Ravel-versary!

Today is my 2 year Ravel-versary, the anniversary of the day I joined Ravelry!!!!!


I honestly don't know what I would do without that website, it really has encouraged my knitting, and given me a place to search for patterns and ideas!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Sweater mania????

Whew! Over the last week I have finished not one, but TWO sweaters! Yeah!!! OK, well... one was a DOG sweater. But still, sounds pretty accomplished! :-)

In corner #1, we have mom's birthday sweater: (Sitcom chic)


It turned out pretty good! I had to do a lot of little finishing things to it though, like sewing on a ribbon on the front inside edges to keep them from rolling.


Thats why there is some puckering (my lame handsewing skills) but I am going to DEAL with puckering because at least its not ROLLING!


It fits me snugly, so it should fit my mom too, only a smidge looser. I really like that decorative part around the yoke.


Oh and the clasp! I found it at JoAnns. I actually found 2 that I liked, but thanks to an email vote from all my knitting gals, they helped me decide on this one. It works great :-)

In corner #2, we have my coworker's doggie Ellie's sweater:


Isn't she just the cutest model???


What a princess doggie! :D It was fun knitting for an animal, my first time! I learned a bit about dog proportions too. The pattern is the ‘Little Black Dress With Pearls’ Dog Sweater (scroll down to the bottom of the page). It is written for small "toy" sized dogs, but if you check out the sizes they are easy enough to increase for the size of dog you need! Other mods I did include doing only one ruffle at the bottom, doing some ribbing on the bottom edge (on the dog's stomach area) and of course adding a turtleneck. The neck was HUGE when I first finished it and sat around the dog's shoulders! I picked up stitches and did 2x2 ribbing with a little decreasing at the start. Worked out great! :-)

Now that those projects are done, what did I do? Cast on another sweater of course! I may just be addicted....

Shrug-a-thon: Complete!

Woohoo! I finished knitting the shrug SUNDAY, and blocked it tuesday, and gifted it last night!!!!


She LOVED IT! I am so happy I got to make her something she can wear over her bridesmaids dress this weekend! AND as a fabulous payment for the shrug, she made the most delicious cake!!!!! We have a ton leftover too. (Eeek... lookout thighs, here it comes!) It was actually pretty fun to do some speed knitting, and it didn't take as long as I thought. I may be crazy enough to do something like that again! :)

In the meanwhile, i've put in a little time on this doggie sweater I decided to make a month or so ago (yeah I know, a sweater for a DOG? but its for my coworker's dog, and besides, its girly and hot pink and has ruffles. LOL) But I really need to get on the finishing of my mom's sweater!!!! I need to pick up and knit the second front edge and the neck, and then block and take care of any finishing needs! Her bday is in 2 weeks so I still have time, but I better get it done!

Well today is sunny and nice, I am stuck at work, and 80% of the office is not here. Then the husband sends me a note saying HE is going home at noon. AUGH. It is going to be a loooooong afternoon....

UPDATE: Here is a pic of the dog sweater:


Told ya it was girly!

Shrug-a-Thon 09

Day Three of my Shrug-a-thon (trying to knit a shrug before end of next week!)


Continuing along steadily :-)

Famous!!!!

I would like to announce that one of my knitted projects has become FAMOUS!!!!!

One of my favorite blogs I read is "My Charming Kids". It's the personal blog of an amazing lady and her family (including 4 kids under 4 yrs old, whew!!!) Anyway, her youngest baby boy has had some heart problems, and recently was in in the hospital and underwent a serious heart surgery. I thought, since I knew from her blog she liked babylegs and bright colors, that I could knit her some! You probably remember these from an earlier post:



Anyway, if you go to her blog, you may notice one of her recent posts she posted a picture of her little boy wearing MY legwarmers!!!! Now this might not seem like a big deal, but this woman has a LOT of readers!!!!! I may be a huge dork, but I totally freaked out when I saw it :-) I am so glad she likes them!

And for anyone else who wanted the pattern, it is right here: Legwarmies!

Have a great week!!!

Weekend Recap

Oh dreary rainy Monday.... Hope everyone had a good weekend! It was too short, per usual. I got a lot done on my mom's sweater, and also got a lot of yardwork done - I am feelin' it in my sore muscles today!

Here's a somewhat updated progress pic of my mom's sweater:


It is actually farther than that now! I finished the main part of the sweater (casted off the neck - that was very satisfying) and now am working on the front and neck edges!!!! Then I need to sew up the armpits, weave in the ends, and give it a wash!!!! (then potentially some more finishing, if the edges continute to roll...) I am so excited to have this done by my mom's birthday (end of June).

