perfecting.'

click for bigger, doodle (c) Karen Pownall 2010

also, you should check out these webcomics! they're all fantastic and i read and reread them whenever i can.
ButterNutSquash
The Phoenix Requiem
Left-Handed Toons
The Zombie Hunters
xkcd
Penny Arcade

happy november bloggers!

November is...

for enjoying fall decorations while planning for festive holiday decorations! for TEACHING A WORKSHOP AT DONNA DOWNEY STUDIOS!! (just a little excited about this one!) for taking classes and learning new techniques. for making presents and starting new projects. for purging and organizing. for inspiration a plenty.


photo: flickr. post idea: kara. see my other thoughts here.

Autumn Wreath

Last fall/winter flew by and I saw a lot of craft inspiration on the internet but didn't carve out the time to make anything! I am determined to not let that happen this year! I have been decorating for Halloween & Autumn and saw this wreath decoration on a blog called Secondhand Suaviloquy. I love her whole mantle set up, but don't have a mantle but I am trying to make my apartment seem as homey as possible!

I have an old book I bought at a garage sale for the cover design so I decided that ripping out a few pages for this project would be acceptable, even though I love books so much the thought of ripping out pages makes me feel bad! I took pictures throughout my process so I could show you all a tutorial on how to make your own book page wreath!


1. Take a deep breath and rip out a bunch of pages from a book!
2. Rolling the pages is a big difficult to describe in words, but I used two layers of pages. The bottom layer keeps the page right side up and the roll is a bit loose. I used tape to secure the rolled page. For the top layer, I turned the page on it's side and rolled it slightly diagonally until I got the shape I liked, again securing it with tape.


3. I laid out the rolled paper and saw my wreath take its shape. As you can see from the pictures, I flattened one side of the rolled pages, stacking them on each other, and used a stapler to secure the rolled paper together. I did that for both layers. I felt the top layer was a bit too long when I was laying it out, so I trimmed the ends before I stapled them all together. This created a more significant difference between the layers.


4. I needed a centerpiece to hid the ugly staples so I went to my scrap stash and dug out what Halloween paper I had. Most of what I had, had words on it and wasn't really the "look" I was going for. I found a maroon "autumn" paper and the orange does have halloween words on it but they are really small and monochromatic so you can barely tell that it's halloween paper. I used my circle punches to cut out the shapes and then crumpled up all the paper. When I flattened the paper back out it gave it a more distressed look to go with the old book pages. I secured the layers with a Making Memories brad and added the fabric ribbon flowers as an extra touch.

5. Now to put all the layers together. Unfortunately, my brad was not long enough to go through all the layers, so I got out my handy craft glue and glued the two book page layers together. I set the closest thing (apple) on top as a weight while it dried.

6. Once it dried, I glued on the flower and voila! I had a handmade wreath! To create a way to hang it, I cut a couple lengths of curling ribbon and stapled them together and taped them to the back of the wreath. I hung my wreath off a floor lamp in my living room where I can see it and I am so pleased with how it turned out!



What do you think? Link me up if you make one too!