The Winky-Wonky Scarf is finished

I finished up the Winky-Wonky scarf and was pleased with how it turned out. The photos don't really do it justice because I was working under less than optimal lighting conditions. Even my mom liked it. It came out a bit narrower than I would have liked, but I'm planning to do another one using needle one size larger and I think it will be simply awesome.

Here's a close-up to show the stitch detail:
Now I need to get my pattern proofed and posted for sale on the Etsy site. One awesome thing about selling original patterns is that I have no shipping cost to email the pdf file. Next I need to get the snowball hat pattern transcribed. I'm also planning a couple of felted bags, but I need to hunt up a graph that I used several years ago to make a double-knitted blanket as I want to put that design on one of the bags.

Yoga Mat Bag pics and the Winky-Wonky Scarf

Today I managed to photograph the yoga mat bag for the first time. I really like the simple pattern and the peaceful earth tones of this bag. It also came out just the right size to fit my yoga mat.



I also started on a scarf that was inspired by my Wednesday afternoon Open Knit class. We were working on a round dishcloth that is knitted in eight wedges, and then the cast-on edge is joined to the ending edge to produce a circular dishcloth, like this:

At one point there was some confusion about the short row technique used to create the wedges, and I explained that it was important to always make sure that the unworked stitches are on the same edge of the knitting. "Otherwise," I said, "you'll end up with your knitting all winky-wonky like a zigzag scarf."

And so the winky-wonky scarf was born. Here's a shot of the work in progress:


It's worked in worsted acrylic on size 10 1/2 needles and measures approximately five inches wide. Ideally I'd use slightly heavier yarn and bigger needles to make it a little bit wider, but I'm committed to using yarn I already had on hand as my goal for January is to make it through the entire month without buying any yarn. The pattern is very simple - I just worked the circular dishcloth pattern skipping the last row of the wedge, which puts the short side of the wedge on alternating sides of the scarf. It's a good "mindless knitting" project that I'll take along tomorrow when we have a long car ride.

Don't forget to leave a comment when you read the blog so I know that someone is actually reading! :)

the Long-Awaited Yoga Mat Bag

So a week and a half ago I promised a post about the yoga mat bag I was working on at the time, a simply knit stockinette bag in earth-toned variegated cotton yarn. Last week was incredibly hectic and I didn't get everything done that I had planned on. I did finish knitting the bag, and was very pleased with how nicely it turned out, looking nice and fitting my yoga mat perfectly. In fact it worked out so well that as I worked on it I was overloaded with ideas for bags worked in different colors and stitch patterns, as well as a series of matching water bottle carriers (because anyone who does yoga also recognizes the importance of staying well hydrated). Of course I haven't finished any of the other bags or even the water bottle carrier to match the bag I have finished, because unfortunately my fingers cannot knit as quickly as my brain can create the ideas. I had fully intended to post a photo of the completed bag in this post, but unfortunately when I made it back to yoga this morning after an absence of several days, I completely forgot that I needed the mat in order to photograph the mat bag containing the mat. Maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile I'm knitting socks, because in the last week I've attended a funeral and the accompanying family dinner, a church meeting, and a church dinner, and I needed something a little more portable than the pound cone of cotton yarn I'm using to knit the second yoga bag. I love the bright-colored self-striping yarn and they have gone fairly quickly. I tried a toe-up pattern on two circular needles, which is awesome for traveling since all the needles are attached to the project at all times (I can't tell you how many times I've had to go searching for a missing double pointed needle before the two circular needle method was invented). I'm also working on an original design for a felted purse organizer. And since I finished the handwarmers and the Christmas tree skirt, my grandson's mommy has requested a pair of handwarmers and my mom said that she could really use a small Christmas tree skirt.

I guess this proves that, despite the insistence of my kids, I do NOT knit in my sleep. If I were knitting an extra six hours a night I wouldn't be this far behind on everything. I'll try to catch up and get a picture post up soon.

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

....without whom I would not be the knitlady. When I was very young and played with baby dolls and Barbies, my mom knitted lots of doll clothes because the store bought doll clothes were very expensive and not well made. When I was nine years old, she taught me to knit. My first "big" project was a robin blue cardigan which I finished before I was ten. I've been knitting off and on ever since.

When my kids were small I didn't have as much time to knit as I have now, so a lot of the special knitted things my kids wore came from their Grandma Nancy. Now my grandson is happily wearing a blue hat with a yellow smiley face and a pair of blue mittens that his daddy wore when he was little.

When my daughter was seven, she wanted to knit, and I was delighted to teach her. She knitted off and on for several years but pretty much gave up knitting when she went off to college and had to fit work as well as study time into her busy schedule. I hope that she will be inspired to pick up her needles again sometime and rediscover the pleasure and relaxation that come from this awesome craft. And so it passes through the generations....

