Woooo!

Have a few updates on the Christmas list. I am adding a number 16 to the list for a gift swap. Should be pretty simple though.

Number 9 was already listed as done. But here is a picture. Tracey, don't let Steve see.

Number 3 is now finished. Woooo. Mom don't let Brian see. But now you can match them.

Number 10 has gone from 0% to about 70% in a matter of moments. I found something hanging out in my UFO tote that will work perfectly. Only have about 1.5 more repeats to go. Sexy.

And since I never actually posted the picture when it was finished. Here is a picture of my finished dumpling bag. This was a great pattern. And the yarn was very nice. My only issue was that it turned very, very fuzzy when felted. I had to shave it. Literally. With a razor. I got a cheap disposable one. Once it was shaved, you could actually see the color changes.

And I am about halfway through my Versatility. I don't think I will be able to do the full 8 repeats it calls for. I'm thinking more like 6. Cause I've done three and it really is at the halfway point. Even though I said I wouldn't be working on any projects besides Christmas projects. Apparently I lied.

I am also taking part in a swap on one of my groups. Since my person doesn't know who is sending to them, I can post some pics here. Yay. I actually only have a couple more items to go.

It's Christmas Eve

and I am on the computer blogging and updating my Ravelry projects and Zach is playing video games. We are the next generation. :o) Unfortunately there is still baking to be done. Well just the chocolate covered cherries. But I know I'm going to need more chocolate and those miniature baking cups. And Krogers scared me enough already today (I had to wait for a parking spot and this store is never crowded, ever). And there are still presents to wrap. Only two of them are Zach's that would have to be wrapped by tomorrow. And one of them isn't getting wrapped, because it is 4 feet long. He knows what it is. Maybe I'll make him go look for it instead of having him unwrap it.
So apparently even if you only have a dog, you still have to do the obligatory "sit on Santa's lap" pictures. Here is Heidi. I am so proud of her. It only took like 10 pictures to get a really good one of her looking in our general direction. And there were several other pretty good ones. And this is with a pet store full of people, other dogs and things to eat distracting her. So she got a little present early.
















But I have been knitting, crocheting and looming my little heart out to get things done for Christmas. I managed to get the Katamari done for Jess, the DNA strand for...someone, and a hat for me. Yeah I know. But it is super cute and comfy and covers up the fact that I didn't brush my hair today. Tres chic, no? I found the Katamari pattern here . I found the DNA strand here. But mine is the crochet version. After Christmas I have about 5-6 patterns to write up and this is one of them. Kimberly even said she would host the DNA pattern on her blog. Wooo. The hat can be found here.












Holy Cow! Make that 3 finished Christmas presents today. I rock! Oh yeah! Only two more to go. But I am going to take the rest of the night and work on something for me. You know, cause the hat wasn't enough.

Mission: Baby Shower complete

Angela's and Lisa's Baby shower was last night. I finished Lisa's Lion baby bath wrap yesterday at lunch, finally. There is something about row after row after row of single crochet that makes me want to die. Angela's has been done for a while. She got a blanket, booties and a hat. They both went over very well. I sat by the fireplace and got sleepy after eating pizza. So a very good party. It was even over early enough for me to sneak of to Stitch 'n Bitch. I sense this will become a weekly occurance. They are having a party this Saturday. Silly grandma celebrating Hanukkah/Christmas this weekend. Well, it really isn't her choice. But still, Zach found these http://veganyumyum.com/2007/06/knit-night-cupcakes/ How flippin' awesome would these have been to make for a knitting party? Well obviously pretty awesome since that is why the lady made them to begin with.

Well I hate row after row of single crochet except when making Amigurumi things. Which is my newest craze. Essentially defined as some sort of animal or object crocheted adorably cute and misshapen using single crochets done in the round. There are books and patterns and I want to make them all. My favorite book (only known by the title) is Amigurumi Super Cute Happy Crochet. How could you not want to own that book? P.S. This adorable, head-heavy turtle is a Christmas present for one of my work studies, Dana. You know. The one who decorated my office Christmas tree. Yup. At least I reward them for work well done.
I finished my Jayne Cobb hat from the t.v. show Firefly. I loom knit this on the Yellow Knifty Knitter. Dear God is it ugly. but I think it is quite spot on. It is actually very comfy. I will get the pattern up here soon.

