My First Blog Award!!!

well, i was awarded my first blog award!



The Kreativ Blogger Award!!!!

this was awarded to me by Helen, aka "myheartexposed" owner and moderator of the Knifty Knitter Loom Knitting Group on Yahoo. it's a great group and i suggest any loom knitter check it out!

helen said: "I am giving this award to Lilly because I admire the way she is not afraid to share her mistakes, ask for help then celebrate with everyone when she fixes them. Her loom knitting and loom knitting videos are very inspiring, her hair blog is just ace so well written and funny at times too. Caring for an afro is not an easy job to do but Lilly manages to come up with lots of creative ways to do just that, for this reason I feel her hair blog deserved a special mention and the award too."

thank you soooo much helen! this means a lot to me!

The rules of the "KreativBlogger Award" are to list seven things I love and then pass it on to another seven KreativBloggers. so here's my list!!

1. UNICORNS!!!! i'm ga-ga over them! i have two tattoos of unicorns on my forearms and countless figurines, statues, posters, and various wall mounts of them! i bought this $300 Waterford Crystal figurine of a unicorn. too beautiful

2. reading, mostly sci-fi fantasy and romance

3. sleeping. i can knock out 12 hours easy!

4. my locs

5.my sister Tasha, who also my very best friend. and my boyfriend Sean

6. my car, a 2007 toyota yaris liftback in bright red! i always wanted a red car, and i finally got it two years ago, brand new, off the lot with 6 miles on it!!

7. brown and gray. its my favorite colors for clothing, as boring as that sounds!


so, on to my nominations!

1. i'm gonna cheat a bit and nominate my sister. she doesn't have a written blog, but a youtube channel, Goldpurse. she has an afro the size of the sun and she shares tips and trick she uses with her natural hair. and she encourages all the sistas to embrace their natural nappy hair!

2. my friend emily and her Great Expectations blog. emily's blog just underwent a new CUSTOM look! she got me all jealous! and she's been blogging faithfully since she was preagnant with her first child, which i find VERY commendable, since i go for months between posts sometimes!

3. Robin at Rockin' The Loom. Robin is a member of many of the loom groups i frequent and she's also the teacher of the loom knitting newbies classroom. Robin is one of the only people who gave me the courage to attempt cables on a loom thanks to her 26 page tutorial!!! and thats a pretty BIG feat!! LOL!

4.isela phelps aka Purling Sprite. the mother of loom knitting tuturials. we would be lost without you!!!

5.miss kumina and her hair blog. i love her spirit and the fun way she writes! and she's recently ventured out into the youtube world, too!

6.ms. ofoprince and her loc blog over at pizco. she also has a blogger blog, too. she is a wealth of information!!!!

7. and finally, another cheat, to Supreme Dejhan, another youtuber. this woman had shared her journey of the road from meat eater, to vegatarian, to vegan. her vlogs are so personable and i really feel like i'm watching a close friend or family member when i follow her posts.

No Scratch Mitts

so i threw together some no scratch mitts to go with the inside out socks. it wasn't too bad. i only had to frog once when i decided i didn't like the brim. at first i e-wrapped the cuff, cause i wanted it to be fluffier than the body, but it was just too loose! i had gotten as far as the eyelets and the first couple of rows of the body. so i just ripped that out and did the cuff over using the purl stitch. it matches the booties better that way, too. i was going to do a i-cord in the same color as the mitt, but i thought it would blend too much, so i did it in the mint green color i had. i think it came out pretty swell! sorry about the quality of the pics, i had to use my phone again. i keep on forgetting to charge the battery on my camera!

here a pic of the front of one mitt and the back of the other so you can see how the i-cord is woven through


here a pic of both mitts from the front


and here are the mitts with the booties

Bib and bootie set

my friend, who i'm making the brown and green blanket for, well, her baby shower is this Sunday! there's not way i'm gonna have that blanket done in time! so i decided to put together a few small things instead. i really don't have the money right now to but her stuff, on account of being laid off and all!

i still had those yellow inside out booties from before. i'm gonna make a pair on no-scratch mitts to go with it. so i had some cantaloupe colored fleece yarn i got from a friend. i made another pair of booties from that. i decided to try my hand at making a bib, too. i couldn't find any loom patters, so i decided to wing it. but one of the things i discovered in my bib pattern search was that bibs need to be made our of cotton (to absorb moisture) or super washed wool (to repel moisture). i had some wool yarn, but it was the thick, super bulky kind. i doubt she would want a heavy wool bib for her summer baby. but, coincidentally, i had just bought some recycled cotton yard from a woman on Etsy and it just happened to be the same cantaloupe color as the fleece yarn!!!! talk about providence!

this was my first time working with cotton. it was a learning process, let me tell you! i used my fine gauge mini wonderloom. i tried the flat knit stitch. no way. it was way too tight. so then i tried to purl. that was a bit tight too, but it worked. but i ended up flipping the bib over and making the front the knit side. it has a garter stitch boarder. it looks kinda sloppy, but what are you gonna do? here are a few pics of it one the loom.




i sort of made the top up as i went along. of course i didn't take notes, so the sides aren't perfectly symmetrical, but i like it. one one side, i tried to make the ties sorta curve back inwards, but i just ended up making a mess of stitches. not something i think my friend will notice too much, but i see it! oh well. all in all, for my first try, i'm very satisfied.

i might try to squeeze in another hat or two to round it off. we'll see.

here are a couple of pics of the bib and bootie set. i tried different filters on my camera phone to capture the true color.

