My First Real Project (tm)

I recently completed my first project. From the Stitch n' Bitch book, the chapter on increasing and decreasing had a hair kerchief as the poster child project for demonstrating its lessons. I don't wear hair kerchiefs. I never was a part of that whole bandanna craze a few years back. Ok, I was enough a part of it to purchase one or two, and some illicit photos exist out there (you know who you are!) that even show me wearing them, but for the most part, I didn't go near em. If my hair needed to be kept out of my face, I turned to the trusty aubergine (what?! that doesn't make sense...)....I mean hair elastic thingie. What in the 80s morphed into the scrunchie (sadly, there are too many pics out there of me in those), by the bandanna 90s they had slimmed back down to rubber band size elastic thingie's. So, since I don't wear 'em, and since I had some random colors from my Mr. Roboto and Heart Coaster tester-projects, I decided to (once again, complicating things) use two yarns at the same time and knit up a hair kerchief. Here it is, beautifully modeled by Mark:

You can see his sense of style is very...strong. He's obviously about to go use a torque wrench on his motorcycle.

Here is a closeup of the stitch (garter, with the pink/white variegated yarn and the lime green yarn). Not too shabby, eh? Who's the crappy knitter now?

Oh wait, I am. At least I will be on projects tougher than a triangle that doesn't need to really be sized. And for the sake of this blog, I better not improve too much.

Mr. Roboto

So I bought the first issue of Craft Magazine because of the knit robots on the cover:

The robot pattern promised inside, however, was not the one on the cover! How rude! So I went online, and discovered that the creator, Jess Hutch, does not sell the pattern anymore. *Grumble* That's ok, because I am now an accomplished knitter and can figure out how to do it myself. I mean, after my last two projects, I can do anything, right? Who cares if I've only read one pattern to date, and all I can do are knits and purls with basic yarn (hooray stockinette!).

Here is my first attempt, which I abandoned early:

I decided to make the head and the body two separate pieces and then sew them together (leaving live ends on both). You can see how well that turned out:

And of course, I also decided to take this time to try out ribbing. The ribbing turned out ok, but it didn't work for making even sides (I didn't count properly). Note the pointy right shoulder:

Attempt number two will try knitting it as all one piece.

I Heart Coasters

After my extremely successful first project, I decided to try a pattern with knits and purls. This pattern came from the Stitch 'N Bitch book, and it would have looked good if i hadn't chosen a variegated color yarn.

You can see the pattern in the picture, but in real life it's really hard to see. I swear. Note, however, that my stitches are pretty damn good (for me, that is, especially compared to the green snarf).

Here is a closeup of the heart.


Any suggestions for what to do with it? I'm currently using it as a coaster, but a pink heart coaster doesn't really go with my modern sensibilities. Watch out, next I will be embroidering a "home sweet *retch* home" sampler.