Ahoy!

~UPDATE~ 3/15/07

It's finally complete, and it looks totally awesome. The little fimo button I made came out perfectly. I made a square button with all three colors; black on the outside, then red, then white. That one was for the outside flap. I also a couple of red ones to go inside of the bag for the belt. Sigh.... think I have a pic of it though? Of course not. My wonderful son wouldn't hold still long enough for one when I first finished it (I had barely finished sewing on the buttons and laying it down when he snatched it and took off. He's been avidly watching the progress ever since he found out if was for him.) And now, we can't find it. :( I know it's somewhere in the house, I just can't figure out where. It's a good thing Spring Cleaning is coming up later this month. I'll get a good pic of it then. Hopefully.

~UPDATE~ 3/14/07

Finished! Well, almost. The bag itself was sewn together this morning and successfully felted during a 10 minute dance with the washer. I definitely reccomend Freedom wool for felting. Even the white felted! I haven't started the belt yet, although I am hoping to get it done within the next few days. I want to get the buttons first so I can plan the size of button holes I need accordingly and that's what I'm off to do now. Carey had the day off so I'm planting the kids with him for a child free afternoon. Yay. The only snafu I hit was when I ran out of red yarn. :( I was almost to the top on the side and I really didn't see buying a whole skein of red for that small amount so I subbed black instead. It doesn't look too bad. However, the cool thing was that the bottom of it actually lined up with the bottom of a black stripe on the back so it looks a little more in line with the pattern. If I'd thought of it before, I would have done that on purpose to both sides. Ah, well. This still turned out great considering one, I've never done intarsia before, and two, I had no pattern.





If you want to see a few more pics, check out the set here. If you'd like to see more finished objects in the WCTP KAL, check them out here. As soon as I get the belt finished, I'll get a pic posted of James wearing it.

~UPDATE~ 3/14/07

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I last updated. Where has the time gone? I'm almost done! I don't know if I'm going to make the end of the KA or not but it will be close. I was stalled for a while because stitches weren't lining up and it took me a week to realize that it was because I had somehow increased by a stitch. Bleh. An I hit another hitch when the boys decided they wanted the bag now. They hauled it, and the needles, upstairs to play with it. I found the needles stashed in various places and I finally found the bag behind their bunk bed. They'd ripped about 2 inches out, so at least six rows. Sigh......

But I got a good sized chunk done last night after the kids were in bed, and I'd put the days laundry away. The front, back, and flap are being knit in one long continuous length. The bottom was knit separately and then I picked up the amount of stitches needed along each side to knit the front and back. Just one less piece that I have to sew together later. I've made it to the flap and I'm almost done with that. The skull is almost completely blocked in and I've started decreasing. After that, I have to knit the sides, sew it all together, and knit the belt. The Hipster gave me the inspiration for that. I was going to make this a backpack but I thought James might like it better if he can just open it to put something in/take it out vs. having to take if off of his back before he can do anything. I did have one little hiccup. I reached the end of my black skein and was thinking that I would have to buy some more before I could finish it. However, after a bit of searching I found the last skein I had bought. Yay. I guess I estimated the amount needed after all. For a long time, I was thinking that I had way too much and was sifting various ways to use the leftovers.

The front. The flap is still on the needle and it's been brought over the front.

The is the back. I didn't want to do any more skulls, but James got mad when he saw that it was going to be plain black. So I added red randomly. You can see the slits for the slits for the belt towards the top. I know the bottom seems wide. I did that on purpose so there will still be a little give when it's felted.

~UPDATE~ 2/12/07

Yay. I finally found time to work on this some more and I actually got 5 rows done. I got some time to myself to vegge out at my LYS this last Saturday. The skulls are really starting to come together and look good. All of my fellow pirates are doing well. My favorite of their projects so far is an awesome pair of socks by Kris. I need to try something like that myself. They make me think of my sister and she has a birthday coming up.

The colors are so much clearer now that we have the new digital camera. I love being able to take pictures and not have to wait until we can afford to have the camera developed. I think there are like, 5 cameras waiting to be taken in right now. LOL



1/26/07


I have finally cast on James WCTP pirates bag! I joined the We Call Them Pirates Knit Along on January 10 but it took me this long to finally get the yarn, figure out what I wanted to do, and finally sit down and do it!

I chose Freedom 100% wool yarn by Twilleys. It seemed serendipitous that I went to my local yarn store and there it was. This beautiful little display of wool yarn, in three different colors: red, black and white. The exact colors that James had chosen. Perfect. So I went home with several balls of lovely wool, and size 10 bone needles.



This be t' fore. You can see the bottom o' the bag (large red chunk) and the beginnin' o' the fore. I have just started the first skulls. Me camera just doesn’t do justice to the beautiful colors.

This be the back. It be me first foray into intarsia but I’m not doin’ too bad if I do say so meself.

Ok, enough of the piratese. :D Anyway, from here on out, I'll update this post whenever I have something new to add, or I have new pics. Check out the great projects that my fellow pirates be doing by clicking on the banner at the top of the post and you can check out the awesome We Call Them Pirates Flickr pool here.

And, ye'll find cool pirate lingo here.