Holiday Knits and my first Free pattern!! :D

OK, first I'll show you my new hat that I knit... I'm sure there are other hat patterns like this out there, but I was wanting to use a super bulky weight yarn and didn't see a pattern that I liked for it.

Using the Super bulky yarn made this a very quick knit, so perfect for the last minute holiday gifts, and very warm as well! :)

I knit these for 2 of my nieces because I wanted them to have matching hats(big sis little sis thing ^_^)

So here's the hat, I made it in an infant size

and in a child size

I'm sure just increasing the needle to a US size 13, and adding a few extra rows will adjust the infant to a toddler size and the child to an adult size.

OK, so Items needed

1 skein of Super Bulky yarn( I used just over half of the skein, so probably about 50-60 yards)

maybe 10 yards of 2 contrasting colors for the pompom, any weight yarn is fine, I used worsted(optional, but so cute!)

US size 11 circular needles, I use the magic loop method , so I used a 32 in cable.

1 large tapestry needle to weave in ends

(Just a quick note, I wrote out the pattern the way I like to print patterns out for personal use, I hope it's easy to follow and use...)

Abbreviations:

K -knit P- purl

CO - cast on k2tog - knit two together

CO 35 for infant and 42 for Toddler size

1. k around

2. p around

3. k around

4. k around

5. k around

6. k around

7. p around

8. p around

9. k around

10. k around

11. k around

12. p around

13. p(for infant size skip to round 19 after this round)

14. k around

15. k around

16. k around

17. p around

18. p(for extra length rep rows 14-18 here)

19. k around

20. (begin decrease)*k 5, k2tog, rep from *

21k around

22k around

23 *k 4, k2tog, rep from *

24 k around

25 k around

26 *k 3, k2tog, rep from *

27 k around

28 *k 2, k2tog, rep from *

29 k around

30 *k1,k2tog, rep from *

31 *k2tog, rep from *

Cut the yarn leaving a tail of about 6 inches, using the tapestry needle pull the tail through the last 6 stitches, pull tight and weave in ends

Make and attach pom pom to the top and you're finished :D

(this tutorial at techknitting is probably the best explanation for making a pompom, but I used a different method, just because of the materials I had at hand, it doesn't matter how it's make really)

There, quick and easy :D

Next year I think I'm going to make these in a dark green and put a bright yellow pom pom on top and call them Christmas tree hats! :)

(ok, this was longer than I thought, so the rest of my holiday knits will have to come in a different post! So stay tuned for holiday knits part two!!)

No Sweat!

(disclaimer: the two pictures that I took of the sweater progress are poor quality, because I cannot find my camera and had to use my phone! boo)

So earlier this month I received 14 balls of yarn for my biggest project to date.

Now whether I end up using that many or not...I don't know... but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

So what is this project, you ask? Well, I'm going to be making a sweater for my husband!

I'm modifying the pattern alittle, basically, I wanted to knit in the round, and every sweater I could find required knitting front and back separately and then seaming them together. Now I'm no sweater expert, so I don't know if there's a specific reason for doing this... but what I do know is my hate for seaming things.

So I found a pattern that seemed like it could easily be modified into the round, and my husband still liked...which was actually easier than I thought!lol

this one..right here.

I like that it's a 4x2 ribbing, easy to turn into a "in the round" project, and easy to zone out and watch tv while knitting, haha. I also like that it still has an intricate cable, like my husband wanted, but without having to cable for the entire sweater... I'm still pretty new to cabling, and while I enjoy it, and it's not that difficult, it can be easy to lose your place if you're not paying close attention.

Anyway, the pattern should be really easy to modify. Just knit in the round until the armpit decreases, then split off onto two needles and work just the front, then just the back. Very similar to how I split off the front and back of the first soaker I knit for Faith. Easy peasy :)

I want to have this sweater finished by the time Matt get's his R&R...which we're not sure when that's going to be, but he requested February, so that's my hope... it gives me time to do all of my Christmas knitting, which I'm going to be starting on next month. I'm really excited for those! I have small projects planned for Matthew, and for each of the kids, as well as for some of my other family members :)

Anyways, at first my progress was going kind of slow... I pretty much took a week off of knitting over all, and only knit a little bit here and there, so it took me a full week to get through the first ball of yarn


I picked up the progress a little though(if I kept up the 1 ball a week pace it would never be finished on time!) and now it's been about 3 days since I started on the 2nd ball and I'll probably finish it later today.

Which is a much better pace if you ask me!

And there you have it. My first large scale project! I'm pretty excited...but nervous at the same time... I already made one mistake, and although fixable... I'm worried that I'm going to make some huge mistake towards the end of the body and not be able to fix it! Well... hears hoping that doesn't happen :p

Amazed...

It is so awesome to actually see my work on someone else... especially when that someone is using my work for her amazing photography!!

