Another Critter? Yep, a pink pig . . . . .

Visited the yarn shop with a good friend of mine - hit two yarn shops actually but bought nothing at all in Knitch. Saw this pattern and knew that the teenager would love this purse. So I bought the pattern and the yarn and began to knit. I wanted to finish it before she got home from her writer's conference.

It's all knit - completely! I also figured out how to make the felted Icord curly all by itself.

I decided to wait till she gets home to felt it - want her to see the before and after. Then she can needlefelt the face.

Miserable Failure

A friend asked me if I only post my successes on here. I guess that I haven't posted any failures - up till now that was because I didn't have too many. Here's a BIGGY!

The teenager wanted a nice purse with lots of pockets - protective pockets for all her gadgets. After all, if you are a teenager, you must carry a cell phone, an ipod, a palm, a calculator and who knows what else? We looked and looked for purses with padded pockets and there were none. We looked for a purse with lots of pockets that were the right size and there were none. So she asked me to make her one. I figured that if it was felted, the pockets would be thick and padded just by the nature of the felted knit. Went to the yarn shop, picked out her favorite colors and bought them. I even did a test swatch so I would know how big to knit the purse to get the sizes that I wanted . . . .


It was a huge amount of knitting and a lot of yarn . . . but I did it, pockets and all.













So, I finished knitting it and she loved it. It was big enough to be a nice computer case, but too stretchy. Popped it in the washing machine and washed it . . . . the results were awful. It felted to itself and didn't felt straight and it didn't felt evenly - some sides felted more at the top or the bottom and others more in the middle. It's a complete mess. I might be able to use the material as pockets in the new purse.

Finished Felted Fish

The fish are felted. I learned a few things - no matter how big the holes are in lacework, they will close during felting. I used 3 sizes of holes in the lace in these fish and they all closed.
This fish had large holes in the tail and they all closed. However, the texture of the tail is really quite nice and the colors sorted out such that it both looks and feels like little fishy scales. It doesn't show up so well in the pics, but it's nice in person.
This fish had lace edges on the end of the tail and the holes were quite large but all closed. The edges became very scalloped and kinda curly - worked out nice.
Had to show the other side of this fish since the colors in these photos are better - this one is much more colorful on this side than the first side. I like the way this one turned out.

This one had some elongated holes in the tail - not very open, more like slits than holes. They closed, but they made the end of the tail kinda curve in so that it has this lip like edge on it.

Been knittin' more critters . . . .

Knit a bunch of fish . . . . for felting. These are gifts for people and the colors in the pictures aren't actually true - there is yellow in there and what looks like brown to me is actually purple. They are prettier in person.

I will post pics of the final felted fish as soon as I've run a load of wash. We all know it's illegal to do that on a holiday.





The bottle is for size comparison on the before and after.

Some final photos of projects

The knitted Hamster . . . not as cute as the real ones . . . .
















The final neck on the design a sweater - pattern is not written yet because I have been lazy. With both girls gone next week, I should be able to write it up - will need a tester for it tho.



And the Baby Surprise Jacket all sewed up and ready to go - well, it's ready if the recipient has buttons to sew on. Guess I should do that too before I mail it!

Baby Surprise Jacket

Elizabeth Zimmermann was either a genious or a maniac - not sure which, but I think I'll go with genious. Who would ever, in a million years, think of knitting a sweater like this? It's brilliant and different and lots of fun. I started this on Thursday and wasn't able to knit on Friday or Saturday but still finished it last night (Monday).

The brown edge is the cast on edge - and was knit in a straight line. The white edge is the cast off edge and again was knit in a straight line.


By the time you finish knitting the sweater, it begins to tell you how it wants to be folded. If you just let it do what it wants to do, it works.










This is the front and back of my Baby Surprise Jacket. Now remember that all the stripes were knit in straight lines - the corners are caused by the increases and decreases. See how they are different on the front and the back? They were all knit at the same time. It's very cool.









And this is my baby who had surgery today. She's still a little wobbly and falls down occasionally. But isn't her sweet face pretty now?

Knitting News

First, my yarnbowl. This was made by my friend June at RisingSunEarthworks. (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5050179 or http://risingsunearthworks.com/ ). She's made me some really lovely and useful things over the years. This is a terrific way to keep balls of yarn from running away and since I prefer hand wound balls (that are really round), it's perfect for me.
This is the design-a-sweater that I'm making for my preteen daughter. I'll be writing a pattern for it in several teen sizes - the first of my teen knitting pattern series. It's not done in this shot - and we hadn't decided what to do to finish it at the time. But you can see the cables and checkerboard fairly well.





The next two pics are of it on the girl. The strings you see are just holding the neck stitches. I will be adding a collar to it - against her wishes, but if she hates it, I can remove it.



These are the tiny socks I made for the Sock Blocker Keychain that Mom bought for me. I just love it. The one that's on it is from the Bearfoot that I made the Embossed Leaves socks for me with and the other two are the Numma Numma Toasty for Needlenook that I made the contest socks with. I turned the socks and the pattern in to the shop today.

Some more pretty flowers

I've been doing a LOT of knitting, but I can't post pics of most of it yet. Some is not done (a lot) and some that is done is being entered in a contest. I haven't even put any projects on Ravelry lately. So, in the meantime, here is a pic of Miss S's pondlet - with a lovely blooming blue water lily. And behind it, another pot with a pink lily - that baby just keeps on blooming and blooming. There are fish in all the pots to keep the skeeters from going nuts.





This is the lovely blue waterlily that has been miniaturized so it will grow in small places. A friend sent it for the pondlet.

This is the yarn that I'm making the 'design-a-sweater' with - I've been told that the real name for the sweater is the Checkerboard Sweater. It's almost done - well it was anyway. I had it up to the neckline this morning but I ripped it back to the armholes this afternoon. The girl wanted me to make it a v-neck and I wasn't opposed to that. I had her try it on and she said she liked where the v was going to start. So I knit it up to the neck (all done but the collar/finishing) and then tried it on her again. The v started way too low. I have also decided that it shouldn't be a v, but a slit instead.

This is the new Ultra Alpaca from Schoolhouse press. I'm going to make Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket out of it for a friend's grandson. Getting ready to wind it into balls tonight . . . .

Some Flowers from the Garden

First a few passion flowers: Belotii and citrina

Coriacia and Star of Surbiton
and Lady Margaret.

And then a few odds & ends:
an amaryllis

some day lilies and a water lily.

A Birthday to Remember

Well, the girl wanted the same thing she's asked for every birthday and Christmas for the last 3 years. This year she got it . . . . a little late, but times 3. She didn't believe she was getting it until it happened tho. With any luck, I'll be able to get pics of the critters tomorrow . . . . . even the stuffed one (in the ball).