A Dog tale

Last night I took a break from my knitting to just veg in front of the computer playing World Of Warcraft (aka WoW). Hours and hours of mindless questing does a knitter/crocheter good sometimes.

So instead of sharing a project with you today I decided to share a story with you. I am sure that any knitter/crocheter who owns animals has been through what I've been through. So let's start off with me showing you my adorable doggie. This is my youngest dog, Sadie, in the house.



Isn't she just adorable? There's not a naughty bone in her little body.... HA!!! Yes I am sure you can hear the laughter radiating from my house right now. Miss. Sadiekins (as i call her) loves, LOVES my yarns and needles. She's victimized a few skeins of perfectly brand new skeins of yarn already. I've salvaged some of them and others are still sitting in their lovely mess.

On Tuesday night I left my project on my table to check on dinner. I come walking down our hall and what do my eyes see? My skein of yarn halfway down the hall with my project attached!I was yelling and waving my arms, looking like a typical nut. Thankfully my project didn't unravel as it was on dpns. A few minutes later I sit down to start working on it again when I realize I can't the 4th needle. With a sinking a feeling I realized that Sadie must of taken off with it too. To my dismay she did.

Here is what I found on the floor.



This is one of the things that can make a knitter just cry. Luckily the set had 5 in it so I was able to finish my project. I've come to the conclusion that:

Cute dog + yarn/needles (knitting) = could be diaster.

Yeti Gloves

I finished my 2nd pair of fingerless mitts tonight at my local SNB group (ACKD) tonight. Woo hoo! I used Joann's angel hair yarn. I must say that i will NEVER use this yarn again. Granted my mitts are extremely warm but I can't stand the "hairy" look my mitts have! I swear when I finished the first one the other night i was like "OMG I HAVE A YETI ON MY HANDS!" (Okay don't ask me why I thought of a yeti but I just did.) So I promptly took my scissors and trimmed off as much of the excess "hair" that I could. Of course I was ever so careful that I didn't "accidently" cut any of my stitches. But honestly it doesn't look much better. *SIGH* So these will be home mitts that i will wear when no one else is around. Take a look below and see if you can see what I'm seeing



Now that I am comfortable with dpns I plan to try and another pattern and another yarn. I'd like to try one with cables and a nice soft yet warm yarn. Leave a comment if you have any suggestions!

Busy busy busy

I've been on a knitting roll lately. I finally decided that it was high time that i learn how to knit on dpns. I've tried them before and it just led to disaster. So why would I subject myself to that torture again? I wasn't going to let a simple 3 or 4 needles defeat me. Plus I wanted to be able to say that I CAN knit with them. So off I went. I successfully knit my first pair of fingerless gloves on dpns. I realized that after I did the first one that I had knit it "inside out" Sigh....so I spent an hour trying to figure out how to correct this. I finally figured it out and was able to do the 2nd one correctly. I must admit that dpns aren't as scary as I thought they'd be. They were actually fun to use. I don't mind using them at all. Here's a pix of one of the completed gloves.




So after the success of my first pair I have already cast on and completed one for a new pair.

Tonight i was on a roll. My youngest enjoys "Play" cooking. So i decided to crochet her a cupcake. I used a pattern off the internet. Next time I make it I will add more rounds to make the base higher. I may look into trying to "wing" one myself. Alas it was a hit.



And here is Alysia cooking it.


It's been a busy fiber night.

Completed Wallaby

wallaby
Originally uploaded by Catheaven.

So here it is! My very first wallaby! I was so excited to finally get it done. I had this all knit up in 4 days. Would have been 3 days if I didn't run out of yarn. This was my first sweater that i worked completely in the round. I REALLY really like working in the round with all st st. Easy peasy!

I did try to get Alysia not to want the hood just so that I could finish it up but she wanted the hood. I am glad that I did do it though. I really didn't have too many problems with the pattern. I've read that a lot of people had trouble with the pouch. I read through some tips and had no problem at all. My only problem really was the underarms. It was hard for to visualize how it was going to work. Finally I just buckled down and said to heck with it and did it.

The yarn was a lot of fun to work with. It's very warm also. Judging by the expression on Alysia's face I say this wallaby was a hit!

Wonderful Wallaby

So I've finally jumped on the "wallaby" bandwagon. I decided to make one for my youngest. I am using Plymouth encore colorspun. Fun yarn to work with. I started on Thursday and would of been finished tonight if I hadn't run out of yarn! OH I've never had this happen before and boy does it stink. And to boot a lot of yarn stores aren't open tomorrow so I may just have to wait until Monday to pick just 1 more skein of this yarn. Sigh!

I've been having a lot of fun with this pattern. It did take some getting used to because of how "wordy" it, but by dissecting it into pieces, along with some internet help, I was able to get through it. I'll be posting a picture as soon as it's done.

My papercrafting has taken a back seat for the past couple of weeks. I hope to start working on a few projects this week.

Well off to work on some socks since I can't finish the Wallaby.

First Pair of socks COMPLETED

sock
Originally uploaded by Catheaven.

