Handknit Christmas 2009

I know it's been FOREVER since I blogged, but at least I had a semi-good reason (well, that's what I've been telling myself). I have been so busy working on Christmas gifts and I didn't want to risk anyone seeing them before the big day. :o) Now that Christmas has come and gone, I can post away.

I decided to knit gloves for each of my sisters-in-law and my mother-in-law this year. Around thanksgiving 2008 one of my sisters-in-law made a comment that it would be so nice if I would make her a pair of gloves. That got me thinking....so I worked all year and made 7 pair of gloves! Can you believe it?!?! 7 pair!

Details on each pair can be found on my ravelry project pages.

I think they really like them! :o)

I also made 3 of my nieces (Jacqui, Anna, and Emily) a pair of fetching fingerless gloves. I personally have never understood why so many people love them...I feel like a hobo when I have them on. But since almost 14,000 pair have been made I figured it must be only me who feels that way. :o) I only have a picture of the pair I made Jacqui...

Finally, I whipped up a butterfly hat for my momma. She picked out this pattern way back in February or March...right after she lost the hat I made her last year. :o)

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas!

I can't wait to get started on all the fun projects I have planned for 2010...you've been warned..........

Baby, it's (getting) cold outside

My daughter has poofy pony tails every day. EVERY DAY. And since we live in Michigan, it's getting cold. (Of course as I write this, it's sunny and almost 70 degrees, but since it's Michigan, the weather will be below 50 degrees in just two short days. Gotta love it.) Anyways, since she has the poofy tails, finding a winter hat has been a complete chore. I've tried many, many, many hats on her, and of course, she has hated it every step of the way. I finally decided to just wing it and make her a hat...without a pattern. Yep. That's me. I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinda crafty girl. :o) I used some malabrigo yarn that I received in a swap last winter. I've never used this yarn before but I now know why so many people love it. It's sooooooooo soft and the color variations from the kettle-dying process is just beautiful. Now I want to make myself a sweater...ahem...but of course that's going to have to wait since I just might have 4 sweaters waiting to be made...and I have the yarn for those 4 sweaters upstairs in my craft room waiting for me. So...yeah. I'm just going to have to wait before I buy a sweater's quantity of malabrigo. Drat.

I used the heart design from this sweater that I found on knitty.com. Luckily for me the design repeat was 12 stitches, and the hat was 84 stitches around...woo hoo! I didn't have to manipulate the design. I love when that happens.

Now if I can just get her to keep it on her head we'll be all set. :o)

and baby makes four...

So we're becoming parents again! This time around, the adoption went even quicker than it did with Madelyn. We got a call last tuesday letting us know that a birth family had chosen us to

be the parents of a baby boy that was born on Sunday. !!!!! We were shocked and excited and speechless and nervous and happy all at the same time. We had so much to do within a very limited amount of time, but of course I was able to find some time to make the little guy something special just for him. I found this pattern while searching for ideas on Ravelry. I was able to make it in 2 days...perfect in the amount of time that I had. I really, really, REALLY like how it turned out. I used size 5 needles instead of the size 6 suggested in the pattern since baby Andrew is so little. I think this is just what he needs to wear when we're able to bring him home, which will hopefully be in the next few days...we're just waiting for the judge to sign the papers. Then our busy little house will get even busier! But, you know, I wouldn't want it any other way. :o)

Pumpkin Hat

I know, I know, I'm a dork. I think we've already established that when I made this bunny hat when Madelyn was first born, or the turkey hat for Madelyn's first thanksgiving. Well, why not keep up the tradition of making crazy hats? That's what I say.

I found a really cute pumpkin hat pattern last fall at my local yarn shop, The Knitting Den. I knew I already had way too many projects going on (but what else is new??) so I bought it so I could make it for this fall. I decided to start it Wednesday and I finished it yesterday, so it only took 2 days! If I'd known that when I bought the pattern, she would have had one last year. I used some Vanna's Choice yarn, which is very out-of-the-ordinary for me. I usually like to use wool but the price couldn't be beat. Plus, it's a kid's hat that won't get worn that often, so Vanna's Choice it is.

Do you think she likes it?

Here is my ravelry link.

Happiness Is....

...buying beautiful yarn with your birthday money!

I turned 30 (eeeek!) on April 18. I have to say I was not really thrilled with the idea of turning 30. But it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think that the fact that my in-laws giving me birthday money helped out. :o) Usually I don't do anything special with it. I just put it in my wallet and end up spending it on groceries or whatever. But this year I decided to do something just for me, something I don't normally do. I decided to spend it on yarn and make a nice sweater for myself. I did a ton of research and decided to make the February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne. I am using dream in color classy yarn (which is bad news because now I have a FAVORITE brand of yarn...look out, wallet. You're gonna be gettin' a workout at the yarn store!) in the happy forest colorway...very pretty.

