Knitting for Charity

It is that time of year where I am sewing and knitting for charity.  The company that I work for participates in the American Cancer Society, Relay For Life event each year.  We start fundraising in October, leading up to the event in April.

The way I have chosen to raise money is to do clothing mending, sewing challenges and knitting coffee cup cozies (or bottle cozies), however you want to use them.

I wrote previously about the coffee cup cozies in these posts:

• Coffee Cup Cozies
• More Coffee Cup Cozies

I have knitted up about 20 or more of them and sold about 15 of them!  I started out knitting them sort of plain, with the self-striping yarns, to keep it simple.  Well, if you know me at all, then you know I can never keep something simple.  I started making cables and making them in sport team colors with horizontal stripes.

If you would like you very own, custom knitted cozy, please email me at moxiebrown25@yahoo.com.  The price of the cozies are $5, but if you are out-of-town, then $6 (to cover the cost of shipping).  You choose your color(s), style & size!

If you would like to donate to a great cause, please go to my Relay Homepage! 

Tampa Bay Rays

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Seattle Seahawks & Denver Broncos

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Pink & White Stripes

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Zebra for Carcinoid Cancer

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Ministripes for Small Cups

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Mini Cables in a Solid Color

 

I'm having a great time knitting these up.  They are great on your coffee cup, water bottle or glass bottle!  Let me know what you like!!  Help support a great cause!

 

Thank you to those that have supported me and bought a cozy already! :-)



Ice Cream Cozies

For the ladies at work, I wanted to knit them all an ice cream cozy.  I had previously knitted one and gave to my friend and she loved it!  Here is that post:

• Ben Ice Cream Cozy

I have 6 ladies at work and I assume they all love ice cream.  Perfect!  I started out by buying a bunch a different, vibrant colors of yarn at Joann's:

 

I chose Deborah Norville's Everyday Soft Worsted (100% Acrylic).  The colors I went with were, clock-wise from top:

• Electric Green
• Aubergine (Purple)
• Baby Yellow
• Wild Blue
• Neon Pink
• Snow White

Here are the finished cozies:

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Once I was done knitting those, I decided to make 2 more, one each for Vince's daughters:

 

 

 

When I gave my work friends their cozy, I also had a cooler full of pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  They each got to pick out their flavor.  I will do the same for Vince's daughters.

 

I do still owe the friend I originally knitted one up for at least one more.  She has two daughters, so, I will probably knit up two more.  These make the best gifts!

 

What is your favorite Ben & Jerry's ice cream??  Share your thoughts in the comments!

 

Mine is Chunky Monkey (Phish Food is a close second) :-)





Fetching Fingerless Gloves

I finally started and finished a project in the same month (of the same year)!  Hooray!

I knitted a pair of fingerless gloves for a friend as a birthday gift.  She lives in Mass, so she may actually use these when it gets nippy out.

The project is called Fetching from Cheryl Niamath.  I got the pattern from Knitty.com.  Fetching are fingerless gloves that have a few row of cables around the wrist and on the knuckle.

The yarn I decided to use was Sheep(ish) from Vickie Howell for Caron.  I will have to be honest here:  I really do not like this yarn.  For this purpose, it was not the best yarn choice.  While knitting it kept splitting and there is not much of a twist or wind to it, so it was not the best for cables.  Please forgive my photography, I took most of these at night with the flash on.

The color I chose was Gun Metal(ish), which is a very dark gray.  I will admit they have such great colors to choose from, very vivid and saturated.  I knitted the gloves with a size 6.

I needed double pointed needles (dp), a cable hook (the U looking thing), a marker, darning needle and a row counter. 

While I was casting on, the yarn broke.  Ugh!

For dps, you cast on the required number of stitches, then with the other dps, transfer over several stitches, then with the 3rd dp, again.  You should have split up all the stitches so there are about the same number on each dp.  The first round is the most critical, because you must be careful that you do not have the stitches twisted.  If twisted, you will be knitting a Mobius and you don't want that.

