Adventures in Knitting

I have been looking for more knitting patterns to try and I decided try my hand at Gretchen's Easy Tam(you will need an account to see the pattern). I had been a little hesitant about trying fair isle knitting but I found this to be incredibly easy! I tried out using both Continental and English style to hold both yarns at the same time but for the most part that was too difficult for me but with more practice of course it should get easier.

I pretty much made this hat in a day. We had a snowstorm this week and so I didn't have to go into work so I had plenty of time to work on it! I still have never done any blocking yet so I didn't block this like it is recommended but I really like just wearing it as a beanie instead of how it is pictured on the pattern. I am quite proud of this hat! 

Baby blankets!

When I first found out that my best friend was having her first baby, my first thought was how excited I was for her and her husband and then I realized I will now have someone to make tons of stuff for! I anxiously waited to find out the gender and of course found tons of things to make for a girl and some things for a boy. Then a couple of weeks ago they found out they are having a girl. The minute I found out I bought a bunch of yarn and planned out three blankets for her!

Here is a small picture to showcase the stitch that I am using for the first blanket I started. when its finished I will put up a picture of the whole blanket;

This one is crocheted. I also bought yarn to crochet the Neopolitan Ripple baby blanket and some for the Simply Stripes Baby Blanket, which is knit. 

I am also currently working on this crocheted chevron blanket. I am using Knit Picks Brava worsted yarn and even though it is 100% acrylic, it is quite soft! This one will be a good lap blanket!

I have been wanting to knit myself a pair of fingerless gloves for a long time, so I am making these Cupcake Mittlets. Now these have been troublesome for me. I bought a bunch of yarn that just was too thin and was probably sport weight rather than DK(the labels didn't have the weight listed) and they were just coming out too small. I also kept messing up and forgetting steps and I am still very new to knitting so I have no idea how to fix most of my mistakes, which means I have restarted these many many times! I am almost finished with the first glove!

I think it looks alright for my first ever knit fingerless gloves!

When I finish a couple of these projects I am going to try out the Running in Circles hat or the Hermione Hearts Ron hat to use up the sport weight yarn that I bought!

Coffee Sleeves

These past couple of weeks, I have been getting ready for my library's 2nd annual craft day. Last year I made these coffee sleeves. This year I am making more coffee sleeves but this time I am using the pattern by Frayed Knot. I initially saw them because of a recent post made by All About Ami. (I love her blog and she has many great ideas!) I really liked the look of these 15 min. coffee sleeves. They really are fast to work up.

Besides making the coffee sleeves I haven't really made much else. I have been distracted by many other things. I am a big reader and my to-read pile just keeps growing! Currently I am reading Tana French's In the Woods. Also since it is October, fall TV shows have started up again, so that's another distraction!

Anyway, I am going to try to do some more knitting soon. I think I want to try to make some mittens and hat set. I just have to find the right patterns. I need something pretty easy because I still get a little bit confused by how knitting patterns are written. Of course as with anything, it will just take practice to get used to them!

It's Been awhile!

It has been a few months since I last posted anything. I have been busily crocheting two blankets. I finished the Dew Drop Blanket I talked about in my last post. Here is the finished project!

Now I am working on a blanket with this stitch:

This isn't the best picture of the stitch and the color is actually a little bit darker. The blanket is big enough for a queen size bed. I initially started with a different pattern, but even though I was counting each row and being careful, my edges were very crooked so I switched to this v stitch shell stitch(I think that's what it is called!)

Not only have I been working on these blankets I decided to take up trying knitting again. I did okay with some of the things I had made but I decided to try some hats. I managed to make two in one weekend! I found these to be easier than the scarves I was trying to make. I kept dropping stitches with the scarves but I did much better with these hats:

For my next knitting project, I think I am going to try either some mittens or fingerless glove. There are so many fingerless glove patterns that I have seen that look awesome. I'm not sure what I am going to do next for a crochet project but I think I am going to make some more amigurumi!

Dew Drop Blanket

Interestingly enough, now that it is warmer out I have found more inspiration to work on more projects than I did in the winter. I would think it would be the opposite but maybe I am just a little strange! I have all these ideas now on blankets that I would like to make. Currently, I am working on one using a stitch called the dew drop stitch. I just love the colors that I am using for it. I am using Red Heart yarn for it and the colors are light raspberry, charcoal and white.

Sadly the craft store that I would buy yarn from, that had a good stock of the yarns that I like to use, went out of business . I hadn't bought enough yarn for a whole blanket, so now I am at a standstill until my shipment gets here. This at least gives me time to start another blanket! I haven't decided the stitch yet but I am going to use Caron Simply Soft Cool Green, possibly with a white border. Of course I don't have enough of that color either but I can order that online too! Maybe I should plan better.

Budget wise I haven't been able to venture much beyond the Red Heart for yarns but I am going to try to order some new yarns soon, if I can decide what I want. It always takes me an incredibly long time to make a decision about buying things sometimes! Especially, if I have to buy it online because I obviously won't know what it's like until I get it. I am leaning towards Knit Picks Comfy Worsted which is a cotton/acrylic blend. I just love the colors that Knit Picks offers! I have used it for a couple hats that I made and liked the results. I might try to make a blanket with that yarn.

Crochet Bee!

