My son has been busy knitting on his flatbed knitting machine. He is having so much fun creating these hats from his fingering alpaca yarn!
I love fall (except that it means winter is coming) for all the colors of the trees. These are two of the trees on my son’s farm. Maples, so pretty. I took these a couple of weeks ago, the leaves have all fallen now. So after Christmas I will be going, “Is it Spring yet?”
This was the Halloween celebration at the farm this past Saturday :). The first two pictures are some of his decorations, then there are several pictures of the alpacas wearing costumes, lol, some of them had trouble leaving them on! You can see the male behind the fence with a bow tie and little Apollo also has a tie on, some of the females were wearing hats. Libby the llama said, nope! They will be decked out at Christmas too :).
The next to the last picture is some sport weight hand spun I turned into a hat for my friend that gave me the smaller wheel that I use at the farm during alpaca days to show spinning to the people who come out to enjoy the alpacas as a thank you. It’s a paid for pattern, Husband Request Hat on Ravelry. I changed it a little so I made it a little longer and knit 4 purl 2 so it’s a little more stretchy, but I wasn’t sure of his head measurements and I am not a fan of the hats that fit skin tight so I thought this was the best way to go. Hope it fits him :P.
The last picture is the new hat I’m working on with the Hats for Warmth project I work on for our local homeless shelter. This will be hat number 5 this year, one more after this and I will send them off to the shelter. I am using a #6 16″ circular needle and I Love This Yarn in the print color #red tweed. It’s not really a tweed, it’s a darker red with black speckles on it, LOL, but it is pretty. I am enjoying knitting it.
Time for a knitting update. Picture one – (if you click on the picture it will enlarge) I have been working on my Hats for Warmth project so I will have hats for the homeless shelter this fall, gotta get a head start on it :P. The finished one is from I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby, color Deep Sea Diving/842. The one next to it is still from Hobby Lobby but it’s their Yarn ID, color Indigo, it looks like a denim. Really pretty. I am also using that same yarn and color for a new Look for Happiness Blanket. I really like the softness of this yarn. I love this pattern and find it extremely comforting and peaceful to knit. It is for a Christmas gift and since it’s the medium size instead of the baby size, it will take about 6 skeins, I decided I needed to start early, but to be honest, I don’t mind knitting on it all year long at all.
The 2nd picture is an Agaparthus plant. My son gave it to me about 5 or 6 years ago for Mother’s Day and it did well outside the first year and had so many blooms. It did not like it inside my house tho’ when winter came and I needed to bring it in, I do not have the full sun it needs inside my apt. I struggled to barely kept it alive and because it was so weak I was afraid to leave it outside in our sometimes windy and very hot summers , and then all of a sudden it’s come back to life and has a stalk that might actually bloom. When I know the warm is here to stay I will try to put it outside again and hope it will grow!! Time will tell.
I finished the Look for Happiness baby blanket for an expectant mother in my church. :). Hope she likes it. It was a very enjoyable knit, not complicated, but enough “need to pay attention to one of the rows” to keep your interest. I found it a relaxing knit. 🙂
On March 19th we had a little hail storm. I thought it was just a really heavy rain, until I saw these (2nd picture) on my balcony!!
I had the hat finished that I was working on with this skein of yarn I (that I had finished spinning for the 2023 Tour de Fleece) but was not satisfied with the hat at all!! The yarn was too thick and the needles I had gone down a couple of sizes, trying to compensate for the yarn weight, were a size or two to small and made it too dense and it was still to big and the cables didn’t show well. So I frogged it, sorry I never did get a picture of it. The yarn is a light bulky (because it’s a tweed) and the pattern called for a dk weight. I have chosen another pattern but will probably still have to adjust it, or maybe just keep looking for a better pattern.
Hope everyone is safe with all the crazy weather, take care, be safe!
Added another word to the hat tags, hope they will feel loved. These are sewn in, was afraid the pop on brads might come off in the wash.
The next picture is of some Christmas die cut stickers. They will look good on wood to make Christmas tree decoration gifts. They are from SimpleSouthernMommy on Etsy, she even sent samples of some of her other designs :).
The last picture is of my son’s young peacock trying to strut his stuff, lol. He has about 2 more years before he has all his feathers in proper and they are in full color, in the mean time he’s practicing :). My son in law said he was trying to impress the hens, they couldn’t have cared less. LOL
Time to update my knitting projects. In the top picture are two new for my Hats for Warmth Project I work on. I have 6 hats and the children will get 4, the other 2 will go in my bag to be sent to the shelter when I have 5 or 6 done. The hats I worked on during General Conference as I listened :). I use “I Love This Yarn” from Hobby Lobby, it’s a worsted weight yarn, and I use a size 5 (I knit a little loosely so I go down a size needle) 16″ circular needle (my favorite is the Knitters Pride Karbonz) in a two by two ribbing. For adults I like to make it 9 1/2 to 9 3/4 inches long so they can fold up the cuff (it’s too cold for a beanie here) and I don’t have to measure their heads for length that way :). ZeusHide on Etsy.
