More knitty goodness

From Knitted Toys, by Fiona McTague. Made from no-dye-lot cheapo acrylic yarn from my stash of stuff I used when I didn't know any better. Many thanks to my (soon-to-be-former) neighbor Sonia for fishing it out of my stash and mailing it to me at the hotel. And many thanks to my former neighbor Sybil for loaning me some Fiberfil so I wouldn't have to carry empty Zebra parts down to Kentucky this weekend.

It's funny, but from this photo, you can barely tell that the zebra's head is larger than his body, making him look like an escaped prison inmate with a wicked case of macrocephaly. Thanks to the indestructible nature of this yarn and how quickly the kid latched onto it when it wasn't even done yet, this sucker's going to be mocking me for a long, long time.

Next up: attempting to recreate this in crochet, as well as making some penguins and polar bears for potential future Etsy listings. I've still got 1/4 skein of black and 1/2 a skein of white, after all!

Sock-tacular

Pattern: Plymouth Yarn Design Studio: Sockotta Hat and Socks
Yarn: Opal handpainted superwash sock and sweater yarn, color 20

If you try these, be warned that if you follow the directions as written, you'll end up with the rows of toe decreases going vertically from the bottom of your middle toe to the top, rather than horizontally across the ends of your toes. I fixed the pattern for the second sock, then went back and fixed the first one that looked decidedly odd. Also, the directions for doing the short rows aren't really too clear, and I'm fairly sure that I'm not doing them precisely right, because my heels are still a little holey.

On the positive side, they fit, they're warm enough to wear in the dead of winter, and they're bright enough that my husband probably won't throw them in the dryer by accident. Plus, super-cool retro slouchy goodness. Hooray!

Next up: a zebra toy for Liza to use up some awful acrylic yarn from my stash. I'm knitting from a pattern on this one, but I'm thinking I could make up my own crochet pattern to make something similar. Maybe once I've finished this one ... and the stash-buster stuffed dog that's scheduled for after that ...

WIP Friday

Ta dah! I'm 3/4 of the way through my first knitted sock, complete with short row heels:
I'm proud of the fact that when I finished the heel and realized it sucked, I frogged it back to the last complete round and did it again, despite the severe pain-in-the-buttedness of trying to pick up the 30 stitches that were needed for the heels. Took me close to an hour to pick up those blasted things and get them turned around right on the needle. At least the second attempt looked a little better ... just don't look too closely at the other side, where apparently I did something wrong when I picked up one of the wraps.
I think I'm going to do a quick darning job on the hole to close it up, and I'll keep my eye on that spot when I do the next heel. Oh, no - it will NOT be holey again!

Fun with felting

Pattern from http://www.magknits.com/warm04/patterns/sophie.htm
Yarn: kureyon by Noro, colorway 150 or possibly 164, I can't tell online.

This yarn fought me from the moment I brought it home. I bought it with the idea of making a felted box similar to the ones in Mason Dixon knitting, only I don't have the book and only had a vague idea of how to make the box. I started knitting, and when the sucker wasn't even halfway done I had used up 3/4 of the one skein the project was supposed to take. Ithrew it in the closet and worked on other things, then started with the second skein I had bought to try to make the tote bag in One Skein ... and got a good two hours into that before I realized that their definition of "one skein" includes one skein of each color in the sample ... which was going to require five or six skeins for the pattern I had chosen. So I found a smaller handbag pattern online, unwound the second attempt, and finally managed to make something out of my expensive yarn.

I'm very pleased with the result, especially since I took a relatively drab and scratchy wool yarn and felted into a nicely striped, soft and fuzzy handbag. And it only cost me $3 to felt it in the washer here at the hotel! I wish I had brought along some more of the felting wool I have at the house ... until we move, I guess I'm just going to have to restrain my urge to make more handbags. Must ... not ... felt ...