Log Cabin Lapghan finished

The Log Cabin inspired lap afghan that I've been working on I completed last night. I was SO happy! My hands have been aching because I couldn't find my circulars and have had to work on 14" needles. Boy did that get heavy towards the end!

I finished off with a crocheted border, which completed the look nicely and I am planning on giving this to Miss Dorothy at church tomorrow night as a late Easter present. :)

Froggy Friends

I want you to meet my new froggy friends and their future buddies.

I got the pattern for them here.

They were too adorable to not make.

Since I've redesigned the Frog Pond Bag (pictures and pattern coming soon!) and I totally love it this time....I decided it was time to make the little rainbow froggies to go inside.

I, also, decided that it would be entirely redundant to design little frogs of my own when there are a bazillion different frog patterns already available, most of them for free.

I decided, instead, to support another fiber artist and promote her pattern with my bag. :)

I have altered the pattern only in the application of eyes. I have sewn mine on with yarn. I am a terrible embroider-er-er(?)...I am not good at embroidery. Mine is always choppy and sloppy and sorta ugly. Beauty thing? Babies don't care. Mama's typically don't either. Most of them can't make it themselves and are just happy their kids can't chew it off and choke on them. I'm pretty psycho about making all toys teeny-tiny-child friendly.

So, if you don't look too closely at the eyes of my frogs, which are all crooked...every one... and look at them as a whole, you will realize they are way to cute to not have a home!

Second Mitten Syndrome

Second Mitten Syndrome is much like Second Sock Syndrome, only less eclectic and fun. When you have second sock syndrome you can still get away with wearing mismatched socks. It's all the rage...or at least it was a year or two ago. You could even get see through shoes to show off your funky sockness. But, second mitten syndrome is less charming. You don't look fun and funky...you look like some lamo who lost their mitten and should really have a string sewn on so you don't do that again!



The second mitten is much less exciting to make, cuz you've been there, done that. Just like the second sock. Anything you have to make two of.....well, pretty much drains all joy out of me.

So why do I do it? A) It's a sickness. B) It's a compulsion. C) There is a satisfaction derived from completing something that you dread doing. Almost like feeling that sense of inner accomplishment for eating that yogurt...when you really wanted a donut. And then you go back and eat the donut anyway cuz the yogurt really wasn't satisfying...but who's counting? You get 'points' for eating something healthy.

Has anyone ever added up their 'points'? If so, what do you get to use your 'points' for? That's a brain twister there.

Gloves I finished a week or so ago. I think I actually love making gloves way more than mittens. Don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that I feel like a freaking knitting goddess when they are done. They fit, they are functional AND they are pretty. :)

My macho, macho man was too cool for knitted gloves when I showed him the pattern I intended to make. "Nah...I don't need any gloves" he said. After I got the first one done, all of a sudden.."Yeah, these are pretty cool. I could use a black pair." Oh can you, now? And daughter pipes up..."Ooooo, Mom, I want these.....the ones with 1800 color changes and 50,000 ends that you'll have to weave in when you're done! Those are sweet!" *You really don't care if I ever work on another project, do you?*

So, onward, I knit. Loving and hating it all at the same time. While I know my family will "appreciate" the gloves. They will never "appreciate" what goes into them. I make it look way too easy. Sort of like watching my husband play any sport with a ball involved. How does anyone play that good all the time?? Or watching my daughter powerlift. How does anyone get that strong?? Or listening to my son tell me his latest ideas for books he wants to write. Where does he come up with this stuff???

I guess we all have our own gifts. World would be pretty boring if we were all the same, huh?

Mittens for the Finished Hat

I started the mittens that will go with the hat. I do have a pattern for the mittens. It comes out of the Patons: Next Steps Seven, Mittens & Gloves book. It's the basic 4 needle mitten. I just added a few stripes of color to have it coordinate with the hat. Working on the second mitten now.

I'm sort of loving the way the two skeins I bought are pooling their colors so differently. The hat and top portion of the finished mitten are the

same skein. Bottom of mitten and the next mitten are the other ball. If I were going to be super anal about it, the differences would be driving me batty about now. But, seeing as how I'm the super laid back broad that I am, I am looking at this as sort of fun. I like the differences. I mean, that is why I bought hand-dyed, right?

Finished Hat

We'll start off with a scary self portrait.
This is me, not at my best, but me all the same.

