I’ve been working for a while on this one, and I’m happy to say that it’s done! It’s another one of those labors of love for my son. I had gotten the Charmed Knits book a while ago, and due to his love of Harry Potter movies (he’s not quite ready for the books), Drew had looked in the book, and proclaimed he wanted two things from it– a cloak, and an owl. The pattern in the book is for Errol, which is the Weasley’s owl and so he’s a little rumpled, but the pattern advised that if you switched to white yarns, then you could make a Hedwig. Well, naturally, Drew wanted a Hedwig, so a Hedwig it was.

It took me a while only because while it’s not a hard pattern, I had to pay attention to details. I also started making one part completely wrong (made it way too big), but fortunately the part I had to remake was small, and then it went by quickly. I also acquired a new skill, which was making i-cords. Hadn’t done that before. It wasn’t that hard, other than I think using synthetic yarn made it a little difficult to manage. Still, it came out less than perfect. I had to improvise a bit. The assembly directions were dreadful. They didn’t even say how to attach the talons and, well, so much of how they were assembling it didn’t make sense. Like, they wanted you to attach things AFTER you stuffed and closed off parts, which made no sense. Having made teddy bears before, it’s much easier to add things before they are stuffed than after.

Anyway, what’s most important is the Drew LOVES his Hedwig. He was very excited and has been carrying it around today, and I suspect he’ll bring it to bed with him too tonight.

So, without furter ado, here’s Hedwig!

In the meantime, I need to figure out the next project I’m going to work on. I thought of doing The Mystic Shawl next, but I’m not sure. I’m definitely going to start it soon, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to start that. I think I need to put the chart together first so I can read it better. I’ve also purchased some special yarn that I’d like to use for a quick and easy project but I’m not sure what to do with it. Here’s the yarn:
Zen Yarn Garden Sea Sock in ‘Anna Grace’ colorway, in front of a photo of Anna Grace herself!

This yarn is sock yarn made of a sea cell blend, and I’ve wanted to use that kind of yarn for a while. I ordered it from Sonny and Shear which is owned by Kris, the Knitting Wannabe. I met Kris on one of my listservs as she is the parent of a little girl who has the same speech disorder as Drew does, namely Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Anna Grace, her daughter, has been working very hard in therapy, and recently was released from intense therapy. AG still has to work on pragmatics, like Drew does, but she’s done very well due to early intervention and the efforts of her mom. In celebration, her mom commissioned some special hand-dyed yarn, and this is one of those skeins called the “Anna Grace” in honor of the event. How could I NOT buy a skein of something so wonderful to commemorate a special event like that, especially in light of the fact that AG and Drew work so hard in speech for the same disorder? I love the colors too– they are so ME, or at least the colors I love. So, like I said, I don’t know what to do with it yet, and I would’ve gotten two of them if it weren’t so expensive (yes, I could see JC’s face at me buying 2 skeins of yarn for $50), so I can either make a pair of socks, or…..what? I have to think about that. If you would like to support a mom who has her own web business supplying really nice yarn, roving, and knitting supplies, who also has an apraxic kid (who, if you read her blog, is quite the Southern belle personality), I highly recommend visiting Sonny and Shear. She has some great stuff there.

Until the next project….

I’ve loved IKEA, ever since it came to this country. I believe the first store was in Plymouth Meeting, PA, (and it’s still where the US headquarters are, as well as a revamped store). I remember as a teenager that a catalog came in the mail for my parents, and I would pour over it, and thought that it was such a cool concept. I think we eventually went over to visit, and while my parents weren’t that impressed (it was a lot more modern for their tastes, especially back then), I loved it. Ever since, I’m a devoted IKEA fan, and we have a lot of IKEA furniture and storage and other sundry items from there. With the presence of the internet, I discovered a site (no, not the IKEA site, although I look at that regularly) that actually has to do with IKEA hacks– in other words, people taking IKEA items, and reworking them in some way to suit their needs, like using the wall cabinets as a base to make a banquette, or taking different elements from different IKEA storage and bookcase units to make a bar– stuff like that.

And what does this have to do with knitting, you ask? Well, I was looking at the IKEA Hacker blog (which is a really cool site, by the way), and in this one entry, they talked about the versatility of a particular light fixture that you can use. In the article, if you scroll down to the bottom, you can see how knitting and IKEA can mesh together.

SWEET.

Now, if I can just find some other ways to combine the two….

In the meantime, summer is here and I’m doing a lot of gardening-oriented activity, which does a lot to stretch those muscles on my icky skeletal bits.

I was looking at eBay, since I hadn’t been there for a while, just doing some window shopping, so to speak, and I came across this in my browsing….

This is a trading card of some sort showing Queen Victoria herself spinning on a wheel made by some dude in Belfast. Who knew that she was a spinner, or at least would be willing to pose as one? Being the big royalty buff that I am, I thought it was pretty cool.

