Christmas recap....

Happy 2013!!! Well.... I did not finish the secret project in time for Christmas. Wop-wop. I can talk about what it is now though! I am making a sweater for my 6 year old nephew: Lancelot Sweater

You can see my curly unraveled yarn. I think I've ripped out the yoke at least 4 times so far..... luckily OR unfortunately its not just a "user error", as other knitters on ravelry have said they've struggled too! Oops. Well my current plans are to make up some basic raglan decreasing and see if that works... OR rip it out a little bit more to separate the sleeves and body again, and then try one more time to follow the pattern. Argh! I'm kind of mad at it right now but I feel bad I might not finish it anytime soon. We will see.

In non-failure related news, when I was procrastinating the sweater in December, I decided I wanted to knit little stockings for random gifts. I searched for an "ornament" sized pattern, and started with this one: Mini Stocking Ornament

It came out a little big, so i ended up sticking a subway giftcard inside and giving it to my brother for christmas :) I think he was actually happy to get the stocking (as well as the card) seeing as he mentioned not having any christmas decor for his house!

In my second test, I went with this pattern: Mini Holiday Stockings (Seen here next to the first stocking I made!)

These came out more to the size that I wanted! On all of the stockings I made I kind of fudged the heel to follow more of a traditional sock flap heel (from some basic instructions that Cynthia gave me once upon a time!). I think they turned out okay. I made an additional green and white one, and then another red and white one. I gave them to various friends/family. I like these and I might have to make a bunch more for next christmas. So if you are my friend or related to me, please forget all about this post by next December so you can be surprised. Ha!

For one of Norah's little friends I whipped out these Sucky Thumb Mitts. You may recognize the pattern, I used it to make Norah's halloween costume mitts!

My husband had asked me if I had time to make something he could give to his secret santa at work for their "end of the week" gift. I thought, sure! Luckily I was able to whip out some Evangeline gloves with plenty of time to spare. I hope his coworker likes them! (Sorry no finished pic... here's one of it in progress!)

OK This post is long enough for now!!!! I have a few more little things to catchup on. My baby boy is going to be making his arrival sooner than later, so my blogging will probably be even more pathetic than usual after that... but I will try and cram in as much as I can in the next few weeks!!!

Lucky 7 (& YOTM recap!)

It's my 7 year blogiversary! Wow. I've been blathering on about my knitting for 7 years? And I still only have 3 readers? Hehe! Well to be fair I don't really promote my blog OR post very consistently. Thanks to anyone who has ever visited my site though!

A fitting tribute to 7 years of "knitblogging" is my final Yarn of the Month, which if you don't remember is a gift of yarn EVERY month (for a year) that my mother-in-law has been personally giving me (with thanks to my SIL for helping her pick out the yarn a lot of the time)! It has been an AMAZING year and I have gotten SO much beautiful yarn. I can't write a thank you note big enough for this gift!!!! (Did I win the in-law lottery or what???) I haven't even begun to knit all the yarn she's given me. Let's do a YOTM recap in honor of my year of yarn, shall we?

Christmas 2011: I opened a christmas gift from my MIL to find not only a gift certificate to a local yarn store (among some other things), but this gorgeous cream-colored skein of Cascade Eco Duo:

January 2012: The new year kicked off with a package in the mail containing my second YOTM treasure, a sage green Rowan Felted Tweed:

February 2012: I received two fun multicolor skeins of Adriafil Knitcol. This was eventually turned into a cute halter top for Norah, but I think I only put it on her once because for whatever reason it made her mad and she tried to rip it off :-(

March 2012: Again I got 2 skeins! Wow! This time it was Berroco Peruvia in pretty blue and soft brown shades. I still plan on using these together somehow... I need to think about that!

April 2012: Another skein of Rowan Felted Tweed, this time in an emeraldy green. I am thinking this would be fun with the lighter green skein I got in January... tone-on-tone stripes? Hm.

May 2012: Gorgeous and amazing Malabrigo... 2 SKEINS... in this sky blue. I can't even imagine what to make with this because it's so pretty I hate to touch it... LOL.