Today I am going to embark upon a knitting challenge. Last night I was chatting online with one of my friends, and she mentioned she has a wedding she is going to be in, but she cannot for the life of her find a cute little shrug to wear with her bridesmaid dress! (color - chocolate brown) Soooo it ends up I think i am going to try and knit her one!!!!! I have a pattern I found, the Cloud Bolero. It uses bulky yarn, so I BELIEVE I can do this in the next week and a half (she lives out of town so I need to finish it by like next wednesday?) I don't know how crazy I am to try this, but I might as well give it a shot!!!!! Today at lunch I am going to run over to Michaels and look for yarn. If i can't find something suitable I will have to try Joann's later tonight or the yarn store tomorrow! Whew! Wish me luck!

Anyway, it was a nice weekend. I got to meet some of my husband's extended family who were visiting from out of state. AND of course we got to play with the nephews:


I love those boys!!!!

And I will leave you with a photo of one of the rosebushes found on the side of our house... I was thrilled to discover these when we moved in!

Happy Mother's Day!

Love you mom!



And you too mother-in-law!



And of course the coolest mom around... my SIL ;-)



Happy mother's day to all you moms out there!!!! Hope you celebrate!

Rip rip rip

Had to rip back my mom's sweater the other day. Cynthia and I were knitting in the conf room at work during lunch... and I realized I started the yoke detailing 8 rows too early! crap! Instead of tinking back 3 rows, I just pulled out the needle and ripped... i went one more row back, which re-separated the sleeves and body. BUT: the upside to this is I decided to rip back the upper sleeve where I had totally messed up a spot that would have been RIGHT on my mom's SHOULDER. Meaning I would have hated that shoulder and been embarrassed when I saw my mom wearing it.

Sooo it's probably for the better. Although, as Cynthia said, I could have put an American flag iron-on patch over it. LOL.

Happy thursday!!!! New Office tonight, right? Woot!

FO timeeee

Babylegs: Done.


Autumn leaves baby sweater: Done, but needs some buttons! (I need to buy some!)


It turned out really cute. I did less increases for the body so it's less flared than the original pattern. I like it!



In other news, I finally sat down and joined my mom's sweater pieces into the yoke and feel like I will be able to get it done soon! Unfortunately there is a lot of rolling, so I am devising various ways to combat it. (It is cotton/acrylic yarn, so I am not holding my breath that a block will do anything). Many people who have knit the sweater sew ribbon on the back of the edge to help keep it flat... I am planning on doing this on the front edges for sure!

Also... today it was rainy, then sunny, then all of a sudden rain poured down and then with crazy HAIL... then back to sunny, then dark? Indiana keeps you on your toes!

(photo of the hail on our deck courtesy my hubby and his nice camera)

Bunnies and babylegs

I whipped up these cute little bunnies over the weekend to gift to my nephews on Easter Sunday!


They turned out pretty cute. The blue one is for Cash and the brown one is for Holden. It was a good Easter!!!! The sun was shining, fairly warm out, and I helped hide hundreds of eggs for all of greg's little cousins and family members to find!


Also last night I cast on for some knitted babylegs (baby legwarmers):


(using leftover balls of Cascade 220)

Have a good wednesday... halfway to the weekend! Woot!

The hat that I forgot

Ooops I forgot to blog about this cute little "football helmet" I finished the other week!


It is a gift to my hubby's coworker's son... he is a little cutie, and his mom (who I taught to knit) saw this pattern in one of my knitting books (Itty Bitty hats) and loved it!


The embroidery on my little football is a little rough, but from farther away it looks like a football.... I think....

I am gifting it to her/them tonight, so I hope it's well recieved :)



(Knit in Bernat CottonTots for the blue,... the brown is some random brown cotton I found at hobby lobby, and the white is leftover dishcloth cotton!)

Finally.... not a hat!

Yes folks, I did not knit any hats lately, I have decided to move on :) I cast on for an adorable baby sweater called Autumn Leaves!



I love the purple and I think this will turn out great. Yarn is Patons classic merino... one of my favs!

Don't know who I am giving it to, but my friend Andrea just had a baby girl, and my friend Larissa is currently pregnant with a girl, so i think I will be OK!

Happy 1st Birthday Holden!

Dear Holdie,

I can't believe it's been a whole year since you, my second nephew (by marriage), were born. Your birth was the first one I ever experienced, so you are very special to me!



I still CANNOT believe how much hair you had. It was crazy!!!!!

(a couple days old)


The whole family pretty much fell in love with your long dark locks and your huge blue eyes! Its no surprise you are our little owl boy.

