Design Your Own

Once you know how to knit and purl, knitting is pretty easy to figure out.  The same is true for making patterns.  There are hundreds of different stitch patterns and once you've praticed a few, it's easy to put together your own project or vary an existing one to your liking.

Now, I won't stake claim to this owl cozy.  I've done a few and this one I altered to make it my own but all I did was take out two of the three owls.  Still, I knew what I wanted and knew how to alter the pattern to get what I wanted.  Here are two samples of "my" owl cozy:

I substituted purl stitches all the way around where I wasn't doing the owl pattern.

Today I decided to attempt my own pattern utilizing the cable twists.  I plotted out the number to cast on and what I thought I'd do for each row.  Here are my primary notes:

After my first cable I knew I'd need more space before the next one.  The cabling pulled the stitches very tight in the few spots where I did it.  Here is the pattern I actually executed:

CO 36 stitches and divide evenly over 3 DPNs
R1 - 3: K2, P2
R4: P2, K8, P4, K8, P4, K8, P2
R5 - 6: same as R4
R7: P2, C8B, P4, C8B, P4, C8B, P2
R8 - 13: same as R4
R14: same as R7
R15 - 20: same as R4
R21: same as R7
R22 - R24: same as R4
R25 - R27: same as R1
bind off in pattern

There are three cables spread evenly around the cozy.  When making this one again I will probably use bigger needles to give a little more stretch to the yarn.    Additionally, I may just do one cable about midway through so the cozy won't be quite as tight.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but the yarn is an awesome color almost a neon pink.

Button Scarf

Knitting is my current escape.  It's what I look forward to and the variety of potential projects excite me.  Part of the fun is taking an idea and recreating it on my own with customization for my recipient.

Near the end of last week a friend posted this picture on my Facebook wall wondering if I could recreate one for her:

Unfortunately this was from Pinterest and there was no link to either a pattern or store to reference.  It looked easy enough so I started exercising my resources to see what I could come up with.  I managed to find a similar product on Etsy listed for $39.  Don't get me wrong, these were some nice scarves but knowing the price of yarn and how long this project would take me, there's no way I'd pay $39 for a scarf...but now I know how much I could charge so I can quit my day job ;)  The pattern looked oddly familiar.  I searched back through past projects and quickly found another scarf I made two years ago which used the same stitch pattern:

I headed up to the yarn cave to see what I had.  Unfortunately I didn't find anything EXACTLY what my friend was looking for, but we were able to select a type of yarn for the project.  After a quick stop at Michael's after work for yarn and a button, I was ready to start.  The thing about MAKING something is you can pick everything out and design it to the specific person's liking.  I measured my friend yesterday to see how long to make the scarf and like I said, we picked out the type of yarn together.  Here's how the project progressed:

I used one complete skein of yarn and hoped that would be enough.  It was slightly shorter than we were estimating so I decided to block the scarf.  This also helped relax the yarn, open it up a bit, lengthen it, and flatten it out.  Here I am modeling the finished product:

To cover the supplies and my time - $15 for this custom piece of awesomeness.

The yarn I used for this one is on sale right now...you play your cards right - and by that I mean make a request - I'll make one for you too ;)

Scrubbies

I love finding new projects and teaching myself how to do them.  Recently I started making dishcloths which are pretty sweet.  While working on those I stumbled across scrubbies as well.  Here is the link to the videos that helped me learn how to make this awesome project.

The pattern calls for tulle which is what makes it a scrubbie instead of a dishcloth.  I didn't find any at the dollar store as the video states, but I did find a giant spool at Michael's which should last me a while.  I did have a 25% off my entire purchase coupon that day, but next time I'll take my 40% off a single item coupon to get this knocking the price down to $6.00 for 100 yards which I can slice into three 2-inch sections.  Get pumped.

So, the scrubbies are knit on a circular loom.  The one in the video is blue so I thought I had the wrong one.  I've seen blue ones, but my green one pictured below was the one needed for the project.  Dang, I don't need to buy more supplies...

It's hard to see well but I have two strands of the same yarn plus a strand of tulle.  Since working on my first few scrubbies I've purchased ridiculous amounts of yarn in differnt colors for added variety.  The worst part of this project is casting on.  However, I found my own strategy the other day and have been significantly more successful since then.

Here are a few finished products!!!  Aren't they awesome?  From start to finish they take me about 45 minutes - two episodes of The Office on Instant Netflix.  I'm stockpiling scrubbies, dishcloths and coffee cozies to sell around holiday time.  They are fun projects that keep me busy.  I'll be able to buy more yarn once I sell them off.  Or buttons...more on that another time ;)

Dishcloths and Coffee Cozies

Last week I knit a few odds and ends...projects that took about 45 to 60 minutes each giving me an instance sense of accomplishment.  The first projects were some dishcloths for friends.  Suprisingly enough, I had never knit dishcloths and was repeatedly told how they were so simple to make and so fabulous to use.  Simple, absolutely!  We haven't used any ourselves yet.

