M's Owl

I haven't been doing a lot of knitting.  I've been pretty busy with work and moving to a new house.  I've just been totally exhausted most of the time.  We got hit by the "Perfect Storm" this week, so I took the time to get some knitting done this weekend and the past two days.

This weekend, I managed to get an owl done for a family friend.   M. was in a car accident and was hurt pretty badly.  I made the owl to keep her company at the rehab facility where she's going for physical rehab. Here's the owl:

Motivation, but no luck.

I have not been having good luck knitting lately.  I still haven't finished all the pieces for my alien pattern,  having pretty much lost the mojo on that for the moment.  I have two failed projects within the week, as well.  First, I worked on my Bella Botanica for 3 weeks.  Everything was going beautifully, I'd finished the number of repeats of chart 1, having no problems at all with the chart/stitch count, until I started chart 2.  Somehow, I was about 10 stitches short for the left side of the shawl.  How does that happen without my noticing????  Seriously.  So that's been frogged, and is living in a project bag for the moment.

Then I started a Artemis Cowl, which I was calling Ice Cream Cowl because I'm using Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend in Spumoni, which reminds me of Neopolitan ice cream.  I did okay on the slip stitch border, until I started the pattern and was....5 stitches short?  I triple counted the cast on!!!  Whatever; I suck at math.  I restarted.  Found a factory knot in my yarn!! in which they apparently knotted together 2 different dye lots of Spumoni together.  The pink was more saturated after the knot, there was more of the "vanilla" color, and there was actually the occasional green showing up.  I decided I didn't care, and kept going.  Halfway through the third repeat, I unconciously decided to stop doing the plain knit row, and start decreasing on half of the cowl, throwing off my decreases completely, and since it was fun time lace, not complicated, but still lace, and we're talking about 60 stitches off over 6 rows, I had to frog.  Joy. 

New Pattern in the Works

I'm working on a new pattern that I'll be releasing in the future, for free, of course.  I got a lovely yarn in the mail the other day that I decided was perfect for my new design idea.  It will be another toy with nothing too complicated as far as construction goes.  I've finished with the main part of the body, and now I'm working on the other parts.  Can't wait until it is finished!  Hopefully I will be able to find some test knitters to try it out.

Monsta Party!

Yesterday, my mom and I babysat my nephew.  He's a totally adorable 5 year old kid who, predictably, is totally unpredictable.  Friday happened to be a totally awesome day for him at our house.  He got here at 10, and went outside for a while, until my mom got too hot (myself being too lamed up with the fun breathing problems to go outside), and they came back in.  Of course he needed something to do, so out came the monsters.

I have this insane pile of monsters/animals sitting on the tv stand.  There are about 10 of them living up there, and when the nephew comes, he has to play with them.  All of them.  So he gets them all, and piles them on the couch, and does whatever he does when they hang out together.  When his mom came to get him, I asked him to clean up.  This was his version of cleaning up:

I don't know what I like more about this picture, the dragon looking like he's yelling "Don't come it!", the monkey looking like she's had waaaaaaaaay too much to drink, or all of the others lounging there like they won't be able to get up for the next ten years.  Thanks, buddy.

 

Latest Critters

Monster knitting is what happens when you have asthma, allergies you can't take meds for until you've been retested, and 95+ weather.  Mostly I've been feeling too much like crap to move off the couch.  Yeah.

My swap partner received her monster, so I can finally post some pictures:

He's a rockin' rockstar!!  I made the necklace with shells I picked up on vacation.  His vest is felt with eyelash sewn around the edges.  His body is one strand of orange yarn, and his head is orange yarn and pink fun fur held together.  I love him!

I also made a dragon this week.  Sparky:

His eyes are felt, and his wings are two pieces of felt sewn together with embroidery floss.  The spines on the tail/back are Lorna's Laces Zombie BBQ yarn.  The main color is Shibui Merino Worsted in Chinese Red.  He is so cute; I just love the expression on his face, and how he looks like he wants to give everyone a great big hug.

Shawls and Monsters

I didn't get a chance to knit a lot during May and the first part of June.  Now that summer vacation hit early this year, I've been catching up on some major knitting projects.  The two projects I did manage to get done during May are 2 shawls, Summer Flies and Damson. 
Summer Flies is a semi-circular shawl I knitted in Malabrigo Cotton, a beautiful organic cotton yarn in a worsted weight.  I like the color shift from a natural cotton color to gray within the yarn.  It used up most of the yardage.

Damson is a small shawl with faroese-type shaping so it stays put when you wear it.  I did mine in Malabrigo Sock, colorway Persia, and the edging is done in KnitPicks Stroll, color black.  Even though I was supposed to be able to do it with one skein, I ran out of yarn and had to edge in black.  Still, I think it turned out pretty well. 

