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I am about to show you what I made for my Father In Law for the Holidays.
But.
If you are sensitive, under 18, easily offended, lacking a sense of humor, at work, or just plain grumpy…please close the window now and come back another day.
Please don’t say that I didn’t warn you.
A little background…my Father In Law has to be one of the hardest people to buy presents for. Couple that with me deciding that we were having a mostly handmade holiday (which I was 90% successful at) and it becomes stressful.
One night I was paging through patterns on Ravelry for colorwork and came across the Naughty Reindeer chart. Jim happened to be nearby and declared that the winner for Father In Law’s present.
So I got busy knitting. I didn’t quite get it finished by the time we went home to IL for the holidays, so I turned it inside out to work on it while I was around my Father In Law (so the floats were on the outside). I stressed over it.
Would it be too small? Would it be too big? Are my floats too tight? Will he like it? Will I get it done in time?
I think that he likes it!!
Just in case you thought it was just another pretty hat…look again.
You wouldn’t believe how many people said, “Ooh, pretty,” without realizing what they were seeing. I had to point it out quite a few times. And lest I neglect to say it, this hat is an equal opportunity hat. My Father In Law was teased about both animals having antlers. Both male & female reindeer (caribou) have antlers. Or, if it is your choice, you could say that it is two males, or you could leave the antlers off the female…versatility is a bonus with this one.
Get on Ravelry and look up “Naughty Reindeer”, that should steer you in the right direction for the pattern.
Now, back to making another one for my cousin, an avid deer hunter. The deer are going to be so scared of him with screwing caribou on his head!
Peace.
Friends, I would like to introduce you to Gertrude…
She is one of my Mother’s Day gifts from Jim. She is an Ashford Traditional spinning wheel. She will help me make beautiful yarn. Because I needed another hobby.
We picked her up on Saturday and my friend that I bought her from gave me this big bag of Romney roving to practice with…over a pound and a half of wool!
So, I have been practicing…
I have been looking at roving on Etsy. Holy moley! Gorgeous stuff out there. Anyone have any recommendations on nice smooth fiber for a beginner that won’t break the bank?
My other presents (like that wasn’t enough) include yarn. Specifically, two skeins of Handmaiden Sea Silk in the “Paris” colorway, I believe. I can’t find the color name on the tag, so I stalked other knitter’s stashes on Ravelry. Please correct me if I am wrong.
And a skein of Malabrigo sock yarn. Mmmm, this yarn is super soft.
I have trained him well.
Peace.
I have craft A.D.D. I really think that I do. I’m so flighty. Yes, I am still thinking about painting…I’ve even gone so far as to purchase 2 small canvases and look through my supply of acrylic paints that I got from Mom’s stuff. Now I just need the courage to put the brush to the canvas and get on with it.
In the meantime, I have been doing a little of this, a little of that.
I found this awesome website because I was using my Google-Fu one night looking at jelly roll quilts. A jelly roll is basically 40 or so 1 1/2 ” strips of fabric all rolled up together. They are usually all of the same fabric collection. Moda has the best ones in my opinion. And Moda is really striking gold with their latest “Sweet Shop” concept. Honey buns, jelly rolls, layer cakes, turnover, scrap bag, etc. Seriously, this is genius. I have a couple jelly rolls that I picked up with the intention of making a Stacked Coins type of lap quilt. Then I got looking around saw the tutorial for this bag and decided that it was too cute to pass up. So I gave it a whirl.
I think that it is so cute…I want to make more!
I have also been dreaming of other painting ideas…brainstorming more ideas for marble magnets.
I did these for a few people as gifts and have many more ideas in mind. It is reverse painting on the backside of a half-marble. You know, those things that we were all dumping into the bottoms of clear ginger jars about 10 years ago before pouring in water, adding a Betta fish and topping with a Pothos plant. Yeah, I did it too. And because I am a good tree hugger wife, I saved my supplies after I killed the fish. Actually, I think that our fish croaked while our friends were fish-sitting. Regardless, I finally found a good use for those half-marbles.
These are supposed to represent the 4 seasons, but I really didn’t plan out the fall one very well. It should be an orange-ish leaf and the background is forest green…not the best background color. Live and learn. I am thinking of doing many more of these and putting them in my bare etsy shop.
Peace.
I finished up the baby sweater that I had been working on and it has been received by its recipient…my BFF’s baby boy. So, I can show the finished picture…
I will say it again, I love this pattern. This is my first time doing stripes and winging it and it is okay…I have more to learn about doing stripes though. The specifications are here. The colors I used are Planetarium, Honeydew, Fedora, Creme Brulee, Cypress, Cashew.
The other baby knit that I did recently was for a baby shower that I went to this past weekend.
I made this…
Turn into this…
It is the baby kimono pattern from the Mason Dixon knitting book. I used a big old cone of kitchen cotton (no, not all of it) and size 7 needles. It calls for 6′s, but I like it a little more loose.
Peace.
Back to your regularly scheduled blogging…
Apologies for the absence, but I fell into the new-gadget time-suck. Big time. This past week, I received two awesome things in the mail. Both birthday presents of sorts.
An iPod Touch and a new Moleskiene. Hi, my name is Missy and gadgets and new notebooks excite me.
The iPod was a birthday gift from DH and is seriously rocking my socks off right now. Except for the one hiccup that we have had with freezing, it has been totally awesome. I can’t believe how many applications (known by the cool kids as “apps”) there are for this thing. It is basically just like an iPhone, just without calling capabilities technically. I say technically because there is an app out there that allows you to make calls, you just have to have this microphone thingamajig. Anyway…back to the Touch…it has every function of my old PDA, Palm Pilot z22, plus is a shit-ton more. I can get on teh internets with this baby, y’all. It is really blowing my mind. And I am petrified that I am going to drop it on the floor. Me thinks that the Touch and hardwood floors might not mix. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
And then there is the Moleskine. What else can I say about this luxurious little notebook that hasn’t been said? There are tons of flickr pages dedicated to the Moleskine addicts. These people are serious about their note taking. I used a gift card and ordered the 3.5 x 5 gridded book. I wanted something nice to go into my knitting bag that I can use to write out my most commonly used patterns. I was using this ratty old little spiral notebook and pages were coming loose and it was quite annoying. So far it has been like upgrading from a Hyundai to a Mercedes. Not that there is anyting wrong with a Hyundai. They both get you from point A to point B…it is just a difference in quality.
So, that’s where I have been. See ya around.
Peace.
