A fun break

Knitting a couple of teddy bears was a fun break from knitting the Lover's Knot blanket, my latest expansive off white cable project for my son and daughter-in-law.

Meet my new nameless friends:


and what they look like from the back:
Stitchin girl's bears were my inspiration for these bears. Hope she doesn't mind me copying her idea. Her bears look like bears....I'm not quite sure what animals (or aliens) mine resemble. I like hers much better. I've been admiring her bears for quite some time now. She does have a knack for bear making!! She's made more bears than I can count, even small key chain ones. My boys think my bears look scary, but I think they kind of cute.

The construction of these bears is pretty simple, but the fun comes in embellishing them. I thought a ruffle skirt or tutu was a cute addition to make one of bears look a girl bear....then I added overalls to the boy bear. The pair is a gift for my friend's daughter's new baby and big sister. Hope they like them.

I'm still plugging away on the blanket...not much progress this week. Hopefully by next week I'll have a progress picture for you. I have to focus and just get it done.

Happy Knitting :)

The halfway point

Reaching the halfway point in knitting the Lover's Knot blanket made my day! I just finished the 7th pattern repeat of the braided cable. It is really getting heavy on my lap, but it does keep me very warm on cold nights. I laid out the blanket on my bed today to see if it will be the right size or the size I envisioned. Looks like it is the perfect width, but I can't really stretch it out until it is off the needles. One thing though...there is way too much off white yarn which is getting boring. I really need to work with color, so I did start a side project yesterday. It should be fairly quick to finish. I'll try to post again soon so I can show you.

In the meantime here is some of the dishcloths I finished this past summer, but never had the chance to post. I still have more to show you....which I will in the coming weeks just to add some color to my blog.

The first set is the Star Cloth. A few variations that I played with. It's been so long since I knit them that I can't even remember what I did. That's bad, but I do remember having fun with this stitch.
I also tried Kay's Linoleum Cloth in a couple of color combos. They were fun to do. I LOVE mosaic slip stitch patterns. Finally I leave you with a photo of the silk flower arrangement I made for the after wedding party we had for my son and his new wife back in November.

I feel better now. I really needed the color :)

happy knitting :)

Some finished items

Slowly I'm finishing a few things. The blanket for the 2009 Pine Street Inn Knit-a-thon is complete. I finished it yesterday and I am very pleased with the results. Back in November I attended the Knit-a-thon with a group from my church. While there, we finished one blanket and a partial second. One of my church friends brought that one home to finish. I brought home a bag of squares to make a blanket. With the wedding and Christmas approaching fast I had to put sewing the blanket together on hold until after Christmas. It took me just about a week to assemble it. Instead of sewing it together, I crocheted it together flat, side by side, using a chain stitch to join the squares.
The squares were all different in size and yarn weight. I eased them together with the chain stitch, adding a border of three rows of single crochet. I think it looks pretty good. Hopefully the person who receives it will be very happy with it. The important thing is-- it will be very warm. This is such a nice and worthy project to work on. Pine Street Inn provides homes for homeless people in Boston. The Knit -a-thon raises money and makes blankets. They give a blanket to those moving into a new home. I must get started earlier next year knitting my squares. My goal for the 2010 knit-a-thon -- I would love to be able to knit 35 (9 '') squares, for a blanket myself...we'll see.

I also finished the two baby blankets I have been working on.
One of the babies was born on Thursday. I finished just in time. The baby is huge...10 lbs 13 oz! The other blanket is for a baby due sometime in March. I used one of my favorite patterns. I don't know the name of it or where the pattern originated. All I know is it is a pattern my mother had. Wish I knew where it came from.

Next, is a finished item that was completed back in October.

It's the shawl I made to wear to my son's wedding. I was afraid that it was going to be freezing that day, but I never actually wore the shawl at the wedding. It was a very rainy, but warm day. I'm sure I'll wear it for some other occasion in the future.

The pattern is Barbara Breiter's Shell Lace Shawl. It was very easy and I am happy with the results.

