Snow Fun!

The snow here in Connecticut has been disappearing over the past week. It looks like spring is on it's way. Well, we weren't ready to say goodbye to winter yet so a few days ago we took a day trip up north to Vermont to have some winter fun in the snow. We went skiing at Mt. Snow which is near Wilmington. My son is finally old enough to ski with us unassisted so we thought it was time to take him on ski trip. He has been only ever skied at the small ski area nearby and he was ready to explore a new mountain. We had a great time but I wish we hadn't ventured into the stunt area at the end of the day. My son was really being a daredevil and no matter how many times I told him not to, he went for the crazy stunts and jumps. He even went over a 6 foot jump!!! He was pretty much done skiing after he crash landed that one...
When we left we saw these cool wind turbines spotted across the horizon.

Happy (belated) Leprechaun Day!

The other night my son said to me "Don't forget - tomorrow is Leprechaun Day! I need to find something green to wear." He was saying this as I was weaving in the loose ends of the GREEN sweater I had just finished knitting for him! Perfect!!! Even though the weather has been very spring-like lately, it is still cool enough to wear a sweater and of course I wanted to test it out on him and see him wearing it right away. I haven't gotten a picture of him wearing it yet, but here is the finished sweater...
The pattern is "children's neckdown pullover" from knitting pure and simple. It was super easy. My gauge was a tiny bit off (18 sts over 4" instead of 16) but I like the fabric at that gauge so i did the 6-8 size figuring that my son is a slim six, it should fit fine. The fit is absolutely perfect. So perfect that I am concerned that he may not be able to wear it in the fall (depending on how much he grows this summer.) I do plan on knitting this pattern again with different yarn. Next time I will do the 8-10 size. My son did complain when he first put it on that it was itchy and asked if it was wool. I lied and said no. It is Plymouth Encore Colorspun which is 25% wool, 75% acrylic. I told him he would get used to it... and he did. When he came home from school, he was still wearing it and didn't want to take it off.

I will not be using this particular yarn again. The yarn has a marled/plied look which I like, but the separate skeins in the same dyelot are noticably different in color(to me). Some areas of the yarn are also darker. I came to a knot in the second skein and snipped it and conitnued knitting, only to realize the part right before the knot was almost a solid green. I almost ripped it back but my husband said it gave the sweater character. I came to the same issue on the sleeve but did rip it back. You can kinda see what I mean in the following photo.
I guess it looks fine, it still bothers me a little bit...

Sneaky Little Thief

It seems we have a sneaky little yarn thief living in our house! I recently splurged and ordered a bunch of stuff for new projects from Knitpicks and Webs. I stashed my new goodies away in a zippered grocery bag in the living room for easy access. When I came home one night, I found the puppy playing with a skein of my new yarn! Ahhhhhhh!!!!! It was Blue Sky Alpaca's Suri Merino which I was planning to make this kitty hat for my son with.
The puppy had somehow jumped over the pet gate, nuzzled his snout into the partially unzipped bag, snatched the skein, and jumped back over the gate... Well, the yarn didn't look completely destroyed, just a tangled mess. I was very angry so I put the little puppy in his crate for a "time out", only to discover the OTHER skein of Suri Merino stashed away in his crate! Luckily this one was still intact. I will definately have to keep an eye on this little guy in the future!

One of the projects I completed with my new yarn is this chunky hat I knit for my Mom with Knitpicks Swish Bulky. My Mom had recently confessed to me that she had stolen the hat I had knit for my sister several years ago and hides it every time she comes to visit. Since Mom's birthday was coming up, I decided she needed a hat of her own. I made this one very similar, with different yarn and a different somewhat different colors. I took my inspiration from the book Morehouse Farm Merino Knits... it is similar to the"Hats with Stripes" pattern which has a contrasting color in purl ridges for stripes. I played around with the color sequence and I made this hat wayyyy bigger. I really like the Swish Bulky. I made the last hat with Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky which was quite itchy on me... The swish does not seem itchy at all (although I only wore the hat for a total of five minutes to test it out.) The whole hat was knit in an evening and I tidied up the loose ends the next morning. Quick project!!! Here is a pic...
Right now I am working on a top-down seemless raglan sweater for my son, and a pair of fingerless mitts. I have put the Bat Sweater on hold because I am afraid the sleeves will be too short. Before seaming it and being disappointed I think I will baste the seams and try it on to get an accurate fitting. I allready added about 1 1/2 inches to the length of the body and the sleeves but I still think its too short. When flipping through the book I noticed that the many of the sweaters modeled seemed to have shorter sleeves than I like for my personal taste. All the knitting is done, anyway, I just have the enormous task of weaving in all the loose ends on the intarsia portion. I seam to always put off the finishing on my projects....

