Look how awesome my customers are!

Jessalyn from Junebug Creations bought my South Sea Squares quilt pattern a few months ago, and look how darling hers turned out!

(photo by Jessalyn, used with her permission)

This is my favorite part about pattern design - seeing how other people interpret my designs in fun new ways! Of course, I could just be partial to this quilt because I love the sock monkey fabric ... but come on, it's a quilt cute even if you don't have the sock monkey fabric obsession I have!

So come on, Lazy Mamas! Show me what you've made ... hmmm, do I smell a contest abrewing?

Look! Pattern development!

Yeah, so with all the mermaid tail production and sock knitting and vacationing, it's been a little while since I've introduced a new pattern to my shop. I've got a new one on the machine now, though, and once I get it written up I think it will be pretty popular. Here's a taste:

It may be a few days before it's available, though, since I have Important Things to do, like go to the observation class at Lazy Kid's dance studio.

Pimpin' my homies

http://www.clevelandhandmade.com/?page_id=70

The Cleveland Handmade etsy team has an orange-and-black challenge going, with voting continuing until Sunday, October 26, so stop by the site and pick your favorite. Sign up for the mailing list at the same time, and you're entered to win a gift certificate good at any of the participating shops. Just in time for holiday shopping!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, I do have an entry - the Halloween Hexagons quilt. I can't decide whether I like this view better, or the view they used for the ballot - I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?

on the needles

Yup, the Christmas rush has started already.

My goal this year is a pair of socks for everyone we exchange gifts with, which means two boys, a preschooler, my parents, LazyHusband's parents, LazyHusband's sisters, LazyHusband and Lazy Kid. That's a lot of stockinette.

Depending on how tight on time I am, I may count the socks for LazyHusband and Lazy Kid as already done, and really early, too!

But I've got my mother's socks on the needles, using stretch cotton self-striping sock yarn, and using the Jaywalker pattern for the legs (just plain stockinette for the feet). I've got the first sock finished, and dove right into the second sock ... only to find out that the striping width varies from one end of the skein to the other, so that when I started the second sock pulling yarn from the outside of the ball, I got wide stripes, but the first sock (from the inside of the ball) had thin stripes. So I frogged the second and dug around to find the inside end, started the sock again, and the stripes were thin. Huzzah!

And I have yarn for my mother-in-law's socks, my father's socks, and a pair for me and Lazy Kid to match. I probably have enough scraps left to do the boys' socks out of the leftovers from LazyHusband's socks, and I'm waiting for inspiration to strike before I buy yarn for my sisters-in-law. Plus, one of them lives in San Diego - not much sock-wearing going on there, unless I make her a pair of tabi to go with her flip-flops.

For some reason, I also decided it was a good idea to try the Liberty blanket in Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines, which is 4'x5' and done in an intricate Fair Isle pattern that has a pattern repeat of like, um, 60 rows. And the yarn is sticky enough on the needles that I'm getting carpal-tunnel from trying to scootch the stitches along as I knit. I've taken to grabbing sections of it with my teeth to pull it along ... so now my lips are chapping, too.

What the hell was I thinking? At least it's just for me, so if I have to stuff it in the back of a closet for a while to regain my composure, nobody's going to miss out at Christmas. Besides, the first five rows of the pattern look really nice ... and I've only made like two errors that I know of, neither of which will be noticeable once I'm done. Right? Right.

Cowl-ly goodness

Okay, here's the cowl I finished while we were on vacation:

And here's a closeup of the stitch pattern, since nobody seems to have included that anywhere with the directions. It looks pretty cool, but since it gets all bunched up when you wear it, I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
Again, that's "Abby," by Amy R. Singer, found via Ravelry on knitty.com, made using some laceweight blue alpaca that I got for free (thanks, petite!).

Also, compare the first photo background with the previous photo backgrounds, such as you'd find here ... we painted our bathroom teal! Yay! I love it, but it does make for a somewhat more cave-like photo.

Success!

I looked down last night, and LazyHusband, LazyKid and I were all wearing socks I had knit.

Score!

This winter I'm going to try for an extended family portrait with all of us - including grandparents - swathed in toasty handknit socks.

LazyFamily, you've been warned!

Tinker Toy swift

Success! I made a variation of the Tinker Toy swift (tons of versions available online - here's one I used as inspiration) and used it while I hand-wound one of the Ranco skeins I got in Blacksburg. It worked great - nice and sturdy, exactly the right size for my skein, and it went together in less than five minutes.

Also, it didn't cost $80 like some umbrella swifts can.

Plus, LazyKid helped assemble it, and LazyHusband was supremely impressed that it worked, even if he still doesn't get why I need to wind my yarn into balls in the first place.

Now, if I can find a set of K'Nex, I'm totally making myself a ball winder. That'll be another $40 saved, since technically buying a set of K'Nex is a "toy" purchase, not a "yarn" purchase, right? Even if LazyKid can't use them for another couple years? Right?

Back from vacation, with two projects finished

When I wasn't wandering around looking at stuff like this:
... I was knitting. A lot. Like for hours on the plane, for hours every night after we hit Lazy Kid on the head with the sleep hammer, for hours while we drove from Denver to Colorado Springs and back. I get a lot done on vacation, have I mentioned that?

First project I finished in Colorado: Socks for LazyHusband

And since I haven't bothered to link to it before, here are the instructions I use for toe-up socks. These were made in "Forever" by Lane Cervinia in color 61, on size 2 DPNs. They were a lot of fun, as the pattern in the yarn changed so frequently that the miles and miles and miles of plain stockinette stitch wasn't nearly so mind-numbing as it could have been. Because hubby has size 13 feet which are about the size of waterskis, so trust me, there was plenty of stockinette. Plenty.

The other project I finished I can't show you yet - it's not blocked yet, as I just finished it four hours ago as our plane was taxi-ing into the Cleveland airport. It's a lace cowl, "Abby," by Amy R. Singer, found via Ravelry on knitty.com. I made it using leftover alpaca yarn from the "Eve" sweater I did last winter, and the yarn was every bit as hairy and somewhat itchy as I remembered. Here's hoping it will be cold enough when I wear it that I won't notice :)

More from vacation, including a review of an awesome yarn store, and a tribute to a ridiculously expensive cashmere scarf kit I couldn't bring myself to splurge on, and I've been kicking myself ever since.