Happy Birthday, Mom! And thank you for the wonderful gift you gave me those many years ago when you patiently taught me to knit, purl, increase, decrease, cast on, and bind off!

O Christmas Tree

Okay, never mind that it's now January. Mike left the little tree up a few extra days because I was working on this tree skirt to fit our little Christmas tree.I think it actually turned out pretty well. Of course I'll have to press out the points a bit when I drag out the iron (which I had no intention of doing at 11:45 p.m. on Friday when I finished this thing). At any rate it definitely looks better than the other tree skirt that I had there before. It's just the right size and a little more colorful than the oversized plain white one it replaced (actually sized for a regular tree, not a miniature tree).


Now I guess Mike can finally take down the last Christmas tree for this year, and I'll pack the tree skirt safely away to enjoy next year.

Coming next: yoga mat bags and brain overload.

First FO of 2009......

And it's something that wasn't even on the project list!

Last Sunday evening I went to our church's Taize' service, and as I was sitting in the darkened sanctuary I realized that my hands were really cold. Because of my age and stage of life (think internal hormonal heating) I rarely get cold, but my hands were uncomfortable that evening. I came home after the service and promptly cast on a pair of fingerless mitts/handwarmers/wrist warmers in a mock baby cable rib pattern that I've used before on socks and even a baby blanket.

I finished them up last night but was way too tired to take photos and post by the time I got done. So here they are:

Naturally my youngest son accused me of leaving parts missing, and asked me why I couldn't just knit faster to warm up my hands. But I was very happy with the way that they turned out, and I'll probably make up a few more pairs to add to my Etsy site.

I'm also looking at knitting a few yoga mat bags, since I've run across a couple of patterns, and I've been told that the yoga students at the local university will buy anything. I also need to replenish my stock of fruit hats for the craft fairs. So the to-do list is increasing much faster than my stock of finished objects. I guess it's time to get away from the computer and go back to knitting.

Goals for 2009

Happy New Year to everyone! I am hoping that 2009 turns out to be an easier year than 2008 was. Of course it's already off to a better start since we're almost three whole days into the new year and no disasters have occurred yet (knocking on wood until my knuckles are sore!).

While reading a few other blogs that I follow I noticed one post containing photos of all the items the poster had knitted in the year just past. Needless to say, I functioned nowhere near that level of efficiency last year. In fact the vast majority of things I knitted were out the door and gone before I even thought to photograph them and blog about them. My goal for this year is to at least mention every project that I work on during the year and to post more frequently.

Right now I'm knitting a small Christmas tree skirt. We have a small fiber optic Christmas tree that's about two feet tall which sits on the corner of the piano (in addition to the regular tree in front of the living room window). When we were setting it up I decided to spiff it up a bit, and dug a tree skirt out of my craft show box to put around the little tree. While it is very pretty it is of course much too large for the little tree. So after all the commotion of Christmas stockings and other craziness was finished, I decided that this would be a good time to knit a tree skirt that was made for that specific tree. I started working on it yesterday morning, and I've frogged one section about five times now. Finally I realized that I needed to make more sections and therefore more increases per row so that it would be more flat as opposed to conical (did I mention that I'm knitting by the seat of my pants as opposed to following a pattern?). Once I adjusted the number of sections it has gone very well and I just need to keep knitting for a while to make it bigger.

Next projects on the knitting list (not necessarily in this order):

1. finish up the two prayer shawls I started before the Christmas rush - one for a local friend who lost her son unexpectedly this fall and one for a five-year-old who has recently been treated for cancer;
2. an out-of-season Christmas stocking - I've had the pattern idea floating around in my head ever since I finished up the last set of stockings right before Christmas but really didn't want to tackle yet another stocking right away;
3. a fairisle hat with earflaps for a dear friend of mine - yet another patternless project. E sent me a photo from a catalog and asked me to make a hat like it for her. She didn't want to buy the one from the catalog because a) it had a little bit of green in it and she hates green; and b) she would rather give her money to me than this impersonal company;
4. several pairs of socks for myself (actually I hope to knit at least one item every month this year that I get to KEEP!), my beloved spouse, and other fortunate family members;
   
5. a couple of felted bags to sell on my Etsy website, along with a purse organizer that I've been designing in my head for a couple of months now;
6. at least a couple more snowball hats to get the pattern transcribed for sale on my Etsy site; and
7. the ever-present cotton dishcloths that I work on when I need a totally mindless knitting project.
   

I'd guess that this list ought to keep me busy for at least most of January. If not, there are at least another half-dozen projects waiting in the wings when I get these finished up. If I totally run out of ideas I also have a fair amount of WIPs and UFOs that I can tackle as well.