It's a Boy! It's a Girl!

The other week I was invited to a double baby shower for two ladies from my church who are due soon. One is having a boy and the other a girl. The great think about this baby shower was that they asked for recycled gifts. I got to get rid of a few baby item that are collecting dust around my house. I took the opportunity to make a couple of baby bibs for each of them also. I knit a baby bib for my sister last year, but I went with a different pattern this time. I came across this pattern for the Easy Stay-On Bib and I knew it was what I would make. I'm hoping they will work out for size and won't shrink too much when they are washed.

Hot Head!

 This is Meret.

I made it out of Berrocco Vintage for my sister Mrs. M's birthday. I've had this pattern in my Ravelry queue for quite sometime. I do love a beret, and my sister does love pink. I really couldn't go wrong. What I love about this pattern is that there are so many possibilities. I wanted mine to look like the picture with the pattern though, so I followed the directions to make it just that way. I found the pattern was nice and easy for me to understand. I didn't have to look anything up, so it made it a really quick and easy project. I needed it to get done fast because I had to take a two week break from knitting and so this was left until the very last minuet. It still arrived a day late. In true British fashion, they are going through a heat wave right now. It seems to always do this. As soon as school gets out for summer the temperature will drop and the rain will arrive. Don't say I didn't warn you.

 So Mrs. M. has put it safely away for now. She will be sure to enjoy it once the winter comes though.

Mums Arm Warmers/ Finger-less mitts

 My Mum payed us a visit in March and we had some fun knitting together in the evenings. We visited the Lancaster Quilt show and got inspired too. It made me a little sad that I don't get to knit with my Mum more often. She picked out some pretty pink cotton when we went to my local yarn shop. She plans on making a lovely lace shrug from this pattern.

 I decided to ask her what she would like for her birthday this year, and she requested some arm warmers. I showed her the ones I made for myself last year. She liked them, but pink is her favorite colour. So pink is what she got! I found some pink sock yarn with a little sparkle in it at AC Moore. I can't find the label to tell you the brand right now. I'll have to go on a hunt to put it up on Ravelry. And used up some leftover knitpicks superwash sock yarn in bare.

I cast on 52 sts in the mc and did a K2, K2 rib for eight rounds instead of the K1, P1 stated in the pattern. On the thumb, I picked up 5 stitches instead of 3 and went straight into K2, P2 for eight rows. I like the way they turned out. I don't think you can really go wrong with arm warmer/finger-less mitts. They are a fun accessory.

Two Who?

 I said there would be more cables in my future, well here they are. Quite different from the ones in my Hermione cable and eyelet hat. I hope you can see the cute owls on these hats I made for my little girls. The pattern is called Who and comes from here. I used Lion Brands Baby Wool in the colour Bouquet. It took three skeins to knit the two hats. I have seen a pattern for mittens with the same owl cable on them. I'd like to make them for them before winter comes around again.

I've been working on a gift for my Mum's birthday, so I'll be able to share that with you soon. But there is not much knitting going on for me right now because I'm suffering with some rather painful RSI right now. I'm hoping I'll get over it soon. It is something I have lived with on and off for over eight years now. I'm not willing to give up knitting though, so I'll just have to get through it:)

Knit like you mean it!

 The first thing I have to share are these mittens, knitted for my sister, Mrs. B, birthday. They are to go with the hat I sent her last year. The pattern, 'house mittens', is from my trusty Charmed Knits book. I managed to figure out the joggless jump on the second mitten. This is for when you are knitting stripes in the round. It makes for a much better looking stripe. It was definitely something I needed to learn, because stripes are fun to wear!

Next is this hat made for my sister, Miss C. She was over for Christmas and asked me to knit her this hat. I just didn't have the time. There is never enough time to make all the things I want to. I have over 70 patterns on my queue on Ravelry. But I digress, I found the time and the yarn left over from the manly socks was enough to make it. The pattern is from Stitch 'n Bitch though you can find the pattern for free from here. I've made this hat for both of my little girls. It's a fun and simple knit. Sorry about the rubbish photo. I'm no photographer!

The third thing I'm sharing is what I'm most excited about. I've had this pattern bookmarked for such a long time, but I wasn't sure about knitting cables. I decided it was time to go for it. It is based of a hat worn by Hermione in 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince'. I was going to knit it up in a heather grey, just like the original, but then I saw the colour of this yarn, and decided I had to have it. It's Berroco Vintage, like the manly socks and the kitty hat. I like this stuff. The pattern was really great, the only thing I would say is if I knit it up again, I would decrease the amount of rows between each cable as it is a little deep for my head. It just wants to slide over my eyes. But other than that, I love it. I love knitting cables, so there will be more of them to come.

What are you knitting/crafting right now? And what has been in your queue for way too long. I hope you will give it a try and find yourself suprised at how easy it is:)

Manly Socks.

 So when I first moved to the States and married Mr. H, I did not have a job. I got pretty bored. We lived on the outskirts of a small town in Idaho, and we only had one car. This is when I started to knit. At the time I could pretty much only make squares and rectangles, so scarfs were pretty much all I made for years. I made scarfs for all my family, except my other half. He has always told me not to make him one. Even when I started branching out to other knitted items a few years back, he didn't want me to knit him anything. For me giving hand knitted items as gifts is really my way of saying I love you. The fact that my own husband had none of that love was pretty weird! Now we live in a great house, which my husband works out of his home office in our bacement. It gets pretty cold down there in the winter and he is always complaining that his feet are cold. So I decided it was time I tackled hand knit socks. For the first time in our life together, he agreed to me knitting him something. Horay!

I used this pattern called Thuja from http://www.knitty.com/. They are knitted up in Berroco Vintage in boring, manly, black. I got a little help with my sock knitting by reading Getting Started knitting Socks by Ann Budd. I was at my local library and I got chatting with a lady knitting socks, she recomended this book to me. I'm so glad she did. If you are thinking of knitting your first pair of socks I would check it out. I also had a friend from my knitting group to show me how to knit majic loop. So this was a project of firsts for me.

 I finished them up on Valentines day, and I'm so glad I did. I'd been afraid of knitting socks for so long. My Mum had kind of put me off by telling me turning the heal would be too hard. I think I'm going to have to get her to try socks now. I'm looking forward to knitting more socks soon.

This and that.

 I still haven't got round to posting these two pictures of things I worked on during the crazy holiday period of Oct/Nov/Dec 2011. These were not Christmas presents though. The picture below is of a knitted patchwork blanket and baby. She had spent the first five or so months of her life in hospital. I've been sporadically attending a knitting group at my local library and one of the members came up with the idea of us all contributing a few squares toward this. One of our group members crochet them all together and put a lovely crochet edge around it too. The great news is the little girl got to finally go home just before Christmas wrapped up in a little bit of love from us. I've been knitting up more squares for a future blanket that we may well raffle off to raise money for our library.

The other picture is of a bib, hat and slippers that I knit for my sister, Mrs W., new baby. I wrongly predicted that she was having a girl, and lo and behold a boy was born. I sent the hat and bib, but I will save the slippers for any future baby girl that comes along. My sister told me the hat was the only one she has that does not slip down and cover her little ones eyes when they are out and about. So I will have to use this pattern again.

I haven't been completely hibernating during the first few weeks of 2012. I've worked on a couple of hats, and got one of my sisters Birthday presents done already. I took a trip to a great yarn store called Yarn Love and picked up all I needed to knit my first pair of socks. So I'm still keeping busy with my little projects after my kids have been tucked into bed. I'm looking forward to sharing the finished results with you here soon.