naknimitmo 2009 and a sassy leftover

I love mittens and I cannot lie. I joined naknimitmo on Ravelry. Everyone has committed to knit at least one pair of something that goes on your hands. Great for a cold January. I decided I wanted to knit Ashley a pair of mittens for her birthday and this seemed like a logical tie in. I decided to do the Give a Hoot Mittens by Jocelyn Tunney. The pattern has a cable that looks like an owl. She had buttons for eyes but I used some green wooden beads I repurposed from the Nudge's bracelet making kit. I love the look of the eyes. The first pair was a little tiny so I uped the needle size to 7 and whipped out the second pair on the bus this week. They are so sweet and cute I just love them.

I also gifted Amelia's hat and scarf so I can share this last remaining FO from 2008. She wanted a hat that looked like an acorn and had a stem. So I decided to make her the Sunflower Tam from Knitting Nature. She wanted turquoise so I busted out some of the old reliable RHSS from the Walmart. This is a good choice for Amelia she is both a sloppy pre-teen and a swimmer who doesn't dry her hair. She loves it so mission accomplished.

Check out Morsbags.com if you like to sew, use recycled totes or care about marine mammals. I started a pod called Eco-friendly Bensalem, join me and help marine mammals.

Mittens first than Tam. Enjoy!

Tree of Life Aran

As everyone who has seen me knitting since November knows I decided to knit my mom an aran for christmas. I chose the Tree of Life Aran from the first american publication of Classic British Knits by Madeline Weston. (librarian rant starts here: She published three books and they are either variants of the same book or a book consisting of most of the same patterns, a cataloging nightmare end rant)

I knit the pattern like a crazy woman and still wasn't finished before I started my christmas vacation. I had to redo half of the front left because the arm holes did not match. I knit for eight hours a day for the four days that led up to christmas and busted the entire thing out including blocking and sewing on christmas eve before the party.

The knit is challenging and looks like dog food before blocking but when it blocks oh wow. It looks awesome. Mom loved the sweater, I loved the sweater and her sister's were jealous. A job well done. I avoided my knitting bag for three days and then started three new small projects. I also take a small pride in being the only person on Ravelry crazy enough to knit this cardigan! The first photo is mom the second is me trying on the sweate and contemplating the idea of saying that is was ruined and keeping it for myself.

Hats!

Boy I have fallen in love with making hats. This week was a bumper crop of hats. I even started a new bulky yarn beret on Saturday and cranked it out by the end of the day. I can't stop wearing it around the house. Pictures to come soon. Until then enjoy the hats I finished last week. Not a new hat but a new photo. I finally got a snap of Amelia in her Bulls Eye hat from Kristen Knits. I also did the fingerless gloves but left off the flowers I think it was a bit much. Also of note: N8 did some photoshop magic and got rid of her red eyes. He is a whiz at photoshop.

Here is Alex modeling my brothers Watermelon hat from this summer. I made this up using a roll brim hat pattern. Those seeds are intarsia and a pain in the butt.

Here is mike wearing his birthday hat. An awesome candy corn! He got it early because he is a big baby. Also much cuter is Luke rocking the hat.

Finally we have Alex's Chullo in Eagles colors. This pattern is from Andean Folk Knits. A nice book but not as popular as the folk mittens book she did. You can always count on Amelia for a goofy ass face.

My camera is fixed!

Back in May my camera broke at graduation. Since then I have been procrastinating on getting it fixed. I finally got scared that the warranty would expire and we would have to pay for the repair so I sent it out quickly at beginning of the month. Despite all my fear about the cost of repair it was free and only took five days to repair and ship it back. Thanks Samsung your customer service acutally rocks. So thanks to Samsung you can see a cavaclade of finished objects:
Check out the Striped Illusion, Big Ivy and Ribbed Keyhole all finished.

Another Classy People House Success

Today I happily present to you a very classy idea! The bottle cozy. I made two of these wonders for my cousin. She is such an old lady that she wraps her water bottle with a paper towel to keep her hand and purse dry. I found a great pattern called Bier Hugguz on Ravelry (yeah free patterns!) and with some scrap peaches n creme I whipped up two of these babies while I was away at my training. These things are great! CPH highly recommends creating cozies for everything in the world.

We call them teenagers

Today was back to school shopping. N8 and I spent the entire day shopping for clothes, shoes and school supplies. I remember when all he needed was his Dragon ball Z lunch box to be happy to go back to school. Now he wants things and has preferences that I don't even know about. When did he stop wearing jeans or only write with black pens? He also doesn't wear things with skulls on them unless they are ironic and doesn't mind have purple folders.