Blanket Progress

i've been working off and on on the brown and green blanket for my friend. i was working on the brown panel and eye balling the length compared to the green panel. it kept on coming up short. finally, i was just tired of doing the same stitch over and over for days and i decided to start the seaming while the brown panel was still on the loom. turns out, the brown panel was waaaaaaaay longer than the green, like over 40 rows longer!! so i sat for an hour or so and tinked the stitches, but i was getting nowhere. so i decided to just grab a section a couple of inches down and force those stitches back on the loom. i knew i wasn't going to get the right loop back on, but i figured it was worth a try. it was incredibly hard! for starters, the panel is flat knit stitched. so trying to stretch that panel back out to fit on the loops was a B&*$H!!!! pardon my french. and then, as i started to unravel the stitches, i realized that i put the other stitches back on totally lopsided! so i ended up having to unravel a few, and then tink 20, next row unravel a few, tink 19. it took FOREVER!!!! in the end there's a weird looking row and you can clearly see a mistake, but i really don't care anymore! i did it! i actually ended up unraveling too much and i had to knit another 13 rows or so.

the seaming was a bit problematic, but not too bad. first i tried the i-cord seam from the GettinItPegged site, but that was totally not working! it looked nothing like Bethany's work. then i tried to crochet them together. i know almost nothing about crocheting other than how to do a chain, but i figured it would be like doing a chain through two stitches. that was a no go. so i just decided to mattress seam them together. but i think i missed the first stitch cause i didn't do a slipped stitch edge, but its okay. the seam looks very neat, so i'm happy with it.

here are some pics of the blanket so far. here's the width. the sides curl cause its all knit stitched. i'm gonna make the outside panels have a garter stitch boarder.




here's the length



and here's a pic of the seaming


like i said, i'm doing the outer panels in a garter stitch. i'm also doing them on the green loom instead of the blue one. the stitches are a little wider, but thats okay.

A Good Thing? Not Really.

So, I am officially a victim of the economy. I lost my job. I work for a non-profit and they're closing my program and three others. So I have approx 60 days until we close. The only good thing (but not really) is that I'll have tons more time for my looming! I have more than enough yarn to get me through this! I can finally do all those little projects that I put on hold. My plan is to relax and take the whole summer off. And maybe I'll sell some of my stuff on Etsy or Ebay or something like that. My focus would probably be on things for loc wearers, like hats, tams, and more loc jewelry pieces and matching earrings. I'm probably going to take the plunge and buy some more expensive yarns like silk and silk blends, since that's better for your hair. I'll make other things, too. Maybe some skinny scarves or things like that. I also have this pattern for toddler leggins that I've been wanting to do, as well. As long as I get my unemployment checks on time (cause I heard there's a two month hold-up in Massachusetts!) I should have a pleasant summer. I'm not expecting too much on the Etsy front, though. I've heard its hard for many people to make money on it cause it really depends on your marketing skills and how well you market yourself. And I have virtually no skills in that department. I mean, I have my Youtube subscribers. And the 5 or so people who follow my hair blog. That's not much! LOL! I mean, I'm not trying to make my living off of this (although in my heart of hearts, that would be my dream!!!!), just trying to fill the gap from my normal pay to what I'm going to be receiving from unemployment. I don't know. My carpel tunnel could flare up and I might not get anything done. We'll see.

My Loom Has Seen Better Days

look at my loom! its all scratched up and falling apart!





and while i'm knitting, i have to occasionally push some pegs more firmly in. they seem to be a bit wiggly and coming a bit loose. they haven't completely fallen out yet. when that happens, i'm gonna bring out the good 'ole super glue and put them back it. the green round kk loom has already lost the anchor peg. i just found it under the couch a few days ago. i glued that back in. the yellow round loom is all scratched up too. i think i heard somewhere that you're suppose to laquer or put clear nail polish on the pegs when you first get the looms to make it last longer. i think its time for a new set...

The Newest Baby Blanket

yup, i went and lost my mind and decided to start another baby blanket. this one i'm doing on the small round blue kk loom. i'm using Vanna's Choice yarn in brown and green. i bought 4 skeins of each color, so i better not run out! this time, i'm doing five or six long panels which i'm gonna seam together. don't ask me how. i was thinking about trying to crochet them. or maybe a mattress seam, although i'm not good at either of them. i could also do an i-cord and seam the panels to that. i'm sorta thinking of doing something big and chunky in black yarn so if it comes out too bad, it won't look that obvious.

don't mind the color in this pic. i don't know why it looks so washed out.


i'm just doing a flat knit stitch. its the easiest and fastest thing. but i'm playing around with the idea of doing something different for the two middle panels. we'll see how long it takes me to get these other panels done first and then i'll decide. i took this pic a few days ago. i'm done with this panel now. i'm just stuck on the bind off.

so far i've run across one major problem besides the question of how i'm going to seam it together. how am i gonna get the cast on and cast offs to look the same?! i did a cable cast on. looks like this:



it kinda reminds me of the chunky braid stitch. from all my research, there isn't a cable cast off. so now i'm stuck with two options. either i can do a different bind off on the bottom and just have two looks. or i can do a flat panel bind off and have a curly top and a straight bottom. it will give the blanket an obvious top and bottom, which would be kinda cool. i may just do that. i'm just waiting to hear back from the people on the loom list on yahoo. a lot of them are much more experienced loomers than me and i'm sure they'll have better ideas.