Crazy for Crochet

I've been crocheting like crazy lately. What started it was an interest in some really cute (chickens) potholeder patterns I saw on Ravelry. So, I searched high and low for the pattern booklet and finally found it on ebay. While waiting for it to arrive, I dug through my own stack of crochet books/booklets and found one on crochet dishcloths... and because they are so quick, decided to whip up a few. Here is one that I did.

Then I was looking through a baby blanket book and noticed a blanket that I had started years ago but given up on. (I was really not happy with the drape - it was turning out rather stiff.) I decided to try this pattern again using Caron Simply Soft. I had a lime green color in my stash that is just perfect for my son's room. I've completed the first section of spiderwebs and just love the result. I guess I'll have to order more yarn online since they didn't have any more of this color (or any color yarn that I needed!) at Walmart.

I also started a Round Ripple blanket using some leftover Cotton-Ease.

And of course I've been knitting! I just had to work on something pink and lacy for Valentine's Day so I started this Spring Beret using Cotton-Ease. It may turn out a tad snug because for some reason, I decided to go down a needle size without adjusting the pattern! Oh well.. this pattern has two versions, a more slouchy and an active. I guess this will fit like the active version. I can't wait to have a new hat to wear!

Jib Jib Jasper

Let me introduce you to our new puppy, Jib Jib Jasper. Well, fairly new. We got him on Halloween and next week he will be 5 months old! He is a Japanese Chin, which is a toy breed. In this picture, he is wearing the dinosaur sweater that I originally knit for his father, who belongs to my mom. He has just about outgrown it now so I guess it's time to knit him something new...

Macaroni and Tv, Please

My current mindless knitting project is a garter stitch blanket. I am working it in strips of 13" blocks, in this really bright orange and white. I plan to work 5 blocks per strip with a total of either 5 or 7 strips. I used Caron simply soft and size 10 1/2 needles for a slightly loose gauge. This blanket is so easy I can pick it up anytime, anywhere and knit, knit, knit!

My son named this the Macaroni Blanket. "Oh, because of the color", I said. He said, "No, because the stitches look like macaroni." I guess the garter stitch bumps DO look a little like macaroni elbows...

Fishing for Hats

Here is my first finished project for 2009! I actually finished the knitting a couple of weeks ago but it took me that long to weave in the ends and add the eyes to this fabulous Fish Hat! I fell in love with this pattern from knitty.com as soon as I saw it and of course my son wanted me to knit him one right away. Well, I aim to please. He is always complaining of itchy knits so I used Lion Brand Cotton-Ease for this one. I went a little crazy with random stripes but I like how it came out. If I were to change one thing about the pattern, I would knit a complete row of MC (For the body) before working the wrap and turn rows - to make it less conspicuous. We did a LIVE version with crocheted eyes. Here are some photos of my son wearing it around the house...

I love this pattern and I'm even contemplating making one for myself.

I did attempt to make a fair-aisle hat for myself but it is now hibernating, waiting to be frogged. I was making a pentagon shaped hat from the book I mentioned in a previous post, "45 Fine and Fanciful Hats" but it was coming out too small... I was using Lion Brand Cotton-Ease for this one as well. So, I could either try to find a bulky cotton blend yarn to use or go up a needle size and add a pattern repeat. But if I did that, it wouldn't be a pentagon, would it?!

First Hats

The other day I came across the first two hats that I ever knit, so I thought I would share them with you. I used patterns from the book "45 Fine & Fanciful Hats" by Anna Zilboorg.

This book is great! It features 9 different hat styles, each with several different designs. There are ... Angela Hats, Berets, Cones, Egyptian Hats, Onion Domes, Pentagons, Stacked Hats, Stars, and Toques.