In the meantime, believe me, I am still knitting, when I can! Life has gotten in the way much too much lately, so I squeeze in knitting and sewing when I can, but lately it’s been more knitting since it’s more portable. I’ve completed the body, head, and base of the Hedwig Owl that I’ve been making, and working on the first wing (which is almost done). I’ve also completed one fingerless glove with a short cuff for myself. Need to start the next one, since that’s an easy, mindless project to do and bring with you. But I promise, I’m still knitting! Really!

Hope all is well with all the Knitsters out there!

It’s called the “Mystic Waters Shawl” by Anna Dalvi, a Swedish-Canadian knitter. What I love about the look of this shawl is that it’s not…frou-frou looking. It’s not flowers and girly stuff, but rather geometric and organic, yet still feminine. That’s more my style.

Oddly enough, I am not making this for myself. I had the crazy idea that I am going to try to make this for my future SIL in an off-white color instead. I don’t know why I thought of it this way, but I did. But what’s crazier is that I’ve really hardly done anything lace-like before, let alone used laceweight yarn. I went to the Wooly Lamb last night, as it’s their 5th anniversary, and they are having some big sales there this week. They had something whereby you could go and pick a slip, and it would give you how much your discount would be. I was wishing for a big number, but as usual my luck was just okay, and I got a 25% one off, which is still not too bad. The problem too is that I still wanted to keep the yarn in my budget, and there wasn’t a lot of laceweight yarn to my liking, or else if there was, it was WAY expensive. I finally found something that I think will do, and I bought 3 skeins of Classic Elite Yarns’ Silky Alpaca Lace in Natural. My friend Sandy had some along, but she was saying that she didn’t understand why I just didn’t go to Michael’s to get the yarn. I had to explain that it’s the same reason she goes to the specialty quilt store next to the Wooly Lamb and not to the local JoAnn’s– better selection and quality. They don’t have laceweight yarn at Michael’s, let alone something that’s 70% alpaca and 30% silk!

Yes, I think I’m crazy to try to attempt this at all. But it’s pretty and if I can get through it, it will be like climbing a big mountain like Killimanjaro– a HUGE accomplishment. And I think my future SIL will like it. While I’ve only met her once, through my brother’s description of her design tastes and such, I think her tastes are similar to mine– she likes feminine, but not overly girly, and appreciates something that’s organic and geometric than flowery.

I don’t know when I’ll cast this one on…I’m still working on the Harry Potter’s Hedwig for Drew, and I have some sewing projects that I’m behind on, but hopefully I will this summer.

ETA - After looking at the whole pattern, I think I’ll be making the “small” size, which is still a good shoulder wrap size. The one shown in the photo is the “large” size, and I think it’s a little way too big. Yeah, the small one will suffice. And oh, if my eyes don’t get buggy from the charts, I’ll be surprised.

Since I really didn’t take any pictures of just the sweater by itself (I could, but I’m too lazy and busy these days with other things), why not show the sweater on a very cute male model instead?

New Red Sweater on a Handsome Boy

Drew loves the sweater. He wears it every day to school now, instead of some regular ol’ jacket. The hood, while it curls inward from the lack of better finishing techniques, is still big and roomy and he can hide under there. It’s a little big on him, but not so big that he’s swimming in it. Rather, just big enough that if he should have a growth spurt over the summer, it’ll still fit him in the fall.

I’m just glad he likes it so much. Makes it worth all the time and effort.

It’s been a while since any of us posted, but let’s face it– spring is upon us. And does that mean we stop knitting? Of course not! Heck, in fact, we might be knitting maniacs right now, too busy to write. (Yeah, and it could be that we are just plain busy too!)

Well, you all remember the Flaming sweater than went down in flames? The replacement sweater, knit all in red, is done. Correction: it’s 99% done. And I’m a dweeb because I don’t want to take a picture of it until it’s 100% done. It’s been finished for almost 2 weeks already, except for one thing– the zipper. It’s a zippered cardigan, after all. I did have some problems with it too. I had wanted to follow the pattern for most of it, meaning the last part was picking up stitches along the front and the hood, and normally you’d have buttonholes on one side of the front. But I was opting just to skip the buttonholes and just make the ribbed edge, and it would look great. Now, we all know that I suck at picking up stitches. But this time, I kinda found a pattern within the stitches there where I could pick them up in a patterned way rather than a random way. Great, right? Wrong. I only had 6-7 rows to do, so you’d think that wouldn’t be bad, even if it was 250+ stiches per row. That’s fine, no problem, so I thought. Wrong. There were BIG gaps between where I picked up and started knitting. BIG HOLES. Consistent holes. Being that I made it out of cheap acrylic yarn, I think it got stretched, but naturally it didn’t stretch back. As Spongebob would say, “BARNACLES!” So, I frogged out that whole section after doing about 3 rows, and took a slightly different approach. First, after re-picking up the stitches, I knit a baseline of garter stitches, and along the way, I even did a K1M1, which doubled the stitches, but seemed to tighten up that gap, so I thought. Sure enough, when I went to do that second pass/row and start the patterning, the gaps were opening up again. Not as big, but still significant enough. Blasted! So, I asked Drew if he cared about having the ribbing along the hood and all, and he said, nah, it was fine with him. GOOD.