I ordered the yarn from my local yarn store, The Knitting Den. They told me that it usually takes a while to get yarn from dream in color because they hand-dye everything themselves. I was okay with that because, come on, I have tons of projects going on ALL THE TIME. After a few weeks I called to check on it. The lady said she had just talked to the dream in color lady and it was still going to be a few weeks. Two days later, the Knitting Den called and said my order was in!!! Woo hoo! Of course, I rushed right over and picked it up. I swatched and got gauge right away and then cast on. Here is my progress so far:

I have fallen in love with this pattern and yarn. It's such a cute sweater. If you haven't made it yet, you should. I'm just sayin'.

Felted Bag Swap

A while ago I joined in a felted bag swap on Ravelry. I had just figured out how to felt in my front loading washer and I became obsessed with felting. I thought this swap would be a ton of fun and it has! My partner had a list of felted bag patterns she liked and this was one of them. It is a really pretty bag, plus it's even a free pattern, which makes it even better. It knit up pretty quickly and I like how it turned out. Here's a picture of the finished bag:

I added a lining with a pocket since you can never have too many pockets! My partner really likes the bag. That makes me happy! :o) I'm still waiting to get the bag made for me. It should come within the next week or so. I'm so excited to see what it looks like, especially since I have no idea what pattern or yarn was used. Yay!

Test Knitting

I found two fun groups on Ravelry called "the testing pool" and "free pattern testers". Basically, a designer can find people willing to test their patterns to see if there are any issues with them. I've done a few test knits, but one of my favorite ones was for Abstract Fiber. They sent me a skein of yarn and I could knit whatever I wanted to with it. I then send the item back to them to display in their store. How cool is this? And that's not even the best part...once they receive my item, I can pick out any skein of yarn for FREE!!! Yay! I love free yarn!

Since I love to make hats, I decided to make one for this project. The only problem was that I had to find a pattern that used sockweight yarn. Hmm. I eventually decided on this pattern from the Spring 2009 issue of Knitty, a pattern called Reverie. It was a lot of fun to make, especially using the awesome yarn I had. :o) I have never used handpainted yarn before and now I know what the fuss is all about. It is absolutely beautiful! I can hardly wait to get my hands on more of this stuff! Luckily I'll be getting more soon, with getting the free skein and all. ;o)

Here's what the hat looks like:

Isn't this yarn beautiful??

felting in a front loading washer

It works! It really works! I have always liked felted bags but I never thought I could do them since I have a front loading washing machine. But something got into me a few days ago. While I was on ravelry, I found this really cute pattern for a little purse with beads and I just had to make it. I made it for someone, but I can't say who yet because it's not time to give it to them yet! :o) I used some cascade 220 and my 10 1/2 dpns. It knit up really fast. I have never knit or crocheted with beads before. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Here's how it turned out:

Pretty cute, huh? Now I wanna find a pattern for a bag for myself, maybe to use for my knitting. Do you know of a good pattern? If you do, lemme know!

Shhh....it's still a surprise........

So my friend Jo had a birthday this past Monday. I won't say which birthday it was, but that it was a pretty big one and she's older than me :o). She's an avid scrapbooker (she actually is to blame for dragging me into yet another craft) and while she doesn't knit herself, she appreciates the work that goes into it.See? She likes the turkey hat I made Madelyn this year for Thanksgiving. A little while ago she requested me to make her an earflap hat. I thought her birthday would be the perfect opportunity to do just that. The day she asked me to make her the hat, I had on a pair of fun socks (I just LOVE fun socks...just to wear...not so much to knit) that were red and white striped. She told me she loved them! I thought it'd be fun to make her a hat similar to my socks. Here's how it turned out. I won't be giving it to her until next Friday. So if you see her, try to keep your mouth shut, okay? Okay! :o)

Secret Pal 13 Question 2

Part A:
Are you doing any holiday knitting?
Yes, I have done a lot of knitting actually. Most of it was for various swaps that I was in, but there were a few gifts for my mom and others :o).

Part B:
Have you finished?
I was all done...and then I decided to start knitting a scarf for my mother-in-law TODAY! I only have 1 week to complete it, plus finish up all the other Christmas stuff (wrapping presents, baking cookies, etc.), plus take care of Madelyn. What am I thinking? It's a really pretty pattern that I found here, but I'm not that good with lace and I can't read charts, so I had to print the word pattern in different colors for each row because I kept mixing the rows together. Ugh! I only had to frog it 3 times now, and I think I might have figured it out enough to actually knit it! I don't think I'll have it done in time for Christmas...I guess time will tell..........

Butterfly Hat and Handwarmers

I have been patiently waiting to do this post. I sent out my back tack package last week and my partner Emily received her package. Now I can finally write about a few of the items that I made her. I knit her this hat:
I know, I know, you really can't see the butterfly stitch in this picture, or any picture for that matter. The yarn I used made it difficult to photograph. But believe me, you can definitely see the butterfly stitch in person. I found the pattern here on ravelry. I tried to find a pattern for matching hand warmers using the same stitch. I couldn't find them anywhere! So, I had to come up with my own pattern. Here it is. It knits up really fast and the whole set only took 1 ball of yarn.

