Another knot bag is finished and in my Etsy shop. This design was fun to embroider, tho because of the number of stitches in the embroidery and the number of color changes was time consuming, but I think it turned out pretty nice :).
The Jasmine scarf I’m working on is coming along, I’m closer to finishing it. Hopefully it will be soon and I’ll post a picture of it before I mail it out to my friend.
I finally had some spare time to embroider and sew a new bag for my Etsy shop :). It is a cute little sheep, what better to grace a knitting/spinning project bag than a cute sheep :). I have another bag I have embroidered and will finish sewing tomorrow to list in the shop, and fabric for two more large bags, cute stuff :).
This time of year, with Spring not far off, I sure miss getting ready to start a garden and growing all the wonderful things it produces :). Going to try to get some squash plants to grow on my balcony again, maybe they will do better this year.
Well, my sock journey has begun. I chose Regia yarn color 03765. It has an interesting design and is fun to watch it unfold as I knit. I am using a size 1 Addi Turbo 8″ circular needle. Very small to knit with but since I really don’t like double pointed needles (which is why I haven’t been a big sock knitter), it’s working out all right. I had knit one pair of tube socks (no heel) on double pointed needles (see photo on the right), but this is a regular sock with a heel flap. We will see how it goes :P. The pattern, a basic sock pattern (it’s one she uses to teach new sock knitters and I have no link to share with you, sorry), was gifted to me by Benita aka the Fiber Pusher on Ravelry and she has a blog/podcast, Basically Benita , as well. You should check her out at either or both places :).
This scarf is called the Jasmine Scarf by Pearl Soho. I was intrigued with the pattern design. It looks like a herringbone design and is pretty. I’m hoping to have this done in the next week, I am making this for a friend who just had her last round of chemo and is cold and requested a scarf. I thought this design was pretty and wanted to use a nice warm yarn so I chose some of my prized Andean Yarns, Alpaquita Superfina. I was lucky enough a couple of years ago to buy a full pack of 8 skeins of this yarn because it is soooo soft and squishy. Unfortunately it is now discontinued, but I use it for special occasions :). My friend is special :).
The Basia Hat has been an easy and fun knit. We discovered that you can also wear it inside out! As you can see on the picture on the right it gives a honey comb effect. She liked both designs, but really liked the honey comb. Pretty cool to have a hat that can be worn right side out and inside out :).
Actually the color is closer to the picture on the left. It is shaded from darker to lighter, really pretty. It will be well loved 🙂
I put these two bags in my Etsy shop. I’ve made the Stress Zebra Knot Bag before for a friend but this one is for my shop, it’s just so cute. Don’t we all feel like this sometimes? The alpaca design looked very good, but it’s a pain to sew out because of all the thread color changes, even tho some of the colors are the same. Still it’s a nice looking design.
This hat, Basia, is a very nice knit and the texture design is pleasant to look at. I’m making this for a special family member who requested a hat from me. She said she wanted lavender, so I ordered the Lilac Jacquard acid dye for 1 of the polypay skeins I still have (only about 4 more skeins tho, have thoroughly enjoyed knitting them :P). I love the way kettle dying comes out, instead of one solid color they are usually shaded, no complaints here :). You can also see on the hat the beautiful stitch marker I got from MekaMika on etsy.
The mega snow storm missed us except for a trace of snow. I won’t complain, I didn’t want 1 or 2 feet of snow :). I love the El Ninos that come every few years, they make for a much more pleasant winter here :).
This will probably be my last winter bag, tho I’ve been known to change my mind before :). I liked this embroidery because it has a swirl that looks like a winter wind swirling around some really pretty snowflakes :). We finally started getting snow this month. I’m ready for Spring already tho. 🙂
Time to get my eyes checked again, I think I need new glasses for close up work, sigh.
Still working on the comfort shawl, have about 1 & 1/3 skeins left to knit. I know, I know, knit faster :P.
I decided to do some sewing this week end after removing some seasonal knot bags out of my Etsy shop. I decided I needed to add some more embroidered knot bags. The bag on the left is one I am sending to a knitting podcaster for review. It will be a way to get some exposure for my bags :). After she has reviewed it, I will put a link on my blog to her podcast :). I have another one embroidered but not sewn up yet and two more to be embroidered. The embroidered bags take longer to make due to the embroidery so they are a little more expensive.
I’m working on a comfort shawl for a friend who lost her companion this week. Loss is so hard :(.
The weather here has finally hit WINTER, ugh. We are suppose to be around -4 tonight but we are having high winds and they said that would make the wind chill between -20 and -30. But at least it will only be for tonight and tomorrow morning, then the winds die down and we will warm up just a bit. We will have snow on Monday and Tuesday and then we will warm back up into the 20’s in the day and teens at night :). Is it Spring yet?
I thought I had blogged on this addition to my Etsy shop but I don’t see it on my blog so I guess I only thought about it and didn’t follow through, sheesh. I loved this fabric because it was less busy and had those beautiful line drawn flowers in the background with some stamps that look like passport stamps, which adds background interest.
I’m working on another embroidered bag or two, hopefully will have pictures to put up in a day or so.
These hats are quick, relaxing to make and they look nice. I wish I could find the website I got this pattern from so I could share it with you. I usually am pretty good about noting the website for the patterns, but I’ll be more diligent in the future about notating on my pattern where it was from if it isn’t showing when I copy free patterns from the net. Because of copyright issues I can’t post patterns without permission from the designer, so I usually just put a link to the website.
I like this style especially in the cold climates because the long nature of the hat allows you to fold up the bottom into a cuff and that doubles the knitted fabric over the forehead, ears and back of the neck, and keeps those areas much warmer, and wool is warm anyway so it’s a win/win :).
Hope your New Year is off to a wonderful start :).
LDSVenus-knits 