Next is the baby blanket I have been working on. This is a paid for pattern so I’ve linked to the Ravelry page so you can see more about it. I think I bought it from Webs patterns tho, I think that is where I first saw it. It is turning out to be a nice cosy easy knit. Turned out the lady I was knitting it for wasn’t pregnant (one reason I don’t ask because who wants to be embarrassed! LOL someone else asked). So I will continue to work on it at my leisure and enjoy the knit. Maybe it could be a lap blanket for someone at Christmas :). You can see the yarn I am using. It’s from Hobby Lobby, it’s soft, came in a large skein and was 30% off (which Hobby Lobby does every other week for its yarn). It will take the whole skein, but with the discount it was only a little over 8 dollars for the skien! It is a worsted weight 16oz skein, acrylic for easier washing. Without the discount it is $12.
The last small picture is 4 pairs of alpaca socks from my son’s store, a little critter snuck into his store and chewed them up. He had to go through all his merchandise to make sure everything else was ok and he put out traps to catch the little bugger. He’s not had the problem before so he’s looking to see where it came in at. He told me if I could fix them I could have them, so I said sure and I ordered what’s in the 4th picture, a nice darning set. The little flower looking thing is a needle threader, how cool!!! I was watching Knitting Expat from YouTube on her Finishing Fridays podcast and thought I could do that, no telling what they will look like but they will be wearable and since it’s on the toes or heels, no one will see it. They are different sizes so I think I can fix two of them one for my son and one for his spouse and the other two I can wear one and give the other one so someone else who wears an XL (it’s one of the colorful ones) tho with the toes involved, maybe it won’t be XL after I mend it lol. They are very thick and soft!
Gonna go make spaghetti for supper. 😉
I got my 3rd and final Fall Surprise Knitting Box from Twice Sheared Sheep. I don’t think anyone who gets this box follows me so I wouldn’t be giving anything away in case some haven’t gotten theirs yet. Lots of goodies! I forgot to put the bear tin back in the box for a picture of the full box, so I added it to the other things I took out to get a better picture of. I love the wolves mug, will serve many hot chocolate drinks! The mini skeins are a dk weight. Not sure what I will make with those, will have to think on it, they are soft :). There is a huge hat pom in there too! Will give the bag to my grand daughter M for her crochet, she is trying to learn. Love the counting stitch marker with the tree of life on it, it matches the progress keeper I made with a charm I received with one of my other fiber purchases. I’ll try to get a picture of that eventually, I keep forgetting (what else is new). The mushroom stitch markers I will use for progresss keepers :). I do love the bear tin for stitch markers and the very cute hedgehog tape measure. The card in there (took a picture of front and back) shows what is in the box and tells a little about them. She will be taking orders for the boxes again in Jan I think.
The first picture is of hats that I knit every year. I use I love this Yarn Print (it comes in various colors) by Hobby Lobby. I like the striping effect it gives on hats. This year they are going to a family of children who lost their mom (3 boys and a girl). I thought they might appreciate new hats for winter. Hope they will like them. For this pattern I use worsted weight yarn, and cast on 89 stitches (for small and medium adults), knitting in the round, doing a 2X2 rib (the extra stitch at the last is knitted with the first stitch to make a good join in the round. I use a 16″ circular needle, my favorite is the Karbonz, it’s carbon with a metal like tip so It’s light weight. I use size 5 needle because I knit a little looser with my knitting style (continental combined) but the pattern calls for a size 6. The 2X2 rib makes it pretty stretchy. You can use less stitches for children, or a lighter weight yarn adjusting your needle size, for a smaller hat, just make sure it’s an odd number of stitches.
Hope everyone is well and enjoying the weather before winter gets here. We are still going between fall and summer weather and I wish the first frost would come early, my allergies are so NOT FUN, even my antihistamine is not doing the trick this year, and I’ve tried several, sigh.
I finished the latest of the Hats for Warmth project. I liked the colors, hope it will keep someone warm next winter. I really like the cotton yarn I got at Hobby Lobby, I love this Cotton. It’s very soft and this was the 2nd wash cloth I got from it with some left over, tho I’m pretty sure I’d lose a game of yarn chicken if I started another, time to buy some more :P. This is the Granny’s Favorite dish cloth pattern, you can tell it’s a diagonal knit with the stripes. I’m going to start, some time this week, the 2nd bobbin of my multi color tweed spin. Still not sure if I want to chain ply each bobbin separately to keep the colors separate and have two half skeins or just go ahead and do a fractal ply. That’s me, last min decisions!
