Snakey

Here's Wyatt with the snake I finally finished, from Knitted Toys by Zoe Mellor. It's made in Cotton-Ease; he's about 4 feet long and is very soft & squishy.

And here's a quick bathmat I'm making to use up the three huge skeins of Sugar 'n Creme I impulse-bought a few weeks ago (so cheap!). I'm using it six-stranded here. It's a nice natural color with pink, purple, and blue flecks. If there is any left over I will make a dishrag or two.

Weekend Update

I had high hopes of sitting down and reading the last Harry Potter book this weekend, but then decided that I enjoy savoring books. That decision gave me a lot of time to reorganize my yarn stash--sadly, since my moratorium on yarn buying was lifted I really haven't bought anything, and yet my yarn stash hasn't gone anywhere either. I posted earlier about making some washcloths and here's one I made this weekend (using up one skein of Sugar'nCream):
I will probably be making more--they're fun and fast and I really need more washcloths. The pattern is the Stepped Ridge pattern from Dishcloth Botique.

I also (almost) finished this guy:
He still needs eyes and a scarf but I didn't have any matching Red Heart Soft yarn in a color I liked. I got this pattern from Lucinda Guy's book And So To Bed... I thought the pattern was rather confusing and totally wrong in some parts, but with a little thought, I figured out what it meant. This was a lesson in seams. I've never stitched purl seams before. It was good practice. On the bright side, because I made that mushroom sweater, the insartia part was really easy. And I did not make this owl because of Harry Potter...it was just a cute toy!

More miscellany

Wow, Rita's sewing really puts mine to shame, but here it is anyway - my first baby steps toward both learning to sew and beginning a wardrobe recycling regimen with the bags of reject clothes on the floor of my closet. These tote bags made from tank tops are going to get stuffed into my regular everyday handbag so they'll be handy for library books & small grocery store trips.



Here's a little sweater, from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies by Erika Knight, for my niece-to-be. It's super-tiny! It's made with Cotton-Ease, which I really enjoyed knitting with.




Back in December I made a bunch of small felted bowls to give as gifts, but I made more sets than I gave away so I finally put the rest to use by nesting them tightly, stuffing the smallest ones & inverting them, then sewing them all together to make pincushions. And in keeping with my original intentions, I gave them to two coworkers who like to craft.

New Shirts

I finally finished a couple of shirts and thought I'd share the final products. They are both from the same pattern: Simplicity 4589. I was a little uncertain about how to read the pattern directions at first, but I figured it out and, obviously, both shirts are very simple.


The brown shirt is pretty great. I already wore it to work and didn't feel like a tool in it. The yellow shirt's arm holes are a little wide and I'm thinking I'll take a small tuck under the arm eventually. I wish this pattern had darts, but I think that might be a step beyond my current abilities...always something to work on.
Since these are my first attempt at sewing clothes, I'm pretty happy. Years of semi-quilting has at least given me the basics on how to use my sewing machine and how to sew things together. I am next going to work on making skirts and I'm also thinking of making a pair of linen pants with really wide legs.

On the knitting front I'm slowly working on these socks:

There has to be a Rita's Rule about knitting socks, but I'm too lazy to write one up right now. I have one finished and I'm working on the second one now. Maybe I'll have it done for the fall. We'll see.

This & that

I finished the Debbie Bliss Martine cardigan and I'm pretty happy with it, but it's very big in the body (hard to tell from the photos), so I'm giving it to my sister who's pregnant and starting to show - I think this style of one-button sweater is perfect for a big belly.





Here are the results of some more thrift-store un-knitting. These are both cotton; the red and tan are really soft, and the green is a really fine tape-like yarn. I don't have anything in mind for them yet, they're just going into the stash.




I just received the new Norah Gaughan pattern booklet, Vol.1, from Berroco, and I *love* it. I've actually never yet knit with Berroco yarn but I'm a big fan of their patterns.

And finally, the recent posts on TECHknitting on joining methods are amazing! She shows several ways to join new yarn *without leaving tails* that will need to be woven in! I can't wait to try them out.