Christmas Crochet

Talk about last minute presents!!!

A 3 year old little girl who loves pink and snowflakes!

What to make?

Of course, a hat, scarf and mittens!

And which pattern to choose from?

Smoothfox's of course!

I used the easiest hat pattern ever.

Just follow this link and you too can enjoy making this super warm super easy hat.

Just check out the name LOL Brain Dead Easy Short Row Hat

Scroll down the right side of her blog and you will find the pattern listed under free patterns. The hat was amazingly easy to crochet. I added a white snowflake taken from the Sugar scarf motif so it looks like a snowflake landed on her cute little head. I also added an earflap piece that wraps around to the other ear giving extra warmth for her neck. The flap can be turned inside when it's not needed and still gives extra warmth over the ears.

I then decided to use another one of her patterns for the scarf.

The Sugar Scarf. Same deal as above, scroll down to the list of free patterns on the right side of her blog and you will find it listed under free patterns. I added a snowflake on both sides of the last snowflake on one end of the scarf. It makes it easier to pull through the open spaces between each snowflake. Makes the scarf adjustable and there's no chance of it falling off since it's joined. The scarf is long enough to be wrapped around her head twice and still be able to thread the last snowflake through an opening at the other end. She should be nice and cozy all winter :)

For the mittens, I designed my own pattern. I wasn't happy with the mitten patterns I'd found searching through the internet. They turned out quite cute, especially after I sewed on a downsized version of the Sugar scarf snowflake into the palm of each hand. That way she's always caught a snowflake.

Unfortunately, the only photos I have are of the hat and scarf modelled by my big baby doll. Still all looks very cute. 

And to finish off, I designed a crocheted kitty toy for her to have and take along wherever she goes. She loves kitties and this one will definitely be a favorite.! I used eyelash yarn together with the yarn I'd used for the kitty to crochet the tail. It turned out very cute and curly twirly. A little girl's dream come true.

My apologies for wonky photos and layout. Blogger decided it wasn't going to resize the photos or place them where I put them.

Ravelympics IV

And here we gooo!  Today's badge was earned for frogging and rewinding the yarn for future use. The joys of hand winding yarn.... I wonder if that's why my arm hurts today LOL

I finished hubby's boobie pillow. When I presented it to him he blushed and giggled. I think he thought I wasn't going to go through with it. It now resides on his bed. I'm sure he will find a way to use it. I've nicknamed it the Franken boobaneck since it's supposed to be a neck pillow and I cobbled it together using various yarns and techniques. At least I know it will do well in the wash!

I'm currently working on a spring/summer  crochet top for Xandy, my own creation of course. I have a lot of the yarn I used to knit the boobies on hubby's pillow left over and it is a decent color. And why have it sit there for another year or so.

It just occured to me that I never did post pictures of those two scarves I made last fall.
The picture on the left is the Kaleidoscope eyes scarf I made for Jess.
The one on the right I gave to my soul sister Samm. I was so happy she loved it since it had been nagging at me to find it's proper owner for a few months. The way Samm's eyes lit up when I took it out of my bag, I knew right away it was hers.


Both made from the same yarn using a variation on the theme made for 2 very different scarves for 2 very different friends.

I've started a wider version of my kaleidoscope eyes scarf I did last fall. My girl friend in Chicago has been ordained chaplain and I want to send her something that she can use when she's working in the community. The yarn I'm using is the repurposed  frogging of the cowl. I'll post pictures as it grows.

For those lovers of all things Gambit. Here is where he spends his time while I'm knitting or crocheting. He looks like he broke his neck! but he seems to like to sleep that way; wedged between the sofa cushions with his head hanging over the edge. His other favorite position is on his side, claws sunk into the arm of the couch as if the couch was trying to eat him.  If you look behind him, you'll see the top of a pattern sticking out. He does a decent job at holding my pattern page in place when I need it.  The pink tassel hanging down is from my nifty little tape measure that Samm gave me. Gambit likes to play with it and it beats me fishing it out from between the cushions. I know, weird cat, what can I say, he's a bengal after all.

And tomorrow... just found out*does a happy dance* I'm meeting Samm at our usual posh dining spot aka Tim Horton's for coffee and bagel w/cream cheese. I love Mondays!

