Back in the saddle

Well I actually have been knitting! That is crazy since having 2 kids is definitely a big time commitment. My little man doesn't like to go very long between meals and today he didn't even want to sleep. Eesh!

Anyway I found a great project to ease myself back into the world of knitting.... bulky weight yarn, mostly stockinette, and a small project: a sweater for ! It's a pattern I testknit for the fabulous Courtney. Yarn is Lion brand Wool-Ease Chunky. I will keep you all updated as to when this pattern is available to the public! It's simple and really cute.

I just found out I'm not supposed to post pictures of the finished item due to the rules of pattern publishing... oops! Will share them later when I can. Sorry about that Courtney!!!

Hat & Glove set

Recently I was able to do a commissioned project for my friend Natalie! She was awesome and sent a package containing not only the yarn for the project, but homemade marshmallows, fancy hot chocolate, and some teas! YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The yarn is amazing too.... it's wool, but SO springy and cushy and soft! It's Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd's Wool. I am now a big fan.

I ended up making up my own pattern for some fingerless gloves: (More details on my ravelry page here)

And she had told me she liked this hat pattern, so I was able to sneak in the Regina Hat as a surprise for her too:

I mailed them off this last week and I am happy to say she recieved them well! I love this pic she took of her in her matching set:

I love knitting for people who send pics of them/their kids/etc wearing the items!!!!

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!!!

Sigh.

One week till christmas, and here I am ripping out part of this project (secret so I can't post about it!).... I knew I should have checked on it better while I was knitting but it SEEMED okay.... now my numbers are all off and it's just... wrong. OOPS. Let's hope I feel like staying up late for the next week!!!

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

Gobble Gobble

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! We have our christmas tree up (already!), and Norah couldn't be happier! Our fridge is full of leftovers that I DIDN'T cook (thanks mom!!!), there is a little boy dancing around in my belly, and I finally have some of that lovely yarn on the needles for the first time:

Hope everyone else is as feeling as thankful as I am! :)

Buttons!

Just ran and got cute blue buttons and sewed them on my finished baby cardi.... voila!

Wound up

I wound up a ball of the Purl Soho yarn, but haven't knit with it yet. It's ready and waiting for me though! :-)

In other news, I am blocking a wee cardi for my friend's little boy. This time (first one I made see here) I did the tapered sleeves instead of the straight ones, as I think it will be better to stay close to little newborn arms. I still need to get buttons but here is a progress pic from when I was still knitting it:

Pattern: Puerperium Cardigan
Yarn: Alpaca with a Twist - Baby Twist

Currently on the needles is a pair of fingerless gloves for my friend Natalie. She sent an amazing package in the mail which contained not only YARN, but hot chocolate mixes AND homemade (yes!) marshmallows. YUM!!!! In exchange all I "have" to do is knit the yarn up into things. The yarn is super amazing, so it's really just like one big treat for me!!!!

Yarn: Shepherd's Wool (Stonehedge Fiber Mill) - worsted weight

It's super springy and cushy for 100% wool! Plus when I was winding it up it DIDN'T shed little bits of fuzz like a lot of wool has in the past. I'm a big fan of this stuff! :) As for the glove pattern, she had sent me a photo of some gloves she had seen in a store that she liked. Working roughly from that, I am really just winging it with my own pattern. (scary!) Here is what I came up with:

I borrowed the amazing stitch pattern from this hat: Claudia Hat

The rest is cobbled together and I am hoping they will suit her tastes!!!! I will keep you posted to see if I can make the 2nd glove the same size/pattern. LOL. (I took notes but it's still hard!) I might also have some ideas for the rest of the yarn (seeing as I am going to have plenty leftover!).

Last and also least, I finally gave it up and frogged that sweater I had started for Norah. It just wasn't what I wanted, and I'd much rather make something we will both enjoy wearing and using. Oh well!

Thank you Purl Soho!!!

Yes that's right folks - I am a WINNER! Specifically, I won an online giveaway! I occasionally comment on blogs and enter myself in various giveaways but have never won something. UNTIL NOW. The best part is that I won one of the best things in the world..... YARN!

I've been reading/following the Purl Bee blog (run by the Purl Soho company) for awhile now, mostly because they have GREAT free knitting patterns! Besides being free, the patterns are stylish and things I would actually want to knit. All-in-all it's a great site. Recently they decided to go into the yarn biz and introduced their first yarn, Super Soft Merino! It's a beautiful super bulky merino wool. (Click through that last link to see all their colors!)

