Look how pretty!

My Leyburn socks, which I'm knitting from the same yarn as the emergency wedding shawl (and the socks I made for my sister-in-law). Look how pretty!

And the scarf I made for Lazy Kid, which was a really fun short-row knitting project that used Soy Wool Stripes from Paton.

She wears it tied around her waist like a cummerbund. At least that way the static electricity it generates doesn't mess up her hair :)

Last-minute greeting cards

Okay, so the package to the Lazy Grandparents needed to be in the mail today, and Lazy Kid wanted to make a Valentine's day card to go with it. Glitter glue wouldn't dry in time, so I hauled out Plan B: punching designs in cardstock with a hammer and nail.

1. Put a piece of corrugated cardboard on a solid surface (one you don't mind nicking up a bit if someone gets a little too excited with the hammer), then put the paper to be punched on top. I used regular cheapo cardstock for Lazy Kid's card, and some commercial blank greeting cards for my versions. Make sure you're looking at the inside of the card, poking the holes toward the outside of the card.

2. Use a lightweight hammer to force a thin nail through the cardstock into the cardboard (but hopefully not into the table under it), punching a small hole in the card. Repeat the process, placing holes no closer than about 1/4" apart (much closer together and the paper will tear, and then the kid will cry, and that's not the point of this, now is it?). You can lightly trace a design for the child to follow, or tape a pattern to the paper and remove it when all the holes are punched, or just let them wing it. Or, if you're really dumb, you can hold the nail while the kid hammers, which lets you control where the holes will end up, and also really, really hurts. Don't ask how I know this.

Lazy Kid's card, made with me aiming the nail (ow)

The bumps made by the nail pushing through will be different sizes depending on what size nail you use and how deep it penetrates, so if there's a specific look you're going for, play around with it on a piece of scrap paper before you let the kid go to it.

One of my cards - the outer heart followed a pattern, the inner one was done freehand

If you use a fairly large nail, you could even glue or tape a piece of colored paper behind the holes so the color would show through (and your traced pattern would be covered up), but it's really the texture of the holes that makes this so fun. I've made a bunch more this morning, whenever I could wrest the hammer away from my daughter. I love that our craft session included the sentence, "I want to make another card - where's the hammer?"

The last of the cotton market bags

Pattern can be found here: http://cerdeb.googlepages.com/SuperSelfPouchingStringShoppingBag.pdf

The construction on this is really nice - there's a double bottom that isn't joined all the way around, so you can flip the whole thing inside out and stuff the bag into the bottom to keep it tidy when it's not in use.

I think I've got one more market bag left in me before I'm done with this for a while, and I think I'm going to combine the bottom of this bag with the sides of the sea shell tote, just to see how they work together. Wish me luck!

Looky what I made

Lazy Kid likes her Rapunzel braid so much, she wore it to the mall on Sunday, and she would have worn it to school today if I hadn't tackled her on her way out the door. It's on a ponytail elastic, and the boucle yarn is lightweight enough that it doesn't pull out immediately, even on her straight hair. I may have to invest in some extra colors of yarn and see if these will sell in the etsy shop.

What I've been up to

Well, first of all, I've been dealing with the near-record January snowfall (around 40" ... just in January) here outside of Cleveland. The snow has come regularly in large quantities with no thaws in between, which is why both sides of my driveway look like this:


The snow is so deep that Lazy Kid hasn't been able to get out to play, since every time she tries she either gets stuck in a waist-deep drift or loses one of her boots somewhere in the side yard. This means we're all going stir-crazy, which may be why these have been so much fun:

I went stash-diving and came up with a whole bunch of kitchen cotton and leftover Paton's Grace mercerized cotton, most of which has been crocheted into reusable shopping bags. I made these two ... on Sunday. God, I love crochet. It's fast and uses lots of yarn, which is a good combination when trying to clear out stash.

You can find the pattern for the top bag here: http://shepherdscrookcrochet.blogspot.com/2008/05/she-sells-sea-shells.html

And the second bag here: http://momles.blogspot.com/2008/05/old-fashioned-string-bag.html

The first bag is cuter, but smaller, while the second bag holds a lot more but looks more utilitarian. The load in the second one during the photo shoot: fourteen library books and seven CDs. The librarians were impressed when I got there - it was like one of those clown cars where more and more people keep getting out, only in my case it was almost-overdue library materials.