The hat is a bit short. Of course, this is the first time I've made a hat without a pattern to follow. I'm sure the next one will be better.

I figured I would give taking a picture of myself a try. I mean, my daughter takes about 50 pictures of herself a week....so how hard could it be, right? It's a lot harder than it looks. That is, if you want it straight.

Here we have the back of the hat.

I love the way that it turned out. I love the colors together. I even love the way the cables turned out. They were meant to be subtle and they certainly are that.

I don't know that I'm the neatest knitter. I can see lots of chunkiness in my decreases, etc. Of course, that may be the weight of the yarn. The mystery wool from Bayfield is chunky and rough, but boy is it warm.

Currently working on mittens to match.

Hat Turned Swatch

I finally came out of my funk this week and decided I was going to try my hand at working with the hand-dyed mystery wool I picked up in Bayfield at the beginning of the month.

I broke out the size 6 bamboo dpn's (they are the only ones that I own that have 5 to a pkg) and cast on 80 stitches, 20 per needle. I thought...gads...80 stitches should be plenty for an adult size hat. Um, no. Try, small child.

As I knit right along I was falling in love with it. I even got all crazy and threw in a few segments of leftover llama/mix/handspun that I had picked up at a different craft fair about 4 years ago. I even made some baby cables in there. Ya know, just me being all awesome and stuff and showing off my crazy knitting skills. *rolling eyes* I don't have crazy knitting skills, folks. You have no idea how I struggle through cables. I love, love, love the way they look...I do not love, love, love making them. I either have the wrong size cable needle, hence the 'slipping' that occurs frequently causing me to "Ahhh!! Nobody MOVE! I dropped a needle!!"....(my family loves it) OR I just suck at making cables and end up making them out to be WAY harder than they need to be. Either way, it's a handicap for me.

So anywho, I noticed that the hat just did not seem to be of adult proportions right about the beginning of the gray llama yarn. But, I thought to myself, "oh I'll just make this a child's cap", until I got done with the gray and went a little on the green and wanted to start decreasing. My inner knitter cried out, "NO!! This is all wrong! This is supposed to be an adult hat!" I could not continue. I would be living a lie. Lord knows I have more than enough yarn to make this adult hat. (how many stitches???) This little hat became a practice swatch that will be taken apart.

****
Frogging commenced and I have neat little balls of yarn waiting to be re-knit into my happy little wool hat. I'm making it up as I go, so who knows what it's gonna look like..??

New Pattern Project

Here's a preview of the colors. The yarns are Red Heart Super Saver "Spring Green" and some No Boundaries WalMart brand boucle yarn I picked up about 5 years ago and it just keeps hanging around my stash. I'm sure that it could be substituted with another Red Heart yarn. The product label on the WalMart yarn calls for a size K, so I'm sure another worsted weight will be more than sufficient.

I am starting the pattern today and will post pictures as I get some things done. :)

This is going to be another Learning Baby Toy.

Finished Graduation Gift

Just had to quick blog about a graduation gift I completed.

Slippers for the cold winter nights. She's going to Bemidji, MN. *rolls eyes* You would think people would go somewhere warm....I would!! lol All kidding aside, she has a great future ahead of her. :)


School colors are forest green and white. I used some creative expression and created a quick Babette style blanket in Deep Sage, Soft White and Warm Brown. I can't get the picture to load, but you can sort of see the afghan behind the slippers.

Slipper Pattern
Babette Afghan Pattern

K. Tah for now!

Elves - Knitted Baby Blanket - In Production

Well, "Elves" - The Knitted Baby Blanket is well underway. I had some pattern issues that threw me back a little. The kind of issues that make you suddenly look at your newest toy and want to chuck it across the room. I knitted back 3 or 4 rows at least 2 times. It just was not coming out the way I had envisioned it, so I scrapped the part that wasn't fitting in. And here we have the "final"-ish results. It is, of course, still in the works, but I am happy with the way that it is coming along.

Here is a very washed out close-up of the center part of the afghan. I don't remember the name of the stitch. But it goes like this: yo, sl next st, k3, psso. I really like doing it and I like the way it looks. It has sort of a lattice feeling to it...in a round about sort of way.


Here is the border. There are a total of 4 leaves going up and 4 leaves on each side of the border. I still haven't figured what, if anything, I will do to finish it. I'm sort of eyeing up the I-Cord border that I've seen on some other works. We'll see.


