Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Baby Season

People all over are having babies this fall! Two babies in my husband's family, alone, not to mention all the pregnant friends I have! (Thankfully, I am not counted among them...I'm not ready to have another one yet!) Since I'm the only crafter in my husband's family that still can craft easily (a.k.a, doesn't have arthritis or carpal tunnel et al. slowing me down), I felt that I should make some hand knits for new little ones. Fall babies are the perfect babies, because they're born in a cooling time of year and right before winter...you know that the things you knit them will be used! So I found this mock cable baby hat that I fell in love with on sight! Then, while browsing on Ravelry amongst the hats already made with that pattern, I stumbled across someone that had made a sock pattern to match the hat! It was listed as a personal pattern, so I PM-ed Janet on Ravelry, and she wrote it up, quick as can be! The socks (a free Rav download) are the perfect compliment to the hats, and I could not be happier with the end results! I hope the recipients are as pleased with the gifts as I am. : ) (The colors in this photo are a bit off, but you can get the general idea.) ; )


Monday, August 10, 2009

Dishcloth Madness

When it comes to packages, unless I have a deadline, I am horrible about getting them out in good time! My "baby" sister had a birthday in June, and I still haven't sent her present to her! (If you think that's bad, just wait...it gets worse...) So in attempts to clean out "my corner" of the computer room, I finally got to putting it in a box. However, the shape doesn't fit snugly into a box, so I figured that I'd wrap the Dark Mark Scarf that I made for my brother a year ago for the Ravelympics (as in, literally, last August) around it. Still room to spare. Oh look at what I found to put in there: a name doily I made for my nephew while we were still in the States!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (We've been living in Italy for more than a year and a half...I think it's about 2 years old already...) Ok, good to go. Now what? Still too much wiggle room, and I'm a crafter, so why bother with buying packing materials that will just get tossed when the package is received? Then it hit me: DISHCLOTHS!!! They're small, will pack well, and will fill each little space until there's no more wiggle room! So I made the first one the other day (the finishing of it was delayed due to wasp stings...my hand was swollen and hurting, so no crafting), and have plans for many more....

The first one is a swan dishcloth. I edited the pattern a little to my own tastes. There was nothing wrong with how it was written at all, but I prefer mine to be reversible, so on the wrong side rows, I knitted the purls and purled the knits of the previous row to get the look I wanted. :) I rather like how it turned out!



We'll see what dishcloth I feel the urge to make next...but for now, it's time to feed the little ones.

Traveling Scarf Hiatus

The scarves seem to come in waves instead of the ideal steady stream...then again, the APO system does absolutely nothing to amend that. In fact, i think it quite contributes to it! But either way, I'm overdue for pictures. :) Here is the last crocheted one I have, I believe. (I think it's Kimmikat's...):




And here's a picture of that lace that I really, really, really ended up loving beyond reason (though it's actually more of a blue and less of a purple, lol):



And I forget whose this was, but here's my section of the provided pattern (which I loved!):




And now it's back to waiting for the next batch...it doesn't seem to fail, no matter how often or fast they get sent to me, they show up 2 or 3 (per group) at once...oh well. We're coming to the end of it all!