June 2012: Another fun and unique yarn I've never seen - Rowan "Amy Butler" Belle Organic DK! Love the pink!

July 2012: Oops I don't think I ever blogged about this one! A different kind of Malabrigo, "Finito". Love the gold and purple tones in this one! I think it needs to be some sort of lacy cowl perhaps?

August 2012: Oh man, yet another one I never blogged! JEEZ! This is Cascade 128 tweed. Very nice!

October 2012: My birthday month! As a fitting fall/halloween tribute I recieved this festive pumpkin orange skein of Cascade 220.

November 2012: Last but NOT least is another unique find, Punta Yarns Merisoft hand painted! Very fall-ish!

WHEW! Seriously... I do not know how I deserved all that amazing yarn or such a generous MIL, but I am a lucky lady. I hope I can continue to come up with fitting projects for all of those skeins!!!! If anyone has a brilliant idea (for any of them that I haven't knitted up yet), feel free to shout them out!

Thanks again to my MIL <3

P.S. Is it December already???? YIKES! MUST KNIT THINGS FOR CHRISTMAS!!! :-O

Christmas Catch-up!

OK let's see what I've been doing these past few weeks!

I finished that monkey and gave it and the bear to my friend's little boys... they seemed to like them! Yay :)


I knit a hat and gloves for my SIL and some plush "Mario bros" mushrooms for my nephews, but pics will have to wait because I'm dumb and didn't take any before I gifted them! Luckily my SIL is an amazing photographer and has agreed to get pics to send to me. Yay!

My husband's friend has emailed me a link to a "beard hat" website, where they were selling knitted hat/beard things... for a primo price! He said if anyone could knit him one it would be me :) Well unbeknownst to him, his wife also emailed me and asked if I could knit it for him for christmas and she would pay me. I'm always up for a commission! It was a fun pattern, although the hat definitely needed the extra repeat in the length (and probably could have used an additional one for large man heads). I like it though!


Pattern: Lumberjack
Yarn: Patons wool or some other 100% wool yarn.

For a close friend of Greg's family (who is basically like our Aunt now), I knit some basic worsted weight house socks/boot socks. I think she liked them!


Pattern: Basic sock formula from Cynthia
Yarn: Patons wool

Finally I crammed in one silly little project for my dear husband. He's an architect so I thought this may appeal to him... it's just a fun little toy, plus I hadn't yet knitted anything from this book! (Knitting Mochimochi) I adapted it to be smaller, knitting only 4 buildings and making the "base" of it smaller. I also tethered some of the buildings together/to the base to keep them more upright... they tended to want to lean in random directions. That's probably due to my unskilled sewing job though!


Pattern: Shyscrapers
yarn: Misc worsted wool or wool blends

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all have a lovely holiday season, whatever you celebrate!

What????

Wait a second, we still have 4 days till christmas and I am all done with the Christmas knitting this year??? Wow.

Next year is probably going to come back and hit me hard for this one!!!! :-) Today I found ribbon for some lace-up fingerless gloves I made for my friend, and I cast off the last armhole ribbing on the vest for my dad! YEAH! Now I am going to block it and it will be DONE!!!!!!!!!!! I am so glad I decided to go ahead and knit it even though at the time I never thought I would make it :-).

Oh, and I whipped out a super fast bulky 1x1 ribbed beanie for my brother, that only took 2 days! Love those projects.

Anyway, I feel like I should offer my free hands up to anyone else who is pushing deadlines. I would offer Cynthia my services, but it looks like all she has to do is seam up her mom's sweater! Talk about fast knitting. Congrats on your hard work girl!!!!!

Pics coming soon, I promise!

Official Christmas Knitting List

OK folks, its almost Thanksgiving, so you know what that means..... its time for the 2009 Christmas Knitting List!!!!!!!!!!!! Time for me to list everything I am imagining I will finish in time to give as a Christmas present to some lucky recipient! Am I finally reasonable this year? Have I gone off the deep end with entrelac duvet covers? Let's find out!

1. Secret project - This is about 95% done and will definitely be ready on time! Probably because I started it back in JUNE. Apparently I knew it would take me awhile!

