No knitting today

YET!! Instead I made my own stitchmarkers :)
It's something I've been wanting to do ever since I read this online tutorial. I finally did it! This could be almost as addicting as knitting. Yikes!! It was nice to be crafty in a way that wasn't knitting or crocheting. I don't consider myself to be crafty at all. After making these, I may have to change my mind lol.


Aren't they pretty?!

Thanks to Michael at wormspit.com for his wonderful tutorial!

Playing Catch-Up

Here are pictures of the wristlets I've made for myself using the pattern Warm Braid Cable Wristwarmers. I love the pattern so much that I've made five pairs and plan on making at least two more pairs.

Here are the three I own:

This is the first pair I made. They are made with a semi bulky Joanne brand acrylic wool blend. Kind of itchy and the cables don't stand out very well. I made an identical pair for my youngest daughter.


The third pair I made. The second pair were for my mom and exactly like these. These were made with Red Heart "Soft Yarn" in wine. They are sooo soft, especially considering they are 100% acrylic.


These are the last pair I made. These were made with Patons Soy Wool Stripes "Natural Blue". I LOVE this yarn. I wish it would come in more colors though...

A knit-i-ful week

It has been a week full of knitting in this house.
I have been knitting furiously at this baby blanket, dodging homework & studying whenever I can in hopes of getting this thing finished before the weekend.

I made it. At 11am this morning, it was finished:


I'm not sure why the finishing corner is pointed and the cast on corner is flattened. I followed the instructions, decreasing until there were 4 stitches remaining, then knitting one more row before casting off the last 4 stitches. Oh well. It's cute. You can definitely tell the upper right hand corner (as you're looking at the picture) is the last corner...it's just a tad more stretched out (from the weight of the blanket, I assume) than the other corners.

Then to celebrate my being done with that monkey on my back (and to distract myself from the fact that I have one more baby blanket to do...) I cast on for this adorable Newborn Adjustable Hat. I made it with Red Heart "Soft Yarn" in Turquoise.
**The link is created using Archive.org since the link where the original (free) pattern was (frugalhaus.com) takes you to a site that no longer has free patterns (cheapknitting.com)**



It's a cute hat. The only change I made was instead of using a crochet hook to make a chain for the tie, I just made an i-cord using size 6dpns. I think it turned out cute too.

As if that wasn't enough, my 8yo son finally got the hang of knitting. He's cast on and is working on his knit stitch and is very excited to be the first boy in our family to knit lol. My younger son is quite jealous.

He's a natural!

And he's a "thrower" it seems.

I know have three knitting children, with the youngest (age 5) itching to get started :) My oldest daughter is creating her own pattern for wristlets and is about done with the first one. My youngest daughter just finished her own pattern for a GameBoy SP Cozy. It's a family FO affair lol.

Baby Blanket Blues

So I'm making my friend a baby blanket.
It's my very first knit blanket ever. It's not challenging at all. I'm using the pattern on the back of the skein Bernat's Baby Coordinates Sweet Stripes - Purple Blanket. It's very very easy.

It's just taking me FOREVER!!!!!!!!
I started it over a month ago and I work on it about an hour to two hours each day. I'm only just now past the halfway mark and am finally decreasing. It's a good thing the baby isn't due until May because it looks like it's going to take me that long to finish it!

Here it is just past the increasing rows:


**Small funny...my girls (who also knit) wouldn't let me knit this in public when I first started it. They said that on the circular needles, it looked like I was knitting a THONG for someone with a really big butt LOL!**

And wouldn't you know it, I volunteered to make my coworker a baby blanket too. Anyone out there have a baby blanket pattern that goes by QUICKLY that would be suitable for a boy? I was thinking big & lacy on huge needles would be quick, but my dilemma(s) with that is that the baby's fingers & toes would get caught in the "holes" and big & lacy doesn't quite go well for a baby boy.

Help a girl out? I wouldn't want to have to *gulp* crochet her a baby blanket just because it's faster....poor baby.

Think of the baby....

Made myself a hat

I love it!
I love cables!
I wish I could marry them.


KIDDING!

I do love doing cables though. They are so fun and look so impressive when you're done. I had dh take pictures of me wearing it, but I look like a dork because he had me laughing like a loon. Silly butt.

Here are the pictures anyway:




It's called the 3AM Blue Cable Hat. I did it in LionBrand WoolEase "Ivory Sprinkles". My only complaint is the "sprinkles" have a tendency to come off on my hair when I wear the hat. I'll just wear it when I walk to my boys' school in the afternoons. When I get home, the kids can take turns picking sprinkles out of my hair like the monkeys that they are LOL.

Mystery Skein Swap

Now that my partner has received her package, I can post about what I made for her.

At the beginning of the year, I joined Mystery Skein Swap. The idea behind the swap was to get a chance to make something for someone you (probably) don't know in person and get a chance to maybe work with fibers you may not have had a chance to work with before.

I was lucky enough to be paired up with Teri. She sent this beautiful purple wool, Cascade 220. I had never worked with this yarn before. It worked up beautifully, the color was just fabulous. I think it's called delphinium. At first I couldn't decide whether to make her wristlets or a scarf, or if maybe I would have enough for both. After swatching, I realized I would not be able to make both.

Having already made umpteen pairs of wristlets, I was ready to try something new. Plus, a scarf could be worn not only in the cold months, but as an accessory too.

I decided on the Karaoke Cable Scarf. I have to say I LOVE this pattern. It is so simple, yet impressive in it's row after row of twisting cables. It was so easy to memorize, I was able to put my pattern away after only a couple of repeats. In fact, most of this scarf was done while Knitercizing like my friend Isa aka Tricotine. I am not talented enough to do the treadmill and knit, but recumbant bike & knitting I can handle. I'm not even going to try knitting on the elliptical...I might lose an eye!!

Without further ado, here is Teri's Karaoke Cable Scarf :)

meme-ness

I am a Sunflower What Flower Are You?

"When your friends think smile, they think of you. There is not a day that goes by that you can't find something good about the world and your fellow human."