I will then knit the gloves in the round.  Dps are good to use when you have a small number of stitches, but need it in the round.  This will have no seams (yea!) and just a few strands to weave in at the end.

In this pic, I am knitting some cables.  They will be around the wrist and arm.  To cable, you take your cable hook and slip 2 sts onto it.  Hold it in the back or the front (depending on which way it is going to twist) and knit the next sts on the main needle.  Then take the cable hook and knit from that hook.  You now have the start of a cable.  Then you knit in pattern (knit the knits and purl the purls) until the cable row again.  Really, it is easy.

Another feature I want to show you is the thumb.  I was instructed to take waste yarn (a different yarn and color than the yarn you are using) and knit with that as the main yarn for 7 sts, then transfer them back to the left needle and knit them again, but dropping the waste yarn and knit with the main yarn again.

You will have something like this, with the waste yarn showing.  I will carefully unstitch the waste yarn, revealing live stitches.  I will immediately place the live stitches onto two double points.

Slowly unstitch each one and place onto the needle.

I will now knit this little opening in the round to make the thumb.

 

I finished by cabling around the knuckle and loosely bound off with a picot bind-off.  It created little bumps along the edge.  These did not come out as fabulous as I had hoped.  I don't know if I can really blame the yarn entirely, though.  Maybe if I adjusted how much I knit after the cable on the knuckle, or if my hands are too small for these gloves.

They have been sent off to my friend.  Hopefully they will fit her better or look better on her.

I'm sure she will be able to use them on the next blustery New England day.  Enjoy!

Vampire Knits

I'm giving myself a challenge.  I want to knit my way through the pattern book, Vampire Knits. By no means is this a new book, but I have had it for a few years and have pined over so many of the projects in that book that I HAVE to knit more from it.

 

Vampire Knits by Genevieve Miller was copywritten in 2010, so 3 years ago, this book came out about the time Twilight and all of that was the rage.  It is cleverly written with vampire folklore, quizzes related to dark characters like werewolves and vampires with each project having a very calculated name with a brief summary of why it was chosen.  This is a story, not just a book of patterns and pictures.

 

I have actually already knitted from this book.  My Shapehifter Shrug is from this book.

• Shapeshifter Shrug - Part 1
• Shapeshifter Shrug - Part 2
• Shapeshifter Shrug - Part 3  

 

 

 

In that pic, I'm wearing it like Little Red Riding Hood, but it shows how cool the weaved pattern looks.  Here is a pic from the book:

 

 

I am going to do a count down with the ones from the book that I want to make.  The count down will be from the one I love the most down through the book, but it does not mean that I will knit them in that order.  I can't predict what I will be feeling like when it comes time to knit, so I will go with the flow and knit out of order as the mood strikes.

 

Here is my Top 9 (I already knitting one, so it really is a Top 10 list...)

 

Lore Hoodie

 

I have been in love with this project for-ev-ver.  This is what I should have knitting first, but I always talked myself out of it because it was a sweater with a hood that is not very Florida-like, calling for 100% wool.  Well, screw it!  I am going to knit this one with a more Florida-friendly yarn, like a cotton-acrylic or acrylic-wool blend.  My local knit shop has a yarn that I see each and every time I go in there and it screams, "Lore Hoodie!" at me.  I cannot resist much longer!  Help! 

 

Sidhe Shrug

 

This shrug is something that is a bit more practical for Florida.  Just two arms, with all the A/C around here, wearing tank-tops and spaghetti straps makes these shrugs a necessity!

 

The Black Veil

 

This scarf is so pretty!  One of it's features is these picots all the way around the edge.  I have attempted to knit this a few times now, but cannot seem to have the correct gauge/correct weight of yarn.  I do not know why I am not getting gauge, but I will just break down and buy the yarn it calls for and the guessing will be over. 

