Socks for Jer

Last year right before Jer's birthday, I started making him socks with some lovely blue sock yarn I had bought from knitpicks. I knew I wanted to make socks at some point, and I finally got around to trying.

I knew I wouldn't finish the socks for him in time for his birthday, but I wanted to make them anyway. Well, I started in on this project right before starting work at Blue Ridge Community College, and my summer Quarter at Drexel. The project was quickly set aside. It didn't help that I found sock patterns confusing, and opted to wing it. This usually works okay for me, but I was missing something fairly important this time.

Now that I am working at Mary Baldwin, but more importantly, that I have graduated and have more time on my hands, I picked the socks back up, frogged the entire project (more than once) and started again with the knitty socks 101 pattern.

It look a bit of mind bending, but I get how it works now, and I have a pair of long overdue birthday socks to show for it. Best yet, Jer loves them! He won't wear scarves, and has little desire for multiple hats or gloves (and rarely wears the ones I have made for him), and the sweater vest I made for him years ago spends 364 days out of the year in a drawer. SO! I'm exceptionally happy to find that socks may be the thing I can make for him that he enjoys and will wear fairly often!

 Jer's at work, so I modeled them. They fit Jer better than they fit me, but you get the idea. Socks a'hoy!

Mom's Hat: UPDATE

Everybody is getting hats these days!

Here's mom in the hat I posted about making for her. I think she likes it!

Dad's Hat: UPDATE

My dad received his hat in the post today! I blame the sizing issues on his inability to measure his head, but it isn't too big or too small around his head, so I'm calling it a hilarious win.

Dad's Breast Hat

I made my mother a hat with owls. My father wanted a hat too, so I asked him what kind of hat he wanted. If you know my father, his answer won't surprise you.

It's a boob. Like the cute little beanies that nursing babies wear- only sized for an adult man. Yeah, that's not weird at all. With the resizing it is quite the boob, too. In fact it is frighteningly large.

New Hair Accessories

 I've been experimenting with a few new designs for stylish hair do-dads. In the picture above, you can see the snap clip variety. I love these because the leaf covers the silver snap clip.

I've also been working on some more barrettes- and I think these cables are just the right side. The single color keeps it simple, while the cable adds depth. I'm looking forward to working up some more in different colors and patterns.

Mom's Owl Hat

 Last October (I know, I can be a terrible procrastinator), my mom impulse bought some Llama yarn from Swiss Kid Llamas (http://www.safarmersmarket.com/Vendors/watts.htm, http://www.etsy.com/shop/swisskiddesigns) at our Farmer's Market. The farmer's market is great, and I've really missed it this winter. I probably wouldn't be super enthusiastic about walking down there in the cold, but I sure do miss the fresh produce. 

Anyway, back to the yarn. My mom has these beautiful blue eyes and silver hair, so naturally everything I make for her is blue. She picked out some yarn, and wanted me to make her a hat with owls, like the sweater I'd made for myself.

Now, I love that sweater. No buts, I adore it. You can buy the pattern here: (http://katedaviesdesigns.com/designs/o-w-l-s/) and if you are into that sort of thing, there's a version for the kiddos. It's made from super heavy yarn and knitted up rather quickly. That big yarn though, is HUGE  in comparison to the "DK" weight of the llama yarn, that in many places is much smaller- so I hope my mother is expecting tiny adorable owls, as that's what she's getting.

Here are a few pictures of the first few chaotic rows. In the second picture here you can see the 2X2 ribbing starting to emerge.

Here you can see the bottoms of the owls forming

As an aside, I'd like to say that point protectors should more correctly be called sanity protectors (I know, not a nice ring), because had I not discovered these amazing knitpicks.com point protectors in my little bag of tricks, I would have ripped my hair out by now. As it is, I've lost and saved countless stitches off the ends of my new sock needles.

In these pictures, you can see the owls fully formed. I have a few more rows to finish the hat- but the owls are snug there around the rim. 

