Tuesday Project Roundup: SQUEEE!

Look at who's modeling his really really oversized sweater!!

 In new project news, I'm going to say that putting up the Christmas tree counts. 

(I'm having a fuse issue with the bottom third of the tree--I replace them but they short out again. That's not very Christmas-y of you, tree.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Starting, Finishing, In Progress

Over the long weekend I made a valiant effort to finish (or at least start) a few projects in the queue, in between eating pie for breakfast.

Another pair of boot toppers for a friend are DONE:

 The rayon dress has sleeves and half a collar (but is still looking a little Laura Ingalls Wilder; I'm not sure about this one):

And 4 out of 8 kitty blankets are cut out (but not fringed). Maybe my helper needs to be a little more helpful:

Tuesday Project Roundup: Tiny Tolkein

Skyler's sweater is finally done! It came out somewhere between "Hobbit child" and "Oxford scholar who writes about hobbits." I can't wait to see it on him. 

I don't know if I have that many knitters reading along, but here are some knitterly details: 

• Pattern: Duck Soup, in the 2-3 year old size
• Yarn: Berroco Vintage Chunky, really nice for a wool/acrylic blend (I wanted it to be machine washable)
• Toggles: from M&J Trimming in NYC, sewn on with a leather needle in my trusty sewing machine

Tuesday Project Roundup: Wrapping Up Little Things

I've been meaning to finish that rayon dress for the last two weekends but fall yard cleanups have pushed it back, so it's still sleeveless. But I did get some little things done (literally, tee hee): 

Tiny 4 ounce jars of green tomato chutney: 

And Skyler's sweater, which is just waiting on toggle closures to arrive on the Wells Fargo wagon today.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Progress

Good crafty news: I finished the real knitting part on Skyler's sweater last night. Now I just need to sew up the hood seam at the top and figure out how I want to do the buttons. 

In other good news, I successfully dyed that sweatshirt dress to a more muted turquoise. Hooray for liquid Rit dye and my big kitchen sink!

Before

After! There's more of a difference in real life.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Beat The Calendar

I'm trying to finish up the current projects so Skyler can have his sweater while he still fits in it and I can get a few more things sewn before it's too cold to wear anything but sweaters and boots.

For Skyler's sweater, there's a sleeve done now. I think I can get this wrapped up in the next couple of weeks.

For sewing, the rayon that was a pile of pieces is now a dress front and a somewhat reduced pile of pieces. It's looking really "Little House on the Prairie Maternity" right now but I have hopes that it will get better as I add more parts.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Forging Ahead

This past week I started a sewing project and a sleeve on the nephew's sweater. Things are getting wild over here!

For sewing, I cut out the rayon from the fall fabric pile--it wants to be a Wiksten "Tova" dress to wear with leggings and boots. Considering the last thing I sewed was the long dress in July, I think this is good progress. 

In sweater news, the body is finished, I have one sleeve started, and I bought buttons. I think this can go pretty quickly to the end now (which is good, because Skyler isn't getting any smaller). 

Tuesday Project Roundup: Moving Right Along

This is what 24 hours in a car will get you: 

I ended up not being able to sleep in said car at all, plus I had some downtime on the actual vacation, so I was very glad I brought two extra balls of yarn for Skyler's sweater. I'll be on to the sleeves soon!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Car Knitting

There's a road trip going down and I can almost gaurnatee that I won't be needed as a relief driver. So what will I be doing (besides sleeping the width of Nevada)? Knitting! 

I'll be working on Skyler's little Hobbit sweater (here's the beginnings of the hood) and expect to make a lot of progress. I'm even packing extra yarn.

Tuesday Project Roundup: I'm Taking Requests

I finished the boot toppers and they were such a satisfying project: The cables kept thing interesting, they were small enough that you saw real progress even with a short amount of knitting time, and they used up leftover yarn.

So I was pretty happy when my friend asked for a pair for herself--more cables and nearly-instant gratification ahead! 

(Amber, is this yarn the right color?)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Baby Steps

The knitting lately has been more of the "sneak in two rows here and there" variety than the "sit down for two hours of a movie and go for it" type, but I'm making a little progress.  

The fake socks/boot toppers are nearly done: 

And I got a swatch going for the nephew's sweater, to figure out what size I should make. 