So it has been awhile since I made my last post. I hadn't really crocheted anything for awhile and then recently I made a baby blanket for a friend of mine who is having a baby, a bear for a co-worker who is having a baby, and just this past weekend I made this giant bee! I don't have pictures for the first two things that I made but here are some pictures of the bee I just finished.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out! I didn't have a pattern that I followed to create this. The tricky part had been figuring out how exactly to do the wings but I like what I came up with.


Now I am waiting to get this book called My Crochet Doll by Isabelle Kessdjian from the library. It looks like an awesome book! I'm hoping to make a few dolls from it. It looks like a book I would want to add to my collection eventually!

I was also thinking of making either a dragonfly or a butterfly next. I will just have to figure out which bright colors I want to use!

Beehive Infinity Scarf

I decided to make myself a crocheted scarf this past weekend. It only took me a few minutes to find the type of stitch that I wanted to do in the crochet book I have. The stitch that I chose is called the Beehive stitch. I found a video on yourtube on how to do this stitch to make sure that I was doing it right, so if you want to make this and don't understand how to do it, I recommend looking there!

Here is what I did to make this scarf:

2 Skeins of Caron Simply Soft
6.5mm/K crochet hook

I doubled up the yarn by using both the skeins so that the yarn was bulkier. I think I would have liked making this with just the one strand of yarn also. You would really only need one skein of the Caron Simply Soft in order for you to get it as long as mine was if you chose to use only one skein at a time.

There are 2 types of stitches you need to know how to do.  Double crochet(dc) and the front post double crochet (FPdc).

Chain 21(or shorter if you want your scarf more narrow. It just has to be a multiple of 2 plus 1)

Prep row: Starting in the 4th chain from the hook dc across the row. Turn.

Row 1:  ch 3, skip first st, **FPdc in the next dc, dc in the next dc repeat from **until the end of the
              row. The last dc should be in the top of the ch 3. Turn.

Row 2: ch 3, skip first st, **FPdc in the next dc, dc in the next dc repeat from **until the end of
             the row. The last dc should be in the top of the ch 3. Turn.

You will repeat row 1 and 2 until the scarf is long enough to wrap it twice around your neck. Then you will fasten off and sew the ends of the scarf together. The length I liked ended up using most of the skein of yarn. Using the two strands of yarn as if it were one made the fabric seem really stiff. However once I washed it that seemed to soften it up. I am sure if you wanted to only use one strand it could look really pretty! 

I think by chaining 21 it was a little too wide especially since I wrapped it twice around my neck but it definitely kept me warm during these past really cold weeks!

Mike Wazowski and my new loom kit!

 I succeeded in creating my own Mike Wazowski as a gift for my friends!This is who Mike Wazowski is if you don't already know(he is a character from the movie Monsters Inc.) and this is what I came up with:

I think he looks alright! I just am hoping my friends like him!

For Christmas my cousin got me the Martha Stewart loom knit and weave kit! It was very thoughtful gift from him! I had tried to learn how to knit and I did previously make one scarf but I didn't like it as much as crocheting. However, I have wanted to try this and so I first made a scarf. I think that this stitch is called the double knit stitch(it has been pretty difficult to find demonstrations online on loom knitting that I find helpful!);

 

I also made a hat as a gift for a friend of mine:

 

For both of these items I used Caron Simply Soft Yarn, I really like how soft they feel. I think I will like using the loom to make more scarves and hats! I also want to see if I can figure out how to make some socks with this kit. I am also going to make another hat to give to the cousin who bought me the kit!

I hope everyone has had a good holiday and good New Year's and now I am off to see what else I can go make!

Christmas is here again!

Happy Holidays! 

Lately I have been working on more of those awesome minions.  Once I finish attaching all of the pieces for the last one I will not be making any more for a while! I have so many other things that I would like to make and I have gotten pretty bored with making so many of the same things.

I did have to take a break from this last minion that I am working on because I had someone who wanted to buy a pair of the Doctor Who Tardis fingerless gloves that I have been working on perfecting. I think I like the results for what I came up with! Here is the finished results:

Now I just have to make some time to make some for myself!

I also had been planning on making a snowman for a family friend for awhile now as a gift for Christmas. I worked on it yesterday and today(pretty last minute I know and I actually have one other gift I am planning on making tomorrow!) I didn't use a pattern and I wasn't quite sure if I got the hat quite right at first but with it all put together I am happy with the results! It's hard to see in the picture but I used Red Heart Holiday for the body of the snowman to make it a  little bit sparkly.

I am now going to attempt to make Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. to give as a gift to my friends!

Craft day on Saturday!

At the library that I work at we are having a booksale/craft day. The idea was a combined idea of mine and another coworker, so I am hoping there will be a good turnout. It is for the Friends of the library so hopefully we will be able to raise some money and have this be the first of many craft days! I am going to be doing a crochet demonstration and possible showing people simple stitches if they really want to give it a try. I made a couple of the bears from my last post. Right now I am working on making a bunch of coffee cup cozies I found from the website Crochet Every Day. They are really simple and can decorated in anyway you like!

I am going to make some plain ones and then give the flowers a try. Every time I have tried making flowers in the past, they didn't work out, but I have gotten a lot better at crochet(at least I think I have!).

I am also thinking of making another Psych Pineapple. Luckily I have tomorrow off because that is my last day to make some of these things. I had only been planning on making the one teddy bear but now that I have so many ideas I feel like I need to make more for Saturday!