And from someone who is much better at pattern writing then myself, we have Victorian Lace Christmas Ornaments. http://loomlady.blogspot.com/ Lovely easy pattern = very lovely easy (and inexpensive) Christmas gifts

Felting

I finally got my invite to RAVELRY!!!!!!!! http://www.ravelry.com/ is a knitter/crocheter's dream. My handle on there is CSIcrafter. Look me up. This place is amazing. I can add all of my projects in there and keep track of them and how far along they are and when they need to be finished. And I spent most of last Wednesday (the day I got my invite) entering in all of my yarn and needles. It keeps track of your stash and what needles you have for you. I can peruse other peoples projects to get ideas, add them to my queue of things to make. And I can add and share all my projects I am working on. And I know the people I am making these for are not in Ravelry so I can put pictures and everything. Yay!!! I even joined my first Knit-a-long to make a pair of felted ballet slippers. The second one just needs felted. Speaking of which, since they aren't for anyone but me I can put up the picture.
I was soooooo worried making the first one. I have never felted anything and it was huge. Almost 1.5 feet long. But I felted it and it came out great. Still a bit long. So I took off a couple rows for the second slipper. Being able to felt stuff is awesome. It creates a much sturdier item. And AC Moore just got roving and felting needles. Roving=non-spun yarn. The needles have small barbs on them. You use the needles to punch through the roving and the felt and it locks the roving into the felt. You can make patterns, they have it in all sorts of colors. I was thinking a nice pink flower would look really cute on the slippers. Then to use up the rest of the black wool and some of my Kool-aid dyed wool, I knitted up a little purse. Gonna felt it tonight with the slipper. I hope it turns out alright. I still love that blue color. I had two balls of black wool left over (one from each slipper). I threw it on e-wrap flat panel on the green long Knifty Knitter. One ball was smaller so when I ran out of it, I joined on the blue and went until I ran out of the second bit of black. Then I did an I-cord on the KK spool knitter in the blue. I think I might have found a new stitch. I need to do a bit of searching to find out.

Oh, the slipper pattern is from http://www.decoraccentsinc.com/. She was offering it at 50% off for those who wanted to KAL (knit-a-long). The perfect time to pick up that pattern and several others I had been wanting for a while.

It has arrived

My ESG Wonder loom from http://www.decoraccentsinc.com/ has arrived. Hooray!!! And of course my pact to not make anything non-gift related went right out the window. It is a bit top secret right now. I am working on making a glove on the looms. I haven't seen a pattern for anything like this yet. Hopefully it works out. Hoping to submit it to http://www.loomknitterscircle.com/ if I can get the details worked out. So far it is going good, but I've hit a snag with the fingers as I don't have a thumb loom. Decor Accents takes 5 weeks to deliver and I don't really have that kind of time. Might have to resort to making my own or knitting them flat for now.

A non-looming project. Actually this is going to be a baby present, hopefully, we'll see about getting it done. It might have to go to a certain biology nerd. It is the crochet version of http://kimberlychapman.com/crafts/knit-patterns-dna.html that I was talking about in an earlier post. She gave me permission to adapt it to crochet. Yippee. Look at it curving all on its own. Makes me proud.

I am very proud of these. While acquiring Knifty Knitters, each one comes with one of their hooks. Even my Decor accents loom came with a Knifty Knitter hook. I don't like them because the rubber handle (which is like 1/2 an inch thick, which causes my wrist to hurt) comes loose and starts twisting. That doesn't really work when trying to lift some often tight yarn. So I took some Polymer clay I had sitting around the house from a previous craft project and dreamed these babies up. I wonder if Loom Knitter's Circle would accept these as a pattern. I love them because each pack of clay is like 2 dollars and the extra hooks are 97 cents. And I can shape them to my hand. Hmmm...runs off to write up the pattern to send in.

Been a while

A little something extra to add to the growing pile of crafts for God's Tiny Angels. Found the sweater pattern at Bev's country crafts. And had enough left over to make a matching hat. I used left over cream yarn from Angela's baby's blanket set along with a pastel skein of eyelash yarn I got from Big Lots for one dollar. The other hat (I got three total from the skein) was made with 1 strand of another Big Lots dollar skein and 1 strand of some random worsted weight white yarn I had left over.

Speaking of one dollar a skein yarn and adding to my never shrinking but always growing stash, the AC Moore here has placed all their discontinued and previously 1/2 priced yarn on sale for 1 dollar. I went in with my coupon, intending to be good and just pick up one skein of Christmas yarn to make more baby hats for my donation box and walked out with $20 worth of yarn. And considering they were all $1...well let's just say I have a lot more yarn now. And Michael's yarn even is coming up this Saturday. So even more yarn on sale. Oh Noes!


Besides using yarn and other craftiness, I love to bake. Seeing as how it is apple season, our Wal-mart (I know, why go to walmart to get apples, well I never carry cash to stop at the one roadside stand we have that might carry apples) had lots of apples very cheap. So we got a bunch, and I made a pie. I think I have enough left over for one more apple pie and then a pumpkin pie. I was inspired by watching Paula's Party on the Food Network. She had a lady on there who made pies that weighed 6 pounds and were almost a foot tall. Mine wasn't quite that big, but it did turn out pretty.