 

Vampire Diary Protector

 

This is not practical for me, but I love it so!  It makes me want to keep a journal, but I'm not going to fool myself, I won't write in it.  I should make it big enough so that it covers a 3-ring-binder that I place my printed patterns in.  That is much bigger than this book, though.  I will have to see about what it can go on before I take the plunge and cast-on.

 

Under the Cover of Midnight Hooded Cowl

 

No, she is not a conjoined twin.  Ha!  This is even more unpractical in Florida than the Lore Hoodie.  I may have to knit this as a gift for a Northener, or I use it when I make my annual trek to Mass to visit my family.  It would beat having a scarf and a hat. I love the cables and how snuggly it looks.  If it was knit with an alpaca blend...I would die for it!  Just Maybe...

 

Pulse Protectors

 

I really like the fingerless gloves better than the throat cover (cowl).  Cables are so striking with yarn that had great stitch definition, that you just want to wear them...even if it doesn't go with your shorts and tank-top.  Alas, most likely this will be a gift.  I cannot really see myself wearing them around here, but one day out of the year.  That won't stop me from knitting them, though!

 

Rampage Fishnet Gloves

 

I attempted this project back when I bought this book.  I ordered the special yarn with elastic in it and everything.  I could not even cast-on!  I think that I was trying to do too many things: A new cast-on, elastic yarn, in the round, and trying Magic Loop.  Too much!!!  I may revisit this again, these are really cool.  They are like evening glove length and then you weave a red ribbon at the end.  Very dramatic.

 

Werewolf Hat

 

This is a felted hat with ears.  How cute is this!?  I clearly will never wear it, but it is so hard to resist the temptation of knitting it!  Maybe I can give it as a gift to a kid, just knit it smaller.  I know there are some Team Jacob's on my Christmas list!

 

Glamour Earrings

 

These are like dripping blood.  I would have to go to the bead store and see what they have, but maybe I could just loosely use this pattern as a guide, because the odds of me finding these beads are very slim.  This looks like a simple project; it calls for DMC thread.  Oh boy, do I have embroidery thread...3 cases of it.

 

That concludes my Top 9 list of pattern projects in the Vampire Knits book.  I can't say that this will be an easy feat or that I will stick to only knitting these projects.  I have magazine subscriptions and I fall in love so easily with every pattern that it will be hard to stay on-track.

 

No way will I knit any of these items quickly.  Quickly and knit do not belong in the same sentence when it is pertaining to me and knitting.  I love the craft, but I'm just not that fast with it.  I wonder how long it will take me to knit all 9 of these projects???  Let the counting begin...



Origami Sweater - Part 2

I have been knitting like crazy all throughout November, and I'm still not done with my Origami Sweater.  I have been knitting the lace stripe then knitting the seed stitch like a robot.  That seed stitch is enough to drive anyone mad!

I started the Origami Sweater in the middle of October; the first post is here:

• Origami Sweater - Part 1

Now, I can positively say that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Like I said, I'm still not done, but it's close.  I brought it with me when I visited Mass over Thanksgiving and got a good portion done.

I knitted the rest of the body, then left that on those needles.  I took a second set of longer size 7 circs and did the Magic Loop method to knit the sleeves in the round, rather than using double pointed needles.  My double points were metal and this yarn is like string, so it kept slipping off of them.  I knitted both sleeves and put a contrasting yellow yarn on the live loops to hold them until I was ready to attach them to the body.

Once I was ready with that I would knit a bit from the body, then knit from the yellow holding yarn from the sleeve, knit more body, then attach the second sleeve in the same manner.  It was a bit weird knitting from a piece of yarn, but it worked.

That yellow yarn in the pic is my left hand "needle".  The work on the right handed needle is the body of the sweater.

I got to attach the sleeves while I was on the plane.  I read a bit, then wanted to attach the sleeves before I forgot what I was supposed to do.  Then I went back to reading.

Can you believe that it is starting to look like a real sweater!  Although, it does look a bit shrunken; I'm expecting that once complete, I will stretch it this way and that way to get the stitches settled in and it will fit fine.  Keep your fingers crossed!