I managed to get some monster knitting done, too.  One of them I still can't post, until I'm sure my swap partner received her package.  The other monster I did was my cute little Stealth Murray, who I'm giving to a family friend tonight.  He's made of awesome camo colors, with tan and black eyes, a purple mouth.  I love the crazy expression on his face.

New Pattern Available

I just made my Squiggy pattern available to download on Ravelry!  Happy Knitting!!!!!! 

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

I just got home from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  It was amazingly awesome, again.  I like to look at all the different kinds of sheep, and some of them let you pet them. 

And then there's the yarn.

This year, I think I went a wee bit nuts-o, although 2 of them are gifts.  My lovely purchases:

Creatively Dyed Yarn Calypso Queen in Midsummer

Creatively Dyed Yarn Beaches in Ibiza

Miss Babs Northumbria BFL in Picture Perfect

Miss Babs Yummy Monochrome in Nori

The Verdant Gryphon Bugga! in Cotton Stainer

The Verdant Gryphon Mithril in The Depths of the Sea

Maple Creek Farm Fredericksburg in Summer Fun

Using Yarn Scraps

I have a lot of sock yarn scraps.  Not as many as some people, because I tend to get bored knitting socks, but I have a lot.  At first, I thought about doing one of those sock yarn blankets, but then I looked at people's projects, and saw that they took insane amounts of time, like 2 years!! 

2 years?!?  If I get bored knitting the 2nd sock, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to work on a sock yarn blanket for 2 years.  I did like the idea of mitred squares, though, so I started knitting up my scraps into a stole.  I have enough scraps to do that without begging other people for their leftovers, too, which is nice.  I have 25 squares done, in a nice block of 5 x 5 squares.  I like picking up stitches for each square as I go along, too, cutting out the insanely awful task of sewing them together.  I think I'm using about 15 different yarns, so it's diverse, but not too crazy.  Some of the scraps have quite a bit of yarn left, too.

The other reason I picked the mitred square stole is that I am absolutely, beyond a doubt, terrified of hexipuffs.  I can't think of anything more terrifying than knitting an insane amount of hexipuffs, tying them together, then sleeping under that blanket only to have the whole thing fall apart, and hexipuffs going everywhere.  It just doesn't seem like a sturdy idea to me.  Also, I like not having to knit tiny things in round.

So I continue to truck away on my stole, with plans to block it and then back it with black velvet or velour to make a nice, thick, warm winter wrap. 

Knitting ADD

Ugh, I'm having knitting ADD today.  I have a few projects going:  a zombie monster, a scrappy wrap/blanket, and a pair of socks.  I'm just having trouble sticking to a project I actually want to be knitting right now. 

Yesterday, I bought some really nice, yummy cotton with a little bit of elastic in it, and made a spring beret.  It's a really nice.  I love the yarn.  It's Crystal Palace Yarns Cotton Twist, in colors Cornsilk and Ketchup.  I wanted to make a hat I could wear in the summer, since my head gets really hot in the sunlight. 

But I finished the hat this morning, and since then, I haven't been able to decide what kind of new project to start.  Tried knitting the pair of socks, but they are going to be too big, and I don't feel like continuing, since I don't know anyone they would fit, or least anyone I would want to give them to.  This is why I don't knit with Opal.  I don't feel like working on the scrap blanket, because I have to pick up stitches for that, and I don't want to do fiddly little knitting, which is also why I don't want to work on the zombie. 

I do have a lot of yarn, but most of it needs to be skeined up.  I don't want to do that either.  Ugh.

Squiggy

I finished writing a monster pattern today, Squiggy the Squiggle Monster.  I knit a lot of monsters, for me, my family, and to give away, and I decided to make up my own pattern.  I've written patterns in the past, and improvised my own designs, but I've never decided to release a pattern for other people's use before.  I'm excited that I will be releasing Squiggy as a free knitting pattern soon.  I've written the pattern and made the first Squiggy, and now it's in test mode.  So excited!  I hope to give away some Squiggies very soon.  In the meantime, here is a picture of Squiggy:

Hopefully, the pattern for Squiggy will be released in the next month or so.

Monster Spring Break

While I was on spring break, I finished a lot of monsters.  The first was one was Angus, for my nephew's fifth birthday.  He was so excited to get him!! And he calls him Angust, which I think is pretty funny.

After that, I worked on Ganni's Baldwin, at my nephew's suggestion.  Ganni's Baldwin is for my mom, just because she likes monsters.

Finally, I finished Charlie for my friend.

