52in52weeks: Week 5

It’s hard to believe, but it’s time to announce ANOTHER week’s project!!

This week, the focus is going to be on potholders!  Since we’ve just moved into a new house, I have been wanting to make lots of household things – potholders being one of them.  Our current potholders are ugly and ragged, to say the least, so I am hoping to make 3 potholders using the Scalloped potholder pattern.  I am ready for some new, cute potholders!!

***Emmaline is finished! Check back later this week for details on that project.  It’s definitely a winner! 😀

FO 2/52: A New Sock Monkey

I have been VERY busy over the last week and I have a lot of stuff to show off this week!! I meant to post about Week 2’s project before now, but it just didn’t work out that I was able, so I am here now!  This is a 2-for-1 post.

Before I got so organized doing 52in52weeks I was waffling around all over the place!!  I had been wanting to make a couple of stuffies for 2 little girls I know, but could not decide on a good pattern for the oldest girl.  Finally I did  – A New Sock Monkey from Itty Bitty Toys.  I had already chosen (and made) a pattern from that book, Wrap Me Up Puppies, for her sister.

For the monkey, the pattern calls for fingering weight self-striping yarn.  I only have 1 skein of self striping yarn, which is fingering, but my gauge is also so much looser so I decided to order some Felici Self Striping Sport from Knit Picks and try it out for this pattern.  I really loved it!!

I went with the color, Garden Gate.  I am pretty sure there aren’t any monkeys out there in nature sporting this color scheme, but for a little 3 year old girl, I think it works out just fine!  I used 3 mm needles and ended up with a monkey that is about 7.5″ when seated.  I was hoping that I would be able to make 2 monkeys from this 1 skein, however I ended up using  about 2/3 it.  What will I do with the remaining??  I guess that is a question for another day!!

For the baby sister that loves Puppy Dogs, I opted for the Wrap Me Up Puppies.

For this project I used Bernat Satin Solids in Camel – leftover in my stash from the throw that I made my grandmother ages ago- for the puppy, and a combination of Hobby Lobby I love this Cotton in Aqua and Knit Picks Shine Worsted in Sunflower for the blanket.  Another good use of stash yarn!!

Both patterns are super easy, the monkey is a little bit fiddly when working on the arms/hands/thumb, but nothing unmanageable.

Monkey and Puppy all ready to go to their new home!!!

52in52weeks Update: Week 4

Since I was very busy last week working to complete the last Mother’s Day scarf, I did not get a lot of extra time to work on Emmaline.  I have completed the pattern through the two eyelet rows and am close to being able to separate and work on the sleeves – I thought about taking a picture to show off my progress, but there isn’t much to see other than a jumbled up mess!!

I was also able to squeeze in a quick hour to finish up week two’s project, A New Sock Monkey, from Itty Bitty Toys.  I will have a post dedicated to that project later this week, so stay tuned!

This week’s project is one that I am pretty excited about: Annette by Dawn Toussaint.  This pattern is beautiful and I only hope that I can do it justice in some way.   I’ll also get to whip out my sewing machine for this project and showcase my utter LACK of sewing skills – should be interesting!!  Can’t wait to get started on this one!

Mother’s Day 2010

I thought it would be a good idea to knit Mother’s Day gifts this year so I chose a scarf pattern for each of the mothers that I was going to knit for, mine and Jason’s.  Finally they are both finished and with their intended recipients!!

I DID start them in plenty of time to be able  to give them ON time, however we moved into our house at the end of April and my knitting time suffered greatly – my mother recieved her scarf on Memorial Day weekend and Jason’s mother received her scarf on Father’s Day weekend – the next time that I saw each mother, respectively.

For my mother, I chose the Koigu Ruffle Scarf (Rav Link).  I have never had to cast on so many stitches before in my life!! There was also an unfortunate incident that resulted in the deaths of about 8 stitch markers. 😦  A very sad tale.

For this scarf, I used approximately 1 3/4 skeins of Koigu KPPPM color P431 – I enjoyed this knit and if you like ruffles you will love this finished piece!! VERY ruffly!!

For Jason’s mom I dove into my stash and found 1 skein of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in colors that I thought she’d like for the Drop Stitch Scarf.  The skein I chose is Gold Hill.

This is a GREAT scarf for 1 random skein of sock yarn b/c it looks complicated but isn’t!!  A good blocking really helped to make this a good sized scarf.  (Sorry, but I forgot to measure!!)

Tomorrow I will be back with my 52in52weeks update and newest project!!  These weeks are coming up on me fast!!

Week 3 Already!?!