Anyway, if you clicked the link you will see they had a giveaway on the blog of some free yarn in honor of their first production. Of course I entered! Lo and behold... I WON. I still can't believe it! They sent me the nicest email and asked what colors I wanted for my FREE 10 SKEINS OF YARN. 10!!!! ZOMG! It took me awhile to decide (and frantic emails to a few friends lol) but I finally emailed them back using 1 zillion exclamation points. Not even a week later this arrived on my doorstep:

_{(4 peacock blue, 4 oyster grey, and 2 yellow yellow)}

Is it not amazing??!?!!!? This is the best contest I could have ever won! :) I had my assistant helping me to open and asses the yarn:

...and she knew exactly what to do with it (rub it on your face to check the softness!):

Needless to say, the name of this yarn totally lives up to the hype. IT IS SUPER SOFT. Like butter. I am sooooo excited to get this on the needles and see how it knits up, but as it is in the skeins I am more than pleased! I promise I will share when I get something cast on. In preparation I have created a folder on my desktop in which I am saving knitting patterns that would suit this yarn. I hope to be able to get as much as I can out of this amazing free yarn!

THANK YOU AGAIN PURL SOHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I promise I will buy from you in the future! :)

Growing boy

My post title is not referring to my little unborn baby boy (although man is he getting big in there!!!).... I am talking about my nephew Holden!

Back in August of 2011 I finished this adorable striped sweater (and never blogged about it? what??) for my then three-year-old nephew. It was supposedly sized for a 4 year old, and I thought I was playing it safe. Well it ended up fitting, but it was BARELY long enough to cover his stomach. (boo!)

Pattern: Child's Sweater Size 4
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease
Mods: Stripes inspired by Ravelry user's sweater: DomesticImpostor

I had the bright idea that I could lengthen the sweater (seeing as I had some of the yarn leftover in the stash) so that he could wear it this winter! (I hate to see a sweater grown out of so fast, hehe!) I had my SIL give me the sweater and then I got to work. First issue: the original sweater I knit flat and sewed up the pieces. For the lengthened part I knew I wanted to do it in the round (plus how else would I do it... it'd be really awkward to try and do it in pieces for an addition!). My solution ended up being to just muddle through and see what happened. :)

I put the stitches at the bottom of the lowest (green) stripe on a large circular needle. Next, I cut off the grey ribbed edges and pulled out any leftover bits until I was left with just the green stripe on the needles. For the leftover seams I just tried to tie them off as best I could. If they ever do unravel I will bust out some sewing thread, but for now it seems good to go! (whew).

Next I grabbed my spare yarn and added a blue and brown stripe, and then redid the grey ribbed edging. I think it blended in pretty well - I wish I had done a tiny grey stripe between the blue and brown but I was worried about not having enough for the edging.

I plan on giving it back to my SIL next time I see her... I hope I lengthened it enough!!! Cross your fingers for me!

Mittens for a butterfly

Woah, it's November? And I am zooming in on 30 weeks pregnant this weekend? CRAZY. I have managed to get some knitting in here and there. I continue to work on my secret xmas project (to be announced later), which is going fine.

Back before it was Halloween (I need to keep up on this blog better!) I was working on my daughter's costume. We had these gorgeous monarch butterfly wings that she has gotten from my MIL sometime last year, so I thought a butterfly would be an easy enough costume! We already had black sweatpants, and I bought a plain black long sleeve tshirt. Oh and I found some cute antennae on sale - originally meant for a bumble bee, but the yellowish orange color worked well with her wings! 

In that photo she is not wearing the part of her costume that I knit.... fingerless mittens! I assumed Halloween would be cold and dreary (and of course halloween night was GROSS out), so I busted out some wool in the closest matching shade I could find and made these:

Yarn: Patons Classic Wool (and some black scrap wool of some sort I had lying around for the hearts)
Pattern: Sucky Thumb Mitts
Mods: CO 26 sts. Followed directions except did K12 instead of K15 and left out a few rows of ribbing at beginning and end. Original pattern was too loose for my girl's hands with my gauge!

Since Halloween night lived up to its weather expectations, we added a winter coat and those mittens to her ensemble for trick-or-treating. Here she is all ready to head out into the drizzle.

I think we did 5 houses... it was enough for mom and dad! :-) We did get a few comments on the mittens, which was really fun for me to hear. Hooray for successful last minute costume knitting!

More yarn!?