2. Vest for my dad - This one I have been trying to be good about working on, since its not even up to the armpits yet. Luckily its a VEST, so no sleeves. I am knitting it in the round also (original pattern is here: Peter Easy Vest) so I hope the rest will go quickly! Also... I hope my dad doesn't read this blog... hmm I should ask him sometime.



3. Gloves for mom - Done! As you saw in my last post, these are ready to go! Woot!

4. Kitchen towel - This is about 1/3 the way done, but I am not sure who I want to give it to yet.... so we will see about this project... hmmmmm

5. Hat for my brother maybe???? - still need to find a good pattern, something very plain and manly :-)

7. Another secret project that is not even close to done, and I probably am not going to even try.... buuuuut we will see. ;-)

Well thats not too bad. Hopefully dad's vest will go smoothly. I am also still working on some preemie hats for charity. I want to have at least 10 of them before I mail the package! They go so fast though!!!!

Hope everyone else's christmas knitting is going well! I am pretty good at helping other people (ahem, cynthia) at paring down their outrageous lists, so if you need any help, let me know ;-)

Thanks Cynthia!

Cynthia gave me this really pretty knitting project bag:


I love it!

She also gave me Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's "Never Not Knitting" calendar for 2009, Woot! I actually got that from my MIL too.... I have had a really great knitting xmas!

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Gifts

I must have been a very good girl this year, because I got some amazing gifts!!!!!!!!

1. Yarn from Jessica!!! Mailed to me all the way from Colorado. It is beautiful, I love that shade of green! I can't wait to find something to make from it!


2. Set of knitpicks straight needles from my Mother in Law!!!!!! Isn't the case beautiful too?


I have already moved my dad's scarf over onto the new needles and they are FABULOUS! Very pointy tips and they are super smooth. :-)

3. MORE needles from my hubby!!! This time the circular needle set!!! WOW!!!!!


Can't wait to use those too!

4. A Ball winder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!


DH is the best... I have been wanting one of these for a WHILE! I hate winding up yarn manually. ALSO - He says he is going to build me a swift! WOOT!!!!!!!!!!

I had bought my dear Husband (DH) some yarn for xmas (he knits too a little) and so we decided to try out the winder on his new yarn....


It works great!!!!!



Whew... what a nice Christmas!!!!! I hope the rest of you had a good time with your families & ate a ton of food and enjoyed!

Knitted Tie

Here are some finished pics of the tie I made for my dad... he loved it!!!!!!!!!!! :-)




Here he is on Christmas day opening it and trying it on... I think it turned out just fine!

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays from me and the hubby :)

Yarn yarn yarn yarn

So the best Christmas present of all was the opening of a LYS in Fort Wayne... we had been without one for many many months after the closing of Cass Street Depot. But So far, "Knitting off Broadway" seems to be a hit!!!!

I bought some Cashsoft for fetching or other gifts:


And some of this "Burly Spun" from the Brown sheep company, hopefully to make one of the Yarn Harlot's unoriginal hats:


Woot!!!! It is so nice to be able to get fancy yarn and not have to pay shipping again!

I also got a skein of Dream in Color Classy (colorway "Spring Tickle") through Designated Knitter so we can knit gifts for our coworker who bought us lunch:


I am making fetching gloves obviously... its just such an easy & pretty pattern, I guess you can tell I like it! (How many have I made now???) So pretty.... I <3 Dream in Color!

I also got some yarn using a Christmas giftcard I got for Michaels. I got some Bernat bamboo naturals in a light green:


(Sorry it's hard to see the color!)

and also some more Patons SWS because who doesnt love it!!!! This colorway is "Natural Earth":


WHEW!!! So much yarn lately. Well its a good thing that my fiance HAND BUILT me my very own...


YARN CABINET THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whoooooooo!!!!

He is so sweet, and the handiest of handymen for sure. Isn't it beautiful??? Better than anything I could ever buy in a store. :-) He bought all the cool little storage boxes for it too. (Of course I added all my yarn soon after he unveiled it lol)

What a good Christmas!!!!!!!! Hope everyone else had a happy one too!
From, Me and the Penguin