Rabbit Wrap-up

Well, I worked hard and finished the next toy just in time for the baby shower. Rather, just in time to decide that I was feeling too sick to go to the baby shower :( So I took some pictures and had him delivered later that day.

He's a little floppier than I had intended, but I can always stuff him some more if the parents want. Once again I have used Plymouth Encore Worsted Weight, my go-to yarn for toys. A wide range of colors and machine washable is a hard-to-beat combination for this purpose. It's also nice to knit with this yarn, and it's smooth enough to make a good surface for the toys. Worsted weight on a size 5 needle holds in the stuffing well. The vest here was knit on size 7 needles. Here's a side view so you can (kind of) see the pom-pom tail.

The pattern is Ricky Rabbit from Toys to Knit by Tracy Chapman. I've made several things out of this book, and I think the projects are all really cute. I don't think I'd recommend them to a beginner knitter, though. It's not that the knitting is extra difficult or tricky; although knitting shaped pieces for toys does require the use of many techniques, and that's one reason I enjoy it so much. In each of the patterns I've made from this book, there's been at least one point in the instructions where I've said, "Wait, what?" A point where I had to stop and decipher the intent of the instructions and couldn't simply follow the words step-by-step. It makes it a little more difficult, and a little more frustrating, but none of the challenges have been enough to make me stop knitting any particular toy, or to keep me from going back to this book.

I'm pretty pleased with Mr. Rabbit's bow tie. I have a pretty good ribbon stash. Mostly scraps and remnants, but not all, and so far I always seem to come up with the right ribbon for what I need.

Next up: Washcloth update, followed by more baby knitting.

Time out for toys

This month I have found that suddenly I am knitting only toys. I enjoy making toys, but they don't seem to inspire me to blog very much. People are always impressed with the finished objects, but while in process, they don't tend to look like much. Additionally, I've been dividing my attentions among three projects. This makes them all go more slowly, but helps keep me moving on them by having a small range of choices -- I can stuff or knit or sew up depending on available time and/or brainpower. But there doesn't seem to be many good picture opportunities throughout this process. For example, here is a picture of my current focus:

Not much to see yet. This project is due this weekend, so I'll tell more about after then.

I have finally finished one of the toys, and gifted it last weekend. Nephew R turned three, and is (of course) interested in dinosaurs.

So I made him a stegosaurus. The pattern is by Jacob Haller and can be found here on his blog, What Cheer, Netop? It's a straightforward and easy-to-use pattern, and there are more than 150 Ravelry projects using it. Ravelry is such a fantastic tool. I can think "Hey, I'll knit my nephew a dinosaur toy," and right away have more than 50 options at my fingertips.

I made this using Plymouth Encore Worsted Weight, in blue and red colors that I had in my stash. Using size 5 needles makes it tight enough to hold the stuffing well. Hopefully I can use the energy boost from finishing this project to help me finish the next two quickly.

Spring Sorting

It's been a beautiful warm spring day today. When I got home from a lovely picnic with the husband, I decided it was time for my stash and I to have Words. Now I did not have Words with the entire stash - just the canopy of the stash. This is the more active part of the stash, which lives in the living room; the rest lives in a trunk on the sun porch. The Words I intended to have were words like "organize" and "what the hell happened to my size 6 double points?"

Between Olympic knitting and marathon baby blanket knitting, I've fallen behind on the orders I took for fingerless mitts back in January. Babies, it turns out, are not very accommodating about moving their birthdays around for knitting purposes. Now that it's time to get back at the mitts orders, I couldn't find the size 6 dpns I had been using for these projects. I knew that they were stuck in the beginnings of a mitt, I just didn't know where that was. So I pulled all the "active" stash and project bags out onto the sun porch for a good spring sorting. Here is where I started:

Here is what I found and organized out of all that. First, some fairly self-contained projects.
Some miscellaneous finished projects - including hats to give away and my Olympic totem person.

The cabled cardigan I'm making for myself. This is the second of the two front pieces, and my goal is to have this done by fall.

My Dad's Christmas sweater vest. It's too big. I think I'll try blocking it again, but I think in the end I'm going to just have to do it over. Working on coming to terms with that, and hoping to do it in late spring/early summer.

This little mess is on its way to becoming an amigurumi jackalope. I actually really like this project, but had to abscond with the size 5 and 6 dpns for the fingerless mitts. Due date June.

Then there's my Olympic Knitting project. A Dale of Norway baby sweater for my cousin's first baby. Liam Knight was born on March 20, and as soon as the sleeves are sewn in, the nose and whiskers of the seal are sewn on, and it gets a final, thorough blocking, this will be in the mail.

