Sunday, October 16, 2016

So easy a 4-year-old can do it

Jack and I made pom-poms today:

 

I got these Clover pom-pom makers today (the large and small sets), and Jack and I had fun with some yarn scraps. We watched a YouTube video, and it really is super easy (the video is a bit long, so I admit I kind of skipped some parts of it). He's 4 now and he did most of his pom-pom all by himself, with only a little help with the scissors.

And since he picked the very biggest one and it took awhile to wrap, I made myself a whole bunch of smaller ones out of small bits of handspun:

 

Needless to say, this was a super fun way to use up small bits of yarn. Now I just have to figure out what to do with a bunch of pink pom-poms ;).

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Frogging success

I had this project on the needles for at least 7 years:

I created the project in Ravelry in late 2008, though the niece I started this project for was born in 2006 so it may have been cast on even earlier than that. I was trying to make a little jacket, designing it as I went, and for whatever reason I just never finished the sleeves (I think this was back when I had a habit of leaving a lot of projects with only the sleeves left to go).

So I finally frogged that project that was never going to be finished, and I made the yarn into a super soft blankie for Rosemary:

I did not enjoy working with this yarn (I understand why it's discontinued!), but the finished blankie is pretty nice. I'm not sure how well it's going to hold up, so I guess we'll see!

Anyway, I didn't use a pattern to make the blankie. I just divided my yarn in half, and I worked a garter stitch square from one corner with a KFB at the beginning of each row until I got to the halfway point of my yarn, then I worked K2tog at the beginning of each row. Just in case you want to make a super simple blankie of your own :). At a bulky gauge on size 11 needles, this took me less than a week to make, and I didn't even have a ton of knitting time to work on it, so it's quick in addition be being easy.

One of my goals for 2016 is to either finish or frog all of my old WIPs this year. Over the past 2 years, I've been much better about finishing projects and being semi-monogamous with my knitting, so I haven't added too much to the pile of hibernating WIPs, but I never really went back and cleaned up all that stuff from the past when my knitting was much less focused.

So, in January I'm trying to frog all of the old stuff I know I don't want to finish, and then I've got the rest of the year to finish the other projects. So far I've frogged several projects, but this is the only one that's been made into something new already. I have a little bit more frogging to do, then I need to work on finishing the rest. Wish me luck!

 

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope you're doing well, and making progress on your 2016 resolutions/themes/whatever you may do to start off a new year.

Sorry for the long absence, I've been a little busy with this cutie:

Projects in this photo: hat and sweater

This is Rosemary, born last July. She and her big brother have been keeping me more than a little busy for the past 6 months :). I haven't had a lot of time with my hands free, and I've mostly chosen to spend what little free time I have on knitting (because typing out a blog post takes time away from knitting!). I feel like I always say this, but in 2016 I really would like to post here more often.

I have to run now, and hopefully you'll see me back here soon!