Heart-worm

I have been knitting a lot. I really have. But my documentation of crafting activities hasn't kept up. Even my Ravelry page has fallen by the wayside. I will have to play catch-up. For now, in honor of Valentine's day, I'm posting a few pictures of the projects completed over the past few days.

First up, Earthworm, byt Hansi Singh from the book Amigurumi Knits. This is one of the simpler patterns in this book, and I'm dying to try them all (just cast on for the black-devil anglerfish today!)
This was a wee Valentine for my wee lad. He named him Sherman. This evening, he fell asleep clutching Sherman to his chest.
Moving on, I've been on a heart-themed dish cloth rampage ever since agreeing to participate in a secret valentine pal gift swap at work. The four pictured below are Heart Washcloth by Nicky Green. So simple and quick...every valentine deserves one.
Finally, there's the Heartbeat Cloth by Elaine Fitzpatrick. Hopefully, my secret pal will be as please as I am with this pattern.
Happy Valentine's Day to you and your loved ones.

Christmas wreath, glad tidings

Knitted Wreath pattern by Julie Weisenberger.

Happy Christmas to you all!

Hermit Crab Costume

For previous Halloweens, I've basically chosen Silas' costume for him. But this year, he knew what he wanted to be months in advance: a hermit crab. So, I got to work, made felted claws which are really just elongated and pointier mittens, and then crafted a hat with googly eyes.
There wasn't really a lot on Ravelry or the Internet to go on in terms of patterns, particularly for the hat, so I made it up as I went along. I had all the yarn in my stash already (brown sheep lambs pride), so it was also a low cost costume.

The costume was a joint effort with my husband. He took a bike helmet (same one we used to turn Silas into a turtle his first Halloween) , and used papier mache to sculpt it into the shell you see below.
This last picture was taken weeks before Halloween, when I had just finished his mitts and hat. He was very excited to be a hermit crab and would grab my hand and gently pinch it. "See mommy, I'm a nice crab!" Yes indeed.

Happy Christmas to you all!

Above: the tree on Christmas eve.

Quick icord Candycane:
Reindeer ornament, with gold snowflake in the background:
Happy holidays to you all!

Christmas Forest

All 24 trees...lined up for picture taking time. This project was a lot of fun and a great way to stash burn, though I'm about plum out of green feltable yarn now.
The numbers are painted on buttons, which are actually velcroed to the trees so that they can be taken off, shifted around or what not. During the course of creating these trees, Silas would often run off with them and occasionally, they'd end up as trees on his farmland. It will be nice to have the option of taking the numbers off of the trees in case he wants to use them in this way throughout the year.
I'm looking forward to using this for years to come, and that tradition starts...TODAY! Silas uncovered his first puzzle piece this morning. By Christmas Eve, he'll have all 24 puzzle pieces, and we can put his puzzle together. Won't Santa be impressed :)
The little yellow car, by the way, is not the prize, but is simply being used to navigate through the forest.
While I'm not sure that Silas fully gets what's going on here, I have a feeling it will only take a few days for him to catch on. His puzzle piece this morning showed a starfish and his response was "maybe tomorrow, I'll get an octopus one!"

"They're for Christmas"

I will post pictures of the finished Christmas Forest soon.

Backlogged

Not only am I behind on posting to this blog, but I've also been negligent in keeping Ravelry updated, something I'm usually pretty up on. So, consider this blog my first intent to get back into the swing of things. First up, I've been working on my advent tree project for over a month now and thought I'd post a few pictures of it as a wip. The trees are all felted, but I thought I'd throw in a few pre-felted pictures and then a shot of them pretty much as they will look when all is said and done. I'm actually putting the finishing touches on them this weekend. The trees themselves are done, but I also had to paint numbers on buttons and then figure out how to attach them to the trees. I thought it would be nice if I could take the number buttons off of the trees. Silas likes to play with them and pretend they're trees on his farm so it would be nice if the numbers weren't perminantly attached. The obvious choice was velcro. Ive got about 18 more buttons that need to have velcro glued to them and then this wip will officially cross over into fo-land. Just in time for December 1st.

Other than my advent forest, over the past several weeks, I've made Silas a pair of slippers and knit him a hat. I feel like I'm forgetting to mention a project, but, those were the big ones at least. I will try to keep the blog posts coming.

In costume

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For those of you who don't read my other, more frequently updated blog, here are a few pictures of Silas in his Halloween costume, featuring the digger sweater I knit and the bulldozer his dad made. Both the sweater and the bulldozer will get plenty of post-Halloween use :)

Other than the whole Halloween thing, I've been knitting and felting little trees like mad. I need to have 24 completed by December 1st and I'm well on my way. I'll try to include a post with pictures of that project soon.

Big Digger, or Halloween, here we come!

Like many toddlers, Silas thinks that big construction vehicles like diggers and bulldozers are the coolest things ever. He is pretty excited for the costume I've got planned for Halloween 09. This sweater, from the fabulous Lucinda Guy's Handknits for Kids, is perfect for what Silas and I are envisioning! Silas can't wait for this sweater to be completed. He keeps opening the book and asking for the bulldozer page. He’ll then spend a good deal of time staring at the picture. He has asked me several times if he could help me make it because he wanted it to be done right away, and one day he even grabbed the needles while I was working on it and said "I want to help."

I started making this at the end of August. I wanted to give myself a big cushion of time in order to avoid scrambling to finish in time. Not necessary. It's knitting up so quickly, and now that I'm past the digger motif, it will be easy breezy from here on out. Not looking forward to the seaming, but I'll live.

Season's Greetings

Happy Holidays to you all!

The stockings were hung...

Our little holiday nook...Silas can turn the lights on and off with the switch on his right. It has fast become a favorite game.

I finally finished the third stocking. Till today, it's been sitting in my basket, all done except for about 3 rows on the heel. I ran out of green, unfortunately, and was feeling too stingy to go buy an entire skein just for 3 rows. Finally today, I looked through my stash and found another skein of Lamb's Pride in a dark green. Not the same dark green, mind you, but close enough. I guess I didn't feel like being picky, and at any rate, I'm the only one who will ever notice, most likely.

Anyways, the are all done, hung, and ready to go!
Making these stockings was an incredibly joyful experience. Here's a slightly closer look at my stocking, Stocking #3, with two different snowflake motifs. Very appropriate, given today's weather (see this post on my family blog).
Now that the stockings are completed, I've moved on to Silas' knitted farmland. This is a BIG project. I've already completed about 10 squares, but I intend on having at least 48, but most likely 64 (8 x 8), so I have a long way to go!

I'll post pictures of a few after I've blocked them.

And then there were two, two and a half, three...

Two down...one more to go! I rather like the look of Drew's stocking --all green and white except for the red toe and heel. My stocking will be the opposite --all red and white with a green toe and heal.

A lot of people seem interested in what the inside, or wrongside, of this sort of colorwork looks like, so here's a picture:
You can really see how thick these are. They would keep feet nice and toasty even on the coldest of nights.

Here's a look at my stocking, which is on my needles right now.
That metal thing around my finger is a Norwegian knitting thimble. I decided to try it out to see if it helped keep the two colors separated, since I prefer to hold the two strands in the same hand, rather than one in each hand. I haven't quite gotten used to it yet, so the jury's still out. It does keep the colors in order, but I find it a bit awkward, and I have to wrap something inside it so that it doesn't slide around (or off) my finger constantly. I'm not so sure I'll continue to use it or not, but I can see it's potential as a handy little do-dad.