The first hat I have to show you is Cone Hat #2 made with Lion Brand Chenille. I must admit this yarn was not the best choice to work with for my first hat and my first attempt at Fair-aisle knitting. It worms terribly!!! It was constantly kinking, and twisting up on itself. Some of the areas where the yarn did this eventually relaxed so there are little bits of yarn sticking out here and there. I really love the overall effect the yarn gives, though. I knit this hat probably about 10 years ago and it was my absolute favorite hat to wear for several years.

The second hat came out perfectly. It is Beret #2 knit with Lion Brand Wool-Ease. I'm really happy about how this hat came out but unfortunately, because of the partial wool content of the yarn, I'm unable to wear it. I'm thinking of making some more hats out of this book, possibly with a cotton-blend yarn. Hmmmm.....Time to cast on!!!

On Not Knitting

I haven't been knitting all that much lately! September and October were very busy for me. When school began, I started working days again as a babysitter and continued to work nights at the store. When not completely exhausted, I would knit just a few rows here and there. I did manage to finish the knitting on two sweaters (SWTC's Pulling My Chain and Zady's Scaredy Bat Sweater) but now that I've come to the point of finishing them, I'm procrastinating. I also knit up a new Frankenstein's Monster Washcloth for Zady in Peaches & Creme (olive green) and one for his friend Jaeden in Lion Brand Cotton-Ease (lime) just in time for Halloween. Around this time, I decided to splurge on myself and ordered some Cashmere yarn from Yarnzilla.com . I plan on knitting something for myself for a change and could not resist this scarf pattern made with Jojoland Cashmere. I also got a skein of Artyarn's 1-ply cashmere because it was half price! When you think about it, $30 is not bad for a cashmere scarf.


In November, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands but I just did not feel like knitting. A few weeks ago I had to have emergency surgery because of an ectopic pregancy. Everything happened very quickly and I didn't really have much time to process it at first. I've been recovering both physically and emotionally. Needless to say, I've been in a bit of a funk. I haven't felt like doing much of anything lately. I didn't knit at all for 2 weeks. Then I realized that if I was ever going to feel like myself again, I would have to start knitting. Knitting is such a big part of my daily life... at least it used to be. But I was uninspired. Rifling through my huge pile of unfinished projects didn't help, either. So I started off small, with cloths. Most of them are pretty easy, so they don't require much concentration, and they're quick - instant gratification. Just in the past week I've made 3 from the Monthly Dishcloths group (I'm terribly behind on my Kals) and then decided I could step it up a notch so now I'm making the Moss Grid Towel from Mason Dixon Knitting. I'm using Peaches & Creme for the towel because I have a lot of cotton to use up and I wasn't sure I was going to like the pattern enough to order specific yarn for it. (I'm thinking Knitpicks cotlin, if I decide to make more.) It took a bit of a push, but I do feel like I'm working my way back. I still find myself browsing baby patterns but only because I'm trying to stay positive and hopefull about the future. I've decided not to knit any holiday gifts this year because I'm running out of time and knitting gifts should not be stressful, it should be fun!

A Little Bit Six

My son turns 6 on Friday, which has been a long time coming! He's been "a litte bit" confused about his age ever since his "un-birthday" at school last June. At first I thought the un-birthdays were a good thing- kids with summer birthdays get to celebrate at school just like all the other kids. So all summer long, whenever someone has asked Zady his age he has said "A little bit six!" He's very excited and has been counting down the days on his own little calendar I printed out for him. We're doing a low-key celebration with a trip to the beach this weekend with the grandparents and then a big bash in a couple of weeks with all of his school-friends (which I'm not looking forward to because I'm sooo not a good hostess!) Ah-well - they're only young once.

As for knitting... I have been working on the "Pullling My Chain" Sweater sample knit. It is knit in SWTC's new yarn, Tranquillity. I'm not sure of the fiber content, but it is scrumptious! The sweater is knit cuff to cuff. I'm about halfway done, but I don't have any recent photos but here are a couple I do have...For a portable project, and mindless knitting, I have been working on BYOB (Bring your own bag) from Knitty.com - I've just finished the first striping sequence and am about to start the mesh section. I am using Peaches & Creme cotton in Chocoloate, white, and army (tan). I was going to go a more adventurous route colorwise, but decided to play it safe.