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Holiday knitting begins!

Last week I received my Flore Hat kit from Knitwhits that I purchased on eBay. It is so cute! I was glad to find out that the child sized hat pattern will fit a small adult head too. I was thinking I'd have to buy the separate pattern from the site to get the expanded sizes as they tell you you'll have to do if you want to make it for an adult. I've got a peanut head so the child size will probably fit just fine. I'm making this for my niece that will be born in October as a Christmas gift. Figured I'd better get started early since I've got several other things to make before Christmas. I've also got the yarn and needles to make a neck pillow that I found in one of the past issues of Knit.1 magazine for my father-in-law's girlfriend who always buys us something even though we agree with my father-in-law not to exchange gifts at Christmas. This way I'll have something for her "just in case" and if she decides to obey the rules, I'll have something that will be perfect for anyone who I need a quick gift for. It will be a nice gift too since it's made of supersoft Lion Brand cashmere blend yarn . I may just decide to keep it for myself with those cute fluffy white clouds all over it!

O.k. Enough chit chat! I am dying to work on my hat now! Happy knitting! Oh, and if anyone else is working on this hat too, feel free to comment and post on your progress. Sort of an informal knit-a-long :)

Second anniversary gifts - Cottony Cotton

These are some flowers that my sweet husband had sent to me at work in June "Just Because.."

My husband and I are getting ready to celebrate our second year of marriage (yay!). For months now I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what to get him for our anniversary. I set a bad precedent for myself last year because I comissioned a really great female pin-up artist (see the link in the sidebar) to paint me a pin-up portrait of myself for him. I was so proud of myself for cleverly managing to give him the gift of paper (the traditional gift for the first anniversary) while also managing to get him something he'd really like and something I thought was cool too.

The second anniversary gift is traditionally cotton. The modern version is China. Yeah, I don't think he'd go for a new set of china! What were these people thinking when they made up these "rules"? Of course, if I could manage to actually take him to China, well that might be another thing entirely. After a lot of thought I finally came up with an idea: He loves monkeys and I always buy him monkey related cards and things. So I thought I could get him a pair of boxers or pj bottoms with monkeys on them! Riiiiiiight..... Oh, you can find stuff with monkeys on them, but not if you want something cool. So I got inspired by a kit I purchased while back (I'll include the links when I post about the finished product) and decided to buy some pj pants at Target and customize them myself with some monkey embroidery. I've got two weeks to finish them.... I got the transfer onto the pjs yesterday and started some stitching. It's pretty easy but I'm not an expert so I get frustrated now and then. I'm excited to see how they'll turn out. But hey, if they turn out awful I can always throw them away and tie a bow around my naked self instead!

Baby Girl Booties

These are photos of the baby booties I finished last week for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I made them from a Debbie Bliss pattern insert that came with a British knitting magazine I like to buy every month. I should really subscribe and save myself a bundle of money, but it is always sold with freebies in the store that I wouldn't be able to get as a real subscriber. Does that not seem ridiculous? That you, as a paying subscriber, wouldn't get all the goodies that come with the magazine? I guess it's because it's from the U.K. and they can't ship the extras here. It's a bummer anyway. But at least it gives me another excuse to buy coffee and browse around in Barnes and Nobles every month.

I was pretty happy with the way these turned out, except for the backs (the last photo). All the instructions said about the back was to "sew up the back seam". That's it. Yeah, that's what I thought too - real helpful. They also didn't show a photo so I had no idea what it was even supposed to look like. When I took the pattern down to the knit shop to see what they thought, they passed on some purls of wisdom that I'll have to try to remember for next time: if the pattern doesn't include a picture of the back of the finished item, then you probably don't really want to knit it. Hmmm. Good thinking.

Anyway, the yarn for these was Debbie Bliss's own Baby Cashmerino and I must say, it is the softest stuff imaginable! Cashmere, wool and microfiber. Cuddly and warm. Just right for little baby toes. I can't wait to make my new niece some more things. I'm looking at sweater patterns right this moment trying to find the right one for a Christmas gift. She's due in October so she'll be bigger than newborn by Christmas so I've got to find something cute to make. I'm checking out my vintage collection, hoping for that perfect mix of girly but not tear-my-hair-out complicated to make. I'll be back with an update soon.