I guess I neglected to mention that 4 days before my little girl turned 2, a certain someone in our house turned 30. Aaaaand that would be me. Yikes! How did I get this old??? ;-)

I was super spoiled by family and friends (flowers, gifts, etc!), and at the end of it I came out with 2 wonderful yarn gifts! First up is this lovely green baby alpaca from my friend Shawn:

It's soooo soft... I might have to make something for my little man out of it??? Or maybe an adult. I don't think baby alpaca is washable??? :)

My 2nd addition to the yarn stash was three balls of the amazing Sublime yarn (merino) from my sweet hubby!

(Complete with PJ-clad toddler foot in the background - she is always "helping me"!)

I love the colors. I think they would look great all striped together in one project, don't you think? Anyway it has been a great october so far! Yay for birthday month!

Tiny Owl

I put Greg's sweater aside for a bit when I heard my good friend's daughter was in the hospital because of croup! Her kiddo is only a month younger than mine so I can't imagine how rough that was. Luckily they are home now and the little one on the mend. This morning we swung by to drop off a little present to cheer her (and her older bro) up! I threw in some toys for both kiddos but I wanted something special for her. I searched ravelry knowing her mom loves owl things and found this!

Went SO fast. Few hours, tops. And not much yarn!

Pattern: Owl Puffs
Yarn: Red Heart EcoWays
Needle: US6 (so it'd be tighter so I could stuff it well)

I love quick projects :-)

September Recap

Here we are in the last week of September already! Eeek! I thought we should recap the things that have been on my needles lately (and mostly still on the needles):

First: Sweater for Norah. I'm not entirely happy with this so it has been banished inside a bag under my desk for a week or so.

Pattern: Elliot Sweater
Yarn: Red heart Eco-Ways (leftover from those baby blankets I made)

I mean, I like the color, but it seems like it's going to be a little big for this winter (which was my intention), and also I just don't think I am a fan of a garter stitch yoke. It's so stretchy it feels like it pulls down to much when worn. I think that also bothers me a bit on the February Lady sweater I made for myself. Hmmm. I am going to let this one hibernate a bit more and think about things.

Second: I started a sweater for my hubby!!!! This will be the first sweater I've ever made him (and we are only approaching our 4th anniversary, that isn't too bad right???). He helped pick out the yarn and agreed on the pattern.

Pattern: Basic Cardigan (doing the button version) from Knits Men Want
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes
Mods: Not doing reverse stockinette panels, instead doing all stockinette. Adding ribbing to the bottom & cuffs of sweater.

Also helping me GREATLY is my friend Shateen! She is making the same sweater for HER husband! Yay for KALs! I forgot how much fun and how inspiring it is to knit something along with someone else. If it wasn't for her I probably wouldn't even have the yarn yet!!!! I also just did a guest post on her blog about an activity I did with Norah. Check it out if that sounds interesting to you :)

Hope everyone is having a great fall! (Everyone being the three people that read my blog lol)

Twin blankets

So about those baby blankets! They should have arrived at their destination by now, so here we go.

Aaaaand I just realized I never took good finished object photos. Crap! OK here I guess you can see my not-quite-finished photos. Twin blanket #1:

And twin blanket #2:

Pattern: Jackson Blanket
Yarn: Red Heart Eco-Ways (Yes I know... I used red heart. Hell hath frozen over!!!!)

The blankets were quick and easy and I really like how they turned out. I modified the pattern to make it smaller, only casting on 92 sts. This made them more of a carseat/stroller size. I originally did it because I was worried I wouldn't be able to finish them quickly, but each one only took about a week to knit! Wow. I am happy though, I think the smaller size is nice for little ones when they start dragging their blankies around. Anyway Dana if you are reading I hope you got them and I hope when your little girls come out they like them!

More Monsters Multiplying

First off I finally went and bought some white felt so I could make monster mouths! Here is N's monster with his new mouth:

She can now stop pointing at his face and pointing at her mouth and looking at me like, "where is his mouth mom?" :-) If you can see in the pic, I decided to sew the mouth on instead of gluing... mostly because I don't have a hot glue gun and also I feel this is more secure. I only sewed along the bottom of the teeth so they can kind of stick out a little. Worked out well! I ended up needing to make 2 mouths... one for N's monster and one for...

Monster #2! He is going to my friend's son. When she saw the first monster I made she had mentioned how much she would love one for her little man and I couldn't help myself!

Pattern: Harold the Houseplant Monster
Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Encore Worsted

I like how each monster has their own "look" and personality. :-) Right now I have started a sweater for Norah for the 2nd time (the first one was turning out huge), so I will post about that as soon as I make sure this one is going to fit. I am stashbusting using leftover yarn from the twin baby blankets I made... which I haven't blogged about because I was waiting until I sent them to my friend. Soon though!

