Lace Ribbon Scarf

So it seems that I only like to knit in the fall. I have all these grand ideas for projects throughout the year, but I only ever get any finished in the fall. Ella has been in private speech therapy for 3 1/2 years and 3 of those years has been with the same therapist, Ms. Kim. Well, Nov. 24th will be her last session! This is both exciting for us and bittersweet. Mostly because we've gotten to know Ms. Kim a bit and will miss seeing her on a weekly basis. However, so exciting that Ella has come sooo far with her speech and no longer needs the private therapy (she still receives 2 sessions/week of speech in school).

As a thank you for all the wonderful work she has done with Ella, I wanted to make Kim a scarf. I set about looking for a very specific color of yarn. I wanted it to be variegated and representative of both Ella and Kim. Kim likes more earthy colors of moss green, browns, grays, and oranges but she always tried to remember to wear pink on the day she worked with Ella because she knew it was Ella's favorite color. On a visit to Coldwater Collaborative in Excelsior about 15 minutes away (photo of store to the left, doesn't it look sumptuous?). I found a beautiful skein of Noro Silk Garden Lite in color 2032. And I decided to use the Lace Ribbon Scarf from knitty.com.



And this last photo is one that I'm going to include with the scarf when we give it to Kim:
I have a few other projects in the works right now that hopefully I can get finished up before Christmas. As well as a few baby projects I'd like to get done in January before Baby #3 makes his debut.

More knitting finished

Wow! I'm on a roll! Little things are awesome to make. They take no time at all!

And for the little who will be receiving the fish I made in the previous post (thanks Bob and Amber for having a boy so I didn't have to make the girl version of my fish right away) :-), little Bryce is also receiving this adorable ducky hat! I sort of made this one up. I made the rolled brim hat from Last Minute Knitted gifts, casting on for a size smaller than the baby size. In my experience, this hat runs large. And I wanted the hat to fit a newborn (and a smaller newborn at that. Bryce was 5lbs, 7oz.) so I cast on 48 stitches instead of 56 for the baby size, using Cascade Peruvian Cotton Luna yarn in Lemon. I took the idea for the duck hat from Knitted Critters for Kids to Wear. This adorable book has all kinds of animal hats for kids. They are for about ages 3 years and up so they are larger. I used this pattern to make the duck bill. Sewed on some eyes. Added the tiny tuft at the top (my own addition) and viola! An adorable newborn duck hat that Bryce's older sister can use for a doll when he grows out of it.
I also finished an animal/doll sweater for my younger daughter. I decided to do the same sweater as in the previous post, just with different colors. And this time I got the lace right. I actually didn't get the lace 100% right until I was doing the sleeves. Allison suggested I switch the YO row to the third row of the lace pattern (a RS row in other words) and that did wonders! Thanks Allison!

New Knitting Projects

Here's my current knitting fun:

Fish Baby Toy (Boy/gender neutral version):
From Toys to Knit by Tracy Chapman
I just used cheapy, washable yarn from Michael's for this project. And some yarn I had in my stash. It would be a great project to use up remnants of a bunch of different yarns. You wouldn't have to make a matching one. Each scale could be a different color or yarn.
Pictures of front and back from the book:

Here are the finished knitted pieces to sew together:

And the finished product:


I love this little fish. I think it turned out adorable. The finished product is about 8 inches long. I plan to make this in white, pinks and purples for a girl version too. I've recently become obsessed with the idea of knitted toys, especially to give as baby gifts. If you take the time to knit something for a child clothes-related, you put all that hard work in and they only get to wear it for a short time before they outgrow it. With a knitted toy, the child can play with it forever.

Knitted Cardigan for 18" Stuffed Animals and Dolls:
Next up: the Ribs and Lace Cardi from Knits for Bears by Amy O'Neill Houck. This is an adorable book with a whole wardrobe of knitted things to dress up your favorite animal/doll. Supposedly, they'll even fit an American Girl doll (something our girls will probably get in the next year or so--now that there is a new store in the Mall of America). How fun to get clothes for your child's doll/animal and not have to pay American Girl/Build-a-Bear prices for it. Although, I guess it depends on the yarn you use. Again, I used cheapy Michael's yarn for this project.
Here's an almost finished in-progress photo:


My only gripe with this pattern is that I believe the lace pattern is "backwards" in the book. Following the pattern as written, I ended up with my knitted lace side "inside" the sweater and the purl side on the outside. This is just for my daughter for Christmas so I didn't care that much. I'll just do the opposite next time I make this.
Here's a picture where you can see the inside:

I also added a couple rows of seed stitch on the bottom and cuffs to match the neckline.