Woo Hoo I actually finished my first pair of socks and I didn't go crazy. I actually finished last Saturday but haven't a had a chance post them here on my blog.

For the second sock I actually was able to keep it on the needle to do the heel, gusset and instep. I don't think I did it correctly though but it worked. Still need to work on learning things but I am very proud!

Literally I was jumping and down when I finished it! Now i am on a sock addiction! They are just so fun! Not overly complicated and hey I finished a pair in less than a week!!

My FIRST SOCK!!!

I have wanted to try socks for I don't know how long now. But I always avoided them because I can't seem to master DPN's. So the other day my friend Louise was talking about the magic loop way. (She's using this technique to do her daughter's sleeve on her sweater). She was raving about how easy it was. So of course this got me quite curious. After a few troubled starts I was finally able to figure it out. THANKS LOUISE for all the help!!!

So jokingly Louise says "Oh you'll have a sock done by next week". Well I finished one sooner than that. I started last night and wah lah it's done. I did run into quite a bit of problems in understanding the whole heel and gusset area. So i ended up putting the stitches onto dpns and working these areas this way. Then I put them back on my circular and finished them using magic loop.

Okay so I'm overly excited on finishing ONE sock. Now the test will be can I make the 2nd sock to look like the first one???

Here are some pix of the sock. It's done in Plymouth Yarn Encore orange. The pattern is from Knitting Pure and Simple Beginner pattern. This pattern was recommended to me from Cottage Yarns. Great recommendation. Thank you!!!


Ariana holding the sock



Ariana wearing the sock!!! Yes it fits!!!


WOO HOO! Stay tuned to see how the 2nd one turns out!

Christmas Tag Swap

Here are my Christmas tags which were made for a swap I was in. I made 15 of each design. Funny story with the snowman tag was that I was working on these late at night. I'm just glad I didn't have anyone call the police on me as i was setting 30 eyelets at past 2am in the morning. I still use the old fashioned way so i was hammering away. Stamp was from a CTMH xmas stamp set. Cutting out 15 stamped snow man was no picnic!

I loved this gingerbread tag. I found a really cool BoBunny 12x12 scrapbook paper with all these gingerbread men/women on it. So I cut them all out and attached them. I just love the color of them. So cute!!!

Cards

These are the most recent cards for the December
swap I did for my sis in law's CTMH swap.
"thank you" was the theme.















These gift card holders were inspired by Hollister's design. Took me awhile to get it how I liked it. I really like the overall results.

Altered Post it notes

I wanted to give some type of little papercraft item to my Mother-in-law and sisters in laws for Christmas. So I came up with this. Altered post it notepads. It took me awhile to figure out exactly how I wanted to keep it closed. But I ended up not making slit to attach. I just made the top longer than the paper by a tad. That way if they so choose to use it again with a new post it pad they can.
Stamps used: Baroque Stamps CTMH

Altered Tin

When it rains it pours huh? Yep back again with another project. As mentioned I love the idea of altering items. So here is my first "band-aid" tin. This was also made for my friend Louise. She is also a knitter like me so I knew this would be a great project. It's a small little tin for her to keep track of her different needles. FUN FUN FUN!!!!








Here is what the inside tabs looked like.

Altered Notebooks

So my newest interest is altering items. I had seen numerous altered notebooks, tins, etc. I wanted to try and see what I could create. And wah laa...

This was my first notebook I did. It was made for my good friend Louise for an Xmas present. It took me quite awhile to get it done but I was very happy with the results. Let me see if I can list some of the items used. I'm not very good at keeping track of these things.

Cat stamps are from Hanko Designs
"Louise" was stamped from CTMH Homestead Alphabet
Ink is CTMH star spangled blue
Liquid Glass was put over all the letters but the "O". I put a window circle from CTMH over it.

I was so thrilled over this that I made a 2nd one for another friend.


I had a difficult time in finding a way to get her name to fit on the notebook. I finally ended up cutting letters out from a Sizzix alphabet. She loves dogs so this was her theme. Stamps are from CTMH Uptown Girls. All other items are from places I can't remember where I got it from.
I plan to do more of these this year. Will probably be trying different type of altering of notebooks journals through out the year.

Xmas dishcloths

Dishcloths are always fun to give as presents. I especially love the ones with designs in them.
The first one is a gingerbread woman. The second is a frog. They were made with Peaches n cream /Sugar and cream. Both on size 7 needles. Patterns came from Knit-Wits Heaven

Papa's Christmas Lapghan

This was my first knit afghan. WOW I must say this was quite the undertaking. I also just learned how to make cables not too long ago. I must admit that I had to stop and couldn't make it a full size ghan. it ended up being a lapghan. It just took too long and I was running short on time.
I love my knitting but I think it might be awhile before I attempt to knit a full size ghan.







Here's a pix of the ghan in progress. I made a HUGE mistake in it. Can you see it? Of course by the time I noticed it I had done too much and there was just NO way I was going to be frogging. So the mistake stayed. It bugged me, but my dad didn't notice.