My own pattern

I wrote my own pattern yesterday. I wrote a pattern for a knitted fireman's hose toy that could also be made into a door draft guard. It came to me while looking at a pattern for a felted firemans hat that I want to make for my nephew. I thought it would make putting out fires a little more fun.

Dye Day

I was so excited about Saturday that I didn't sleep at all Friday night. After being up for more than 24 hrs, my mom and I jump in the car and head up to Maple Glen Pa to another Ravelr's home where we would be meeting a dyer on Ravelry.com who would be teaching us to dye yarn. We were the first to arrive, of course after Jas, who would be teaching us to dye. We waited paitiently for everyone else to arrive, and then for the yarn to be handed out, and instruction given.

We finally were handed out the yarn, given the beautiful dyes and the instructions - have fun. I started squirting colors and splashing water where I wanted to lighten, and squishing the yarn to get it to soak up all the dyes. When I was finally happy with the colors, I rang out most of the excess water, and wrapped the yarn up in plastic wrap and put it in the sun until it was pput in to be cooked. While my first skein was cooking I started on the second and then, helped mix colors for another woman who was dying.

I snacked and knitted a little until my first skein came out of the water. It came out beautiful! We had to swish it in clean water and then swing out the excess water. When the second skein was done I did the same thing.

I absolutely love both of my skeins and my mother loves her three skeins. I will be posting pictures.

Socks...

I love knitting socks, but 1's, 2's and 3's just take too long to get to your finishd project. By the time you finally get to your heel you are sick of your sock and just put it aside. That's why when there was a toe-up class at my LYS I took it. The class used size 4 circs and worsted weight yarn, and they finished quickly.

I made a pair for myself, my mom, and my fiancé. My fiancé has already put a hole in the top of his foot with his sharp toenails he refused to cut. He has asked me for another pair for Christmas and plan on knitting them with reinforncement thread to help keep him from putting holes in them, and he has to keep his nails clipped, or he gets no more hand-knitted socks.

I am always looking for new toe-up sock patterns, especially with fancy ankles. I found someone who wrote a pamphlet on Designing Your Own Toe-Up Socks which you can get off the Stitch Stud blog. Wendy Knits also has an entire book on toe-up socks coming out in April 2009. I will not give up my search and will let you all know what I find.

Swaps

I did a swap in May/June and loved it so much I signed up for 3-5 more, two that are going on now. I absolutely LOVE swaps, you get to know another person and make a new friend. The 2 people I am swapping with so nice, and I am so loving making my packages for them. I can't wait to finish making these packages and sending them off, and seeing what I get. I will defiently be posting what I receive on here, and maybe what I sent out once I know they got it.

Knitting for baby

There is something oddly calming and happy about knitting something for a baby, even if there isn't one coming yet. Maybe that is why I am completely obsessed with knitting for babies at the moment, whether it is for my nephew or to put away for future babies. I just can't seem to get enough of the baby patterns. I love making anything for baby, booties, hats, sweaters, bibs, blankets, and stuffed animals felted or not. If it's for baby I probably love it. Right now I have an obsession with making baby jumpers.







The great thing about knitting for baby is you know there will always be a baby or child to fit the item. That is great forme since i hate to gauge and swatch, a bad habit I am going to have to break if I ever want to make myself a sweater.





Knitting for a dog or cat seems to be just about as calming as knitting for a baby.

Sleeveless top

I love my nephew dealry, but this is probably the last sweater I will make him, atleast in the right size. He is 10 months old and growing like and weed. He keeps growing taller and is already wearing 24 months. I will probably only ever make him stuffed animals, hats, scarves, mittens, and maybe a Wonderful Wallaby-but everything to grow into, of course.

Right now I am making him a sleeveless top or tank top for his birthday in July, in the biggest size. I just hope he doesnt outgrow it before I give it to him, or even worse, before I finish it. It is a great pattern and fun to knit. I already finished the back and am about half done the front. Only the button bands, pocket, and sewing it together to go.

I learned a great trick that I am going to do, to ensure he doesn't pull off the buttons, I am going to knit them in as if they are beads- only works on shank buttons of course. Just have to pick out the perfect buttons. It's between white elephants, or light blue, black or yellow smiley faces.

I just realized that he will outgrow it in one week, so I put this sweater on-hold.

Mystery Swap package

IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! My package arrived today and I was SO excited to see what my theme was and what I got!
Theme: Bunnies, because I told charkins that I would love an Angora bunny. Obviously she couldn't buy me one, so she just worked around bunnies. So cute.

Package: I opened the package to find 3 different kinds of dark chocolate, because I happened to mention that I LOVE chocolate the darker the better. I dug a little deeper to find a ziploc bag containy cute 3D little bunny stickers, (even one put on my notecard) pink, brown, and off-white embordery thread, 4 wooden buttons, and 3 knitting inspired appliques. She also include #9 bamboo needles and 5 adorable bunny stitch markers. The pattern is an ultra cute knitted, felted, jointed rabbit. I recived one each of pink, white, and brown cascade 220 which matches the embordery thread very well. At the very bottom she included the left overs from an Anogora project, so I could actually work with the yarn I long to work with and perhaps make bunny a scarf with it.

My thoughts: LOVE IT! I love how she took my want for an Angora rabbit and twisted it into this awesome package. I also love how she took into thought my obsession for knitting baby items at this moment in time. This great thoughtful project, will probably end up being a gift for my 10 month old nephew, whom I was having such a problem coming up with a knitted Christmas present idea for, since he is constantly out-growing his clothes.

Knitting to get through it…

The pain couldn’t possibly ever be worse than not knowing what wrong with you and you are stuck in the hospital for nearly two weeks. Thank god for knitting! I don’t know what I would have done if I didnt have my knitting with me the whole time. Now just waiting to go home.