I have a third bag in process that should be finished tonight or tomorrow, and it's both gigantic and a HUGE suck on my yarn supply, so this may be my last one for a while. Unless I can make shopping bags out of leftover sock yarn ... hmm ...

Sqam

http://www.squamartworkshops.com/index.php

Anyone participated in this program before? I know some of the crafty bloggers I read are teaching this year, and it looks like an excellent vacation idea ... but I'd like some feedback from people who have actually gone before. So pipe up if you're a Squammer!

My new favorite listing on etsy

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19852075

(fwiw, I bought a DIY I Spy bag kit from aebaby, and it was wonderfully done, and just right for my pre-reading daughter. I highly recommend her stuff .... although I'd prefer a lower price on this one!)

It's just so pretty

And it's cashmere! swoon

Feeling all smug in a MacGyverish sort of way

Lazy Husband was just getting ready for bed and discovered a rather troubling steady drip of water that is coming from the top of our bedroom window frame and splashing loudly on our windowsill every 0.65 seconds. Aside from the hideous mold this leak is probably causing in our walls and attic, the sound is enough to drive you insane while trying to go to sleep.

Putting down a towel on the sill didn't help, it just made it into more of a splat than a plink, and at the rate the water is coming out the towel would be completely soaked before morning, anyway. Lazy Husband was about ready to give up and sleep in the guest room tonight when I had a brain flash.

I grabbed the leftover (organic, unbleached, undyed, ridiculously expensive) cotton yarn from this hat, taped one end to the wall above the leak, ran the length of it so it touched the drippy point on the frame, and stuck the other end in a plastic pitcher. Once I wetted down the yarn along its length, the water ran (silently!) down the yarn and into the pitcher.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, craft gods, for helping me get some sleep tonight. Because I'm going to need it when calling repair people tomorrow ...

Update - look how cute the legwarmers are as fingerless mittens!

All I did was add a large buttonhole to the side as a thumbhole, and voila! Fingerless mittens that look really cute on a 13-yr-old! Gotta go make some of those for me ...

Little Legwarmers now available

Just a quick note to let everyone know that you can now buy my Little Legwarmers EXCLUSIVELY at Above the Barre dance studio in Berea, OH.

The legwarmers all feature decorative ribbon bows at the top and double-overcast edges at the bottom (which look a little different from the ones in the photo, but trust me, they're even cuter with the new lettuce hem). Great as legwarmers for young kids, or armwarmers for older kids or adults! Each pair is individually made by me, and comes packaged in a cute cello bag with care instructions on the tag. A steal at only $8 a pair!

Get them while you can - I sold three pairs before the owner had finished reading the consignment agreement I wrote up!

If they sell well at the studio, I may try selling them at additional venues, so let me know if you have any suggestions of places who might be looking to sell kids' clothing.

Wifebeater bag

Lazy Husband left a pile of t-shirts sitting in our bedroom, waiting for the next run to Goodwill. I snagged one and turned it into a reusable shopping bag, ala the much superior ones that fellow Clevey zJayne makes.

In order to make the bags, you first have to cut off the sleeves and the neckline of the shirt, then fold in the sides of the shoulders to reinforce the handles. When you do that, you basically turn a poor, unsuspecting t-shirt into a wifebeater, which got me giggling. And when you make the bottom of the bag and gusset it, you end up with this sort of wifebeater-torso bag, which is going to make me snort every time I use it.

Note to self - when making subsequent bags, a unisex XL makes a bag that's really too huge to be practical. I could stuff most of a week's worth of groceries in there, if i didn't mind them squishing each other into a pulp before I got them to the car. Or maybe I'll just go buy one from zJayne ...

Some projects that aren't socks

This past summer I made a cotton skirt for Lazy Kid, who managed to outgrow it before she tired of wearing it. After a couple of months of her showing everyone her undies unintentionally, I finally got around to adding a couple of inches to the hem. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out:

The hem is a mixture of a lace pattern from a pair of socks I made ages ago, and part of a lace edge on a collar in a recent issue of Knitty, so basically it's a one-off that's never going to happen again. Shame, because the ruffle effect is pretty cute. Might have to practice that on another skirt to see if I can get the ruffle again. In the meantime, since she's been the same waist size forever and her legs are growing like weeds, I'm saving the rest of the lace pattern for later. I figure I can pull the cast-off edge and just keep going when I need to make it longer again :)

And, once the socks were all done - ALL DONE! - I knit myself a hat and a pair of mittens to celebrate. It goes nicely with the scarf I made earlier this ... er, last year.