Here's how my daughter will open it up on Christmas:

And here's the sweater on two of her favorite animal friends (both from Build-a-Bear):


And finally, a pair of socks for my mom for Christmas. I sort of made up the pattern. I used the Emily's Socks pattern from Two at a Time Socks. Actually, what I made is the pattern on the cover. But in the book, Emily's Socks are kid-size and do not have a picot edge. There is no actual pattern in the book for the socks on the front, so you have to take an adult-size pattern and apply the Emily's socks pattern to it. I used the Anne's Magic Stripes pattern from Knitting Circles Arounds Socks and just substituted in the Emily's Socks pattern with a picot edge on the top.
I used Cherry Tree Hill yarn in Winterberry to knit up the socks. Here they are in their finished glory. No progress photos on this one.




Whew, not sure what I'll do next, but I need to knit up something to give to my younger daughter for Christmas. So I might try out another pattern from Knits for Bears.

Santa hats galore!

I haven't been knitting too much lately except to make a few santa hats for little kids I know. I wanted to make the very cute santa hat from Handknit Holidays, but for some reason my bobbles just didn't happen like the picture. I don't think my yarn was bulky enough and I'm not sure I was doing all the bobble stitches correctly. In any case, I just chose to modify Kim's Hats from the old standby, LMKG. I did a garter stitch brim in white (cheapy yarn from *gasp* Wal-mart--the gasp is for oh so many reasons. 1) the fact that it's cheap acrylic yarn will make some sneer and 2) the fact that I shop at Wal-mart at all, I hate what the company stands for, but *sigh* it is all too convenient to shop there sometimes). And then finished the body out with some red Homespun yarn. I just added three or so knit rows between each decrease and then decreased all the way until I had one stitch left. Topped it off with a cute little white pompom. I think it really turned out adorable. I have a couple friends who will have newborns at Christmas time so I made super small sizes for them and then matching toddler sizes for their big brothers.



After I finished making one of the NEWBORN hats Big E found it and smashed it on her head somehow (I have no idea how she got it on there or how long it took her to do so). And came prancing out of my bedroom, proud as a peacock that she had it on her head. Then she noticed the cat drinking from the sink. And the happy little santa helper decided to go torment the cat a bit. I think this is about one of the funniest pictures I've seen in awhile, and it could be a funny greeting card with oh so many possible captions. I'll gladly accept any ideas you may have for captions! :-)

I'm baaaack!

So I've been knitting, just not posting about it. I decided I'm going to use this blog just to post finished things (FO) since I just don't seem to have the time to write progress posts. I have completed the Hour-glass sweater. It was fun to do as my first adult-sized sweater. The Debbie Bliss cotton angora is very nice to knit with despite the rabbit hairs that I inhaled and picked out of my eyes. It does pill and shed VERY easily though. Overall, the fit is pretty good. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of boatnecks on me. I did two extra decrease rows and now I wish I had done two more. Oh well, live and learn. Here is an image of the sweater. There are no modeled images because I have discovered it takes some talent to actually take a picture of oneself in a bathroom mirror and have it turn out (without the flash).For some reason the sleeves ended up an inch or so longer than it should, but I have long arms so its not too bad. I also finished one of Kim's hats from LMKGs for my three-year old. It was my first attempt at knitting with more than one color and I thought it was quite fun. And I'm very happy with how it turned out. I just used some Patrons baby yarn from Michael's for it. It is SOOO soft! Big E loves it and is slowly learning to keep it on her head when she's outside. Now that we're in Minnesota instead of California the kiddos are getting used to cooler weather, more clothes and *gasp* shoes AND socks! I didn't have any winter coats or hats/scarves etc. for them yet and it SNOWED on Oct. 11th. Welcome back to the Midwest for me! So I decided I was going to knit the girls hats instead of paying $16 for ONE hat. The pompom turned out a big large but I think it makes the hat more whimsical and fun.

Signing Off

I'm signing off for a little while. I got a little burned out with the knitting and have been reading lately. The hour-glass is at a stand-still for now with the body and 6" of one sleeve finished. I'll sign on again when I get back in the mood for the needles.

Toodles!

Looking more hourglass-like

Here are a couple progress photos of the hourglass sweater. I'm almost done with the lower body, just about 4 rows left. Then I can start in on the arms. I think the sweater will still fit me nicely even though I decreased a little too much. I made up for that by increasing again so now I have the correct stitch count. If Allison didn't have preggo brain and could do the math right....no, I'm just kidding. She's always a great help to me! She's been patiently waiting for me to get caught up to her so she can continue with our knitalong. Well, Allison, I think I'm almost there!





I have to say I really do like the Debbie Bliss cotton angora. It's very nice to knit with. But it does have fuzzies that shed on me and into the air. I am always rubbing my nose after knitting with it for about an hour. I love how soft it feels too. And I am really looking forward to wearing my sweater this fall!

No news on the house front. A relocation company is in charge of selling my dream house and they are not crazy about a contingency offer. So I'm impatiently waiting for our dinky shoebox to sell so we can try again for the house. There's another one around the corner that just went on the market. It's not quite as perfect, but it has potential. Keep your fingers crossed that someone falls in love with our condo very soon, because the Princess (that's me!) wants all this jazz over with very soon! :-)