The Hempathy guitar strap for my brother that has been on the needles seemingly forever, but actually only since July. I promised him this would be the first thing that got my attention after the Christmas knitting was over. It was, too. Just not for very long. There are one or two more feet left to go. On size 1 dpns, cabling every 4th row. Also a summer project.

After I pulled out and re-bagged these projects, I had a bunch of yarn to sort into categories. First, my sock yarn and a few other yarns that were Christmas gifts:

Then the stash of Plymouth Encore that is mostly designated to become amigurumi:

The drawer full of yarn for baby sweaters, toys and blankets:

The dishcloth cotton stash, including a few completed dishcloths:

The small portion of the Christmas Stocking Stash that was at the bottom of the living room stash. This has since gotten packed away into the trunk with its brethren.

Finally, the small stash of alpaca and merino that I'm using to make the fingerless mitts and few other things that people have ordered from me. See the navy blue on the bottom right? Its partner skein is the one that has begun to turn into a mitt and contains the elusive size 6dpns.

So at this point, I'd sorted most everything and gotten quite organized, but still hadn't found the needles that were the reason for this exercise. After racking my brain for awhile about all the bags I've touched since New Year's, I went to a purse that I haven't carried in a month and half, and in which I'd completely forgotten that I put knitting:

And of course that's where they were. Along with the little scissors I've been wondering about, too. So now my Spring Stash Sort is complete, my living room is tidier, and I have a nice basket full of the supplies to finish the orders from January, as well as a few little gifts, and something (someday) for me.

Catching up on Pictures

Here are some of the pictures I promised in my previous post.

Mom's Christmas present Fetching:

A rusty red shade of Misty Alpaca worsted weight, knit on size 6. I adjusted the pattern to be a bit smaller - I worked 8 rib repeats around instead of 9, and the thumb has a few fewer stitches. I skipped the picot bind-off. She'll be wearing them at work to type all the time, and it seemed like that might get in her way.
Toys:
Loch Ness Monster for Nephew S.

This is knit on size 5 needles in Encore worsted colors 1604 (upper body) and 555 (belly) and snippets of brown for the eyes. He loves dinosaurs so this seemed perfect. The pattern is in the book Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh. A great book!

Nursery Balls for Nephew R. and Niece S.

You can't really see in these pictures, but on the blue and white ball the white sections have two pink hearts on them. These were made from my stash of leftover baby yarns. The pattern is in a knitted toys book that seems to have wandered away from me just now. The pattern calls for making each section separately and then seaming them together. I did that for the white & blue one, but I made the green and yellow one in one piece using intarsia. It worked fairly well once I got it started, but I wouldn't try to do that with striped sections or anything.

There will be more pictures of toys to come, and now I'm working away on MANY fingerless mitts, so there will be lots of that in the near future.

Fall Frenzy

Fall is definitely great knitting time for me. For a while now I was waiting to blog until I could take some good pictures, but it turns out that my camera is on the fritz. I thought at first that it was the rechargeable batteries being wimpy, but it isn't. Fortunately the camera is still under warranty, and the husband is a techie-guy, so that will sort itself out. Meanwhile, a picture-less update.

The LYS, Lambikin's Hideaway, had a great yarn tasting and fashion show on Hallowe'en. It was a lot of fun to spend several hours with so many knitters, checking out so many great new yarns, snacking, and learning a few new techniques. The whole staff did a great job putting on a pretty intense and seriously fun afternoon. My entries for the fashion show were the Marjorie sweater I made my mom for Christmas last year and my new Clessidra socks. The socks won the prize for difficulty/technique. I'm still very enamored of these socks and have worn them several times.

I came home with one of the $1 old magazines and a whole bunch of one of the featured yarns of day, Portland Tweed from Classic Elite Yarns in a blue jean color (#5047). This yarn is going to become the Wrap Cardigan (Ravelry link) from Contemporary Knitting by Jo Sharp, my first sweater for myself! Lambikin's will be offering a class on this sweater in early 2010, and the book comes with the class. I'm really looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, I'm still knitting on the 2009 Secret Christmas Project, although the second half is going a little more slowly than the first half. I'm also knitting some amigurumi from a book I was given for my birthday. I've almost finished a fish and have started a jackalope. I'll write more about those in a while, because there's something else that has taken most of my knitting energy recently.

More Washcloths!
I've been sick, kinda sick, recuperating, and trying not to get sick again for large portions of the last two months. Washcloths seem to be the greatest project for knitting when I don't have a lot of mental or physical energy and need something comforting to do. Also on Hallowe'en I restocked my stash of Sugar 'n Cream cotton and have been churning out washcloths at the rate of nearly one a day. I've also recently borrowed the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book from the local public library, so perhaps that has influenced me. My total tally of washcloths for the year stands at twenty. Twenty. I hope my family isn't tired of getting washcloths for Christmas yet.