Here is a hat I made for him from Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in a green and orange. These skulls are cool because it looks like a Norwegian fisherman's hat and is not in goth colors. Oh my baby I remember when he went off to first grade in his explorer shorts and dinosaur backpack. Back to school is weird to me this year. It is the first time since 2004 that I am not taking a class. Oh I guess that leaves me more time to knit hats that have ironic skulls on them.

Ravelympics Gold Metal!

Go Team RedHeart!

Here is my Ravelympic project for 2008. It is the Nordic Lights Caplet from Wrap Style. Knit in RHSS using scraps from many finished blankies. I wanted something small that matched all my winter clothes for work. It also needed to be washable and something tha t could be stuffed in my tote bag. This is a quick and fun knit but it does have tons of ends to weave in. Enjoy!

White Winter Hymnal

I am totally in love with the new Fleet Foxes album. The one song is called White Winter Hymnal and it mentions red scarves. I want to knit a red scarf but I can't since I am scorching the earth with my lightening fast speed knitting for the Ravelympics. I am working on two projects.

The first is 90 percent finished and is the Nordic Lights wraps slash poncho slash caplet slash who knows from Wrap style. We will have to wait and see on that one. The second is driving me bonkers because it is so simple yet I can't get the hang of it. It is the Big Ivy Scarf from the cover of Knitscene. Why are you tormenting me? Did I not spend 40 bucks on Cascade 220 to knit you instead of cheap ole acrylic?

To continue with my staycation FO marathon I present three new scarves. The Quivit Scarf from IK, The Elven Scarf from my brain and a rainbow triangle scarf knit with my recycled sari yarn from the XPN festival!

The Quivit Scarf is a nice lace scarf I made with a merino lace weight from Knitpicks, it was fun but got boring in the middle. Blocking really brings out the snazzy ness of the border.

The Elven scarf is knit using the Elven Lace stitch in the awesome citrus inspired Jackie hand dye! Love it and in a weird way it is almost like we did a project together. The triangle is a simple garter triangle with YO increases. I like this yarn Sister says it looks hippie-ish so that means I love it.

Enjoy!

Things fall apart it's scientific

Well things have been crazy at the classy people house. Some personal things have been going on and I really haven’t felt like blogging. I am even ashamed to admit that I haven’t even been that excited about Ravelry. How terrible is that? I have been knitting. I finished a laundry list of mini project and one awesome sweater.

I finished blocking and sewing my Frontier Blues Sweater! This was such a nice and easy knit. I was also my first sweater knit in the round and I love it. How easy is it when you’re finishing is two small seams under the arms? I did the sleeves on my 16 inch circs so the thing whipped along so fast. I plan on doing a toggle button on the front but need to sew it on.
This yarn is the mill end yarn I bought a few weeks ago at AC Moore. It is actually Paton’s Classic Wool in Harvest. I got a whole pound of it for 5 bucks. How cool is that? It looks like it has a gap in the dye saturation. You can see small areas of white or light colors but it doesn’t bother me at all. I had some leftover. I made some felted mittens and have enough for a hat for a going a way present for someone at work. I still have a full ball left. I’m thinking felted Iphone holder for a friend who totally got a G3 and is working it.

Krueger Metal Chair Redone!

I have finally finished the cushion to go with the chair that the boss man painted for me. It was a hot purple mess when we got it from my bro. The boss sanded, primed and painted it from top to bottom and now we have an awesome brown and gold chair. To fit with the recycle theme it also has a re-purposed yarn cushion.

I knit the cushion using the frogged yarn from my first attempt at a sweater. It is Brown Sheep Company bulky in Jade. The pattern is very simple.

1. Create a template of the seat using a brown paper bag.
2. Select the stitch pattern. I used a coin cable from a stitch dictionary.
3. Using your yarn figure out how many stitches per inch you need for the cast on.
4. Cast on and work straight until you need to start curving the sides in. I figured it is like the top of sleeve. I did matching decreases on each side and following the curve of my template.
4. The bottom is the same I did stockinette for the bottom.
5. I bought some squares of foam from Walmart. I stacked two on top and cut the foam to match my template.
6. I created a strip slightly smaller than the thickness and made it long enough to go around the cushion.
7. I then seamed the top to the top of the strip and put the foam in the middle and seamed the bottom. After some wiggling it fit perfectly.
8. I had the intention to do an i cord seam but it didn't work out for me. I may go ahead and added it later since I have some yarn left over.

Enjoy!

Strawberries

I can't take credit for this one. This is my mom's crocheted baby blanket. Ok it took her two hours to do the whole thing and it looks like strawberries and cream. Show off.

Yum!