Boston Terrier Socks and Hat for Lynn and Henry

It's no surprise that I'm behind on baby gifts and may never catch up. But I did manage to send this one right after Christmas, so can we count that as a Christmas present?

Lynn and I worked together at Martha Stewart, and though we've both since moved away from NYC, we still keep in touch. Lynn has an adorable Boston terrier, so I thought it would be fun to send her a pair of Boston terrier socks along with a matching hat for her lil Henry.

Hat
Pattern: I used the Mohawk Hat from Wacky Baby Knits as my foundation, and I added in the chart from the Boston Terrier Socks. I also added a 14-stitch ear, folded over and sewed in half, on each side.
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Sock White and acrylic black from my stash

Socks
Pattern: Boston Terrier Socks
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Sock in Black and White

Yin-Yang Kitty Knit Socks for Danara

Christmas came early for my friend Danara who visits every Thanksgiving. Last year I made her a pair of knit socks for the first time, and she said she never wears them because she doesn't want to wear them out. We decided she needed a second pair so that having the one pair wasn't such a big deal. (I know a lot of people feel this way about knit socks.)

If you know Danara, you'll know that kitties are the perfect sock for her.



Pattern: YinYang Kitty Ankle Socks
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll in Black and White

Arne & Carlos Pairfect Pair Knit Socks

Another pair of socks to celebrate fall! It's overcast and yucky today, so we're inside watching Breaking Bad. Can you believe Alex has never seen it? It's been so long since I watched it, so it feels a little new to me too.

This is another pair of Arne & Carlos yarn. I love how easy it is to get a pattern on these. I recommend this yarn if you don't want to deal with colorwork or if you just want a colorful pair of socks with very little effort.

Pattern: My usual cuff-down pattern, following the instructions on the yarn label

Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Pairfect Design Line By Arne & Carlos in color 9093

Back Yard Yarn Bomb: Crochet Mandala

I have a new respect for yarn bombers. These are not easy to hang!

I crochet this mandala/doily in just one Sunday using bulky yarn from my stash. (I almost emptied out an entire drawer of yarn! Woo!) It takes a LOT of yarn to make yarn bombs.

Pattern: Bits of Mandy's Mandala pattern, plus my own additions to the last several rounds to make it larger

Yarn: Lion Brand Hometown USA, Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick, Bernat Mega Bulky

I used about 5 full and 2 partial skeins of yarn. 

Alex helped me hang the crochet mandala on the chain-link fence in our back yard, and it was a lot harder to hang than I thought. If you ever decide to try yarn bombing, these are some of the things I learned:

Lots of Cute Fuzzy Alpacas (and their Yarn!)

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you know I had an awesome experience at Que Sera Alpaca Farm in Santa Fe. I took so many pictures, and I know I was probably annoying everyone with my multiple posts. So here, in all their glory, are the cute alpacas we met that day.

Snowball Pom Pom Wreath

Lately I've been on a mission to use up as much of my yarn stash as possible. We had a very unexpected snow last weekend, leaving Alex and me unprepared and eating beans for two days.

I started this pom pom wreath weeks ago, but I hadn't finished it yet. I knew if I didn't finish it during the big snow, I'd have to wait until next year to display it. I was happy to sit and wrap pom poms while Alex and I watched Endeavour and Good Girls Revolt. (I highly recommend both.)

Enter to Win a Copy of Super Simple Stick Weaving

Last week, I had a little booklet called Super Simple Stick Weaving published. The book uses Clover weaving sticks, a neat tool that lets you use yarn to weave pieces of fabric without a fancy loom.

This booklet is meant for tweens and teens, but anyone can try out the projects in it. There are even instructions in the front to help you learn all the basics.

Make a Finger-Knit Necklace

I'm totally devoted to my knitting needles, but sometimes you gotta try something new. Enter finger knitting!

Finger knitting is similar to loom knitting, and it creates knitted objects in a snap -- especially when you use super bulky yarn. Check out my finger knitting tutorial on Craftsy to learn how to make this cute finger-knit necklace!

Baby Cupcake Hat

After browsing hundreds of baby knitting patterns, I feel sure that the Wacky Baby Knits book is going to rescue my yet-to-be-born niece from a mundane baby life.

As soon as I found out that I had a niece on the way, I wanted to make every baby pattern I looked at, buy every baby yarn available.