Here you can see the teeny tiny buttons I sewed on as eyes to three lucky owls in the front. I thought it would be too much to give all of the owls eyes, but the three that have them will bring attention to the others, too. 

Too much? Too little?

I was a bit worried that the hat would be too small- I even knitted a gauge swatch before hand, which I don't like doing. I think it worked out though- I wore it for a few minutes and it didn't make my head hurt- so anyone else on the planet should be able to wear it just fine. I know my mom likes long hats- but any longer and this one would get in the way of seeing clearly, so I think we're good there.

I really like the loose look to the top here. It isn't the only way obviously, and for more stylized hats neater is nicer, but this looks so comfortable.

Bow Barrette

I made an order recently to get some yarn for a hat for my father. To qualify my order for free shipping, I also chose this wonderful orange sale sock yarn. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make socks (I only had one skien, I should be working on projects for other people...) but I couldn't resist pulling it out. I bought a set of cheap barrettes, and the decorative bit broke off of one of them. So obviously, this meant I had to make myself a hair do-dad.

Here you see most of the parts before I assembled it. I knitted a small, slim rectangle and sewing it over the barrette, with an additional layer of felt between the metal and the knitting (there were some snaggy bits, and I didn't want it to ruin the knitting, or tear a hole). I put it all together, and stitched it liberally to the barrette, I hope it will stay in place for a long while. 

Here's the final product. I really like it. While it does have a profile, it doesn't look bad from the side at all. That's my biggest pet peeve with those huge rockabilly flower hair things- they only look good head on. This bow, while being sizable, still looks pretty good from all angles. 

Headbands

Around the holidays this past year I made a shawl for a friend of mine with a beautiful leaf edging. In love with the edging, but less with the time involved with making the shawl- I make this headband out of the leftover yarn and the leaf pattern. I really love it because with my almost constant headache, commercially available headbands are too tight. I made this one loose enough that I can wear it most days. 

Also, I acquired a Styrofoam head.

I had some leftover fingering weight yarn and new sock needles, so I started working on another headband a few days ago. I love knitting in the round. Not the first few rows, mind you- there it is nothing but spiky chaos, but after that it picks up a nice rhythm and stockinette doesn't require any purling.

I ran out well before the headband was long enough, and switched over the the closest color I had which was much larger, and larger needles. I decreased a few times, and churned out the remainder of the headband in record time- considering how long the it took with the smaller needles. I love the final product, but it takes some time.

 Here's this headband on my Styrofoam head. The color change is totally hidden in the back.

Organized Crafting

I tell myself I want to do many things. I can't count the number of projects I have started and then stashed and forgotten about. The last few days however, I've been on a serious productivity roll. I think it has something to do with being so close to the end of this quarter- I just turned in two large final projects and all the sudden have mental and physical energy aplenty. 

Anyway, I used some upholstery fabric left over from a renaissance fair bodice to make cases for my knitting needles and crochet hooks. I've made attempts at this before (I don't recommend crochet- the small hooks slip right through), but neither worked out for various reasons. 

The new set is both functional and attractive- or I think so. Judge for yourself. 

This is all three pieces together. The small blob holds stitch markers, point protectors, a set of small scissors, etc. 

The construction is actually pretty simple. I measured the height of my tools and knew I wanted the width when closed to be about five inches- so the width when open is about four times that- 20 inches. Then I cut enough of the dark blue to make a small pocket, and enough of the red to make a slightly higher pocket. My iron was my best friend! It really helped when I closed off the edges- the bias tape I had wasn't wide enough, so I made my own out of more of the red fabric.

Here's the inside of the little guy. It was a lot of small area sewing. I'm really proud of both myself and my brother sewing machine. He worked like a champ. I pilfered the zipper from a bag of Basmati rice- and it didn't have guards on either end of the zipper. I lost the zipper pull a few times. The little guy is cute and is intended to fit in project bags. 

I'm hoping to be a more productive crafter and blogger- so here's to organized productivity!