Blankets, Toques and Sales, OH MY!

The blanket slash afghan (what’s the difference?) that I am making for Lucas’ mom for Christmas is coming along swimmingly! I am really glad I switched to circular needles for this project and am doing it all as one big piece — it’s really coming together nicely. As of yesterday I had hit my 50th row. That seems like a lot, but I’ve still got 220 rows to go! At 50 rows the blanket is around 7.5 inches long without being stretched very much, and I’d like the finalized length to be around 40-45 inches. To make me stay consistent on this project I’m setting a goal of 10 rows a day. If I do 10 rows a day every day this month, I can theoretically be done by December 1, which will then give me plenty of time to work on a few much smaller and less time consuming gift projects in time for our trip to Indiana at Christmas. This is totally doable! Some evenings I may have time to do more than 10 rows (at 130 stitches per row and with me being a fairly new knitter, it takes me 9 minutes per row, so that’s putting aside at least an hour and a half every night) and on the weekends I hope to be able to do even more. And as you can see from the photos, I’ve changed up the “pattern” a little bit, too. More about that when it’s done!

To ensure that I stay on track and get my 10 rows a day done and complete this blanket by my personal deadline, I’m not allowing myself to purchase the set of DPNs that I want so badly. I’m dying to knit in the round and give socks/toques a try, especially after hearing how much some of the readers on the knitty coffeeshop forums prefer DPNs or a combo of 16″ circulars with DPNs for such projects. I’ve found a free pattern or two that I can’t WAIT to try and have already picked out what size DPNs I need… but I just can’t allow myself to buy them until I’m done with the blanket. Well… that was my plan. See, I know in my heart that if I pick up DPNs that I will totally allow myself to get excited about breaking them in, and I’ll start multiple projects that I’ll want to work on and those projects will compete with getting the blanket done. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for setting this goal and the prize for reaching my goal would be to reward myself with DPNs, but then I got the Michaels ad in the mail last night, and the plan went downhill… sort of.

Michaels is having a HUGE sale this weekend. The flyer that I got had the normal 40% off any one item coupon, but there were two additional 50% off coupons on the front to help ring in the Christmas craft season, too! The 50% off coupons work just like the 40% one — it’s 50% off any single item in the store, but one is good for this weekend only and then the second 50% off coupon is only valid next Friday, November 16.

The flyer itself is filled with mostly Christmas-y things, but on the back there is a full page spread about how EVERY YARN in the store is 25 – 50% off from November 10 – 16. I can’t pass a sale or coupons like this up! Tomorrow Lucas and I are going to go and I’m going to use my coupons on a nice set of Takumi bamboo DPNs and a matching set of 16″ circulars. Since yarn is on sale, I’d like for Lucas to pick out some yarn that he really likes so that I can make his requested neck warmer and toque from it. However, to stay true to my original goal with the blanket, I’m not allowing myself to USE the new needles or start a new project until I’m done with the blanket first. I will be strong! (But you might want to cross your fingers or pray for me, just in case.)

I have spent some time lately reading and following other knitting blogs I come across. There are so many fantastic and talented people out there from all walks of life and from every corner of the globe, and it’s so interesting to read about their life through their knitting. From this perusing I discovered Innocent beverages’ charity project, The Big Knit. I found out about it too late to contribute this year (The deadline was October 22), but I am SO in for next year! With my online nickname being “Toque” (or “pinktoque”), it’s not surprising that I was quick to follow a simple pattern to make a tiny little pink toque of my very own. And just like the site says, making tiny toques is incredibly addictive. I’ve made 3 this week (shhh, they were super quick and didn’t detract from my blanket work that much, really!) and I hope to have a ton to send in next season. If you’ve not heard about The Big Knit, you really should give it a look. Innocent beverages puts up an easy knitting pattern to make a very simple and tiny knitted hat with their specific size requirements. People all over the world make the little hats and send them in, and they are then worn by the company’s beverage bottles and sold with them. For each little hat that gets purchased, the company donates money to a charity that helps the elderly keep warm this winter. It’s a great cause, and so many people get super creative and come up with amazing variations on the pattern that result in wonderfully unique little toques. I was feeling adventurous and even attempted knitting with more than one color for the very first time, resulting in the dual pink toque and the orange and yellow toque successes. Aren’t they just adorable!? I feel confident that I can knit with multiple colors when I finally get around to knitting a life-sized toque and neck warmer for Lucas now.

