Friday, January 31, 2014

And Now For Something Completely Different

In addition to working on my 50 Knitted Gifts project, I was commissioned to make a dog sweater for one of my coworkers' dog.  I had never made any kind of project for a pet before, so I figured this would be a good learning experience.  I grabbed a free pattern from Drops and began to knit.  It ended up taking right around a week to make, so it was a fast knit.  Here is the recipient and her new coat:
She now gets to wear the school colors while in the office.  Her human also seemed to really like the sweater.

Knit on...

Sunday, January 26, 2014

A Little Weaving

So I'm not only working on the 50 Knitted Gifts workthrough.  I'm also working on a few other projects, one of which just came off the loom this weekend.  Right after Christmas, I warped the loom with the intention of getting a head start on some Christmas weaving for next year.  I figured I could get two scarves out of the three skeins of yarn, and it looks like I will be able to do so.  Here is the first finished scarf:
I still need to do something about the edge that has the yarn carries from the stripiing, but it's basically done.  I warped the loom with a more white dominant plaid pattern.  It should be about the same look, just swap the red for white in the new one.
I really like how the weave turned out.  I really do like playing with colors, and affter receiving a new shuttle for the loom for Christmas, it has certainly made it much easier to do more than two color weaving.

Knit, or weave rather, on...

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Project the Second

Well, I finished the second project this weekend in the 50 Knitted Gifts book.  The second project in the 
book is a wine bottle cozy.  I made this one out of some scrap Red Heart that I had lying in the random odds and ends bin in the craft closet.  It was a very easy knit and I finished it in a few hours.  Without further ado, here is the cozy:

Knit on...

Friday, January 10, 2014

A New Year and a New Goal

It's a new year and I have set a resolution that involves knitting.  For my birthday, DF gave me a copy of the book 50 Knitted Gifts. 

 I decided that since I am always frantic around the holidays trying to finish up presents, I would get a head start by working through all 50 projects in the book in the next year.  Most of the projects I like, but right off the bat, the first project kind of irked me.  I just couldn't get behind the concept of the knitted necklace.  

I have nothing against knitted necklaces.  I even took a class with Betsy H. at Stitches South a couple of years ago on how to make knitted beads.  I think the main issue I had with this interpretation of a knitted necklace was the construction.  I thought each bead was rather fiddly to make.  The original pattern calls for 36 beads, and I only made 20.  I'm still not sure if I would give this as a knitted gift or not.  I guess I just need to see if anyone likes it when I show it to them.

Anyways, here is the finished necklace made out of some leftover handspun yarn:
Sorry for the dark picture.  You can at least get the idea of what it looks like.

Knit on...