I have started keeping track of all my ideas. Normally they end up getting scribbled on a small scrap of paper and lost. Now they have a notebook to be written in. If I remember to date my entries, it will be interesting to look back. This way I won't have to rush to start designing a pattern when I first think of it. I can enter it in the book and come back to it when I have more time. Example: I just thought of a way to do gloves on a loom. But with all the Christmas/Baby/Swap stuff I have going right now, I don't have time to start them. So they are safely tucked away in the book (instead of on a post-it not I will lose) until I have more time for them. Three cheers for organization. And speaking of organization. I saw a method you can use to rewind balls of yarn into center pull skeins. There is a nice turn the handle version (but it is 30-40 dollars) but for this all you need is a smooth wooden dowel about 1 inch in diameter. I found a miniature rolling pin at AC Moore I am going to try. I will post my results. It does take longer than just winding it into a ball, but it looks so much nicer and it won't bounce around all over the place while I'm using it.

Halloween weekend

We spent the weekend at Zach's brother's house in Athens, OH. We have gone every year for the annual Halloween block party. Good times. I will post pictures when I get them. Over the weekend, I did some work on my donation for God's Tiny Angels which you can see in the above picture. They are a charity here in Huntington that donates handmade (and bought) items to maternity wards and NICU's around the country. With my Knifty Knitter, I am a wiz at baby hats, so I spent the weekend making them with leftover yarn. I also picked up some yarn on sale at Joanns and have enough to make 6 baby blankets. Yesterday I found a pattern for baby slippers made out of fleece. I had a pretty big piece of white fleece left over (there was 1/2 a yard left after she measured out the piece I wanted, so she offered it to me at half price) I have gotten two pairs done and have pieces cut out for about 7 more pairs. They take me a while because I have to sew up the soles by hand because they are so small (I started with the preemie size). I need to get these sent off and start concentrating on two certain Christmas presents that are going to take a while.

Busy Weekend

So, I did run off to A.C. Moore to buy more yarn. Got all of these lovelies, and a few non-yarny things for less than 10 dollars. Now what is great about that is, one ball of the ModaDea Kickx is normally $10.99. Yay! Now, what should I do with them? The yarn pile has expanded to another box. The tote is for full skeins and the box holds yarn that has been used then wound into a ball.
Also finished my handwarmers. Had to crochet them. My Knifty Knitters are too big of a gauge. **wishes it was 5 weeks later, so new loom would be here** I wrote my own pattern for these so check out my pattern link for it.
I had yarn left over from my hat and handwarmers, and from the baby blanket I was working on. So I made a few extra items to go with the blanket. I love baby shoes. They are so adorable. Maybe it is because I love adult shoes so much. Hmmm...

A small project note. I had been working on a Gryffindor Illusion scarf. Well, my Knifty Knitter gauge is making it huge. I have gotten through two letters and it is already 12" across and 16" long. So I am adjusting. Instead of a scarf, I am making a blanket. I will work up patterns for all the house names. Make them up and stitch together. I'm sure if you used a smaller gauge loom with one strand of yarn, it would turn out scarf sized. But I don't want to rip out what I have done. As soon as I get the charts worked out I will put them up. **Runs off to buy lots of yarn in house colors**

New Store!!!

Well, it is new to me. I found a store in Huntington, WV called Knit N' Hook. http://www.knitandhook.com/ They are super nice and friendly. So many pretty things that I wanted. I went during my lunch break the other day. I had planned on being good, but I found yarn I couldn't resist (duh). Chunky Misti Alpaca in light pink and black. Sooooooo soft. I decided, since it was a bit on the pricy side, that I would be making my winter hat and scarf out of it. The hat is done. I love the Knifty Knitter. So fast. I used the pattern at the ProvoCraft website for the rib stitch hat. http://tinyurl.com/gn2y7 I did mine a bit different. I did the first part for 12 rows, made a brim then switch the colors so the opposite color was on the outside. I think it turned out great.

Close up of the switch over.

Also, just found out that a bunch of speciality yarn is on sale at my AC Moore. **runs off to buy more yarn she doesn't need**

**comes back** I forgot to mention that I ordered a new loom. http://www.decoraccentsinc.com/ Over at DA Looms. I ordered the Extra Small Gauge Wonderloom. And now the waiting begins...should I start stocking up on sock yarn now? Yeah, I think so too.

I found some Bloo yarn

I found the perfect yarn. Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Sky Blue. Very blue and very chunky. I used Red Heart supersaver yarn in white and black for the eyes and details. Crocheted circles for the eyes and embroidered on the pupils and mouth. I am working on getting the pattern typed up. Hope I don't get in trouble for it, since it is a copyrighted character. Meh, I don't plan on making money off of it. If you look at the post below, I think I did a pretty good job.