Quacking Up Over Knitting

I finally put the finishing touches on the knitted plush duck I attempted a few days ago. It’s based on the pattern by Lion Brand with a few Toque-ish adjustments. The basic idea is that you knit a square — I believe the pattern calls for garter stitch — and then you fold it in half to form a triangle and sew up one side. You then have a cone that you need to stuff with polyfill, sew closed, and add your ducky details. The beak, feet, and eyes are all cut from felt just like in the pattern, (I wish I were savvy enough to have been able to knit them all together as part of the pattern instead), and sewn on. I was really unhappy when I was finished at first; I enlarged the pattern to begin with, didn’t use fun fur like the pattern called for, decided to use a stockinette stitch instead, and somehow it just didn’t look as “cute” and “duck shaped” as the Lion Brand pattern when I was done. Lucas suggested adding a few stitches to form more of a line/definition between the head and neck, and I did. I also decided to embellish on that by adding a ribbon. See what you think! I’ve decided to keep this one as a tester and perhaps use some more “fuzzy” yellow yarn that I found in my assorted box in the basement next time. I’d love to make one for Somer for Christmas. Oliver thought it was pretty fantastic, but he’s a little biased. I think he thought that the duck was for him, lol.

Yesterday I posted my back-and-forth thoughts on whether or not to use circular needles to knit the blanket I was wanting to make for Lucas’ mom for Christmas. I decided to take the plunge, risky I know, but it’s going really well! I will admit I probably should’ve chosen a smaller project to serve as my intro into using circular needles, but it was only awkward for the first row. I’m only on the 6th row, but already by the 2nd row I was feeling more comfortable with the setup. I’m really looking forward to this blanket now! I can already see how much better the finished product will be. I’m not doing anything fancy; I nabbed a pair of size 10, 36 inch Takumi bamboo needles for the project and some jumbo skeins of yarn that fades between various shades of blues, which is Lucas’ mom’s favourite colour. On the needles I casted on 130 stitches and plan to go back and forth between knitting a row and purling a row, or stockinette stitch, because I like the way it looks when it’s done. And that’s it. I’m really excited about the final product already, and I’ve got loads of work yet to go. I’ll keep you updated ;)

To Circular Knit or Not to Circular Knit?

In my last update I was excited that I was about 25% into a blanket for Lucas’ mom for Christmas, and currently I’m 37%. I’ve never knitted a blanket before* and since Lucas’ mom was the one that taught me how to knit, I have been determined to knit her a blanket for Christmas as a way of thanking her and showing her what she had taught me put to use. Not really knowing much meant I somewhat went blindly into the project, and I found from reading various websites out there that a typical way to knit blankets is to knit a series of squares (sometimes referred to as “granny squares”) and then knit/stitch them together in a way that is somewhat seamless. This seemed like a fairly standard method and something I could handle, so I grabbed skeins of yarn that I had** of the same worsted weight and had planned to just make a bunch of random coloured squares to stitch together to make the blanket. But then I learned about the magic of circular needles.

10 Squares Down, 30 to Go

As I’ve mentioned in a few of my most recent posts, I’ve been working on knitting a blanket for Lucas’ mom for Christmas. Now that my zombie projects are done in time for Halloween and Tom’s event (going on this evening), I am fairly clear until Christmas, so it’s time to turn my attention towards items I’m making as gifts for the holidays. The blanket is probably the largest and most time consuming project on my plate, but definitely something I think is worth it. Lucas’ mom taught me the basics of knitting back in June when she was here visiting us for a few weeks, and so it’s important to me to knit her something to show her what I’ve learned.

Based on a fleece throw we have here at home, I’ve decided that my blanket needs to be about 25 inches wide and 40 inches long. It won’t be HUGE or anything, but it will be something that Lucas’ mom can wrap around herself like a hug. I plan to knit a bunch of squares and then sew them together to form the blanket, and so I made a pattern that’s fairly basic and easy for a new knitter like me to handle. I just have to do it 40 times. As far as the yarn I’ve chosen, I’ve not picked out set colours — in fact, to make it more interesting I’ve decided to make squares out of all of the yarn in various colours I have lying around the house that are all of the same weight. I’m using size 9 (5.5 mm) bamboo knitting needles and 100% acrylic , 4 ply worsted weight yarn. The basic square pattern I’m knitting goes something like this:

– co 20 st
– k 1
– p 1
– repeat x12 (for a total of 13 sets of k 1 p 1, or 26 total rows)
– bo

It’s nothing fancy nor do I know much (or anything really) about gauge, but for me, this pattern creates a square that is approximately 5 inches by 5 inches. So that means my blanket will be 8 rows of 5 squares sewn together if I want to get the dimensions I estimated based on a throw we have in the living room. I’ve just completed my 10th square, so I only have 30 more to go at an hour each (or longer if I’m paying close attention to the television or movie we’re watching) between now and Christmas. I think it’s a manageable project, as long as I don’t let myself procrastinate. I’ll keep you posted on my progress – wish me luck!