But time and money were not on my side. For the January baby shower, I narrowed it down to the Wacky Baby Knits cupcake hat.

This slouchy little hat is going to look so cute on the baby! And a photo of her wearing it is going to make for a much better photo than this one.

The best news is that you don't even have to buy the book to make this pattern. The publisher has made the pattern free on WomansDay.com, so hop over and get your free pattern.

Now, we just wait for the baby...

Always inspiring, always expensive

The always inspiring and always expensive Anthropolgie has stuff I want to knit. This time, I wanted to own/alter their Daisy Day Vest. Except I don't want the black and white speckles, and I think I could do without the huge daisy on the right bust, which I'd imagine only accentuates already-large things. Put 'er on the list!

Casey's Coat = Bad Friend

I am a bad friend.

Two years ago, I was the maid of honor in my friend Brittany's wedding. When Brittany settled into her new married digs in Minnesota, she got a new dog named Turtle. I promised that I would make Turtle a doggie sweater before the winter so she didn't freeze in Minnesota. I moved to New York, started grad school, and completely abandoned the sweater.

Now, I am a new person. I graduated from school and have resurrected the pattern from the Stitch n' Bitch Nation book. I e-mailed Brittany, told her I was getting started on the sweater, and knitted about 20 rows. I just noticed that I messed up the stripe sequence pattern, so I'm backing it up a bit. But hopefully this year, Turtle will have a sweater in time for winter (even though Turtle now resides back in Kentucky where winters aren't nearly as harsh).

Dogwood Donna begins

In honor of fall, I decided to start knitting something dark green. Enter Dogwood Donna from the spring Knitscene (yes, I know it was meant for spring. But now it's going to be meant for fall, ok?). So my yarn from Yarniverse in Memphis arrived Friday and I'm knitting a swatch. I've spent waaay too much time away from knitting this summer and I'm ready to get started again.

Coolest Hat Ever...

Love the Center Square pattern. Love the colors I chose. Problem? I made it too large!!

I have a big head. Blame it on the hair, blame it on the genetics (my brother claims big head status, too). So I always try to make my hats a little larger than normal.

Flashback to winter 06-07. It is unbearably cold. I drop by Urban Outfitters and check out the clearance sale on hats. Pick up two hats: one helmet style and one plain. The plain one won't fit over my head. The helmet one looks silly, but I wear it anyway because it's warm and--good Lord--it covers my whole head, chin, and neck. As a result, I get made fun of by friends and decide to make this hat.

Because the UO hat was too small, I decided to increase the gauge on the Center Square hat for my big head. This resulted in a hat that was too big. Awesome, yet too big.

I frogged it (but not before taking a lovely photo) and will most definitely redo for next winter.

Lucky not very lucky

I hate Lucky. I really do.

I've been working on this for years. As is tradition, I knit, I frog, I knit, I frog. I actually had it almost put together when I discovered that the top of one sleeve was wider than the other. Oh, it won't be obvious, I told myself. I continued to sew seams and whadya know? It looked terrible. Frog!

So here I am again, knitting and hopefully not frogging again. Will I ever finish this? Why do I continue to do things wrong and not check them when it only pisses me off in the end?

Here's the new sleeve just starting...

I hate the asymmetrical coat from Elann.

I wrestled with this durn coat back in October when I purchased way too much for this yarn to make this project for my mom's birthday on December 1. I had many many troubles with the pattern right from the start. I wrote Elann, they printed a correction, and sent the new pattern.

Things were going well until I started to finish the collar. Wrote Elann again and they said there were no other problems or corrections.

A few minutes ago, I got a revised pattern in my email. This is May. I made the coat in December. My mom can't wear the coat now, plus it looks terrible because of the botched pattern.

This is the one and only time in the history of my knitting that I can indeed say that the muss-up of the pattern was not my fault. But it still makes me wanna go GRRRR because it was a nice birthday present with is now almost unwearable. Sigh.

Here's a picture of the finished yet botched coat.

Faux Cable Vest: Frogged

The faux cable vest looked really good on the model on the cover of Knit.1. The vest looked like I was carrying two 4th graders around--one on my back and one on my belly.

That yarn is super bulky. I don't even think it would look good on a super skinny person. The cable looked so awesome, though, that I had to take a picture before I frogged it. Still partly on the needles, as you can see.

Now...what to make with the bulky yarn?