Another project I am working on. Baby blanket (a gift for someone). Making 2 panels of 70 rows each on the blue KK with the zig zag wrap stitch. I found this yarn (can't remember what it is, super soft and chunky though) at Michaels for $1. I bought them out. I am on my third skein of it. I should have enough left over for matching hat and booties and still have a skein left. Fluffy scarf land, here I come. The baby isn't due for a while, but I want to get it off the loom so I can start my Gryffindor Cardigan. Hopefully I'll get that finished before Halloween.

Look Ma'! No Hair!

Well, I still have hair. But I have a lot less of it now. I have been wanting to do this since...August of 2006. I started growing it out for my wedding and kept it long so I could do something cool with it at Becca's wedding. It was a few inches below my shoulders. Much better now.






Proof that cats and dogs can get along. Although it seems only in the circumstances where there is one patch of sun in the living room and there is room for both of them. Thankfully my camera was sitting next to me. This opportunity only lasted about 5 minutes before the cat got bored.





Since this is a craft blog, I suppose I'll get to the crafty part. A little preview of a gift for someone. Isn't the water bottle a fabulous model?


If I can find yarn in this shade of Bloo **snicker** (it's funny cause the yarn needs to be blue and his name is Bloo) I plan on making a hat. Not sure if the eyes will be knit in or if I will attach felt eyes. Like I said, first I have to find the right color.

Fall is upon us

Finally it is cold again. And we have pumpkins to carve for Halloween. Both inspired me to work on these next pieces

First, a cute little pumpkin. The pattern said to make any size pumpkin you wanted and then use the stem pattern. I made a small one first to make sure it looks ok. Well the stem turned out way too huge. The next pumpkin will be bigger.





I am very excited about this project. I was trolling about the internet looking for some interesting patterns and I found http://thestormmoon.blogspot.com/2007/05/dark-mark-illusion-scarf-pattern.html A pattern for a scarf with the Dark Mark (Harry Potter reference) on it. The cool part was it is an illusion scarf. Head on, the scarf will look like small stripes of each color. But when viewed from an angle, the image will appear. Well, since I can now knit at a decent rate, I wanted to try it. But I prefer Gryffindor to Slytherin/Voldemort anyday. I couldn't think of a pattern to put on the scarf. I thought about a Heraldic Lion in Gryffindor colors, but I wanted to start small and easy. So I am just spelling out Gryffindor. So I made my own chart, figured out how to do it on a Knifty Knitter and away I went. The bad part is you can't really see the pattern as you work on the KK unless you work on a long loom and mine was in use. So to make sure it was working, I pulled the piece off the loom last night. And look at that!!! You can see a G. I wish I had taken a straight on picture so you could see the stripes. I'll wait until I'm further along, cause I don't want to take that off again. As soon as I get it worked up, I will put the pattern up on here for all you Gryffindor fans.

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The Knifty Knitter

I recently discovered the Knifty Knitter. I got an AC Moore (a craft store) gift card as a gift and was wondering what to get. After wandering the yarn section I decided to buy a Knifty Knitter. I had always wanted to try them, but never wanted to spend money on something I wasn't sure I'd like. Boy, I was missing out. I love these things. The best part is, I used to use this technique when I was little. I had a little red spool with nails stuck into it and I would make cords of yarn for my Nana. Same principle, much more versitile equipment. I have had them since Wednesday (10/3/07) and have already made 2 baby hats, 2 grown-up hats, 2 scarves and a pair of slippers. I suck at knitting. I learned to crochet first and two needles just throws me off. But here are some of the great things I have made:

This is for my mom. I had been working on a similar hat (knitting) for like a year. This took me two hours, and only because there was something good on tv. But it is just a basic hat. I used two strands (1 fun fur and 1 of some white yarn I had laying around) knit together for the cuff and switched to a red boucle yarn. Yay for a Christmas present she has been waiting for, like forever. Maybe she'll get a matching scarf this year.

I actually made three of these slippers. The first one I made, was huge. I used a pattern that was written for one of the speciality sock looms. The blue Knifty Knitter has a much bigger gauge. The second slipper turned out much better after a bit of adjustment. So in all I changed the loom, number of stitches, the yarn, and in the end the whole technique of the heel and strap. I think that gets me free of any copyright stuff. But I got the original pattern here http://decoraccentsinc.com/mjparkers_instructions.html
This is for my friend, Becca. She is getting her PhD in Molecular Medicine, or as I like to call it Curing Cancer 101. She has done a lot of research with breast cancer so I whole heartedly support her. I think about her the entire month of October when everything turns pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month. It is one thing that companies can make me do to buy products; turn it pink and donate some of the procedes to breast cancer awareness.

Super simple baby hats. NOT FOR ME!!! I was working on these at work and when people asked what I was working on, I would get some interesting looks. No babies here. Two people in the office who are having babies. All for them.