Even though my week 2 project, A New Sock Monkey, isn’t *quite* finished up just yet, it’s time to move on to week three’s project: Emmaline!  I am excited to start this project and hoping that I will end up with something else that I can wear – not another failure that will end up in the county landfill.  😦

I am going to be knitting the Small, using 10.5 needles and 4 skeins of Nature Cotton.  This might work, it might not.  My bust is 38″ around and the Small measurement is for 36.75 – I like negative ease, so hopefully using the smaller needles (I don’t have any 7.0 mm needles anyway, and 8.0 mm gives too loose a fabric) I will get the fit that I want.  If not,  I will rip back, order some needles and start again!  My new motto — It’s only yarn!!!

Stay tuned, together we shall see what happens!! (Also, I hope to be back soon with week 2’s finished project – A New sock monkey!!)

Easter Cloths

After I finished up my Anthropologie Inspired Capelet last week, I used my ‘free time’ before starting project #2 to finish up a WIP that was being ignored.  Since I did not get these finished in time to use them around Easter I did not stress myself on finishing them up quickly.  I was, however, ready for them to crossover from the land of WIP to the land of FO.  Each cloth is such a quick knit that I didn’t have to spend much time finishing up the 2 or 3 that remained.

Easter Cloths, design by Kris Knits…

I love going through my stash of cotton yarns and choosing the color for each cloth.  I always think that I want to use up the majority of my cotton and have a smaller stash, but then that would take away so many of my color options – and for some reason I *always* want to have a lot of cotton yarn to choose from.

For these cloths I used a size 4 needle (b/c my size 3 was occupied) and used Sugar N Cream in Rose Pink, Yellow, Hot Purple, Cream, Tea Rose, Hot Green, Robin’s Egg Blue and Soft Teal.

FO 1/52 : Anthropologie Inspired Capelet

I am trying to figure out the best format in which to ‘show and tell’ my progress for 52 projects in 52 weeks so please bear with me as I muddle through this first blog post! 🙂  I also haven’t decided how I want to approach the 52 projects.  For now, since I think this is somewhat flexible, MY goal is going to be to start and finish 52 projects in 52 weeks.  Even though I have some current WIPs that I will not be counting toward my goal I am going to continue to be starting a new project every Tuesday – with my intention being that I will finish said project in 1 week.  If this is not possible due to time constraints and/or size of project then that WIP will carry over to the next week and I will STILL start a new project on Tuesday.  Confusing enough? (The idea about my current ‘carry over’ WIPs is that I will work on them during the weeks that I finish up a weekly project before time to start a new project on the following Tuesday and finish them as time allows.  Most of them are not that pressing of a project since a lot of them are ways to use up scrap dishcloth cotton.)

Ok, now that I’ve gotten all of that out of the way and I’ve sufficiently confused everybody I can now proudly show off my first 52 projects in 52 weeks FO, the Anthropologie Inspired Capelet.

I am very excited about this project since my first sweater attempt was a FAILED attempt being that it could have been worn by someone 3x my size.  Happily this fits as it should – YAY!!

For this project I used about 1.5 – 1.75 skeins (I did not weigh the remainder of the 2nd skein) of Araucania Nature Cotton and size 11 needles.  I followed the pattern with no modifications.  I Love it!!  This yarn is incredibly soft and perfect for a summer/fall sweater.

Tomorrow starts week 2 and I will be casting on for A New Sock Monkey (Rav Link) from Itty – Bitty Toys using a new-to-me yarn, Knit Picks Felici Sport Self Striping.  I will also be back at some point this week to show off a set of Easter Cloths that I completed over the weekend as well.

52 projects in 52 weeks

I have decided to participate in the 52 projects in 52 weeks challenge group on Ravelry.  I’m very excited because not only do I get an opportunity to use stash yarn and start a new project every week, but I get to embrace my love of planning projects!!  Today is the official start, therefore I will be starting a new project every Tuesday.  (Completing the week’s project in 1 week is not a requirement – however in order to keep UFOs at bay, we are encouraged to have no more than 4 WIPs at once.)  I already have my first 2 month’s projects planned – I love to plan my upcoming projects! 😉

There are some mini-challenges involved as well, and I hope to participate in as many of those as possible – such as knitting/crocheting 12 toys, completing 5 projects using only stash yarn, completing old UFOs and trying a new technique.

This week’s project is the Anthropologie Inspired Capelet.  I am going to be using stash yarn for this project – Araucania Nature Cotton.

I am hopeful that this will cause me to blog more frequently as I will need to be accountable to my readers!  Stay tuned for my first FO – this project is moving along quickly and I am hopeful that I will finish it soon!