Awww, aren't I cute? Also cute - the hat, and the button on the brim that I found in the button box. The mittens are only felted because they turned out freakishly large - they didn't fit Lazy Husband, and he's got giant hands - and I still need to add some elastic to help cinch in the cuffs. But they're close enough to finished for a photo, right? I had so much fun felting the mittens that I've already cast on for a pair of Fuzzy Feet, which I hope to have finished by the end of the weekend.

Merry Christmas!

Smug

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a needle was stirring, because THE SOCKS WERE ALL DONE!

Ha!

Ha!

Ha!

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha!

All I have left is a pair for myself, and I am really done. Really, really done.

Hah! Really, one more pair to go!

LazyKid's:
My Dad's:

Half of one of LazyHusband's socks to go, and a pair for me, and I am D-O-N-E done! Which means I'll probably fall and break my wrist tomorrow at the grocery store ;)

Things are coming down to the wire

Okay, so I have a week to finish socks for my father, socks for my husband, socks for my daughter, and socks for me. That's doable, right? groan

And yes, the sidebar is right - I do have THREE PAIRS OF SOCKS on the needles right now. Good thing I've got one pair of worsted, one of fingering, and one of lace-weight yarn, so they all take different size needles. And don't even get me started on the logistics of trying to work on these without the intended recipients seeing their own socks (which is why I've got three pairs going at once, so I have a project appropriate for every spare moment of the day).

Going out of business?

Okay, so if you're at all crafty you have probably heard about this, but it could stand to be repeated here because it WILL impact my business.

The government has recently passed a rather poorly-thought-out law,the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, which goes into effect February 10 2009. On the surface, it sounds good, requiring additional testing of children's toys and equipment to reduce exposure to lead and other harmful substances. Great! I'm all in favor of not poisoning our children.

The problem is, this applies to EVERY toy and children's item, not just those manufactured by large companies or places with histories of problems in the past. And the testing has to be done by an official third-party testing facility, which can charge hundreds of dollars for one test.

So, for example, the tummy time quilts I make to sell on etsy for $18-50 would have to be sent away for testing to make sure the materials and design are safe for kids. Every quilt is made of a unique blend of fabrics and a unique design, so testing one quilt won't apply to all of them. And pretty much every etsy artist who makes things for kids faces the same problem, unless they are large enough that they are mass-producing items (which includes maybe half a dozen etsy folks ... the rest of us make very limited runs of whatever we make). We're stay-at-home moms, crafty parents, owners of small businesses, people who just like to make little stuffed animals. And we're pissed.

Come February, we're going to have to make a choice - quit selling children's items, or be non-compliant and risk major fines and legal entanglements. Personally, I plan to quit selling kids stuff - the most profitable and popular part of my product line - rather than risk getting caught. And I know a lot of etsy folks feel the same way. So next Christmas, good luck finding handmade children's items that don't cost an arm and a leg ...

Unless we can modify the law. If you'd like to learn more about the topic and find a list of ways you can support artists who would be put out of business by CPSIA, pop on over to the round-up on Cool Mom Picks. Write your congressman and senator, contact the folks at the CPSC, sign the online petition, add the button to your blog.

Please take the time to look into the issue and add your voice of support, if you can. Thanks!

May be my next venture

I made these legwarmers for all of the kids in LazyKid's dance class, and they loved them. And at her dance recital tonight I had probably 10 people ask me where I had gotten them ... so I guess I'm going to call the dance studio tomorrow to see if they'd be interested in carrying them with the other dance merchandise they sell in the lobby. Might be a fun little sideline, right?

Parade of socks

We exchanged presents with friends last night, and the socks I made for the kids went over well:

Let's not discuss what it takes to get a three-year-old, a six-year-old, and an eight-year-old to hold still long enough to model socks. Let's just say there were brownies involved and leave it at that, shall we?

I even managed to finish the socks I was working on for their mom, although not until late late late in the evening. Good thing we were spending the night ;)

And I totally dropped the ball on the socks for her husband, which shouldn't take very long but are only a couple of inches along at this point. So far that's the only delinquency in the Season of Sock Madness, though, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

Knocking them out

Finished two pairs of kid socks and one adult sock. Only 2.5 pairs of adult socks and one pair of preschool socks that HAVE to be finished well before Christmas, and then socks for the three of us that I'll be happy to finish by the end of the year.

