Day 350: Knitting practice

I started this over the weekend. I’m using cotton yarn so hopefully I can make a dishcloth out of this practice piece. It has been a little while since the last time I tried to knit so I had to look up videos on how to do everything again. This time I decided to try continental style, since I heard it was easier to learn if you already knew how to crochet. The continental knit stitch definitely makes more sense to me. I still haven’t figured out how to purl properly yet though.

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Day 349: Captain Phasma, and some big goals

I finished building Captain Phasma and I think she looks amazing. The chrome is so shiny I had trouble taking a good picture without getting tons of weird reflections. It looks fantastic in person, though. Sure it is built from a kit, but I consider it the same as making a scarf from a crochet kit. They provide the materials and instructions, and I provide the time and skill to turn it into a finished object. I had a lot of fun and I have two more model kits to try when I’m ready for more.

What’s new for year two?

As I mentioned in my blogaversary post, I have a few changes in mind for the next year of Daily Creative Thing. Year one was about finding the motivation to make things every day, learn new skills, and get my creative mojo back. I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations!

Day 347: Weaving in ends

I’m still avoiding crochet for a while until my elbow heals up, but I couldn’t stay away from this sweater. It is frustrating to be so far along with this project and unable to keep working on it. If I can’t crochet at least I can weave in ends. From the dozens that I started with after adding to and shaping the front, now there’s just these two left. It’s not as fun as crocheting but at least I get to feel like I’m moving things forward a little bit.

Day 346: Captain Phasma progress

Captain Phasma has legs now! I was going to block off the background so you couldn’t see my messy desk but actually I’m happy to show off my mess. There’s multiple kinds of crafts represented, and multiple nerdy genres. It might be a mess but it’s my weird mess and I love it.

A year of Daily Creative Things

I started this blog one year ago today! Although I haven’t hit 365 posts due to some travel and emergencies, I have still worked on at least one creative thing every day for a year. It’s been so wonderful to learn so many new things, and to practice old skills too.

These photos are just some of my favorite finished objects so far. Looking ahead, I have lots of ideas for new projects, and maybe some new directions for this blog. For today though, I want to take the time to enjoy what I’ve built, and feel proud of how much I’ve accomplished in a year!

Day 344: Captain Phasma

Well this is a big departure from what I have been doing lately. I have been having some pain during crochet time lately and it turns out I have a case of “crochet elbow”. That’s like tennis elbow except it comes from spending too much time swearing at yarn instead of swearing at tennis balls or something. It should get better with rest, ice, and ibuprofen, but for the time being I need to limit the amount of crochet I’m doing. Hence Captain Phasma here. Putting together model kits uses a whole different posture, so it didn’t cause me any discomfort. It was fun to hang out with the spouse for an evening while we both worked on our models.

Day 343: Hoodie progress

Got another row done on the bottom edge of my hoodie. I think I will end up playing yarn chicken because I’m not sure if there’s enough to finish the bottom and the hood.

Day 342: Something Useful

Today I realized I really wanted a way to be able to read my kindle easily while riding my exercise bike. This is my solution. It’s not the prettiest thing but it holds my kindle in place right where I want it. We will see if it stays put tomorrow morning when I use the bike.

Day 341: Beaded Shawl

I finished this shawl today! It’s being blocked now, but otherwise it is all done. I really love the way it turned out. It’s so pretty, I can’t decide if I want to keep it for myself or save it for a gift.

It only used a little over half of the skein I bought for it, so maybe I can make another one (in a non-beaded version) to give away.

Day 340: Hoodie progress

Today’s progress was mostly weaving in ends again. It feels like a major accomplishment that I’ve only got about 5 left to deal with. Also the bottom of the sweater only needs a few more inches until I’ll be happy with the length.

Day 339: Hoodie progress

I got all the ends along the bottom edge woven in last night, so I gave myself permission to work on adding length today. If I have more time later I might try to deal with a few more loose ends too. The fish blanket had a ton of ends but I was very good about dealing with them right away instead of leaving them all for later. This project has taught me that I need to use that tactic all the time so I don’t feel buried under 1,000 dangling scraps of yarn.