Zombielicious Halloween Bash

My friend Tom is MC’ing an event here in Calgary this weekend called GoreGames. It’s basically a big Halloween bash with some interesting games like a “bloody t-shirt contest” and whatnot. Not really my thing at all, but Tom is being an angel and promoting my online craft shop by giving away some items I’ve made and donated to the event. He’ll be giving away prizes to the various guys and ghouls for winning the different party games, and he’s got 4-5 things just from me to give out! Over the weekend I made 2 hand painted zombie plushies and 2 plush “dead bunnies” with hand sewn skeletal faces as part of my donation to “the cause.” The zombies will have my online shop website etched into their backs and the bunnies will come with tags, and Tom will have a whole slew of business cards as well. It’s exciting being promoted to a large group at such a big event here in town, and I can’t thank Tom enough for the exposure.

In related news, the official Calgary Zombie Walk was cancelled and rescheduled for in the spring, but many ghouls took to the streets this past weekend for fun anyway. In a way I’m kinda glad that they’ll be doing it officially in the spring… perhaps that will give me enough time to fashion up a big load of mini hand painted zombies to sell cheap at the Walk… once again helping to promote the site and my art. Fun!

My list of crafty stuff seems to be dwindling down a bit… I’m still working on a knitted blanket for Lucas’ mom for Christmas, even though it’s been a week or so since I last did a square. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I should think small and do a pillow or pillow case instead. I should probably make my list of Christmas gifts so I can see how much crafting time I’ll need to get everything done. We’ll see how it goes!

Wedding Projects Completed!

In my last post I had quite a to do list, and some of those items were time sensitive and revolved around my little brother’s wedding coming up this weekend. I am happy to share the fruits of my labour — a plush 4 tiered wedding cake made to be a near exact replica of what my brother and Holly’s actual wedding cake will look like on Saturday. I also finished the small handbags/wristlets that I was making for each of the bridesmaids from the alteration scraps of my bridesmaid dress. They turned out a little smaller than I would’ve liked, but they were as big as I could possibly make them based on the scraps that I had to deal with.

My mom is making Herman and Holly’s wedding cake, so I tried to make my replica look as close to what she is designing from cake and icing as I could. The cake is 4 tiers tall and made completely from white felt and every detail is hand sewed. It features frilly white scalloped trim on each tier and I used white fabric paint to embellish the sides with the “lacy” design, much like my mom has done with icing for the real cake.

All total this cake stands just over a foot tall with the flowers on top. I used a mixture of various purple felt (with green felt leaves) to make the flowers as well as fabric from the actual bridesmaid dresses (scraps) to decorate the top. I think I am mostly excited about the fact that Herm and Holly don’t know that I am doing this, so it will be a surprise for them when Lucas and I arrive with it on Thursday evening. I hope that it will be a wonderful display piece at their reception and the best part is that it is a cake will last and can be kept long after everyone has eaten the real thing :)

I haven’t totally finished my crafting project list — now that the time sensitive stuff is out of the way in time for our trip to Indiana this weekend, I can focus on the zombie and monster plushies that I am making for our friend, Tom, to use as prizes at an event he is hosting at the end of October, and I can spend some time working on more squares for Lucas’ mom’s knitted blanket project for Christmas. I’m hoping to be able to get some more squares done on the flights to and from Indiana. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, congratulations to my brother and his soon-to-be-wife, congratulations to our friends Joe and Jeri, who are also getting married this weekend, and happy birthday to our handsome dog, Oliver, who turns 5 years old this weekend while we’re gone. What a busy weekend! :)

Anyone Need to Staple Something?

So per usual, I got busy and forgot to post my crafty endeavors. Recently I designed and brought to life a plush stapler that I envisioned in my head to give as a gift to my friend, Michelle. I worked with Michelle and a handful of other great people in an office building for a few months, and Michelle and I are big The Office fans. We kept joking that we were going to put each others’ staplers into a Jell-O mold like one of the pranks on the show, and so as a parting gift I wanted to give Michelle something to remember me by when I left the office job to get back into teaching. I actually designed the pattern on scrap paper at work during some server downtime one day, haha. Armed with felt and my sewing supplies, I made use of my time as a passenger in the car when Lucas, Oliver, and I took a little mini family vacation to British Columbia over the Labour Day long weekend to finish it. Michelle loved her gift!

My new crafty to do list has a few time sensitive items on it — my brother’s wedding is coming up October 6 and I am making a plush wedding cake and 3 small bags for us bridesmaids for it. Also getting married on October 6 are our friends Jeri and Joe, and I’d like to make them a plush wedding cake, too. If Jeri gets the scraps from her wedding dress back in time, I’ll be making a small bag for her, also.