One bad thing about all this knitting is that I sort of injured myself.  Yes, a knitting injury, if you will.  My sister calls it epicondylitis, which is pretty much like tennis elbow in my left forearm.  When I knit, I keep my left hand and arm in a bent clenching position for long periods of time holding the left hand needle and that has made my arm very sore.

In the above pic, it is my extensor carpi radialis brevis that hurts!  When my elbow is bent for a period of time, it is very stiff when I extend it straight.  Ugh!  I do running, cross-fit, and the occasional bike ride...I don't get hurt doing any of those activities, no, I get hurt KNITTING!  Like, could it be any more ridiculous?

As a result of that, I have been slowing down on my knitting.  I'm not even done with my holiday gift knitting either.  I may have to forgo those other gifts and start mixing reading and sewing in between my knit projects.

On that note, let me put a warm compress on my arm so I may finish this sweater!

Craftolution Update - Organize

So, it is March and it appears as though I am not working on any of my Craftolutions.  Untrue!  I just have not been blogging about them.  Let's first start with Craftolution # 1 & 2.  I wanted to organize my patterns and projects and start on some WIPs (Work In Progess); so this post is going to be a picture blog this time (you are probably thinking: "Yeah, she talks too much, anyway").  I first went to my craft closet and took stock of what was in there, yarnwise (I have other crafts such as sewing and misc crafts that I am not talking about here):

Stuff that is not organized



Above are the items that are in the closet that are not in a bin or a basket.  Then I have the items that are in a bin or a basket that appear to be organized, but it has been ages since I looked in them.  Which is what we have below:

All seems neat, but I have no clue what's even in them!

So, let's pull the bin apart and see what we got here.....

UFO#1:Toddler's Sweater

First, I can't get this picture to rotate, so it is sideways.  It is a toddler's sweater that I had thought would be fun with the bright colors.  This sweater was originally going to be for my friend Nicole's daughter.  Nic, this was going to be Allison's!  For those of you that don't know, Allison is 6.   Yeah, no longer a toddler.  This was only the back of the sweater, I never made it to the two front sides or the sleeves.  Hmmm......Next:

UFO#2:Baby Sweater

Again, this pic won't rotate correctly.  Now, this one I really have no excuse.  This is a baby sweater that all I have to do is seam the side and weave in the ends.  It's about 98% done.  Laziness, that is all I have to say about this one.  It has been in this state for about, oh, 5 or more years.  I know, I'm ashamed, but I stuffed it back in the bag it came in to deal with another day, just the same.

UFO#3:Ugly Purple Vest

This pic should speak for itself.  This is the ugliest item of clothing that I have ever made with my two bare hands.  But, this was my first crochet project; still not a good excuse!  This was an actual pattern I got from a magazine and it looked so cute in print.  It should have a crocheted flower near one of the shoulders.  I wanted to use an eyelash yarn to fringe the edges, but that went horribly wrong and I tore it out.  This yarn is very scratchy, too.  Just downright ugly.  This will never leave the yarn bin or the UFO list.  Next:

UFO#4:Irish Knit Sweater

This one I'm not sure if I can even call it a UFO (Unfinished Object).  I would think that it had to be put to needles to be considered a project, but alas, I have about 4 large skeins of this fisherman's wool from Lion Brand.  This was going to be my sister's Irish knitted sweater.  Kathy, I know I promised this to you about a decade ago...sorry!  Next...

UFO#5:T-neck Sweater

These are two skeins that I have that were left over from a baby blanket I made for a friend and now I was using it for a T-neck sleeveless sweater.  It actually will have a cowl neck, but for some reason the pattern called it T-neck.  Whatever.  This UFO is in another bag that appeared in the first pic of loose items.  The UFO project is in the black bag and this reserve yarn was found in the bin.  Below is the rest:

UFO#5 Continued

This UFO is almost complete, too.  It will consist of a front and back and an added cowl neck.  No sleeves.  The front is complete and I am on the back.  I would say it is about 85% done.  I made a mistake and do not want to rip it out, so I placed it back in the bag until I can convince myself that nobody will notice that I did a purl row on a knit row.  I know it is there and I refuse to rip it out so I guess I refuse to work on it right now.  Stubborn, that is how I will describe my thinking on this one.