 

Turns out it's the "stop growing, kid, you're nearly a toddler and when did that happen?" size:

Tuesday Project Roundup: Something Small

To get back into knitting, I started a little project while waiting for the yarn for Skyler's sweater to arrive. 

 This used up some leftover yarn and is going to be a "fake sock top" to stick out of boots, thusly:

I made up my own pattern, but you can find the one in the picture above here.

Tuesday Pending Project: Hobbit Child

The yarn I ordered for Skyler's sweater arrived this week. Between the color and the pattern I decided on,  I think he's going to look like a little hobbit when it's done. Not that that's a bad thing, of course.

This

 + this

= this: 

Tuesday Project Roundup: Less Doing, More Planning

The last thing I knit and finished was those legwarmers for my yoga teacher in February. (The knit tie was knitting up way too thick to actually tie in a knot, so that's been shelved.) I just realized this lack of knitting may be contributing to feeling like I need hippie affirmations all the time. 

But what to knit? Sure, I could finish the two sweaters for me lying around, but I think I need a new project. And I think Skyler needs a little hooded sweater for the fall. 

Construction-wise, I think this pattern ("Duck Soup") wins (knit in one piece, plus the cuffs and hood edges can  be rolled back to accommodate him growing):

But I love the Christopher-Robin-ness of "Roo" (and the real toggle closures, vs. knitted ones):

So planning has begun. I just hope this kid doesn't grow too fast between now and the end of the year--look how big he's getting!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Car Knitting

Before the camping trip I realized that 1.) I would probably not be driving and 2.) if so, then I could knit in the car. So I looked around for a small accessory-type project and landed on a knitted tie (using this pattern). 

No, it is not for me. But it's not a sweater, so I'm hoping to avoid any "sweater curses."  And no, I haven't worked on it since the car ride home.

Tuesday Project Roundup: What I'm Knitting

Um, not this:

This was going to be a pair of striped legwarmers that used two different variegated yarns to created the effect of many colored stripes, something like this:
(Image from Google; knitters, you recognize this, right?)

But the colors were just not working. I pride myself on my sense of color and I'm usually really confident in it--but when I get it wrong, it is pretty spectacularly wrong.

Ah well, by the time I finished it wouldn't be legwarmer season anyway.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Done and Mostly Done

Check it out--the yogi legwarmers are done:

I can give them to the teacher at class next week. I hope she likes them!

And the dress I was making out of the fancy Liberty of London fabric I got over the new year just needs some hand sewing and a hem:

The pattern is the basic shift from the Built By Wendy Dresses book (again), modified this time to have a round neck and bell-ish sleeves. I wanted to copy something like this, but I'm wondering if the sleeves get a little too "1970's Sleeping Beauty" when combined with a print that includes owls, horses, bunnies, deer, and roses.

I guess we'll see if I start singing "Once Upon a Dream" while wearing my little forest friends.

Tuesday Project Roundup: I'm Glad I Knit

I'm glad I knit because yarn is much easier to buy than anti-anxiety meds, and nearly as effective. (I don't travel well, if you couldn't tell.) Look what I got (nearly) done on the business trip yesterday:

These are the legwarmers for my yoga teacher. I think I will knit the fold over cuff, as discussed before--probably because I just. kept. knitting. on the plane and the ribbing got a little long anyway.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Namaste!

Around Christmas, I was talking to my yoga teacher and it came out that I knit. And she asked, "Can you make me some legwarmers?"

Because I feel the same way about my yoga teacher as I did about a few early grade school teachers ("You're so pretty! And so calm! And you're good at so many things I'm not!"), I said of course I would ("Teacher asked me to do a special project! Yay!").


I'm using this pattern but left off the foldover cuff, as you can see. I left it off because I wasn't sure I'd have enough yarn for it, but now I'm pretty certain I will. So do I go back to the first one and add it? I don't know if the drawstring would be fiddly during yoga or if it would help with the fit.

Maybe the legwarmer needs to live its way into the answer....

(And no, that joke still hasn't gotten old. If you couldn't tell.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Finishing Things

Here is a silk/mohair cowl thing I started back in the spring. Since it's just a knitted tube (no pattern), I've had the knitting done since summer, but I hadn't woven in the ends yet to make it ready to wear. I took ten minutes to do that last week and blammo, instant project:

I wish the same thing could happen with my orange sweater!