The Sweater!

I had been on the hunt for a nice baby sweater for a long time... I finally found one that I thought was irresistible and simple enough. It's crocheted in one piece :) I found it at Ravelry, it's called "Baby it's cold outside"

I had just enough of the 2nd skein left to make a matching hat!







I also started knitting this hat a week or so ago... coming along, but of course I keep getting sidetracked with sweaters and socks and such ;)


And I love a challenge, and finally figured out how to use the dpns! So decided to try my hand at a pair of socks!! Scary ;)


This was about the 3rd or so hat that I knitted - the first one was a baby hat (translated from dpn's to straight needles!) - the second one was for my older daughter, but it turned out too short (either started decreasing too soon or did the decreasing too fast, or both!). This one (shown below) was supposed to be another baby hat, but it turned out too big. And I didn't know that for ribbing you should use a smaller needle and then switch to a larger size... so it looks a little funny.


This was my 4th trial at knitting a hat! It's a little big, even though I did the gauge swatch and the math ;) somehow I ended up measuring my daughter's head one inch too big ;) I did a purl butterfly, which doesn't show up too great on here - but I also spent a great deal of time making a pom-pon for the top ;)


Let's just say that a pom-pon is not the best choice when you have a 4 year old son who likes to pull strings out of things ;) a week later we are still finding little pieces of purple yarn!

What I've Been Up To

Not much really! It's hard to find the time to crochet and knit with the chaos ;) but I do find minutes of sanity here and there to get some little things done. I've been doing mostly crochet projects as knitting seems to be a little dangerous to do with a baby in my lap ;)

The most recent things I've crocheted are birthday hats for my neices

Just before Halloween I crocheted a pumpkin hat and booties for my little baby boy ;)

I've made him several hats:

And being the evil crafter that I am, made him try on one that I sent to a friend that had a girl ;) He didn't like it so much.

 I'm currently working on a Lightning McQueen (from Cars) hat, and a knit hat for my older daughter!

This year, with so little time, I am not doing the madly crocheting a gift for everyone thing this year... :( I'll have to resume that one next year.

And now she knits too!!

I had thought about attempting to teach myself to knit many times over the past couple of years, but never quite got around to it. My mom came and spent a couple of weeks with us while my husband was out of town for work. While she was visiting, I drug her to my favorite yarn store, and while we were there I mentioned something about the desire to learn to knit - forgetting that my mother knew how to knit... and the rest is history ;)

Here is the first project I started: it's the "Magic Scarf" from Crazy Aunt Purl's book "Drunk, Divorced and full of cat hair..."

And here is the first project I actually finished! (Yes, I'm still plugging away at the scarf). It was supposed to be knitted in the round, but I tried over and over to get it, and will have to have someone show me how to knit in the round sometime... I just translated the pattern for straight needles and sewed up the seam...

I also made a little hooded blanket for Baby Sister's Dora doll, which came out a little too small... But I'm really digging this knitting thing ;) and looking forward to learning more.

What I've Made Lately...

I've been so busy it's been hard to squeeze in time for crochet. But I have managed to do a few small projects.

I finally made scarves for my two little ones! Actually, about the second or third thing I ever crocheted was a scarf for my little boy. But it was pretty small, and barely fit around his neck this year.

And you might be wondering what stitch I used... as it was my 2nd or 3rd project, and apparently still didn't quite know how to crochet correctly, I managed to do it all in slip stitch!! It was very difficult, and took a very long time! Boy am I glad I finally learned how to do the sc correctly! ;)

The new scarf I made him was hdc, with Vanna's Choice, Dusty Green. I am in love with that color!! Though it just doesn't come out right with the flash and all... picture doesn't do the color justice.

And then I made this scarf for baby sister in DC to match her coat ;) I made it with Caron Simply Soft. It was the first time I used that yarn, and it is pretty nice and soft ;)

I was checking out the free patterns on the Lion Brand Yarn website, and came across these easy booties. Somehow, even though I am using the yarn suggested (Vanna's Choice) they come out bigger than they should... the sole was the right measurement, but when you finish the sides and top it comes out too big. So, after I made the small child size and it was too big for baby sister, I made the infant size and it came out just right.

I made the bigger size for Duncan, (which was still the child's small). The odd thing is that the bigger sized booties come out a little squared in the toe...