Go here and here to see my hanging stork sack & a newborn baby hat being used by one of the best photographer's I have ever met(especially baby & kid photo's!!) at Apple Green Photography

My husband even told me that while he normally hates having his picture professionally taken, he felt completely comfortable when we got our pictures taken by her :)

I always love seeing what pictures she'll post on her blog next, I <3 her work! :)

Finished!

I finished hat #3 of 3 for apple green photography! It's been alot of fun knitting these hats, and a huge learning experience! These were the first brimmed hats that I knit and it took me realizing that just because a brim looks cute in a picture doesn't make it practical for every hat, and through that learning experience I ended up trying about 3 or 4 brims before finding the one that I fell in love with and used for my 2nd and 3rd hat...


The first hat I strictly used 1 pattern, the second hat I modified a pattern, and the 3rd hat I took inspirations from about 3 or 4 different patterns to come up with my own... it's the first real pattern I've ever come up with on my own( I really can't count the socks that I knit, because even though I didn't follow a pattern, I still used a basic sock "outline" ) and I'm going to write it down and share it soon, because I really like it :D It is very similar to the second hat I knit, but by the time I was done with it it was so far removed from the pattern that I based the 2nd hat off of that apart from similar looks(remember the 2nd hat was already modified) and a similar brim, they're two very different hats.

Right now I'm blocking the hat... I realized after I was done that I have one kid with a head too small to model the hat, and another with a head too big to model it, so it will have to go unmodeled for now, and you'll just have to be happy with this picture!:p



I'm so so happy to have been able to have the opportunity to knit the for things I did for Apple Green Photography...the timing I realize wasn't Ideal, otherwise I would have knitted these alot sooner, between having Faith...getting used to raising a baby with a preschooler, to adjusting to my husbands deployment... it's been an interesting time, but I feel that it makes these projects mean that much more to me! I've been through so much over the past three months, and these hats have made that journey with me, lol ^_^

Next, I'm going to take a break from knitting for other people for some personal knitting, then in about a month or two I'm going to start working towards getting things set up for my etsy shop! You can visit it at http://www.etsy.com/shop/kitnknits! I still have alot of work to do with it, and the banner I just made real quick using Microsoft paint! haha... but I hope by the end of the year that I can have it up & running with a few items listed, but mostly I want to just focus on custom pieces ^_^ The biggest thing though, is that I've still got alot of learning to do.. there are way better knitters out there than me, atleast in my opinion, but I only started knitting last October, and I have alot of room for growth....I know it's along shot, hoping that anymore people might be interested in my work, but you never know... and besides... I'm mostly doing the etsy shop to keep myself busy while Matt's away.

While you're away...

So my husband's been gone a little over a week now, and I'm still trying to get back on track...

It's not that things have been exceptionally difficult for me, I mean, I miss him to pieces, but I've been doing ok.... it's just the kids that have been difficult... Izzy misses his daddy so much, they were so close... it breaks my heart to hear Izzy talk about him...

Jack has been doing pretty good over all.. he's been a big big help with the two little ones, but has been slacking pretty bad on his chores from time to time... over all though... it's mostly been a very messy room that seems to never get clean.. apart from that he's not doing too bad.

It is a bit of a shock to realize how much DH does day to day... and I feel like it takes him leaving before I could truly appreciate it...

Anyways, I don't really have any new knitting updates... I've been talking with a friend about possibly designing a new Soaker pattern, with ribbing in the butt area only, rather than all through the crotch or using short rows... so I'm hoping to work on that as soon as I finish this last hat for Apple Green Photography.... I've finally made some progress on it! I had to completely scrap it at one point, and then frog back a few times... finally I had to put it down and work on something else for a day before going back to it... now though, it's coming along well, only another day or two of work, and I'll be done...

That is as long as I actually have time to knit..lol.
There have actually been a few days since DH left that I haven't picked up my needles at all...
Today for example I was so exhausted from not sleeping well, and from a crazy intense workout this morning, that I ended up falling asleep on the couch with Izzy(The fact that both the little ones were asleep at the same time was a huge blessing! lol)

I also just started reading the book of Job... DH and I wanted to have something we could both talk about while he's deployed, so every month we're both reading a book(or series of books) of the bible "together" this month is Job...which I think is an inspiring book to read during hard times... I've read it once through before years ago, so it'll be good to read it again..
But that also has been taking away some of my knitting time...but I figure, spending time in God's Word way is more important...if I thought otherwise, than that would be making knitting an idol... and I really should be reading my bible more anyways... usually the most reading I'll do is when I go over my bible study for my sunday school small group.. and that's not alot really...


Anyways, that's my update for now, I'll probably be updating this alot more now that things are getting back on schedule :D

Crochet is the devil!! ...and other things :)

Let me start off by saying that I really do not like to crochet. I admit that it has it's place, and for those who love it, good for you. Personally though, I can't stand it! It's not that I don't know how... I just don't enjoy it.