I give up!!! I've reformated this post a dozen times and blogger still insists on leaving giant spaces everywhere! LOL This will have to do for now. This is definitely the frankenstein of all posts! 

Homelessness ...why?

The lane I walk down when I leave work always has a homeless man quietly sitting by the wall on a piece of cardboard with a cup in his hand. He never asks for money, always has a smile on his face, says hello, have a good day... Until this week, I did not know he was truly a homeless man until I saw the local police picking him up to bring him to one of the shelters. (we have many panhandlers who live in homes that pretend they are homeless) The day I saw them do that, it was -22C with the windchill and he was wearing a thin coat over a hoodie, no socks, running shoes that had seen better days, no gloves on his hands. He couldn't stand up by himself, he was so thin and weak and he'd been sitting against the wall far too long, his legs were numb from the cold. The following day he was back sitting against the wall. I gave him my coffee to warm up.

The following day, he was there again, I saw the police were coming to pick him up and for some reason, it struck me to ask him if he would like a scarf to keep his neck and chest warm. He looked at me and said, Nono, don't spend money on me. I insisted, that the scarf would be knit by me, his eyes lit up and he said "You would do that for me?" I said of course and asked him about his favorite color. I went with the Scrunchable Scarf pattern since it gives the scarf a lot of loft to trap warm air better. He will be receiving a navy blue scarf today as soon as I see him, along with a pair of warm socks. Unfortunately, I will have to buy the socks since my knitted socks don't live long for some reason.

*gets on her soapbox* WARNING! THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS ARE WRITTEN TO MAKE YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR FELLOW MAN. STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO FEEL GUILTY.

How can anyone in 2009 walk by someone who is in desperate need of food, clothing, a warm place, in North America? Have we become so blase that we don't even see them anymore? Am I so new to city life that my heart cries when I see someone in need or am I the "sucker" people speak of. I don't know folks, but who are we to say what we would do in his place unless we've been there. We see famine in Africa, wars in so many countries, death, murder, genocide, every time we turn the TV on, have we stopped being human somewhere along the way, have we stopped feeling?

It's easy enough to spot the real thing from the fakers and the drug addicts. I see someone begging for money wearing new shoes, new coat, clean, smelling of cigarettes, there's someone who is not dying from lack of food, a warm place to live in, etc. When you see someone who is thin, weak, bedraggled, obviously hasn't seen the working end of a shower in months if not years, who's clothing pre-dates Trudeau, you know that there's someone who could use a cup of coffee, a sandwich, a hello, a sweater you don't need anymore, etc. If you feel that you can't give them money, that's fine, give them something they can use. You'll know fast enough if you're dealing with a homeless person or a "faker" looking for cigarette money, booze, drugs, etc.

We're not rich, hell, we live below the poverty line ourselves, but there are people in worse places just outside your door. If I can't spare a cup of coffee for another human being who is freezing, that makes me a very shallow heartless person indeed.
*gets off her soapbox* Nuff said

Commissions!

I got my first commission today! A co-worker was complaining that her hands were freezing while typing and I loaned her my wrist warmers. She wore them and was so happy that her wrists and fingers weren't freezing she asked me to make her a pair. Then she saw my ratty scarf that's 7 feet long and asked me to make her one of those as well! LOL

I'm debating whether to go through my stitch dictionary and show her some very pretty stitch patterns that are much much nicer than my original ratty old scarf (the one I knit for myself 4 years ago when I got back into knitting again). See if she'd rather I make one of those for her instead. :) considering she wants to pay me. Depending what she picks out, I'll likely charge her the cost of the yarn tripled since putting an hourly wage/value to the finished scarf is pretty well impossible.

I've already picked out the yarn for the wrist warmers and I'm going with this pattern. She has such tiny dainty wrists that anything worsted would make them look odd. Since I have a nice, slightly thicker than fingering, yarn and I'm using 3.75 mm needles, I figured that the Knit Cuffs with a Cable Twist by Deborah Pulliam would be perfect for her dainty wrists, not too chunky or thick for the office. The yarn is Patons Canadiana in royal blue, her favorite colour even! And since I can't "sell" the wrist warmers, I'll knit them for her for the cost of the yarn.

I'll update with my own photo of the finished mitts once they are finished.