Groovy Hats

Yay! Yet another fun little item brought to me by eBay. I couldn't resist the little blue hat in the upper lefthand corner. I love hats and groovy vintage stuff, so I just had to add this one to my collection. Luckily, there were some other cool hat patterns inside this booklet besides that one. The photo of the blue hat that goes with the pattern inside looks a little more 60's/70's dorky than pictured here (there's a pompom and some other weird features that I will have to omit if I end up knitting it) but I think it would still be cute. And then there's some other funny little hats that might be fun to knit up or alter. Maybe this winter sometime when I'm actually indoors a little more. I should have more time to knit then. I always think I'll find the time at lunch but end up playing Sudoku instead. It's addicting! But then again, so is knitting! I should really learn to stick to one addiction at a time. But what fun would that be?

Happy Garden

I have a happy garden! This is a picture of the beautiful lilies that are now displaying their gorgeousness in my little plot. I am especially fond of these whenever they appear, because they have such a sweet origin. My husband brought home a bountiful fragrant pot of these for me about two summers ago. Just because they were pink and just because he was thinking of me and is the sweetest man on the planet (I don't like to brag, but he's worth bragging about!). Well, they died back in their pot and I was so sad because I was sure I'd killed them and what a waste that would be! I put the pot with the dirt and dead stalks outside and forgot about them until I finally was able to put in a little raised garden bed on the side of our house 2 springs ago. While I was cleaning up, I saw the pot on the porch and figured I'd just dump the dirt into the new bed. When I turned the pot over, the bulbs inside had little green shoots. I couldn't believe it. While I had been thinking I had killed my pretty gift, they were instead just taking an extended dirt nap. Yay! I planted them and was rewarded with 2 huge pink blooms the first year. And this year I've got 7! I can't wait until I've got masses. They smell wonderful and whenever I look at them I think of my sweet hubby.

Not only do I have beautiful lilies to brighten my day.... I saw a little green frog sunning himself on my gigantic rhubarb leaves the other day too. I hopped around and squealed like a little kid, running to get my husband so I could show off our little visitor. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of him and I cut the rhubarb back so he kinda lost his house. But I hope to see him again soon.

On another wildlife note, this morning when I came back from my walk I had 3 young male deer in my driveway! We looked at each other for a few minutes and I would liked to have stayed a little longer to exchange some pleasantries, but I had to go in and get myself ready for work. At least this time they left my tomatoes alone. They've nibbled some of the leaves and apparently don't like the taste much. I just hope they'll leave the fruit alone once it ripens! I know everyone around here thinks they're terrific pests, but I'm still enchanted whenever I see one in the neighborhood.

More on crafts at a later date....

I do enjoy knitting. Really. I do. Just keep telling myself that.

Things have been crazy lately between being out of town and humoring my husband's kayak passion (just kidding - I enjoy it too), so I haven't really kept up with my Warm Woolies project as much as I'd hoped to. I did manage to get some knitting in during two trips back and forth between Bellingham and Issaquah (about 3 hours each way with traffic) for kayak school, and another weekend spent traveling to Wenatchee for some camping (another several hours each way). To the left is a picture of Hat #4 that I completed some time last month. It looks kind of plain right now, but I plan to add some girly embroidery before sending it off to the kidlets.

To the right are vests 1 & 2 that I completed during all our driving around in the last month. I probably would have completed them faster if I wasn't such a "Knitiot" (my term for a knitting idiot like myself!). I had to rip out several of the final rows on each vest because I'd made mistakes. The aqua one I dropped a stitch and could not, for the life of me, coax it back into place. For all the stress it was causing me, it was just easier to rip it out to the spot where I'd dropped it and start knitting again from there. Am I the only retard who can't figure out how to fix a dropped stitch?! And on the striped one, I forgot to work the back top portion in garter stitch, doing stockinette instead, so when I discovered it didn't match the front I had to take it out all over again. I do enjoy knitting. Really. I do. Just keep telling myself that. My husband always asks why I bother when I start to rip stuff out and my neck gets all tense and I start to curse under my breath. And I just repeat that mantra: I do enjoy knitting. Really. I do......

I am now working on the Warm Woolies Vest of the Month from March which has a pretty eyelet pattern. I'm using Bulky Lamb's Pride in Blue Blood Red from Brown Sheep Company. I think it will be really pretty when I'm done and am thinking about threading some white or pink ribbon through the eyelets when I finish up for a really sweet girly touch. Hopefully this one will go more smoothly than the last two, though I'm starting to worry one skein might not be enough yarn. Oh well - just an excuse for another trip to the yarn shop right?