Sunday, July 10, 2011

My Creekbed Featured!

Hello fellow knitting fanatics!

I have the honor of one of my projects being featured on the Knitty Blog! I am currently working on the Creekbed Scarf by Stephen West, published in th elitist edition of Knitty.com.

Stephen is a long time knitting crush of mine, and have often referred to him as my future husband (a boy can dream, right?).

Picking the yarn for my Creekbed was a complete coincidence. Through my work as a knitting instructor at Abuelita's Knitting and Needlepoint in South Pasadena, I was asked to reverse engineer a bias striped wrap. The bias scarf took far less yarn than I originally anticipated, leaving me with 4 partial skeins of tosh merino light (my all time favorite yarn!)

A few days after completing the project, I came across the new Knitty Issue. Serendipity and my love for Stephen West aside, I knew I had to make one for myself.

Without further ado here is a current photo of my progress on the scarf.

Creekbed 70% done!

I am currently working on the last repeat of the 3 stripe pattern, and I can't wait to get this off the needles and blocked!

- Chester

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Quick update...

Hello fellow knit fanatics!

I have been a very very busy boy and just wanted to update everyone...

I've been knitting up a storm, but have unfortunately failed miserably at maintaining my yarn diet. There's more yarn than ever in my bins!!!

Here's a smattering of what I have finished so far:

A Holden Shawlette:

A commissioned beanie for Kendall Schmidt from Big Time Rush (I'm making a few more as well- can't wait to see my stuff on TV!!!!)

An iPad cozy modified for sport weight yarn for an existing pattern. Including a Stylus holder on the flap:

I'm sure I'm missing more....but thought I would just update to make sure everyone knew I'm still alive and knitting up storm like always!

-Chester

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Bad, Blogger! Bad!

So once again, Chester has managed to completely ignore another blog.  Over 2 months and no posts… I’m surprised the Blog Authorities haven’t broken down my door… or at least charged me a fine… Well, Dear Reader,  let’s suffice it so say that a whole lotta nothing has been going on… aside from me being fastidious in my yarn diet, and finishing all my projects in a timely manner (hah!  If you can’t sense the sarcasm… you’re not reading hard enough!)

I should be shot.  In the head… for completely obliterating any hope I had of actually completing my resolutions for this year.  I’ve apparently been doing a lot of yarn shopping lately… and have not been finishing ANY of my projects… It’s sad… really sad…. I worked sooooo hard to pare down my stash, and here I am buying yarn like crazy… I do chock part of it up to being it being my birthday yesterday (February is usually a decadent month for me… with my annual bonus and tax returns paying out)- So I’m going definitely feeling the squeeze on my budget and yarn storage space!

Hi… my name is Chester… and I’m a tosh-a-holic.  About 90% of the yarn I purchased this past month has been madelinetosh… and I just can’t seem to help myself when it comes to checking out her etsy shop, or to see what other tosh-a-holics are putting on their chopping blocks (Let’s just say the madelinetosh lovers group on ravelry is full of evil enablers… sweet, but EVIL!)

My cardigan has gone completely on hold.  Just looking at that thing and trying to wrap my brain around weaving in all of the loose ends on the body and the sleeves… I am NEVER going to make a striped anything ever again.  I’m thinking I’ll have it done by next Christmas…  if I’m lucky anyways.

My Clapotis is completely on hold.  Ever since I’ve stopped being consistent about going to Friday Night Knitting, I’ve just been so blah about working on it… even though I know it will turn out AMAZING…  I haven’t even gotten to a point where I’m dropping stitches yet!

I have been doing a few stitches a night on my bridgewater shawl.  It’s actually turning out quite amazing… I can’t wait to get that center square finished out… then the daunting task of picking stitches along the edge of that thing… makes me shake inside!

I’ve decided that I’m going to frog the knit-a-long project.  I think the main reason I lost so much steam working on it is that I really don’t like how the shawl turned out… it’s a little too… granny looking for my taste and I’m not a fan of how it is shaped.  I think I’ll make myself a lavalette out of it. Yes, another one… so stop judging.

Aside from my usual Hulla-Balloo… nothing has really changed.  My goal is to release 3 new patterns this year… we’ll see how she goes.  1 Pattern is going to be a beaded heart cowl, originally in honor of Valentine’s day, but I’ve come across a couple of snafus and have decided we will need to push it towards Mother’s day.  Hopefully I can finally get the beading to look right.  Also working on a simple pattern for a triangular or crescent shaped shawl.  Nothing super fancy, but something that can look delicate and dainty in lace weight, or nice and rich in a worsted.  More to come, and I promise you’ll hear from me before the 2 month mark.