Another time sensitive project is to make some plush zombies for the Calgary Zombie Walk 2007 coming up in October as well as a little event where a plush zombie or two will be donated as prizes at the end of October. And then… Christmas is coming up, and I of course am going to be making quite a few things. I’ve decided that since Lucas’ mom taught me how to knit back in June when she was here visiting us that I am going to knit her a throw blanket for Christmas.. and that project is turning out to be bigger than I realized. I plan to blog more about that project specifically as I finish various knitted squares. More to come on that!

Whew! I’m a busy girl… stay tuned for more crafty goodness and to see if I can complete my project to do list in time for all of my deadlines!

Wolf Hat and Tooth Pillow Pocket

So what’s new? This weekend I finished two projects for friends, a Wolf Ear Hat and a little tooth pillow with a pocket.

A good friend, Nanaki (Shane), requested a wolf ear hat, and so I immediately remembered a tutorial I’d seen on Craftster here. I then set to work on making a wolf ear hat, and this is my finished result! It’s made from soft fuzzy polar fleece in a mottled gray and white pattern and soft pink inner ears that are hand sewn in. I hope he likes it! (Model in this photo is Lucas, he was so kind to help me by modeling the finished hat so I could photograph it before I sent it off.)

A friend and coworker has a daughter that is just itching to lose her first tooth; it should be happening anytime now! To help prepare, I designed this little tooth shaped pillow that has a front pocket built in that looks like a mouth, so she can safely keep her first (and future) loose teeth protected for the Tooth Fairy’s visit. I can’t wait to give this to her :)

That’s about it for now, I’ve got some upcoming sewing projects to do, but I just received my official Alberta Professional Teaching Certification, so I’m busy in my spare time getting my teaching portfolio dusted off and ready to go for interviews so I can teach next school year. It’s all so exciting!

Future plans in the sewing realm include a toque section on my store website to sell handmade fleece hats (toques) this season, and a couple of Canadian-related specialty items that I’ve got rolling around in my head. Until next time…

RAWR! Plush Rancor

So this is what I’ve been working on for the past week or so, a plush version of the monstrous rancor creatures from the Star Wars universe. I’m really proud with how he turned out! I had the idea and started sketching pattern pieces on lined notebook paper, and in the end, the finished product looked just how I wanted it to. It’s a great feeling making something and doing it right the first time :)

The rancor is made from felt and stands nearly a foot tall at just over 11 inches. He’s about 10 inches wide, and though he may look mean and grumbly, he really is sweet and cuddly :) So what am I doing with him? Well I’m auctioning him off for fun and in-game charity in the Star Wars MMORPG that I play, Star Wars Galaxies. I hope he sells well!

This weekend I have a few PinkToque shop orders to fill and overall life is really grand! I’ve not has as much time to craft lately now that I’m working (finally!) full time, but I’ll do my best to keep updating and working on projects here and there :) Thanks for looking!

What's New?!

I am ashamed to say that it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything crafty. Since getting back from my trip to the states to visit family and friends, I’ve started working a real job and so I’ve not found as much free time to craft as before. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been creative, though! For more on the other non-crafty things going on in my life right now, check out Lucas and I’s personal blog: Look At Us Go!

While in Indiana I learned how to make beaded necklaces, and my mom and I made several together. They’re fairly simple – just some bead wire with the clamshell clasps and a variety of beads found at various crafty shops. I’ve got some beads that I picked up while in Indiana that are in desperate need of being turned into a new necklace creation, but I just haven’t taken the time to do so.

Thanks to a little help on the kfb, or knit front to back, from the kind people at Make One Yarn Studio (a suggestion from Claire, thanks!) I was able to complete the mini heart knitting pattern I’ve been trying to do forever. Since figuring the pattern out, I’ve made several little plush knitted hearts to hide in various places for Lucas to find. They’re so soft and cute! I’d love to make a whole army of them someday. I tried my hand at felting for the first time, but it really didn’t turn out so great. I think it’s because I tried to felt by hand with hot soapy water instead of using the washing machine, so next time I’m doing a load of laundry I’ll see if my felting turns out any better using that method instead. I just couldn’t justify doing a whole load of laundry just to felt a couple tiny hearts. We’ll see!

And my latest completed purse order was for a friend at Lucas’ work — a black and white polka dotted Banff with dark red interior. I think it turned out pretty cute :)

That’s really about it in the past several weeks. The Indiana trip and the new full time job has kept me pretty busy, though I’ve started up a new little stuffie project that I can’t wait to finish and share — it’s currently a secret, though! Look for it soon :) Happy crafting!