Pastel Baby Booties

Here is my daughter with the baby booties I knitted for her.

Ravelry

If you are on Ravelry, please add me as a friend. http://www.ravelry.com/people/knitabitofmagic I haven't done much on that site yet, but then I found out one of my real life friends is in it so I'm sure I'll be using it a lot more now. And maybe if I start keeping track of my projects over there I'll get more of them finished.

I was looking at sock yarn yesterday at Joanns. It looks like the socks would be $10 a pair to make. I can't say I've ever spent $10 on a pair of socks in my life. But the yarn is lovely. I have a thing for self-striping yarn. So if any of it should ever come my way via birthdays or holidays, I wouldn't turn it down.

Knit a Bunny Rabbit

I'm designing a new bunny rabbit. So far I have his head, ears, and half his body knitted. He is purple. My fingers were getting pretty worn out last night so I had to put the bunny down. It's so hard to stop isn't it? But I don't want to injure my hands again. They've been doing pretty well lately.

This is a prototype. That means there is no existing pattern. It's trial and error. People wonder why one of a kind items cost more. It's because so much time is invested in research and developement. I may have to make four or five of these to work the bugs out. A prototype item will always take a lot longer to make than something done in assembly line fashion.

Knitting Event June 19 at El Dorado Park

My friend Renata said that on June 19th 2010 we are meeting again to celebrate World Juggling Day and a knit-a-long at El Dorado Regional Park in Long Beach CA. There is a park entrance gate that was $8 to drive in last time I went but other than that the event is free. Jugglers, knitters, spinners, weavers and archers are all welcome. The archery range is right there. We will be under the trees at the back of the archery range (by the street). There is no nearby street parking so I recommend carpooling or paying the gate fee. The last time I went it was a potluck, so you might want to bring food to share.

Teach a Friend to Knit

Tomorrow I'm going to teach my friend to knit. I printed up a few pages of basics so she has some reference material when she gets home, because she can't kidnap me. I read once that most people learn to knit an average of 7 times before it sticks with them. That's because we stop knitting for months or years at a time. But if you do it a few times a week you'll remember it.

Mock Cable Pattern

I wanted to add a bit of knitting to a frou frou peach colored scarflette I'm making. So I found a mock cable pattern to try and made a swatch of it in bright white. But although the piece will fit in the space I have for it, the bright white is just too jarring next to the peach  and ivory tones. So I will save that piece for another project and make another one in ivory when I have time again.

Ravelry

I just joined Ravelry http://www.ravelry.com/people/knitabitofmagic and I really like it so far. They kept mentioning it on the Knit and Crochet TV series and I finally remembered to go look for it.

Bunny or Bear?

I actually found some nice Caron yarn at the dollar store. So I took the color Mulberry Mist and started knitting a teddy bear. Then I thought that since it's almost Easter I might knit a bunny. I'm starting with the feet and the ears come last so I still have time to mull it over. I'm using a technique with straight needles where you cast on 8 stitches, pull out some yarn from the skein for a butterfly bobbin, and cut the yarn.

Then using the main skein, cast on another 8 stitches. That way you knit both feet at once and they come out even without any guesswork. This technique can be used to make dolls or humanoid forms of teddy bears, bunnies, and so forth. Eventually you join the feet together and knit the torso. Then cast on enough yarn before and after the torso for the arms. Maybe this is hard to visualize but I'll take photos as I go along.

Last year I knitted my grandson a bunny rabbit for Easter. I'm thinking of giving him another one this year and starting a tradition of a new bunny each year.

Update:
I've decided to explore the bunny idea. I'm calling this the All-in-One-Bunny because it's made all in one piece. I didn't invent this techinique. I learned it about 30 years ago. And it was a doll, not a bunny.

Here you see the two feet knitted side by side in garter stitch. (Knit every row).

Keep going with the legs until they are the length you want.

When the legs are long enough, working from the right side, knit straight across to join.

Switch to stockinette stitch and continue with torso.

Here I've worked on the torso and added a few purl stitches to make a belly button. It's almost long enough to add the arms.

'to be continued'

Knitting a Goblin Hat

My hands have been in pain so it's put a serious damper on my knitting. So I've decided to spend some time mentoring new knitters instead of knitting myself. I did do just a bit of knitting on a hat band this morning for a knitted cap I've come to call the Maize Hat. The band is the easy part, so if I can just get through that I'll have a new goblin hat. Yay! It's raining today so it's a good day for knitting.