Butterfly Hand Warmers

1 skein of Patons Classic Wool Merino, dark gray mix colorway

size US 5 needles and size US 7 needles

Abbreviations:
yif = yarn in front
yib = yarn in back
s = slip (when slipping stitches, make sure to spread them out, so that your floats are even and don’t bunch up)
make butterfly = With your right needle pick up the 4 floats by inserting the needle under the floats from the bottom up, then insert the right needle into the next stitch on the left needle. Knit the stitch and the 4 floats together.

Cast on 40 stitches onto smaller needle. Work 2x2 rib (k2, p2) for 4 rows. Switch to larger sized needles. Knit in stockinette stitch for 2 inches, ending with wrong side row.

Rows 1, 3, 5, 7: [k5, yif, s5, yib] repeat to end.

Rows 2 (and all even rows for pattern sequence): purl.

Row 9: [k7, make butterfly, k2] repeat to end.

Rows 11, 13, 15, 17: [yif, s5, yib, k5] repeat to end.

Row 19: [k2, make butterfly, k7] repeat to end.

Repeat this sequence once more.

Work 2 rows of stockinette stitch (knit 1 row, purl 1 row). Switch to smaller sized needles. Work 2x2 rib (k2, p2) for 4 rows. Cast off, leaving a 8 inch tail. You will use this tail to sew up the sides. Put right sides together and sew about 2 inches down (this will be the top of the warmer). Leave about a 2-3 inch hole for your thumb. You can adjust the size of the hole to fit you. Sew up the rest of the warmer. Taa daa! All done! Now all you have to do is make another one and you are finished!

I hope you like this pattern. Let me know if I left anything out or if anything doesn't make sense. This is the first pattern that I made so I hope it works out well for you!

Gobble Gobble!

Have I mentioned how much I love Ravelry? Well, I do! I was killing time looking at the free patterns and I found this one for a turkey hat. Yep, that's right. A turkey hat! I thought it was too funny and that Madelyn needed it for her first thanksgiving. I started making it Saturday and I finished it this morning. It knitted up very quickly. I used some acrylic yarn that I had in my stash. I know, I know, acrylic yarn isn't my favorite either, but it was free so I used it. Here's how it turned out:

It's a little too big for her. Luckily, it fits me...but I'm still not going to post a picture of me in it! :o)

Baroness Beret

I have a confession to make. I have yet another addiction. I am now addicted to Ravelry. I signed up with the website a few weeks ago and I haven't looked back. There are sooooo many cool patterns and people on there! If you knit or crochet, I highly recommend checking out this website. I found this pattern for the baroness beret from http://www.knittherapy.ca/. I'm making it for my mother for Christmas. I am also making a few other items at the moment but the people that they are for use the computer and my mother does not. I feel safe to post my progress on her hat. Here it is so far:


I am using Bernat Alpaca Natural Blends yarn in the color sky. It's very nice to work with. This pattern calls for a tubular cast on method which I have never done before. Luckily, I found a tutorial here that really made it easy to master. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Brittany Jumper

I love, love, love baby clothes, especially baby girl clothes (go figure, huh?). As soon as we found out that we were going to have a daughter, I went a little crazy buying knitting patterns. I bought Minnow Knits Too by Jill Eaton because my local yarn store had a sample of a jumper hanging up. I knew that I just had to make it for my daughter to wear for Christmas. I worked on it for a while, but of course I got sidetracked with other projects. Then about a week ago I realized that Christmas is coming up and if I wanted Madelyn to wear that jumper I better get back to work on it! Nothing like a little time crunch to get yourself into gear. Here it is so far:

I just need to finish up the back bodice and buy some buttons. I bet that if I got off of the computer I could probaby get the knitting done today. Hmm...

misnomer

When we found out we were having a baby, the only girl name we could agree upon was Amanda. I had always had my heart set on the name Madelyn, but Ken didn't really like it. I needed something to occupy my mind while we waited for the baby so bought this book and I decided to knit this panda, thinking it would be cute for our daughter Amanda. It knitted up pretty quickly and I was pretty proud of myself for actually finishing a project before starting another one (as I always seem to do!). The joke was on me because when we first saw our daughter she didn't look like an Amanda at all...she looked like a Madelyn. Even Ken thought so. Oh well. At least I finished a project!

and another hat

I just couldn't help myself. I love to make hats. Madelyn, on the other hand, isn't that big of a fan. But I'm hoping I can convince her to change her mind. Who wouldn't want to wear this?

here we go...

So I found this website while I was searching for free baby craft patterns and I stumbled upon the blog "homemade by jill" and I instantly became addicted! I followed her burp cloth pattern and made 4 of them for my newly adopted daughter Madelyn. :o) I am now making about 3 different craft projects for her because I found some really cute patterns, but also because I can't seem to finish one project before starting another one. Here is a picture of my favorite thing I've made so far...a bunny hat. Pretty cute, huh? I found the pattern here. It was very easy and quick to knit up. It calls for 25 gram ball of angora, but I only used a teeny bit of it. I guess that just means that I can make more of these hats for my friends' babies!