Believe it or not, this is done in Dark Sage. My camera totally washed things out. BUT, at least I can take pictures.....the alternative is much worse! lol

Crafting and Life Update

I don't have much to say, really.

I have still been working so much that I have not done any designing. I didn't even get my submission in to the magazine in time. Trying to decide, now, whether or not to just put it on here as another free pattern. I want very much to share the pattern. But, I want very much to see if I am good enough to have a pattern submission accepted as well. It's a conundrum.

Have great ideas in my head about things. Have a Vulpix (pokemon toy) about 1/4 done. Actually more, I just have to do his head and tail. But, I have had no desire to work on that. To be honest the carpal tunnel in my arm is getting ridiculous. I HAVE to go see a doctor. I lose sleep at night from the pain in my arm. I can't knit or crochet very long and I have to set things down cuz I can't do it anymore. That is seriously cramping my style. Seriously.

As far as what I have on the hooks and needles. I am currently working on a ripple afghan in crochet being done in scraps only. And this one really is scraps. I will not buy any yarn for this one. I know you've heard that a hundred times from me if you've heard it once. But, I mean it this time! On the needles, I just finished up 3 pairs of wool mittens **for the family. I just have one more pair to go. And I have a 'mind of its own' log cabin-ish afghan on the needles. This one, too, is scraps only. This one is the almost full skeins of yarn that get left over in the pile. They are too little to do a big project and too big to just use for potholders, etc. So...I'm making it work. :) But, these, too are moving very slow. The whole arm thing.

We've made some decisions about the store. We currently have a buyer in the works. I'm believing that God is going to move things and we will be able to sell. Just be in agreement with us. And if you can't be in agreement...then just don't say anything at all.

I'm tired. I'm worn out. I work way too much. I'm ready to go back to being a part-time employee and being home with my kids. They are at an age where they need me even more than when they were babies. Then, it was the physical need. Now, is the time of life where the big questions and big decisions come up. I don't want to be absent when they happen. Or be too tired to care. They are arrows and I have every intention of pointing them with a destination and a future.

**Leave the fun fur out of this pattern and use Wool-Ease chunky for a GREAT mitten! Size 9 needles for women's hands. Size 10 needle and a few extra rows before the finger decrease for men.

August Update

Life has been so hectic for us. Lots and lots of traveling in July. We went to Youth Invasion in Midland July 28-Aug 1. It was great and life-changing and, well, completely awesome!

I've been a little crafty lately. I haven't had a lot of time to sit and work on things. I have a sock started...about 1/2 way done. I've rounded the heel and I'm in the foot at least. And I've been working on a few charity things, but nothing huge. Some baby hats and I've started another scrap afghan.

Finally, here is a picture of the completed Mitered Corners afghan from Mason-Dixon Knitting. This was made with Vanna's Choice Baby yarn. Now its a sample in my store.

Here we have "Toby's Hats" :) He is my newest cousin. He was born a few months premature and I found a pattern for baby hats (though for the life of me, I can't remember which one I used) through Knitting Pattern Central that gave me such a variety of sizes to choose from that I became quite confused and befuddled. But, I got through it and made these cute little hats in an evening. These, too, are made from Vanna's Choice Baby yarn (except for the white one).

We have had almost no heat this summer at all. My garden has suffered. It's been so cold and rainy that things haven't grown the way they should and some of it is just rotting where it sits because it's too wet. My potatoes and peppers are going great, though. My tomatoes are starting to perk up. I fear for my cabbages, zukes and cukes....

Update on Mom and Misc Projects

Ok. Update on Mom. She is coming home today. She's not sure exactly what time cuz they have to do all sorts of stuff to her to get her ready to do, but she is coming home. She will still have a tube in her side with a relief valve in case pressure builds up in her chest. The hole is not 100% closed. There is still just a super tiny tear in the lung. I've come to the determination that amazing surgeon is a word that I don't allow in my vocabulary anymore. :)

Now to the projects: First is a baby set that I made for my SIL for her to give as a gift. The sweater and the bonnet are the 'Emily' patterns from Auntie M's. And the booties are Bev's Very Easy Booties- HDC version.

I made them in Patons Astra in Bright Pink, Hot Pink and Light and Dark Tans.



Next is the infant frog hat. It is just the adult version available in my free patterns...only smaller. Same customer that ordered the adult version came back and ordered the infant version for the original recipients new baby girl. :) Hope they like it. I thought it turned out cute, even though I sewed the smile on crooked..LOL