Mother Bear Project

As soon as I get paid again for something I'm going to send for a knitting teddy bear pattern for the Mother Bear Project. They've given nearly 50,000 teddy bears to children with HIV/Aids in Africa and other places. All bears are made from the same pattern, and either knit or crocheted. I'm just ordering the pattern because I already have yarn and needles. Just the pattern is $5.00. If you need a whole kit, it's $20.00. If you are near Anaheim CA it would be great to have a group gathering for bears. What do you say? http://www.motherbearproject.org/

More Reasons to Knit

Lucky me, I was going through some old magazines, and I just happened upon a Vogue Knitting from winter 2007 that's full of Valentine's Day ideas. So I started straight away knitting a heart motif in black yarn that I will probably put on a T-shirt and let the shirt show through the lace part. And I got that idea from the TV show http://knitandcrochettoday.com/ rerun where they featured circular crocheted motifs around the neckline of a t-shirt. My imagination grabs things like that and just runs to the knitting needle organizer.

In other news, just before Christmas I started knitting my daughter a baby cocoon and a few days ago she called to say she's pregnant with her first child. Now I definitely have to finish that cocoon because they work best for baby photography when the baby is 0 to 3 months old. And I never told her I was making it so it will be a surprise for sure. (Unless she reads my blog). But she's far too busy right now for blog reading.

Drop Spindle Dyeing Wool

I dyed some wool in Kool-Aid and I'm amazed at how vivid the color is. It is harder to spin though. A spinner on Etsy said that when you dye yarn it can compact and be harder to spin. So I think I'm going to spin first and then dye. Does anyone else have thoughts on that?

Drop Spindle Making Yarn

I got to work with the drop spindle I made from a toy car wheel and a dowel. The video I saw on youtube gave me some useful tips, so I was able to make better yarn than I have in the past. I had less breakage and a more consistant size than I used to have when I was using trial and error. And now I know how to ply it and wet it and hang a weight on it to dry, so I can eventually even knit with it. That's where I was stuck. Once I had a bobbin full of single ply yarn that would go to pieces if I let the tension off, I had no idea what to do next. Thanks to all you out there that are making free tutorials for people like me.

This spindle is a top whorl  job. But I also made a bobbin whorl to try next. Then I can dye some roving to make my plied yarn more interesting. Sooner or later I'm going to be able to knit with this stuff. I'm looking forward to that.

Maize Bonnet

First thing this morning I worked on a bonnet I'm knitting. It is a maize colored yarn for the background with a little Fair Isle work on the surface. The white yarn is a bamboo and acrylic blend, and it's been too soft and fussy. I won't try that again. Not all yarns play well together. Used by itself though, it will make the softest pair of baby booties or a baby cocoon. I've been wanting to try a baby cocoon on the Knifty Knitter loom. But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I need to finish a few other hats I already have started.

Orange and Blue Hand Knitted Hats

I wanted to show off the two hats I just finished. Now I'm working on one that's a spiral design. Each color is six rows wide but I was watching TV while knitting last night and goofed and made one color 8 rows wide. I didn't noticed until I'd knitted about 20 more rows. I ripped it out back to the error, then reknitted about 10 rows and realized I still had one row too many. Rather than rip it out again, I put the project to bed and didn't feel like working on it today either. Maybe tomorrow. But here are the photos. The blue one is already spoken for. I'll put the orange one in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested.

Orange and White Beanie

Last night I started right in with another hat in bright orange and white. Once again I'm chastizing myself knowing that people keep telling me bright colors won't sell and multicolored hats won't sell and I should stick to solid earthtones. I've tried, honest, but solid earthtones bore me to tears. I must have clown DNA. Who wants to wears a depressing color on a foggy winter day? Not I!

Need a Free Hat Pattern?

No time to design your own pattern? Surely you will find a hat you like on this list: HATS TO KNIT

Hat Knitting

Here it is almost 3 AM in Calif. and I surfed onto a knitters website. He makes hats both knitted and crocheted so check him out. I love the way he put together his webpage and I like the idea of secret sales, because you could surf onto the site just for fun and catch something on sale. What a clever way to get people to keep on coming back for more.

As far as hats go I almost have another one finished. I just have to sew in the loose ends and mail it tomorrow. Hats rock.

New Knitters

Yesterday I was at a writer's meeting and mentioned knitting and found out the 2 people sitting next to me had just learned how to knit. I got so excited. Like most beginners they started with a scarf. Oh no! So we are going to get together so I can show them how to knit a hat to go with their scarves. Fun. I wonder if they'll be at the writer's meeting tonight.

To get in the mood for winter I added a snow widget to my blog. It never snows where I live so I have to bring my winter wonderland to my blog instead.

Knitting a Rug

I dragged the rug I'm making into my bedroom so I can knit while various things are uploading. So far it is olive green wool, royal blue, and deep purple. It's amazing how much down time there is on a computer waiting for it to finish this or that funtion.
It's already looking darn and chilly outside. I was going to cut out some aprons on my front porch, but I think I will wait on that until the light is better. My back was sore when I got up this morning so I'm trying to take it easy. Right now I'm getting the afternoon sleepies.
I need to organize my yarn better. I'm not making the best of it. Everything is chaos.
But for the moment there is some pumpkin cheesecake in the fridge that is calling my name.