While I wasn't knitting the Stag Bag...

I continued to work on my striped henley sweater:

I am making this up as I go so this might not make it to the final stages. I got the henley idea from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around. I originally wanted to make a fair isle, but I don't think I'll have enough yarn. I'm using my Chaco yarn I bought at Smiley's Yarn Riot back in January:

At that price, I should have bought a lot more!

I also started knitting the Pea Pod Baby Set from Knitting Daily.
This is how far I got:
I had a horrific ball of Red Heart supersaver yarn and thought I'd use it up, but the gauge was way off so I ran out before I could work on the arms. I love this pattern though and I think the Berroco yarn I am using for the Stag Bag will work great for this pattern. I will continue to hold onto the impulse buy yarn that I have no desire to use anymore :(

Finally, here's a picture of the finished owl:

Softies

I haven't posted anything too exciting for a while, so I'll add to that streak by sharing this link I found today:

Softies Central

It's all about handcrafted toys. They're all so cute! I particularily love August 28th's post of the Candy Corn Vampire!

I couldn't wait

I know you are but what am I?

I was hoping to use the yarn specified in the Stag Bag pattern, and like Rita, I'd surveyed the colors and decided that the Chocolate & Fennel really were the best combination. However, the yarn store didn't have either Ultra Alpaca Light or Ultra Alpaca, and it's the only yarn store I've been to here that has nice salespeople, so rather than give my money to New York Yarn Nazis I went with my old favorite, Lamb's Pride, from the nice people. I chose a really dark reddish purple and a slightly heathered wheat color; I really really love this yarn and these two colors, but I hope my choices don't turn out to be too contrasty.


A bonus result of this change of plans is that the bag will turn out larger, and I love big bags. So then, let the great experiment begin!

For the little ones

I had a lot of Cotton-Ease left over from Snakey, so I crocheted a granny square baby blanket for a coworker who is pregnant. I have become very fond of the new Cotton-Ease; it's really soft and comes in great colors, and it's machine washable.










And this is a toddler jacket from a free Berocco pattern. I used some of the Wool-Ease I'd originally intended for the Pink Sweater That Never Was. This was a really easy pattern and I think it turned out well, I just hope it fits well. I'm still debating whether to add some kind of fastener, like a frog clasp or something.













So...this means that my project bag is empty! I'm going shopping for the Stag Bag yarn on Wednesday (yarn store is closed on Tuesdays - wtf?) and I can't wait to start on it. I'm also planning a Christmas gift knitting program, hopefully to be revealed soon.

Knit-along

I guess this is my inaugural post for the Stag Bag knit-along. I went to the yarn store this weekend to purchase the yarn. I wasn't sure if I was going to follow the colors in the pattern, but after looking at all the options, I thought the brown and fennel were the best choices:


Apparently this is brand new yarn, which I didn't know. I had the store employee opening boxes of yarn just so I could see what my options were. I felt kind of bad...

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.

Sewing pieces

I finally have some time to post my finished projects. First, the grocery bag:

It's by no means as stylish or pretty as I imagined, but it gets the job done. I have enough fabric to make another one, but I'm trying to decide if I can make a messenger bag out of it. I want to be able to ride my bike to the grocery store, but I can't carry things back in a bag like this.

I also finally finished a shirt I've been meaning to alter for some time now:

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The elastic around the bottom might work on some 16 year old, but I really wanted it loose and longer like a tunic. I wasn't sure what kind of fabric I should go with because the shirt is so busy. I didn't think a solid piece would work. When I found my final choice, I was fairly pleased. It compliments the red in the shirt and the flowers, but it's muted as well.

Street Knitting

I was reading my Daily Awesome and the newest post was on Swedish street knitters and it posted pictures from Masquerade. The pictures are great.

Recycled Yarn-O-Rama

It's the finished Twinkle sweater! I actually made this weeks ago, wore it once, then ripped it out and re-did it and I'm much happier with it this time, although it's not 100%. It's just the right weight for a summer jacket. I used two strands of navy Cascade Sierra (wool & cotton) and one strand of a purple cotton from a Gap sweater I bought at a thrift store years ago and ripped up for the yarn. I still have a lot of the purple left so look for it in future projects...