Now, I’ve recently started up with a new hobby, much related to this– sewing. (I’m getting my first machine on Tuesday– got it on eBay. Oh, and I’m starting a sewing blog as well– Windsornot’s Threads. But anyway….) Rather than have the semi-disaster that I had in sewing in the zipper by hand again, like I did with JC’s sweater, I decided that I want to machine sew in the zipper this time. Problem is, I haven’t figured out/learned how to do that yet. So, the sweater sits here on my desk, along with the zipper, waiting for the parts to come together. That zipper is the 1% I haven’t done yet. It’s otherwise ready to go.

I’m such a dweeb. Like I said, I don’t want to photograph it until it’s ALL the way done. So there you go– I do have an FO, it’s just in hiding. :-S I think I have to learn how to put that zipper in soon, or if not, hand sew it in before Spring flies by and he can’t wear it! I will say that it does look pretty decent. I’ve had Drew try it on, and he’s happy with it so far. I did make it a little bit bigger so that it will still fit him in the fall, should he have a growth sprurt on me over the summer (he usually does!).

I promise I’ll have pics soon. Really.

My next project in knitting is that I hope to make a toy for Drew. He got in trouble this week at school, so I wasn’t exactly in the mood to knit something fun for him if he was being a rotten kid. So maybe I’ll start it soon. I’m taking the Errol pattern from Charmed Knits, (hence, making a toy owl), but instead of Errol, I’m making Harry’s owl, Hedwig. I have the cheap white yarn, and I found this fun fur type yarn that actually looks feathery, so that should look pretty cool. We’ll see if I have enough of that stuff! I think I do.

Tune in soon, and maybe you’ll see something exciting!

i’m going to upgrade akismet tonight, and I hope that helps.

I finally finished a long overdue UFO. Or I should say, it’s an FO now. Last year, I was always freezing at work, as my boss wouldn’t have the heat kick in until an hour before I left, which would be several hours after I arrived. I’m also a person, whom I swear is pre-menopausal (okay, TMI, sue me), so atmospheric/environmental temps are important to me, and in the winter, I like to feel toasty. When your fingers are getting so cold that they feel arthritic INSIDE, you know it’s too cold. And even with long sleeved shirts, I still felt cold. Not having many sweaters to my name, I decided that most of the time, if I just put another layer over my arms and shoulders, I was fine. Hence, the idea to make my own shrug was born.

I wanted something with some texture to it, so I looked in my Vogue Stitchonary Volume One, and chose the Flying Geese stitch pattern. It has a certain brocade-y like look to it. I chose my yarn– Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky in Duck Egg Blue. I got a basic concept in my head of how I would do it, and it’d be one piece going wrist to wrist. So, to say the least, this was the first completely, totally, original design I’d ever done, and it was freestyle to boot. Well, mistakes were made along the way, but it still came out looking okay.

Here’s me wearing it, a look from the back (don’t look at my big ol’ butt)

And here’s me with it from the front.

And here it is, without me in it! (It’s more the color of the first two photos, but you can see the detail of the pattern better in this one.

Essentially, the stitch pattern is in multiples of 10, so I cast on a multiple of 10 that I knew would make it around most of my arm. When I got to the shoulder, I increased the stitches by another multiple of 10, and when I was leaving the other shoulder, I decreased it by 10, and then finished until I got to the other side. In other words, this was made in one piece, wrist to wrist. Then, just to make it look more finished off, after seaming the sleeves, I picked up the stitches that were left on the “inside”, and did a 3X2 rib pattern in the round. And that was that.

Now, I started this about a year ago, and finished it up yesterday. Did it take a year to make? No. I started it, then put it down for a while and did several other projects, and then decided that I needed to finish this one up before the end of this winter and/or spring.

It was certainly a learning process, and it taught me that I still have a lot to learn about making garments! But it was a good experiment that came out looking okay. Lessons I learned were:

The problems I had, I think, were fixable, or could have been better done with a better design, but that’s part of the learning process. I’ve realized that I would’ve preferred tapered cuffs that I could’ve put that same 3X2 rib on, and it wouldn’t looked REALLY tailored. I learned that where my armpit is needs more ease than the rest of my arm, so I should’ve increased stitches sooner. The bottom part, under my shoulder blades, originally bunched up when I wore it, and I think that with some breaking in, it’s starting to flatten out. Still, I wonder if I could’ve made it differently so that wouldn’t have happened.

In the end, it serves its purpose well, and I am toasty warm in this very, very soft yarn. Maybe someday I’ll work the kinks out of the pattern, and I can get it on Knitty or something like that. That would be cool. But at least it’s done now, and I can enjoy it. I think it’ll be a while before I do another shrug. And hopefully it won’t take a year between starting and finishing it.

Oh my goodness, I am about to burst! My wonderful husband just put in the order for  an Ashford Kiwi from The Woolery. It comes unfinished and I have to put it together… and the, of course, I have to learn to spin on it. But! Beautiful yarn at a faster pace is in my future!

… knitting? I’m a little slack with my knitting but should have a FO to post soon. *tantalizing hints to keep you on edge of seat*

But! A spinning wheel! Yay!