A Second Giveaway!

Congrats to the winner of our first giveaway, 'suburban prep'.  Hope you enjoy the pattern!

And now for this week's giveaway - 'Stashbuster Knits' by Melissa Leapman.  This is a great pattern book, with 21 beautiful patterns that you can make with leftover yarn, helping move some of your yarn out so you can make room for more!  I'm always drawn to projects like this because I have more yarn than room to store it in.  This book definitely lives up to its promise, with great projects that you'll have a ton of fun knitting.

For this giveaway, I can only ship within the contiguous 48 states.  Just like the last one, all you need to do is leave a comment on this post before 12pm EST on Saturday, December 8th.  A winner will  be chosen at random and contacted for their address so this can be shipped. 

Until next time, I leave you with another 'stashbuster' type knit that I've been working on in an effort to move out some of my sock yarn.  This is a simple ribbed sock I just finished last week.  Now that I've finished that, I'm already itching to start on another pair of socks.  Socks are a great 'on the go' project, but I'll go on and on about that in another post. :)

The First Giveaway!

Happy Thanksgiving! Normally I feel compelled to start these out with how crazy it's been, but I just had 5 days off work (counting the weekend) so I really had no excuse to not post. I did get a lot of knitting done, though. I finished my fingerless mitts, finished a pair of ribbed socks, and started in on a Christmas gift for my husband (he reads the blog so I can't post pictures until after Christmas!)

This summer, I told myself that I would get an early start on my Christmas gifts. Of course that didn't happen, and now I have only one project completed and at least six more to go. It'll be a very busy month trying to get all of that done. I spend most of yesterday knitting, so much that I had a dent in my thumb from pressing on the needle. It was fine by morning, but very sore last night!

Instead of talking about a project in this post, I want to do something special for the upcoming holidays. I read a lot of knitting blogs, and I love it when the writers are able to give away books or patterns, as it gives readers a chance to try something out they may not have known about prior, and it gives the writer a chance to hear from the readers (which is always exciting!).

So for the next few weeks, I'm going to do a different giveaway each week - a pattern, a knitting book, a finished project, and some yarn.  This week, I'm going to start with the pattern.

One lucky winner will receive a free copy of my Lacy Cowl pattern from Ravelry (pictured below).   This is using a repeat lace pattern, which makes it a great beginner project for someone new to lace knitting, or a quick knit for an expert. You can make it a cowl as directed (shown below double wrapped) or don't join the ends and make it a scarf.

This was such a fun project to write and to knit, and I can't wait to share it with one of my readers.  To win, all you have to do leave a comment on this blog post by 12pm EST on Saturday, December 1st.  I will then draw a comment at random and contact the winner.  The next giveaway will post the following week.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, and I'll see you all again in a few days!

Malabrigo Yarn, Fingerless Mitts

I got way too busy again!  It's almost been another two weeks since my last post and much knitting has been done.

Pictured here is the right hand of a pair of fingerless mitts I'm working on.  The pattern is 'White Caps Fingerless Gloves' by Simone Van Iderstine, available on Ravelry.  I'm using Malabrigo Sock Yarn, in 'Stonechat'.

I have a bit of 'history' regarding Malabrigo.  I briefly went to a knitting meetup a few years ago and a few of us decided to do a sort of knit along, working on the same project at the same time - a cabled bag.  This is before I had ever taken a cable class, or really knew very much about yarn at all.  The person running the group was using Malabrigo yarn, and kept saying how much she loves it and how she knits pretty much everything with it.  I had no idea what Malabrigo was at the time, so I didn't know what she was talking about or what the big deal was.

It wasn't until this year when I started working at my local yarn shop that I realized what Malabrigo was, how popular it is, how great the colors are...and how absolutely horrible it is to wind.  If you have ever tried to wind a skein of Malabrigo into a center pull ball, you know what I mean!  You pretty much have a 50/50 shot of getting a skein that won't completely tangle while winding, resulting in 30 minutes of trying to recover. Many people complain about winding Malabrigo (rightfully so!) but all of them also mention how worth it it is once wound and you're actually knitting with it.  They have some of the best colors available, and it's great to knit with.

Anyway, I bought some of this Malabrigo sock yarn a few months ago and I'm finally putting it to use.  This pattern achieved both using some yarn in my stash (instead of buying more) and to use what I learned in my cabling class I took this summer.

I'm finishing up a pair of ribbed socks, and then plan to finish some more of my half-done projects that are sitting around so I can move on to new projects.  I've started browsing Ravelry more and I have close to 100 projects in my queue now.  Time to kick it up a notch and get more knitting done!

Another Free Pattern

Here is the next size crochet ball I wrote a pattern for.  This is also available for free on Ravelry in my store, Cubicled Knitter/Megh Kizer. 