I might make this after all, especially if that weird hard painful place on my thumb doesn't get any worse.

Custom order - finished!

What happens when someone wants to cross the Irish Hiking Hat with an Andean earflap hat? You get this ...

All details (tassels on braids, pointy top, color scheme) dictated by the customer, so I mainly get credit for figuring out how to combine three or four separate patterns and get one hat. Plus, I learned how to make a fleece lining for the hat, so between that and the really thick wool of the hat itself, the wind and snow don't stand a chance against this sucker.

Recipients

Boy, I bet my sister-in-law is glad she got a pedicure before she came home for Thanksgiving :)

Doing the happy dance

Finished!

The socks that I need for tomorrow were finished last night!

And I'm not starting any more socks until our car trip on Sunday!

Shameless cross-promotion

One of my friends has an etsy shop that hasn't had its first sale yet, despite her attractive products and reasonable prices. Check her out, and if you buy something, tell her LazyMama sent you!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5846926

Hah! One more pair to go!

Socks for my mother-in-law.

My daughter the artist

Yeah, that's pretty much what a "yarn store" looks like when she gets done with it, all right.

Binding tutorial now up on my new flickr account!

Check it out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32382769@N08/sets/72157608893740830/

Should take you to a set where the descriptions of the photos tell you how to do a standard quilt binding in 10 easy steps.

Feel free to leave feedback here or there - I'm always anxious to improve my work!

Tummy Time on the Prairie - done! (except for the pattern)

This is a 30"x30" tummy time activity quilt. Currently the actual quilt is for sale in my etsy store, and I'm pleased to announce that KITS for this pattern will be up later this week, if the horrid illness that's crippling my daughter's lungs doesn't strike me down, too. Yeah, like it's going to pass me by! That would be a miracle ...

More socks

WIP: For my newest brother-in-law, knit with tiny sock yarn on size 1 needles, so it's going to take forever, but at least the pattern is cool:

Finished remarkably quickly: socks for my father-in-law, knit from Wool-Ease worsted weight on size 5 needles, so it took less than a day of knitting to finish each one (huzzah!)

Not a sock, but it's made of sock yarn: a sweater that I've decided I dislike enough to frog it before I get farther than the 6" of the body that I've already done. Darn, I like the stitch, I like the yarn ... I just don't like them together. Oh, well - I guess I can make a boatload of socks with the five skeins of this that I now have without a project in mind ;)

Work and play

Yeah, so my mother's socks are in the can.

Pattern: Jaywalker, by Grumperina - sort of. I did plain feet, then jaywalkered the legs.

Yarn: Cascade Fixation Spray Dyed/Effects (a cotton sock yarn) in Colorway 9939.

Needles: US 2 dpns

It's a fun, easy pattern that yields a nice firm sock. I'm not sure how well it would work for the whole sock for those of us with giant ankles, but the leg-only approach seems to fit well.

Now, about work. I've been making little diaper bags using panels from the "Peek A Boo" line by Amy Bradley for Moda fabrics. They're super-cute, but I don't have any photos yet. Hopefully tomorrow, if LazyKid will cooperate and watch some Sesame Street for an hour or so :)

Seriously

1. I decided to make people socks for Christmas presents. Wait - actually, I decided to make EVERYONE socks for Christmas presents. Each pair takes at least 16 hours of knitting time. If I make one for every person with whom we normally exchange gifts, that's 15 pairs of socks. WTH was I thinking? I'm going to be knitting like a maniac from now until 12:01am December 25th. On the positive side, at least I have an excuse to try out some of the 14,000 sock patterns I've favorited on ravelry.

2. When did it become impossible to find the end inside the ball of yarn? I like to pull from the center so the ball doesn't roll all over the floor gathering cat hair, but I'm on my second completely disasterous skein situation. Usually you can reach a finger inside the ball, pull out a small chunk at the end of the skein, and find the end. But recently when I reach inside I end up pulling out a tangled mass of spaghetti that's the size of a lemon, and I still can't find the end. So I either have to reroll the whole skein, or just pull from the outside. Until I get my ball winder, I'm letting that puppy roll around on the floor. Friends don't mind a little cat hair in their socks, right? It just adds extra insulation ...

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.