I'm also working on my own monster pattern, which I hope to have test-knitted soon.  I'm calling him Squiggy, and he's totally adorable.

Angus

For his birthday, I told my nephew I would knit him an Angus the Attic Monster.  Why did I do this?


Good question.  While I do enjoy knitting in general, and monsters in particular, I detest the monsters with long arms and legs.  Never ending arm and leg knitting!!  I still have a Jerry monkey with 1 arm and a tail.  It took my months to finish my Janina monkey's limbs, after finishing the body rather quickly.  Still, I let the kid come over, and look through the book, and pick out what he wanted.  I won the battle over color (green that I didn't have vs. multi-colored variegated I do have), so when I asked him if he was sure he didn't want a Baldwin instead, I didn't push too hard.

I so regret that right now.  So I'm sitting here knitting these insanely long arms and legs.  The hands even have thumbs!  Aaarrrggghhh.

More Monsters go to new homes.

So lately, I've given away two more monsters.  The first monster, I gave to a little boy whose family lost their house in a fire.  I gave him my Hugo, which I had made for myself.  I kind of miss Hugo...a lot...but I'm glad he has a new home, and a new name, Monster!

I gave away another blue monster, Tony.  His new name is Fang, and he's going to a teenage boy who is having major surgery with a 6 month recovery.  I love this picture.  It looks like he is waving good-bye.  He might be a little outraged to leave his monster buddies, but I think he'll like his new place.

Newest monster guy

I just finished my first monster from More Knitwits, Brody.  I love his football goal post horns, and his depressed sad face with undereye bags.  He's definitely one of my favorite monsters so far, and totally easy to knit.  I have some plans to swap out different types of ears to make different looking monsters from the base pattern.

The close-up makes him look more angry and less sad, but the overall impression is definitely a sad look. 

New Monster Book!

Today, I got my new monster pattern book, More KnitWits.  It looks awesome!!  There are 3 patterns I know I want to knit right away:  Brody, Tony, and Pablo.  Brody is a green monster with horns who wanted to be an astronaut, Tony is a Baldwin-like monster who likes to talk, and Pablo is a bull.  My nephew wants me to knit the shark and fish combo, too.  I can't wait to try out these new patterns.  The monsters/critters in this book are knit from the top down it seems like, so that will be a change from Danger patterns.  They also have more felt accents, and are just as totally cute. 

Otherwise knitting, I sent out Giving Tony today.  Better picture here:

I also sent out my swap package, yay!  Can't post that picture, yet, though.  Shhhhhhhhh.

Monster Giving

I just joined the group Random Acts of Monsters on Ravelry, and now I've knitted my first monster to give away.  Meet my Giving Tony:

Not the greatest quality photo, but you get the idea.  Giving Tony is for a young cancer patient.  I hope Giving Tony gives him lots of love and strength.

New Hiyas!

I just got my new interchangeable needle set in the mail the other day, and I broke them out to knit this morning.  I got the new Hiya Hiya sharps, small size set, 5" stainless steel tips.  Wow.  They are awesome so far!! 
First, they came in a beautiful silk case, unlike the cheap plastic zipper pouch my KP Harmonies came in.  The case has nice design features, like a Velcro flap over the needle holders, so you can open and close it, but the needles are still protect by an extra layer of fabric.  There are 2 zipper compartments; 1 for the needle cords and 1 for the rubber grippies that tighten the screws. 
As far as the needles themselves are concerned, I love how flexible the cords are.  The cords for the interchangeable set are the exact same flexible clear cords that Hiya uses for the fixed circulars.  Since I use the magic loop method a lot, these cords are great!  I also like the nice, sharp points.  I'm knitting a lace sock with the size 2, and the tips are perfect for the yarn.  I think these are going to be great.  I still like my Harmonies, but these Sharps are really nice.

Dizzy Knitting

AKA What I Hate About Picking Up Stitches for the Instep of Socks

So I've made it to the instep part of my second sock in my DDD Life is Sweet Plain Janes.  Plain Janes are what I call socks with ribbing on the top of the foot, 'cause they're not just plain vanilla.  Anyway, now I have to pick up all of those stitches, which I hate.  I can never figure out if I'm doing it the way you're supposed to do it.  I always pick up under both loops and twist the stitches so there aren't huge gaps, but it looks weird.  Well, it looks weird any way you do it.  I also have a cold, and cold/sinus meds do not work well with knitting, it seems. 

Along with my stitch-picking-up, I have had to tink and reknit multiple portions of my mom's seaweed scarf, which she managed to mangle twice in the ruffle so far.  I have no patience for this.  Thank goodness I don't teach knitting.