I try to have a picture of the Robbins when they first come back for spring. But they are not helpful in that aspect. I saw the first one about 6 weeks ago but they were only out where I could see them when I was driving and that wasn’t helpful. I was parked at the drs office earlier this week and lo and behold one where I could get a picture!!! He was running back and forth staking out his territory. I don’t get them every year because they are not always worried about rather I can get their picture or not lol. I have a feeling the males out there looking now probably missed the boat on a companion this year :(.
I forgot to get pictures when I was out at the farm :(, but I will try hard to remember to do that this next week. In the mean time here is one they took at the farm. I am calling the alpacas the motley crew right now because they are in need of sheering, which happens next month lol, then they will look more dignified and a lot thinner, their fleece is very thick. Can you find Libby? She’s only about 7 months old and already the size of the adult alpaca. They changed the llama’s name from Belle to Libby because my son has an African grey parrot named Belle (who is a character). Libby’s registered (call) name is When Liberty Rings. Libby the Llama has a ring to it, lol. She is friendly, no fear and sweet.
I decided it’s time to do this. The dishcloth is one I have worked on for a while because it’s my mindless knit and I only work on it when I’m bored doing laundry at the laundromat or in a car doing some waiting. It’s the grandma’s favorite discloth pattern, you can find it on Ravelry. I use Sugar and Cream, Stripes, this color was Country Stripes and a size 5 needle. I knit a little looser than most so I generally go down one needle size but for this pattern I go down 2 sizes.
The next two pictures are wips (works in progress for my non knitter friends). The hat is one of the hats for warmth I do for the shelter. I like to use the Hobby Lobby yarn I Love This Yarn. It’s a worsted yarn and I like the stripes this makes on a hat. This color number 424 Green/Turquoise/Red. The diagonal scarf was a scarf-a-long I started with a good friend several years ago. She was killed in an auto accident and so I work this scarf off and on as my brain is ok with it. I’m on the 2nd skein, it’s also a mindless knit project. I don’t know where I got the pattern but it’s very easy. Because you do the increase and decrease on one row and just knit the next row, I put a progress keeper on the right side (increase/decrease row) so I remember to increase and decrease :P.
The next picture is a wip spinning project, this fiber is Pop Rox from Camaj Fiber Arts. Almost done with the first bobbin. I thought maybe I would spin all of it on one bobbin and then chain ply but I don’t think I will be able to get the other half on there. On the side of the bobbin, I laid out the rest of this half of the fiber for you to see, then I have another bobbins worth. So I will go ahead and make this a fractal spin, it’s going to my eye dr, who is a knitter, for her daughter a hat. 🙂
The next two pictures are things I bought for myself for Valentine’s day :P. The fiber was something that I didn’t need at all but when I saw it I thought oh my gosh look at those colors! I bought it from Fiber Love Diary I got the last one in this color, it’s a gray BFL base dyed over, color is called Dark Prism. I loved the jewel tones.
The next item was something I needed but had put off a long time getting because it not cheap for the bulky flyer and 2 extra bobbins (the flyer comes with one bobbin) and tax and shipping. I don’t really spin bulky yarn but I needed something that would hold more than 4 ozs for plying. 2 ozs on each bobbin (you can see my reg bobbin on my wheel in the 4th picture) when plied together is over full on the reg bobbin for anything over a fingering weight otherwise I’m stuck just spinning up to 4 ozs of fiber. I have also wanted a Wooly Winder, but could only get one, and I can get by without the Wooly Winder, it just makes things easier, but I needed a flyer with a bigger bobbin more, sigh. Next time :P. I forgot to say I bought the bulky flyer for my Kromski Polonaise at Yarn Barn in Kansas.
We are getting snow tonight, the weatherman said a trace to 2 inches but he was leaning toward the 2 inches, dang we just got all our snow from before melted. Oh well, it’s still winter, I’ll live, spring is almost here!!!
This skein was very bulky, so using the same pattern Classic Cabled Hat by Destiny Meyer, I didn’t increase the number of stitches to get a larger hat because I was afraid it would make it too big since I was using a heavier yarn and I went up to a size 11 needle. I then had to figure out how many cables I could make for the length of the hat, and decided 2 and 5 rows going toward the 3rd cable and then to start the decreases. It turned out perfect. It so heavy it will be too warm to wear if the weather is above 0 :P. Because it is such a thick yarn I made the cuff the length I needed it to be without folding up. Hope it keeps him warm if we have anymore below 0 weather, which we should. We are in a third week of above average temps, in the 40’s and even up to 50 this coming week. Usually our mid winter thaw is 2 weeks, and our snow has melted mostly but not totally where they piled it up plowing driveways.
Hope you all have a great Sunday!
LDSVenus-knits 