Yarn Along - Pont Neuf Weeks 4 & 5

Salutations! Obviously one of my favorite things is reading, but I'm also very fond of knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little weekly link-up where we showcase what we're working on and what we're reading. Once you're done here, head on over and see what everyone else is up to!

Well, I successfully met the deadline last night! I finished all of my increases and separated the back from the sleeves. Now it's just straight stockinette for about a million miles (~4.5 inches) and doing some waist-shaping. I'm so madly in love with the color I chose, still, and this yarn is truly delicious. Still. 

I'm also still working on my pumpkins! Seriously, y'all, these little things are so fun and easy and addictive to make! I loves them. And they're squishy and cute. I'm building an army of cute to take over mantles and fall table-scapes everywhere.

Reading:
I'm plowing right through The Secret History after buzzing through 3 hours of it over the weekend. I even listened to it in the car on my way to work in L.A. on Saturday. It was quite engrossing, actually, and it was interesting to do something different from my usual solo concerts in the car.

Of course, I also started reading a book I ordered online and received last Wednesday, True Ladies and Proper Gentlemen, a Victorian etiquette guide edited by a modern day woman. It's really interesting and I'm consistently amused by how useful and timeless so many of these suggestions and admonitions are.  It's odd that a girl in her mid-20s living in the 21st century would read a Victorian book of etiquette, but I find it quite charming all the same.


That's it for me today. You can also find notes and detailed specs on this project on my Ravelry Page. For more of what I'm reading, find me on Goodreads.What have you been reading and knitting lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!
Love,

Willow






*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in the post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with express permission. See the About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Pumpkins? Pumpkins!!!

Salutations! Obviously one of my favorite things is reading, but I'm also very fond of knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little weekly link-up where we showcase what we're working on and what we're reading. Once you're done here, head on over and see what everyone else is up to!

I know I should really be working on my Pont Neuf sweater because I said I would be done with the increases by the end of this past weekend. I promise I'll spend almost all of this coming weekend on it (I have to - my "deadline" is on Tuesday. Yikes!) 

Instead of working on my Pont Neuf, I made... PUMPKINS! Yes, I have been making a small army of adorable little crochet pumpkins for the last week and they are so much fun to make! I'm making them in a variety of colors and I've been playing with sizes by changing hook size and the number of pattern repeats. I have discovered, though, that using too large a hook means the fabric isn't dense enough and some of the poly-fill stuffing shows in the larger ones. I plan to try making a couple of really big ones with more stitches and by changing the pattern a bit. Basically I'm going to be gifting these away to just about everyone. 

 Not all of them have stems yet. Some of them don't even have stuffing...

Also, the bones of the pattern (which I've been toying with a great deal in the last week) offer up a lot of possibilities. For instance... Imagine stacking 3 of these on top of each other, and working them up in white. Do you see snowmen? Cuz I see snowmen!

Reading:
I spent most of my weekend cat sitting for dear Karen, which meant sitting on her couch with a cat on either side of me, crocheting pumpkins and listening to The Secret History. And oh my, how the plot has thickened!!! Murder, intrigue, ancient Greek rituals and secret plans of escape and that's not even the half of it! There were a few moments when I woke up Snow and Popeye (the cats) because I actually yelled a few "OH MY GOSH"'s at certain parts involving extreme revelation. I'm glad to be getting back into it, too, because it's a nice way to occupy my mind while I'm making pumpkins. Did I mention I'm making an army of pumpkins? 


That's it for me today. You can also find notes and detailed specs on this project on my Ravelry Page. For more of what I'm reading, find me on Goodreads.What have you been reading and knitting lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!
Love,

Willow






*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in the post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with express permission. See the About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Pont Neuf, Wk.3

Greetings! Obviously one of my favorite things is reading, but I'm also very fond of knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little weekly link-up where we showcase what we're working on and what we're reading. Once you're done here, head on over and see what everyone else is up to!

This week has totally thrown me off. I completely forgot yesterday was Wednesday so here we are on Thursday yet again with the Yarn Along-ing. Oh well. My Pont Neuf sweater is coming along beautifully and I'm almost done with the yoke increases. About 8 more rows to go and then I get to divide the body and sleeves. My goal is to get there by the end of the weekend so I can work more on Lila's Tallulah and get to work on a few other crafty projects I have going on right now...(more on that later - maybe next week if you're lucky ;) )

 Crappy picture is crappy. Sorry not sorry. ;)

Reading:
I'm about 30% through Donna Tart's engrossing novel, The Secret History, but I've hit a bit of a wall. I seem to have start-itis with the books lately! It's incredibly frustrating especially since I want to knit all the things so I have to stick to the audio books. Well... I don't have to, since I'm self-limiting, but still. Frustration. I may have to return to trusty Elizabeth Klett reading Jane Austen while I knit since that's pleasant background noise for stories I already know really well. We'll see what the weekend brings.


That's it for me today. You can also find notes and detailed specs on this project on my Ravelry Page. For more of what I'm reading, find me on Goodreads.What have you been reading and knitting lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!
Love,

Willow






*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in the post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with express permission. See the About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Pont Neuf, Wk 1&2 and Lila's Tallulah, Wks 4,5, 6

Greetings! Obviously one of my favorite things is reading, but I'm also very fond of knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little weekly link-up where we showcase what we're working on and what we're reading. Once you're done here, head on over and see what everyone else is up to!

Y'all, I've lost track of how long I've been working on Lila's Tallulah cardi. But I'm still trucking! I seriously struggle with pattern fatigue and I always always forget that. Make two hats in the same pattern for my sisters for Christmas! Omg is it over yet I hate this pattern so much now. Make fingerless gloves! Omg do I really have to make two of them??? I'm slowly beginning to feel that with the Tallulah cardigan. I adore the pattern because it's simple, logical, and lovely. But it's a bit boring after a while. Miles of stockinette it feels like. Yeesh. I need to plug back into my audiobooks...

 The color isn't very true in this picture - it's really quite pink.

We started our Pont Neuf sweaters last week at Jaimie's house. We initially picked a different pullover-type sweater but since none of us were wild about it we decided to find one that we all actually really liked. I'd never done a provisional cast-on before and I wound up ripping mine out and starting over because my initial crochet chain cast on was waaay too tight. I'm almost 40 rows in and just over halfway through the initial yoke increases. I really like the pattern so far - it's interesting without being impossibly difficult, which I think is an important balance. Also, I just love this color. It's not a color I usually wear so I think it'll be really really pretty when it's done. 

  Reading: I had to put Sense & Sensibility down. I just wasn't enjoying it and life's too short! I know I'll come back to it someday but until then... I downloaded the Audible version of The Secret History read by the author herself, Donna Tart! I'd heard amazing things about it on the internet from people whose tastes I resonate with and oh, they were right! It's one of those stories where you know what happens from the beginning, but the how it all happens is the really interesting bit. Also, the prose is blisteringly beautiful. A little self-indulgent perhaps, but I love it anyway. I also really like that I can't tell what year it's set in. I'm thinking the late-70s or 80s because no one has a computer or a cell phone but there are references to things that happened in the late-60s and college financial aid is a thing. It's set a bit outside of time, which is kind of nice. I'm not quite halfway through (the audiobook is 22 hours long!!!) but it's really great to listen to while I'm doing all these increase rows since the increases are easy to memorize and otherwise it's straight stockinette.

That's it for me today. You can also find notes and detailed specs on this project on my Ravelry Page. For more of what I'm reading, find me on Goodreads.What have you been reading and knitting lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!
Love,

Willow






*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in the post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with express permission. See the About Page for details.*