Eleventh Hour

The Fabulous Filigree Scarf take II is done! And just in time too. All that's left to do now is wrap it up and give it to Georgie for her sister in the morning along with some chocolates. I'm sure they will be appreciated, both sisters have a devilishly sweet tooth and at their age, why not!?

I used size 10 US needles for this one. I wanted a looser knit which would enable the scarf to drape better. It worked very well and I will stick with using size 10s from now on. The first one I found a bit too stiff for my liking since it was a much tighter knit.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and in pink of all colours! I hope they both have a lovely Christmas.

Time Flies!!!

Wow, I didn't realise how long it's been since I added to my blog. My apologies to everyone!

A lot has been happening around here, hence the lack of posts. Very little time to sit down in front of the computer, not having a router also sucked since it meant that only one computer had internet access.

Let's see, where was I on my knitting list. The Fabulous Filigree scarf for George's sister. I'm halfway through knitting it using pink Bernat solids. Pink, my gawd, why?!!!

It's been put on hold for a few days while I take care of some more immediate knitting needs. Co-workers where I'm currently temping have been handing me Christmas presents which means I should reciprocate. But with having no money to buy presents, I decided to knit their presents. I looked around for something quick and useful to make for them and finally decided to do pocketbook slippers from Knitwits Heaven.

Since the office is filled with women, it was an easy choice. I had thought of coffee cup cozies since most of them get their Timmy's in the morning, but decided on slippers when I kept overhearing them complain on how cold their feet are in the office. Mine aren't cold, I'm the freak with the fan blowing on me it's so bloody warm in there. They've gotten used to the fan but boy, the first few weeks got me a lot of head shaking and weird looks LOL

These knit up really quickly. I can make a pair in an evening while watching shows with darling husband. What's nice is it also uses up stash yarn since it doesn't require an entire ball of yarn. The blue pair pictured here is for me! I miscalculated how much yarn I needed and ran short on the blue. Didn't feel like frogging them so added the red to finish the last slipper. So I'll have a bi-color on one foot and a single on the other. I don't care since they're for at home anyway.

I may do bi-color for the others since it does look neat. I'll have to check the stash to see what colors I have that would match/compliment each other.

Tears of joy & screams of laughter. That can only mean...

Yes, I have finished the Filigree Scarf and gave it to my neighbor. She unwrapped the package and opened it to find a soft yellow shawl inside. Her hands ran over it, with a whispered "Oh My" escaping her lips. She looked up at me with huge tears running down her cheeks only to announce that yellow is her favorite color. She immediately had to try it on and parade around the apartment preening in front of the mirror. It was so sweet to watch how happy this small gift made her. After reminiscing for a while she asked me if I could make another one just like it but in pink. I knew who it was meant for, her only remaining sister who is even older than her. How can I say no to a request like that. So of course, I will be making a pink one for the lovely lady for Christmas from her baby sister George :)

I also had fun last night. My husband loves all things geeky so of course the Futurama characters belong in all things geeky. I happened upon this pattern from Mychawd's site of a Brain Slug from the show. I had the scarf all done and didn't want to start something big. So while watching some shows with darling husband, I made him the brain slug. Once the last bit of yarn was snipped I immediately stuck it on his head and snapped a picture. So yes, the brain slug has done it's work! It now proudly resides on top of the monitor.

One problem with the brain slug. As you can see from the picture, the iris is not black. I for some reason read ebony as meaning beige, go figure... Even I can't figure out how I got from black to beige. So our brain slug has a ummm tit for an iris? LOL At least he's original!!!

Firefly & Knitting. What a combo!

I was browsing sites for washcloth patterns and one thing led to another.... I ended up looking at cabled scarves on Smariek Knits blog and came upon this page with a gorgeous cabled scarf pattern for download. Above the photo of the finished scarf, I found the lyrics from Firefly staring at me. I read them over and realised just how much I miss that show.

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me
- Firefly Theme Song

Joss Whedon is amazing at building a TV show that makes you care. He breaks all the rules by having multiple main characters, developing each one until they feel like family. Then he goes on to wrap your heart around his little finger and makes you care about each one of them. If you've never seen the show, please go find it and watch it. You'll become another follower of Mr. Whedon if you do.