Stuffed monster

After finishing my first ever monster, I immediately knew I had to make one for my darling little girl. She did like the first one enough, but I didn't think the green was quite "her". We talked about it (as much as you can talk with a one year old) and determined she wanted one that was boo and puwpuw! (blue and purple lol)

Here is the monster! Sans mouth!

Pattern: Bea the Basement Monster Yarn: Patons Classic wool (stash buster!)

I still need to get to the store and buy some white felt so I can make a cute monster mouth like the ones in the book. He's pretty cute. No real name yet, I just call him "monster". N likes to point at his face and whine that he doesn't have a mouth yet. I'm working on it kiddo!!!! :)

Sharpie added for scale - he is BIG! I could have stuffed him a bit more so he has the shape of the ones in the book, but I wanted him to be squishy. Also his "bottom" is knitted in the MC (instead of the CC purple, my mistake when I started him) and his arms are knit in the CC (instead of the MC because I ran out of blue!). I still like it though! My mom thought he was from a kids' cartoon or something, so I took that as a compliment!

Book Review - The Workshop Book of Knitting

My mom teaches at an elementary school, and sometimes their library has book sales to get rid of some older books and make room for new. My mom, being so thoughtful, picked up this gem just for me!

The Workshop Book of Knitting! This book was written in 1973 by Miss von Wartburg, who was a knitting instructor who ran a workshop for kids in NYC. (Sidenote: Anyone feel sorry for the author? I mean was her childhood horrible with that name? Ursula von WARTBURG? Yikes. OK back to the review!)

It is really interesting to compare the way knitting was described and taught by her at the time compared with the kids' knitting book that I bought in 2005 from which I taught myself. Overall I am able to understand it, but there are some things that were either funny, or just interesting in how they ordered/taught things. I am going to now post some of my favorite quotes, along with my comments. Enjoy!

"Hand-spun yarn has a quality all its own. It is uneven and bumpy in spots, which gives it a unique charm not found in machine-made yarn"

Uhh I could think of some people who might be highly offended by that statement! I know a lot of handspun CAN be bumpy and uneven but there is plenty of beautiful almost-perfect looking handspun out there. Sheesh :)

(In the "Winding Yarn" section:) "Make a Surprise Ball for someone. Wind candies and little trinkets into a knitting ball. The knitter will be delighted when the surprised fall out as the ball of yarn unwinds.

Hmmm not sure about that. What if the "trinkets" got tangled up in the yarn? Or the candy melted because the person you gave it to didn't knit with it for a year or two? Wait ew that would probably invite bugs to come live in your yarn! Ewwww!

"Knitting needles are made of either plastic or aluminum"

If those were the only choices I feel deeply sorry for the people of the 70s! :)

(From the "Other Helpful Tools" checklist:) Handkerchief, man's size, for wrapping delicate knitting

What, I need a handkerchief? Where do I even buy one these days??? lol

When they get to the actual instructions about stitches and knitting, they start off with "The Plain Stitch" which I am reading to just mean the front of a regular knitted stitch. They call the backside the "Purl stitch" which makes sense. It's just interesting they have names for each side of a stockinette stitch.

OK last part I need to quote in entirety, because it is funny to me!

"How to Take Care of Your Knitting"

1. Store your knitting tools and materials in a box such as a shoe box, and keep light-colored knitting wrapped up in a handkerchief or dishtowel.
2. Don't let the ball of wool roll around on the floor while you are knitting.
3. Wash your hands with soap and water before starting to knit. Also wash them if they become moist and sticky while knitting.
4. Do not rest your elbows on a table while knitting. Sit back in your chair and relax.
5. Make it a habit to finish the row or round before putting your knitting away.
6. When you put your knitting away, place one needle over the other and wrap yarn around the needles so the stitches won't slide off.
7. Make your workplace a happy place to be. Tidy up around you. Work with good light on your knitting.

Whew... Um anyone else break about all of those rules every time you knit??? Or is it just me? :-)

Monster Mash

After getting the Big Book of Knitted Monsters for christmas (yes i'm behind), I knew there would be knitted monsters in my future. I finally decided to pick one and go for it! Introducing...

Shammy Skywalker! He was named by his new mama, my BFF Kat. I presented him to her last night when we went out to catch up (she lives out of state but was home visiting). I think they both seem very happy together :D

As you can see he's a bit of a lush. ;-)

I was planning on doing the cute white felt teeth mouth like in the book but I forgot to get felt so I just embroidered a mouth on... but I like it. He looks happy!