When my husband saw the booties I was making for the boy, he said if I made the cuff a little longer it would make a great frog puppet ;) So I tested it out, and sure enough, he was right ;)I also found this super cute wiener dog pattern on the Lion Brand Yarn site, and just had to make it. My two little ones have been fighting over the little Mr. Weenie that came with Open Season 2, mostly because the little dog looks like our Sally. So I switched the coloring of the pattern a little bit to better match our Sally ;) Came out looking a little like a rat ;) I think the next one will turn out a little better. I think maybe making the snout a little shorter might help. That and I stuffed the ears a little too much and they stick out like wings ;) so less stuffing (or no stuffing) in the ears next time. Yes, and it's missing some eyes... I had to wait to get some white embroidery floss. It called for those plastic eyes, and I'm sure the kids would have them chewed off in no time...

And I had to break down and make myself a new hat. I'd made myself one around x-mas with the Moda Dea Tweedle Dee, which I loved, but turns out I'm allergic to wool. It only had 10% wool, but that was enough to make my eyes water and itch! So I found some bulky yarn that was 100% acrylic.
Seems like a lot of stuff, but really it's just about everything I've made in the past couple of months ;)

Some things...

I have been meaning to post pictures of the hats I made for Christmas forever... and unfortunately, I am missing the middle pictures, I have the first few and the last couple of hats I made. My laptop bit the dust in a way, still intact, but there is something wrong with the cord or the connector in the inside, I can't get it to charge... will have to take it in at some point and I think that all the other pics I took of xmas gifts are only on my laptop...


This one was made of the Lily's Sugar and Cream cotton yarn, it turned out pretty :)

This hat was a pattern that I made especially for this wonderful Tweedle Dee yarn from Moda Dea. Love it! This was the fireside color.

And then I made three in the color Blackberry... the first one is adult sizeAnd these two are baby size ;) One for a 9 month old and one for a 2 month old.

And here are two of the boy hats that I did.

While I was making some of the boy hats, my husband requested a hat with lettering on it :) I altered the above pattern quite a bit - it's all dc except for the stripes are sc... but quickly figured out that with the lettering it would have to be sc in the middle section... but did not account for the fact that sc is tighter and has less stretch to it... so its a thinner hat in the lettering band area, will have to try to find a way to remedy that :) Too small for the husband, but Beatrice seems to like it :)

Christmas Crochet!

Well, I am right in the middle of my mad rush to get Christmas gifts crocheted! I started much earlier last year and the year before, so we will see how it goes! :) I think I'm almost halfway done! I have 9 hats completed and 10 more to go! Of course that's just the nieces and nephews. I think I am going to try to make some quick and easy hats for a couple of other people on our list too. Last year I really got into it and made a different hat for pretty much every niece, while I made all the nephews earflap hats. This year I discovered Moda Dea Tweedle Dee yarn. Love the stuff! And I came up with a really quick and easy pattern for it! I can get two nifty hats out of each skein! Or two baby/toddler hats and one teen/adult hat! And I found a pattern for a nice boy beanie that I will be making all the nephews this year.

Unfortunately I can't do any showing off of my goods this year. 2 reasons: 1) why would I want to spoil anyone's gift? ;) and 2) I cannot for the life of me get photos uploaded to my blogs! Its been very frustrating as I rely so heavily on pictures for all my blogs :( Someday I will figure it out, until then, no pictures... :(

UFO's

Of course the mega large pirate vest is headed to the UFO (UnFinished Object) box... I will probably eventually finish up the edging... that or I was considering turning it into a shawl? But will have to figure out how to handle the sleeves...


This one was an ear flap hat that I made last year around Christmas. I just thought if I used a smaller hook for the pattern it would end up baby sized, but it didn't quite work out that way. But it looks like it will fit Beatrice this year! I think the ear flap hat is a good one for her because I can tie it up and she'll have a hard time trying to get it off! Just need to weave in the ends and make the ties :)



This was another one that I made last year at Christmas time that turned out quite smaller than it was supposed to be, but it was still too big for Beatrice last year. Again, this one will fit this year ~ but it will be amazing if she leaves it on her head :)

Amazingly, most of the stuff in my UFO box just need to have the ends weaved in! I think there are only a few things in there that are less than halfway done... someday I will go finish them all up. Maybe after Christmas ;)