That being said.. I think crochet flowers are tooo cute! So when I was making my second hat for apple green photography(I'll get to the first one in a bit) I knew that I wanted to add a crochet flower on that hat!

SO I broke out my crochet hook... reviewed some of the basics on youtube, double crochet, slip, half double crochet, etc... ugh... I like keeping it simple with a "knit" and "purl" lol. Anyways, after a couple hours of fumbling around with different patterns, I finally made a crochet flower that I thought was worthy of the hat and have finished it!

(poor Izzy had to model this hat for me...lol)

I also made a crochet headband for Faith to wear at our family portraits today :D

(looks better on, of coarse, lol


And so that is that.

Now then, on to the "other things!"
Since starting this blog there have been many many posts that I've wanted to make, the problem is... If I have to choose between knitting or blogging during the limited amount of time Faith has been giving me... I usually choose knitting...although there have been times that I've also chosen to sit in a catatonic state from shear exhaustion. So needless to say, I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like.

So I'm going to do a quick(fingers crossed) summary of missed posts for this past month.
First off! On the way to visit my BIL & SIL I finished knitting up a CUTE Stretchy bag for my SIL, and here's the final product:

It's actually not really that stretchy because of the cotton yarn that I used... but I like it alot, and I hope that she does too :)

I also finished the first hat for apple green photography(if you haven't checked out her page yet, she is AMAZING )(My husband hates having his picture taken, but he said that she was the first photographer that he was comfortable with, and wouldn't mind getting pictures taken again, any time :D)
Aand this is the best picture that I managed to get with the hat on Faith:

It was my first time knitting a brimmed hat, and the brim gave me trouble, but I'm happy with it over all, so all is good.

Also I got some awesome new Knitpicks yarn in recently!!!

The khaki is a merino wool that I'm going to use to knit up my first sweater.. I'm going to be making a birthday/Christmas present to send over to my husband in Iraq... he may not really be able to wear it over their, but I figure it'll be nice to have a homemade something over their... and he'll probably be able to wear it during R&R.
The 3 colorful ones I'm going to use to knit up some leg warmers for Faith!! 2 of them are the Felici self striping yarn!!!! AAAH Soo darn cute! I can't wait to knit those up!! ( I almost don't want to knit the other things I have to knit first...boo... but she can't wear them now anyway, it's too hot! lol)


And well.. as you saw above... my husband is going to be in Iraq for Christmas... he's not their yet, but he leaves very soon... it's our first deployment... and I don't really know how I feel about it... I mean.. I survived the 5 months of barely talking to him when he went to OSUT last year... and my living situation at the time was next to awful... this time I'll be living with just me and the kids, and I'll be talking to him more often... and I'll be around other people who are army wives(none of the "stop moping it can't really be that bad!" from women who complain that there husbands missed dinner 3 nights in a row because of work!! ...Not that I was constantly moping, but I wasn't miss happy-go-lucky 24/7, which I guess bothered some people)


Anyways, so that's my updates for now.. I guess there's not as much as I thought... stay tuned for more.. maybe I'll post a blog soon about the evolution of my knitting, haha.

Soaked

So as you may have read while in the hospital with Faith I took my free time(when I wasn't shaking like a bowl full of jello) and spent it knitting her a soaker. You may also remember that I snapped my size 2 1/2 40" circular needles :( Well, I lucked out alittle and was able to get some size 3 DPNs from walmart a couple days after that. You have no idea how happy I was.... and alittle scared.. See I have purposely stayed away from DPNs since I started knitting, as soon as I could I looked up alternatives to sock knitting, and that's actually when I stumbled upon knitpicks.com, my now favorite go-to knitting site. KnitPicks circular needles have a very thin VERY flexible connecting tube which allows users to knit in the round using what's called the "Magic Loop Method" While the name may seem silly the method is amazing. I can knit something as small as say, finger holes for gloves using this method! Easily


Anyways, I was out of luck with my needles, the smallest size needle that comes in my interchangeable set is a size 4.. I needed atleast a size 3, so I was stuck with the DPN's... and really it wasn't too terrible


It's a learning curve for sure, and I guess they're useful to have around(easier to make I-cords with) but my biggest problem was that rather than stopping once halfway through a round, I had to stop 3 times...and I can get distracted easily once I get to the end of a "row" lol I still much prefer the magic loop method of knitting, and I'm taking this opportunity to order size 2's this time.

Anyway, the biggest thing is that I was able to finish the soaker, and the leg holes didn't turn out too much bigger than I wanted them to either.


I was supposed to do a kitchener stitch to join the crotch together...but I HATE the kitchener stitch, so I used a 3 needle bind off instead, and am quit pleased with it... it's a little thicker & more noticeable than a kitchener would have been, but it's a seam.. it's fine if it's a little noticeable!