And while I'm knitting this afternoon, I will be watching the series again since my darling husband bought the DVD. I'm looking forward to seeing Jayne with his hat, River and all the others.

Christmas Scarves & Hats

Christmas is coming, only ahhh umm... 42, Days. 13, Hours. 29, Minutes ...But who's counting.... What???!!! Oh geez, I'd better get busy.

So far I have a hat and scarf done for my 4 yr old nephew.

I still need:

• a tam and scarf for my 7 year old niece - pink please
  
• a scarf and hat for my 5 year old niece - no clue on color
  
• a scarf and beanie for my 10 year old nephew - black and....
  
• wristwarmers for my 15 year old niece - steel gray and blue
  
• beanie and scarf for my 15 year old nephew - black?
  
• wristwarmers for my sister -
  
• wristwarmers for 2 sisters in law -
  
• wristwarmer and neckscarf for Mom - beige
  
• scarf and beanie for both my brothers - black
  
• hairbands for assorted nieces - pink, blue, red, green, etc
  
• something cute for my husband's half sister who is 5 and thinks her big brother is awesome :)
  
• something cute for my daughter - still working on that one
  
• something cool for my son - skull beanie
  
• something equally cool for my darling husband
  

The Frog Pond

Well, the Not Quite Straight Scarf has hit a bad curve that's sent it to the frog pond. I actually hit the curve and it went this way.

1. I lost track of what pattern row I was on and got this weird wave effect again.
2. I couldn't find where I'd veered off the pattern row count.
   
3. As I worked with the chosen yarn (Sears Sayelle) I got more and more dissatisfied with the results. The scarf felt rough instead of soft and pliable. Not good.
   

So it went to the big ole frog pond in the sky. I'm reserving the yarn for knitting cat toys. At least Gambit won't care if it's rough. He likes it rough...

I am in the process of paging through my Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery by Mildred Graves Ryan that I purchased 25 or so years ago. You can tell I've used it a lot. It has coffee stains on some pages, turned down pages, bookmarks with notes written on them and paper clips where I ran out of bookmarks. It's a fantastic book with hundreds of stitch patterns to choose from.

I'm looking for a reversible stitch pattern that will look good on either side of the scarf. I'm picky though; since I want to finish the scarf asap, I don't want to do anything that has cables in it since it takes me too long to do cable work but I want something more than just a plain stockinette stitch. I may have found something.... just need to figure it out. More to come

Not Quite Straight Scarf revisited

After a false start; I had to frog my first attempt since I missed a crucial detail in the pattern. (when to start the main pattern) 1 row, that was all I'd missed but it made the scarf do some pretty weird directional stuff.

Gambit passed judgment on the first version so I had to frog it (not Gambit!).

The good thing about messing up the first version was that I discovered that if I followed the pattern exactly, the resulting edge of the scarf would have loops sticking out. I didn't like that, so I went with slip 1, knit 1, increase 1 instead of the k1, inc 1 that the pattern asked for. The resulting edge is much smoother with no loops sticking out.

This is my second attempt at this scarf. The edges are now smooth with nothing sticking out.

I'm using a non wool yarn from my stash since there is a wool allergy where this scarf is going. I really like the wave effect moving on the diagonal. It's a nice change from the "hohum it's a scarf".

In other news, the baby hooded jacket is still at the hood part. I have to figure out the hood before I go any further.

My daughter's Lil Red Riding Hoodie is almost done. I just need to get to a store that sells zippers. Since that involves taking 2 buses, it's going to wait until I need more supplies before I go or I get desperate enough.

I'm not overly fond of using city transit, but it's either that or walking. In my husband's favorite distance descriptive words, "This is more than a fair walk".

Not Quite Straight Scarf

I found this pattern while helping someone on Ravelry with a stitch question. I was intrigued by the pattern and decided to give it a shot since I need to knit a bajillion scarves for Christmas presents!

So far, this is what I have on the needles. I'm using yarn from my stash. The tag must have fallen off and I have no idea what brand it is. It's polyester, I know, not really a good scarf yarn but with wool allergies, doesn't leave a lot of choice.

I really love my brand new bamboo needles from Rikki :) The needles make knitting a lot more fun. No more pain in my fingers from holding on to heavy needles. I also love the fact that after a few minutes using these needles, they seem to warm up in my hands.