This is the adult version of the Ballet T-Shirt from the Teva Durham book Loop-d-Loop. It is also made with recycled yarn - slightly nubby cream & tan cotton from an American Eagle Outfitters sweater I didn't wear much. This top is so easy to make and I love wearing it. I made mine much longer than the book version, and like the kid's version, I added a single-crochet border around the neck and hem to minimize rolling.


I've been doing a lot of yarn shopping in my closet lately! This is a pink marled cotton Land's End sweater that was a gift. I love the double-pink color and the light, soft yarn, but the shape just wasn't right, so I'm remaking it into the Martine short-sleeved cardigan from a Debbie Bliss book.













And Rita might recognize this Bass sweater from a legendary outlet shopping trip. Regrettably this acrylic & wool sweater didn't make it into regular wardrobe rotation, but since I do love the color, I pulled it apart and it's waiting for the right pattern to come along.

New %*&@! Baby Sweater

Despite my lack of posts, I have been knitting away. About a month ago I decided I wanted to knit something quit and easy(!) and decided to try a baby sweater from Stitch and Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller. I thought I'd knit the Baby's First Tattoo sweater but I didn't like the patterns they offered so I made my own. A) I need to buy some graph paper and B) I need to knit the pattern before I knit it in a sweater from now on.

So here is the finished project:

I jumped right into the project and soon discovered that this raglan cardigan was knit in several pieces (two front pieces, back piece, two sleeves) --what a nightmare! I didn't think I minded piecing things together before but this pattern taught me a lesson. I also didn't really know how to do intarsia so one mushroom was a poorly made fair-isle. I wrapped the other mushroom nicely though so I can say I did learn something from this project. I'm not completely happy with the final pattern...the mushroom stem looks a bit wonky, but it's not like I have to wear it.

There was a nightmare amount of weaving though:


I think this summer I might stick to socks and sewing. I'm off to sew some canvas grocery bags! Hopefully I can post the results before the weekend disappears.

Twinkle sweater, orange dress, & scrap blanket

This is the Twinkle cardigan from the same issue of Vogue Knitting as the Orange Dress. I still have to weave in ends and then block it, so I'll make a more detailed post when it's all done.










This is a scrap blanket I started ages ago. I work on it one or two squares at a time when I want a break from other projects. I love scrap projects! It's about 3 1/2 feet square right now.










And, here's the back of the Orange Dress. The front is about 6 inches long; it's going very slowly!

Beyond Yarn

Well, it's been a long time since I rapped at ya! I thought I'd post some non-knitting needle work I did recently: I made some curtains for my bedroom. I'm often uninspired by curtains. They're too expensive, not very fun or creative, and they don't fit the window the way I want. I also want to start working with my sewing machine more, so I did and here is the result:

And here is the detail:


I found the sheer curtain at Target but it was too thin and boring, so I added the purple liner, with pink stitching!, and added a cute paisley edging to give it a little extra fun. I think I'm going to be adding panels of fabric to other things this summer (I have a cute shirt that's just a tad too short I'm going to try this with it next).
Also, my obligatory cat shots are getting way out of hand but that darn cat is a real ham!

Two little tops

There are two toddler girl birthdays coming up in the family so I took the opportunity to make my very first little kid garments. The yarn for both is super-soft Blue Sky Cotton - it would be a luxury yarn for me if I were making an adult-sized project, but since these tops use so little yarn, together they cost less than a kid's outfit from Old Navy!

This green wrap sweater is my first crochet project in a long time - years, even. It was so much fun to make, so fast and a nice change of pace. I love this color! The pattern is a free one from the Lion Brand website; the only modification I made was to use the ribbon ties instead of an inner snap and crochet chain tie for the closure. It took exactly 2 skeins (100 grams/150 yds).

This purple top is the Ballet T-shirt from Teva Durham's Loop-d-Loop, the second project I've made from that book. There's an adult version of this top that I want to make for myself. The kid's version was so easy to make that it only took one afternoon & evening to finish, AND it only used a single 100 gram/150 yard skein! Actually, there was some yarn left over when I finished the pattern, so I just kept going to make it more of a tunic, and I added a single-crochet border around the neck to use up the whole skein. I think this will become a go-to pattern for gifts in the future.

Yellow bag

I (almost) finished the yellow wool bag...I'm editing this post because I decided to change the handle that's shown in this picture. A new one is in the works using the same leather in a different kind of braid.

The bag is loosely lined with fabric from an H&M cotton smock top that I didn't wear anymore.