UFO#5:Beaded Sachet

This next one was from a beading class where you knit with beads.  I took the class at Knit 'n Knibble in Tampa back when I lived in St Pete, which was in 2006.  The goal was to knit a square with your initial in it as the front and then just knit another matching size square as the back and sew them together to become a sachet.  So the pink beads would have been the N and the blue beads would have been the background.  You have to string them on in a certain order before you begin knitting.  I strung them on incorrectly and so a pink or blue was not going to line up correctly.  Ha, so I ripped it out and placed it neatly back in a zip baggie.  I found out by reading an article just recently that you don't have to rip out everything, you just have to rip back to the beginning of the row and cut the yarn and fix the beads in the correct order and restart.  Duh, it sounds so logical now, but not at the time I messed-up.  Oh well.

Seaming Scraps

This one is not a UFO but scraps from another class from Knit 'n Knibble.  This was a seaming class.  Seaming is assembling separate pieces together so they look like they were meant to go together, like sides of a sweater and sleeves in the body.  This was a valuable class that I kept the scraps and refer back to them from time to time.  The red yarn is to simulate that when done correctly, you should not see the red once the tan pieces are seamed together.  Really cool.

Circular Needles

I keep all of my circs in this bin.  I used to store them in zip bags that I wrote the size on the bag, but I had to coil them up to fit them.  I read once that you should not keep them coiled but flattened or uncurled in some manner.  If they are curly, then you have to uncurl them by using very hot, almost boiling water and dip them in until they relax.  That may be ok for the metal ones to do that to over and over, but most of my "vintage" circs are plastic and I am afraid that they will melt one day.  (Who am I kidding, I have not used these circs in years.  I most likely could have left them in the zip baggies for years before I really needed them....).  Let's see what else is in this bin:

Bag-o-Patterns

This bag contained many patterns that I have made over the years.  It also contained all my double pointed needles.  I have said in past posts that I like Magic Loop so much better than using double pointed needles, that this was not such a great find.  But they are there in case I ever need them.  The patterns are what I need to organize in my pattern binder.  I have swatches, patterns, and yarn labels in this bag.  So I threw all of them in a pile and put them in another project bag with the 3-ring binder and plastic page protectors.

Craftolution #2 - Organize Patterns

For me, every project needs its own project bag.  This can be anything from a plastic shopping bag to canvas totes to reusable silky travel bags.  I am not too picky when it comes to project bags because I may not see them for awhile, so I can't be too attached to them.  But what bag I do place them in will determine the order in which I work on them.  Strange, but true.  My favorite bags will get worked on first, then the ones that end up in a plastic shopping bag may never get seen in this decade.  Sad, but true.
 

Extra Project Bags

Here are two extra project bags that I found in the bin.  My People's Saving tote that I got while working at a bank while attending college and a Mobic tote bag that I got in a 5K race promoting a drug for arthritis.  These are great totes for projects.  I will hold them aside for when new projects come in.

I packed up all these UFOs and placed them back in the bin.  I have decided not to work on any of these projects yet.  I am going to organize my binder and then get to the other pile of loose items.  I have my picnic basket of yarn and my loose items to still go through. 

I know you wanted to see me complete something in this post, but I actually did.  I got to see how I have progressed into projects and got to see what my thought process was when I chose these UFOs.  Remember, Craftolution #1 says that I can reuse yarn in a UFO for another project that I will actually complete.  That is a post yet to be written, but it is coming up.

I have to still organize the patterns, swatches and yarn labels, but I have at least gotten to the point where they are in a bag and considered a UFO.  That is more than what they were last month!