I'm still working on the Lover's Knot blanket. I just joined the sixth skein of yarn of 13. Looks like I'm almost at the halfway point. Yay! It is getting rather monotonous. I really miss color while working on this huge off white project. My next project will have to be very colorful :)

Well, guess that's about it for today. Happy weekend and happy knitting :)

Finally ...getting back into the swing of things!

Yesterday I was finally able to clear off my dining room table and lay out all those squares I brought home from the Pine Street Inn Knit-a-thon back in November. I started joining the squares together. Instead of sewing the squares I'm using a chain stitch crochet, flat, side to side (similar to the way I joined my tessellated fish blanket together) rather than putting the right sides together and crocheting the edge. I think it will lay flatter this way. This project does seem to be challenging though because of the differences in the sizes of the squares as well as the variety of weights of yarn used. I will try my best. Will be interesting to see how it turns out!

There has been a teeny tiny bit of progress on my Lover's Knot Blanket project. Today I just started the 5th pattern repeat of the clustered braid pattern. Slow- but surely I'll get it done.

Good thing my new daughter-in-law and son are patient ;)

Happy weekend and happy knitting everyone :)

Welcome Twenty Ten

Happy New Year...2010! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas for those of you who celebrate this holiday. We had a very nice Christmas. N & K and K's mom joined us for a very nice dinner. My dad came, too, and we celebrated his 93rd birthday. I made a cake for him:

He had great difficulty blowing out his two candles (one #9 and one #3). I swear on a stack of bibles that they were not trick candles, but I think he thought so. Guess in his golden years he lacks the gusto to blow out his candles like he did in his younger days. He did finally blow them out though the boys by that time weren't so sure they wanted any of the cake ;)

Here is my collection of Christmas cookies this year
...all 9000 of them as my baby likes to tell everyone. I made pizelles, springerle, chocolate chip, ginger snaps, gingerbread, sugar cookies and Aunt Louise's butterscotch cookies. Don't think there were 9000, but since everyone takes some home with them I do need to stock up.
We started the morning once again, a tradition in our house, with our short cut cinnamon rolls. The only difference was that this year I could not find the bags of frozen rolls in the grocery store (two weeks in a row), so I decided to make my own frozen rolls this year and they worked out great. Check here for the recipe I used for my rolls. I think from now on I'll make my own rolls...good thing - no preservatives. It's not like the cinnamon rolls are really that good for you to begin with, but you know-- if you can eliminate one more bad thing...why not?

I even received a "knitting" present, a knitting calendar, this year that I didn't ask for. I think my baby is catching on... He did good, very good!

I peeked ahead into the year and noticed a lot of really cool patterns. Looks like fun! Maybe even a gift or two for next year ....we'll see :)

I think I vaguely remember saying in my last post "no knitted presents this year" because of my big cable blanket project.

Well.... the cable blanket went on a temporary hold...so no progress there. I did have to scramble and knit like there was no tomorrow to pull off the completion of two pairs of thick, fuzzy bed socks. One pair for K:and another pair for her mom:
The pattern is Comfy Socks. I recommend this pattern. Very easy and very fast. I used one strand of knitting worsted and one strand of Joann's Rainbow Boucle.

How could I knit something for K but not for N?...so that's why I knit N a black hat -- you can always use an extra hat, right?
Do you remember me knitting this one before?...a very easy, neat and great pattern from Fig and Plum:
Luckily I found a scarf that I had knit a while back....something I totally forgot about and then pulled out and thought K might like it. It's a potato chip scarf, knit with Joann's Rainbow Boucle.Well, she did love it and kept it on the whole day. She and her mom loved their socks. I know K really appreciates anything knitted and even her mom does, too. I think everyone is getting very accustomed to my knitted gifts. The rest of the boys were a bit disappointed that they didn't get knitted gifts as well. I just did not have enough time this year to knit for everyone. Christmas came way too fast this year. Must start earlier next year. Hate the last minute rush finishing everything.

Guess that's about enough for today. Still have more to catch up with you. Will post more later as I have a bunch of finished items, pre-wedding, that I want to show you.

A very happy and healthy New Year to you all and most of all happy knitting :)