Stitch Holders

Last week, my mom went out to lunch with her best friend and my mom told her how I had made decorative stitch holders. As it turned out my "aunt - 'name goes here'" wanted some too. These are the decorative stitch holders that I made for her and I guess she just absolutely loved them and told all of her knitting friends at work about them.

I do have to apologize about the picture quality though, it did turn out kind of blurry - my camera wasn't acting the best that day.

Felted Purse

This was the original yarn chosen for my knitting needle case, but as it turned out the pattern was incorrect by a few hundred yards of yarn needed for the case. My mom knitted and felted this bag for me. The only thing I did was pick out the fabric for the lining, sewed it, picked out the button for the closure, and crocheted and felted the loop to go around the button. It is lovely, although I do wish that the handle was one large one instead of the two winding around, but it gives the purse character nevertheless. My part on felting was rather easy. I took the loop and just rubbed it between my hands in the bathroom sink under hot water for awhile.

Felted Knitting Needle Case

My felted knitting needle case is now complete. I've been working on it for awhile now. During my spring break, I knitted, felted, and left it at home to dry. I had pictures from the start, but unfortunately I can't find those pictures on either of my two cameras. I can however find pictures of veins/arteries models and models of hearts that I was studying, but I'm sure that isn't as interesting to any of you guys since this is a knitting blog after all. Just this past weekend, I picked out fabric and something to close the case. I am very proud of my straight lines that I sewed. I also searched through the button stash at home, sewed some on to add some flare and I sewed snaps on to keep the flap from moving about. It was good project for my first time felting something. I especially like it because now all of my needles are in one place!!

Chas' Hat part 2

I finished Chas' hat today and then took it out. It was too big. I'm still learning with getting the right guage. Must remember, yarn stretches. I probably won't start Chas' hat until tomorrow night or so.

Chas' Hat

Here's Chas' hat so far; I just started it this past Saturday. I am not really following a pattern - just making things up as I go. Last December, I did make a swatch using 9 US needles, got the guage and measured around my head to get the approximate stitches. Other than that, I'm doing what looks good and what will work best. I think that this is simple enough for Chaser - I hope; if not I'm not how much simpler one can get. The hardest part will probably be the crown; I may have to do a lot of thinking on this one. We'll see. I just hope to get it done before next week Monday - that's when I go home next and I'm hoping to give it to my brother then.

Well, thus far it's turning out all right, I just hope that the crown won't be frustrating.

Hat Complete

I finished the hat today and still have some yarn to spare, not enough to do anything major unfortunately, but that is to be expected. After awhile, the bobbles became easier to make. I do have to say that it is a cute hat, but I'm not in favor of it. The reason is because I like to wear hats more snug around my head (for warmth reasons - there's just something about a more snug fitting hat that keeps my ears warmer and that it blocks the wind more) and this one is too lose for my liking. I should have made the smaller option, but oh well. We all make projects that we aren't particularly fond of or rather just don't work for ourselves. I think that I am going to give it to my mom the next time I go home. She likes her hat looser and I think that this hat will fit her head better than mine. It's done that's what makes me happy. It was a free ball of yarn, I can't complain. The next project is finishing my brother's hat, which I certainly after all of the work that I put into it that it fits. I've now made two hats that are too big for the people that it was intended for. Maybe I just have this thing with hats. Oh well.

Sweater

I am finally done with my sweater. To be honest, I am not quite sure how many balls of Berkshire Bulky I used. I would have to check the invoice and subtract how many balls I have left. I cannot find the pattern online anymore, so I can't show you what the pattern was supposed to look like. It's very similar minus a row of bobbles. Some of my cable "v's" aren't as define as I'd like them to be, but it isn't bad for my first cable project. Bobbles, yeah, the original pattern caught my eye, and here you have it, my finished project. I ended up finishing it last night at home where I was able to obtain size 11 dpn. It certainly is warm, and bulky. The sleeves are a tad bit too long, when stretched out normally, they come to the middle of my palm. When I folded the sleeves over this morning I couldn't put my jacket on because my sweater was obstructing my arm's path of getting through. It's a bright blue and I'm proud of it. It only took me roughly 2.5 weeks to finish as I've said before.

Now onto finishing my blue hat, and a black hat that I ended up taking out because I screwed up the pattern. I may start at the crown instead of the bottom, but we'll see. I'm basically making up a pattern for that, although the pattern can't be too fancy because it is for my brother and he is somewhat picky when it comes to clothes, etc. It has to be plain and simple, nothing too extravagant with cables or anything of the sort. I'm not sure if I'd want to make up my own cable/hat pattern just yet anyways, I'll have to get more proficient with making up simple patterns down first before I take the next step. I ended up making another charcoal grey hat over the summer to use up yarn and that hat turned out quite well for making my own pattern too. I've also made up a pattern for the mittens that I've been wearing lately (my blue ones with the snow-flake). Speaking of, I still have yarn left over to make a hat to match, although I'm going to wait for summer where I can really sit down and decide what I want to do; it's going to have snowflakes in the pattern, I just have to decide how big I want them, how many, etc. Which is for another day and not during this semester.

Anyways, my sweater is done and I'm happy with it no matter what anyone thinks of the sweater (some people may think that the bobbles are weird), although it isn't the best sweater ever, it certainly isn't the worst. My mom was right about people wanting to play with the bobbles, my roommate right off of the bat when I first tried it on liked to play with them. It's a warm sweater on these single digit days, which is what counts.