I was sure I could get 2 dishcloths out of one ball of yarn.  I started knitting another green one and far past the place of no return I realized I would run out of yarn.  This made me extremely upset, but like I said, I was to a point where I was not turning back.  Fortunately the friend who I was making these for told me "the ones grandma made never matched, they were always made of her leftover scraps!"  Good to know.  However, in efforts to make sure this problem did not occur again, because the mismatching bothered me, I took two rows out of the next cloth so I wouldn't run out of yarn.

Last week I also looked at coffee cozies.  I made some owl ones in the past that were a bit time consuming.  While looking through sites for patterns I stumbled across an ebook holding 33 different cozy patterns.  It was purchased.  Many of the patterns are pretty self-explanatory but they are fun and easy to whip up.  Here are some of the things I made this weekend between car rides and visiting with family:

To spice up the coffee cozies I've decided I can add buttons and/or ribbon.  The first one I did is the purple one pictured which I stitched a flower stem onto a flower button!  Too cute :)  I also added a black and white checkered button to the pink one above after the photo was taken.

Another cozy not pictured was another owl one.  However, this cozy only had 3 owls instead of five like the one previously made.  In addition, rather than stitch beaks onto each owl I only did eyes.  Less owls = less work.  As I make more of these I will post again for viewing.

In between these fun little projects I'm also working on a lightweight scarf for myself and a double-knitted scarf for my sister.  I've also purchased quite a bit of yarn in the past week and a half to hopefully keep me busy for several months with fun creations!

Fancy Boas

I have a problem with yarn.  I buy too much of it.  There's either a huge sale or I have a coupon so I'm always getting good deals.  Yesterday I took my coupon to JoAnn's.  I needed to buy some specific yarn for an upcoming project and was going to look around a bit.  There was some beautiful pink boa yarn that I decided I had to have.

When I got home I found black boa yarn up in the yarn cave.  My little friends were coming over to hang out so I thought I'd whip them up some fancy scarves.  I spent the afternoon cheering on Team USA and made these super cute boa scarves for my friends.

Not a lot going on which is why I was able to make two in about three and a half hours.  It's knit with garter stitch (knit each row) but I was continually counting stitches to make sure I didn't drop or add any.  The boa texture makes it challenging to see all the stitches.

I'll be making a couple more for the younger girls when I have more time.  As for now, I have one project to finish up today and then a big one to start on for this week.

Miss Alexa's Owl

My knitting is seasonal.  I thought starting this blog last winter would help, but it did not.  But, the needles are back out and I've got lots of project ideas brewing!

I started doing a lot of sitting around in front of the tv.  This normally doesn't pop up until football season starts which also coincides with the weather cooling down - and trust me, it's only been HOT around here.  However, the Olympics are on and I don't want to miss a beat of it!  Another factor is my struggle completing the third book in the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy.  The first two were managable.  This third book, not so much.

So, I woke up a few days ago and thought to myself, "man, I should get those knitting needles out!"  Fortunately one of my little friends is turning 3 at the end of this month and I've been invited to the birthday party.  What a great time to make up a special gift!

It took me a while to get started on this one.  I had to cast on 150 stitches and attempted to use the magic loop method to knit in the round.  Because of the number of stitches, this was not possible.  Immediately I got frustrated but my mind kept going thinking of how to make things work.  I found that I would be able to knit in the round on two circular needles and was quickly on my way.

I did use the magic loop method on the eyes.  There are a lot of circular things I see that are crochet.  Here I was able to make something circular while knitting and have high hopes I can do some sort of knitted flowers in the future.

The beak was pretty straight forward.  Here's my dude before any kind of finishing!  As you'll soon see, I did make a few changes.

One side I was able to bind together using the kitchener stitch pulling it off of the needles.  I was extremely happy with the way that seam came together.  I was more nervous about the other side.  I used some clips to hold the sides together as I knitted down.  Fortunately Google and YouTube helped me out and I found an informational video about joining the seams together.  As I went down the body I was also stuffing my owl.  It was challenging to make sure I had enough stuffing and that it took enough shape to look the way I wanted him to.

FINAL PRODUCT!!!!  Husband helped me find some larger buttons for the eyes so the ones above are not the same as the one in my mock up.  I also sewed the nose on a little crooked.  I think things gives my owl a special personality.  The side stitching ended up GREAT.  Often there is at least one or two things I end up disliking about my final products - something to be sure to improve upon for the next time.  From this project I took away a few new skills.  When I make this guy (or girl) next time - yes WHEN - I'll be able to do so faster than this first time.  Granted, I started this on Monday and today's Thursday so that's not very long for a project at all!

If you're interested in working on your own owl, here's the pattern.  I did Bubo the Great.  Happy Knitting!