(3 months)


7 haircuts in your first year.... that is NUTS! Even your mom can't beat that! :-)

(6 months)


I think we are glad your parents let your hair stay shaggy.... it was so adorable when you had all your little curls (even if strangers occasionally thought you were a girl!)

(9 months)


I am so blessed to be your aunt and I am loving the chance to watch you grow up from the beginning! Here's to another year of fun!


Love,
Auntie Lauren

Holden's Vest!

This last weekend I celebrated my nephew's FIRST birthday! (Technically its not until the 25th) This is what I made for him:


Owl Baby Vest[ravelry link] I changed the pattern to have an open shoulder that closed with a button, so it would fit over his head easily, and I added a couple inches of length to the entire thing!



My SIL loved it and I think Holden did too :-)



What a cutie!!!! Happy Birthday little owl boy!

Spring!

Happy first day of Spring!!!! My goals are to plant some herbs, work on my yard... get outside and go on walks often.. and of course keep on knitting... warm weather means time to break out the cotton yarn! ;-)

The other weekend we had a beautiful day so I got to play in the dirt a little, and organized my gardening supplies:



Also my first Allium plants are growing! woohoo!

Parade of Hats

Woah, I haven't blogged in a MONTH! Eek.... I get so caught up in reading other people's blogs I forget about mine! Sorry again.... jeez... someone needs to get on me about blogging! :)

OK time for another catchup: This time, its a parade of hats! Apparently that is all I can knit!

Pink baby hat? done & gifted to Larissa for her little girl coming this summer!


Green baby "toddler" hat? done and waiting to find out who it will go to.


Mom's sweater? second sleeve is 3/4 way done. (no picture, nothing exciting to see)

I made "newborn" sized baby hats to use in sets with the booties I completed at the beginning of the year (I finally finished the ties to thread through the booties finally).
for a little boy:


for a little girl... yes i know the hat stripes and bootie ties don't match... I ran out of purple :( but they are still cute together!


And I made this super sweet baby bonnet out of my Last Minute Knitted Gifts book:


I love it!!!! I need to make booties to go with it now.

Currently: Hat problems! Apparently even though I have made a million hats this year I am still not able to judge size. Or maybe I just need to pay attention to gauge :-) Hmmm who would have thought that was important???

I had finished a hat for my coworker last week...I knitted the entire thing once and it looked like this:


Kinda big, right? I wasn't too excited with the stripes either.I thought his head was bigger than mine and that it would fit...took it into work and had him try it on.... NOPE! Oops. Sooo... rip rip ripped it out.

Second try:


Muuuuch better! I will give it to him(again) tomorrow so cross your fingers!

Also I started a cute football helmet style hat from Itty Bitty Hats.... but I had to rip that one back too! EESH! Hopefully my mojo will get back on track soon....

One more secret FO but I can't blog about it till after this weekend.... hint: its for my nephew who will be turning ONE already! WHEW!

Yet another "Catch Up"

Sorry loyal blog readers.... I don't know why I am so bad about updating my blog!!!! I really like having this.... I think ravelry has spoiled me too much since it is so easy to update my projects there! (my username = stitchholder)

OK here we go :-)

Mom's cardigan (sitcom chic)... one sleeve and the body knitted up to the yoke! Woot! (doesn't need to be done till June so I am doing great lol)



I am so thankful to CYNTHIA for teaching me how to do Magic Loop!!!! Yes I learned a new knitting technique and it is very easy and solved my problem... see normally I can knit baby hats and other things on double points and not have a problem getting "gaps" between the needles... but normally I don't use cotton yarn!!!! My mom's sweater is using a mostly cotton blend, so when I went to knit the sleeves i was getting MAJOR gapping. Blech!!!! Luckily Cynthia had a 40" cable to lend me (We both have the knitpicks options sets so all she had to lend me was the cable itself - PERFECT) I really enjoyed doing Magic Loop and in fact I am planning on using it on a project I just started (mentioned later in this post)!

Next up - Baby hat! I am about 90% done with this right now, I am going to finish it up tonight before I go to bed! Just adding it to the stockpile of baby knits for all the kids being born this year!



(If you remember the green booties I made at the beginning of the year, this hat matches them!)

And most recently, a baby girl hat:



Its the pattern Miss Dashwood from knitty.com. So far the picot cast on is quite tedious... but I think it is really going to turn out cute!!!! I am planning on trying the magic loop with this hat also... wish me luck :-)

Also I am planning my first ever "Knitting party", where I am inviting my knitting buddies who live in fort wayne over for some food and knitting, of course! I will post how it went after next weekend!

