BUTTONS!

Soooooooooo today my mother in law came to visit and after getting a yummy lunch, we went shopping! At one of our stops the buttons were all 50% off..... and I found some for my FLS!


What do you think?


A little fancy, not too busy?


I think they are winners! Hooray for buttons!

FLS: Progress!

I haven't taken any pictures or mentioned my progress on my February Lady Sweater! I have been devotedly lugging it to work as my sole project in hopes that when I knit at lunch I'd be forced to work on it. (it works!) Getting through the first part was definitely a challenge, and involved some frustrated frogging, (and cursing) but I am happy to announce I have made it past the yoke and now am doing the lovely lace of the body!!!!!

Front:

Back:


I am happily surprised at how the yarn has turned out. When I first got the skeins, they looked almost perfectly SOLID. With a name like "Kettle-Dyed" I was hoping for some more varigation! However, now that I have a good swath of it knit into fabric, Cynthia and I both agree you can see the lovely striations in the color. Hooray for that!

Another thing I need to work on is finding buttons. I am leaning towards black, but I am keeping my mind open. I might have to head to the craft store and lose myself in the button aisle for awhile!

Anyway hope everyone is having a nice May... it's been a bit rainy for my tastes, but I guess that's spring for ya!

Collaborative sweater?

Anyone else seen this post???

http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/2010/05/exquisite-corpse-project-collaborative.html

That is a really really cool idea!!!! I have the urge to gather a group of friends and do something similar, only perhaps a little lower scale, like a scarf!!!! Seems like on a scarf you could get away using different yarn too.... could be really cool... Hmmmmmmm!!!!

Baby knitting so far...

Wow where did April go??? I can't believe we're down to the last week already! I really haven't been doing that much knitting lately. I am guessing that will pick up a notch in a month or so when we find out the sex of our lil babe. Then I have a zillion things to knit!!!! I've been trying to do some unisex things, like a white bonnet and some bibs...






That last one still needs a button!

As far as what else I can do now, I am casting on for some baby pants, and maybe some booties next? I just can't wait to find out what our little one will be!!!! :-)

News!

Sorry I havent been posting much lately. We found out that I'm knitting up a very important project this year.... knitting up our first BABY! He/she will be due this October and we are very excited!!!!!!

Speaking of babies....I went to a friend's baby shower yesterday and it was so much fun! For her gift I whipped up the baby jeans (finally finished those in time!)



And also since my friend's little boy-to-be is named Gus, I knitted him his very own AsparaGUS :-D get it? This was so much fun to make!!!! I probably should write the pattern out since I made it up on the fly:




Can you tell I had WAY too much fun with this photoshoot??? I actually had the real asparagus before I knit this, it was my inspiration :-)



Hope everyone is having a great spring! I will leave you with a picture of the gorgeous tree in our backyard. :)

Booties ahoy

When my cousin had her baby the other week, we finally learned the sex (boy!) and so I commenced my knitting! I decided to do the Cabled Booties from Vintage Knits for Modern Babies.



Turned out pretty cute! I wish I had fabric covered buttons like in the book, but I had to work with my meager button stash because I want to get these mailed off! I actually had to restart them too after I had one bootie knit up.... I had started on 6's and didnt realize they were coming out too large. After I ripped it out I switched to a size 4 needle and it was MUCH better. :) Whew!

Matinee Jacket

Greg's cousin is expecting his first kid, a baby girl, this year! The baby shower is this weekend and my SIL and I have been teaming up to work on some handknits. She agreed to do a hat and booties and I tackled a sweater. Thanks to my MIL, I had the awesome book "Vintage Knits for Modern Babies" to flip through, and I found a cute pattern - the Matinee Jacket!



It turned out pretty cute! Mare (my SIL) picked out the yarn color (vanna's choice brand), and I found the adorable ducky buttons. :) Can't wait to have their cousin open our gift!!!!!!!


(the extra 2 are for Mare to use on her booties!)

Hippo's pants

Yes that's right folks, I had to make hippo some PANTS! The poor guy was running around all indecent!!! :-)


Again, I made this up as I went along.... I worked from the bottom up, knitting two tubes for the legs and then joining them with a couple increases for the body...I did one short row on the backside too. Then I did a foldover brim for the waist so I could do a drawstring waist (I thought that would look cooler than ribbing - and hippos need to be cool!) Oh and of COURSE a hole for his tail! Can't forget about that!


They were a lot of fun to make and now hippo can feel comfortable in public! ;-)

Hippo in the house!

This is a long overdue post, but I'd like you all to meet Hippo :-)


He joined us not too long after Christmas, because I got the book Itty-Bitty Toys on xmas eve, and knew as soon as I saw the hippo pattern, that it would have to be my first proj! (My hubby is partial to hippos)


I had a ton of fun making him!!!! It really wasn't that hard, I just had to be careful sewing all the pieces together to make sure he didn't lose an arm or anything, hehe!