While the medium size I posted before is great for kids to throw around and play with, this smaller size can work as a toy as well as a stress ball for adults.  I had this tested out by people I work with, and they said the smaller size fits much better in the palm of their hand and is great to use while working. 

These balls are one of the few things I still crochet since knitting is still my main 'craft of choice', so I'm eager to share. More to come later, but I wanted to get this posted right away.  The larger size is soon to come, and then I'll be back to posting more knitted patterns.

Free Pattern

Something I've been working on recently is finally writing down some patterns I've been working on for a while.  I haven't been able to come up with a more creative name for this, so I've just been call these 'Crochet Balls'.

I've been making these for years.  These are a HUGE hit with kids!  Whenever my nephew or godson visit, they take the basket of these and just start dumping them over their heads, or tossing them around.  The adults get in on the action too!  These are great because no matter how hard we seem to throw them, they have yet to cause any damage.  I can't make them fast enough to fulfill the demand, as most of my relatives want them in their home for their kids/grand kids, or they ask me to make some as baby gifts. 

These are crocheted in two halves, and then whip stitched around, stuffing them with poly-fil right before closing them up.  I've been experimenting with making different sizes, the above pictured ones being the medium size. 

These will be available for free download on Ravelry, cubicled knitter/Megh Kizer designs.  Please take a look and download the pattern!  These are so popular with kids and adults, it'll be worth the time to try it out. 

Slippers

I was recently commissioned to make someone a pair of slippers.  She found the picture on Etsy (AMAZING site - if you're not already hooked on this, check it out) and asked if I could make them, so of course I had to take that challenge!  These are based on a pattern by Eline (sold in her Etsy store). 

This is made using garter stitch and Brioche stitch.  The Brioche stitch is for the sides, and made them very squishy and cozy!  To add further to the 'comfort' factor, I made these using Simplicity by HiKoo, and some cute buttons I found at my local yarn shop.   I know so many people who adore this yarn and this pattern was my opportunity to finally use it.  Now that I have, I'm searching for another project just so I can use it again!  It's a DK weight yarn, and is versatile and durable enough to make a slipper that will hold up to walking and heavy use.  It's generally versatile in other ways too, but seemed especially suited for what I was looking for with this project.  I've also seen some gorgeous shawls and blankets made with Simplicity, so look it up on Ravelry sometime for some great ideas. 

I'm trying desperately to use up my stash yarn right now.  I have SO much that I'm running out of room to store the rest!  The problem is, as soon as I used enough yarn to empty a drawer in one of my many multi-drawer carts, I started thinking about what else I wanted to buy.  And the cycle continues! 

My goal now is to get my Ravelry notebook updated with the projects I'm currently working on, including a pair of socks, an Entrelac scarf, another 'bag of irony' (see earlier post), a bulky shawl, and a couple attempts a fingerless mitts.  Next posts, the baby blanket I just finished, and a couple more patterns I'm writing that will be available for free on Ravelry.  I hope to start posting more than once a week, so stay tuned!

Cowls and Blocking

It's been a very busy two week!  I didn't think it had been that long since I last posted, but I've been hard at work on several projects, hoping to finally finish some I've had in the works for a while.  I was going to mention two of them here, but I forgot to get pictures of one of them, so that will be for later this week.

In my last post, I had featured a recent design of mine (the Lacy Cowl) with yarn from the Neighborhood Fiber Co.  Of course when I bought the skein for that project, I had to buy two more skeins as well.  And buying only three skeins of this fantastic yarn was actually restraining myself!  I used the other two for this project, another cowl but from a pattern by Cecily Glowik MacDonald called 'Brooklet'. I saw this cowl made with Neighborhood Fiber yarn, and it inspired me to make it myself.  Below is the picture from the pattern...  

...and these are from my version (though the picture quality probably would have given that away for me).

This is knit in the round and then folded over where the yarn changes so you can't see a join in the fabric.  I'm gearing up for winter with all these cowls, with hopefully more to come!

Since I can't get the pictures of my other project yet, I leave you with this plug for a new favorite product of mine. I resisted blocking any projects for years, convinced it was difficult to do and not worth it.  Finally, i caved and bought the blocking mats shown in the photos so I could block the Rill Scarf I made (I loved that project so much I was willing to do whatever difficult process I needed to make it work!).

After using these mats, I finally realized how easy blocking a project is and how much it really helps!  Granted, you can use a mattress or towels instead of buying these, but these mats enable me to block on my dining table instead of using a bed that has potential for dog hair to transfer over (I love my dog but she just sheds way too much!).   And blocking makes such a huge different, really puts the finishing touch on a project and makes it just pop.  I'm just now getting to the point where I stop worrying when a scarf finishes smaller than I anticipated, because once I block it, it lengthens the fabric and I can breathe a sigh of relief.

I got the mats in the photo from www.knitpicks.com.  Very highly recommended!