Friday is my coworker's baby shower at work.... I am gifting the B&W striped baby hat and the pink baby chucks booties... I can't wait, hope she likes them!!!!!

Sweater progress....

I will let you see my mom's sweater WIP now since its actually more than 2 inches long...


Pretty color, no? She picked it out... it is Knitpicks Comfy in "pomegranate"!

FOs & Superbowl knitting.....

I finished meg's turtleneck shrug!


Its interesting to try and put it on, but its nice and warm and I like it.



I also got my baby booties done....


They turned out pretty cute!


Superbowl knitting: Cast on and finished this striped hat to match the booties above!


It makes a cute set for my pregnant coworker! I think she will like it :)


New project: cardigan for my mom!


It is cast on already, but not much to see yet! I am doing the "Sitcom Chic" pattern from knitty.com! (hopefully in time for her birthday in JUNE lol....)

Hope everyone has a great week!

Sweater done and new project...

I got the baby sweater done. It's not bad for a sweater, just has some elements I am not totally pleased with. One thing is I suck at is sewing up the sides/arms, so I might try and redo that again with thread instead of yarn. Anyone else have sewing tips? I typically turn it inside out, pinch the two sides together and do a whip stitch (I believe) to join. It really isnt the greatest... but it is all I know how to do. Suggestions welcome!

ALSO I am trying to think of something to use to hold the sweater closed! I am thinking a large safety pin? Maybe a plastic one? Something the baby can't eat or hurt themself on....

My penguin likes to model sweaters for me.


I am working on the ribbed turtleneck shrug for my friend Meg.... I am only a few inches away from being done! WOOT!

Finally I cast on for a pair of booties for my coworker... she mentioned how she wants to get pink baby converse shoes for her future baby girl... I thought what would be better than pink BOOTIES that the baby can wear soon!!!!


One is cast off, I need to sew it up and weave in the ends and then add the fake "laces". Hope to get to that at lunch today!

Lots of snow... hope you all are staying warm!

Project catch up....

OK This one is barely making it on the blog, it was knitted & done so fast!


Keyhole Scarf! (scroll down on the linked page)


My mom loves it :-)

Also I am making good progress on a baby sweater....


Ribbed Baby Jacket (ravelry link) from Debbie Bliss book "Special Knits: 22 Gorgeous Handknits for Babies and Toddlers"

I am insane and decided to make a striped one, which is going to result in 2.5 million ends to weave in! poo!

Recycled sweater yarn

So I had this sweater I had bought from Old Navy quite awhile ago... It was kinda frumpy and too boxy on me (not flattering) so I never wore it... but I hung on to it through SEVERAL moves because I liked the color.... and now I finally have gotten around to salvaging the yarn from it to be knit into cooler things!!!!!! How did I do this you ask?

(Side note: the sweater yarn is worth recycling because it is 58% wool... thats enough wool for me!!!!)

1. I spent an evening picking out the seams and winding the yarn into skeins (wound it around my arm) and then tying the skeins with little pieces of red yarn to keep them neat and not tangled. Look how curly the yarn is after being in a "knitted" state for so long!


2. I soaked the skeins in some warm water for awhile, squeezed them in some towels to get the water out and then hung them from doorknobs/hooks with a can of beans or whatever as a "weight"... this helps get all those kinks out of the yarn!

3. Once they were completely dry, I used my awesome ball winder and swift to wind them into these pretty skeins! Look how much yarn I got from this sweater.... SWEET!

Swift swift!

As I mentioned before, my lovely husband said he would build me a yarn swift to go with the ball winder he gave me for xmas. Well he is a man of his word... here is my BEAUTIFUL handmade swift!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (seen here on the dining room table, which is the best place to clamp the ball winder)


I mean, seriously folks... I married the best man a knitter could EVER marry!!!!! Look at these details...


I love that shape of the block in the center! And its fully adjustable to a number of sizes!

And the stain he used... its such a lovely dark color. Sigh :-)


Thanks again hubby... you rock!!!!!

Jesmy handknits

I'd like to take some time out from my regular non-posting to do some shameless promotion for my good friend Jessica!

She has recently been laid off from her job....which SUCKS (thanks economy!) BUT this means she has lots more time to knit more awesome things for her etsy shop:


She has recently added several new projects... I especially love the bright yellowy orange cowl:


Gorgeous!

Right now she has even marked down all her scarves (look in the "sale" section), and is in the process of adding really neat vintage knitting books!

I hope you all go and check out her shop!!! :-)

Also - all of you try and STAY WARM - its been in the negative degrees here lately, blech! I am going to climb under all my wool and hibernate until spring....