The ears are super adorable!!! And his big round hands and feet! I can't wait to make another animal from this book :)

Of course, I couldn't stop there! The poor hippo needed some ACCESSORIES! First thing I knew I had to make was a simple garter stitch scarf... with fringe of course!


Hmm what next, well I had some leftover green and tan from the scarf... oh I know! A matching hat to keep his head warm! (with ear holes for his cute hippo ears, duh!)


Put it all together...


One fine lookin' hippo!


Now, I'd love to give you all a "hippo hat" pattern, and I think I took a few scant notes, but I truly made that thing up on the fly and got extremely LUCKY that it fit! I just kept trying it on him and eyeballing where the holes should go for his ears! Glad it worked out and he looks super spiffy!

Up next.... hippo gets his DECENCY!

KAL, anyone?

Guess what! There is a group of us getting organized to knit a February Lady Sweater for ourselves in 2010! Don't you love that sweater? I am so excited. Feel free to follow our progress on the KAL blog:

FLS Knitalong

And if anyone else wants to KAL with us, you are more than welcome! :-)

Haiti

I made a donation, won't you too? Let's help out the people of Haiti in their time of need.

Christmas knitting 09

Happy 2010! Before we look forward to the new year, let me recap my christmas knitting!

First and foremost, I can now reveal my secret project that I've been working on since JUNE.... it is the Estes Vest, and I knit it as a christmas gift for my sister in law!!!!!!


It was quite a project... cables, charts, POCKETS (never made those before!), and more! It was really a lot of fun though and I am very happy with the finished project.




And more importantly, so is Mare!!!! Woot. And it fits her, another plus! Apparently she even liked it enough to wear to her husband's family christmas party the next day... that was so awesome of her!


Next up was gifts for my family. We just had our christmas celebrations the other night since my mom was out of town! First up: I blogged about the "button gloves" I made for my mom earlier, and luckily she was very impressed when I gave them to her!


Also a big hit was the hat I made for my brother! He put it on right away and made comments like he thought it looked like something he'd see at abercrombie or something.... I'll take that as a compliment!!!!


(yes ladies, he's single!)

Finally, my other big project.... my dad's vest!!!!


For all the plain gray stockinette I had to slog through, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out... and also happy I was able to block a few extra inches into the width! :-)


Luckily dad indulged me and tried it on when I gave it to him.... and it fit! YEAH!


Finally, two small projects I whipped up in my "spare knitting time" before xmas.... Yes I actually had some! I know you will all hate me for that. Maybe next year I will be the one sweating it out and knitting into the wee hours of the night on something :-). I made a simple yellow dishcloth for some friends of ours (not anything photo worthy) and then I did some gloves. Simple fingerless ones for my Aunt: (one of my fav patterns: malabrigo mitts)


And lace up "opera gloves" (pattern) for my friend Shawn. I made them shorter than what the pattern specified, but I think they are plenty long enough!


Whew! So that sums up Christmas 09. I am very satisfied with what I got done, and am looking forward to what I can whip up in 2010!!!!

2009: A look back

I guess since we're moving to a new DECADE I could be doing a look back on the decade, but considering I only started knitting about 4 years ago, I better just stick with this last year.

Overall I am pretty happy with my knitting progress this year! I made several things that were in a new category for me, such as an adult size vest (2 of them!), I made some really fun projects, and also in general got a good volume of knitting done for people!

The year started out with some baby knitting, as 2009 brought lots of wee ones to my friends and family members:



I made a cute keyhole scarf for my mom, and then I tackled my first big project and also a commissioned project (for megan), the turtleneck shrug from Scarf Style:


It turned out pretty cute, and megan says it has been keeping her warm this year! :-)

I made one of my favorite baby sets for a gift for my coworker's soon to arrive baby girl:

Totally "punk" baby, eh??? :-)

I made several baby and adult hats in general, and I did a cute owly vest for Holden for his first bday! One new technique I mastered this year was felting... my first and second projects were cute felted bowls like this:


I made some baby legwarmers, and this sweater is probably my fav baby girl sweater:


One of the funniest things I've ever knit was this finger mustache thing... LOL....


I knit a shrug for one of my friends in less than 2 weeks, that was crazy, but I got a delicious cake in exchange :)


And of course, I made a cardigan for my mom's birthday!!!! I am so glad she likes it :-)


Other new things... I knit a dog sweater, little bunnies, dishcloths, dishtowel, scarf, baby vest, baby mittens, lots more hats, its been fun!



I will post about my christmas knitting next, but for now, here's to another adventurous and fun year of knitting in 2010!!!!! Knit on!