It’s getting a little out-of-control here in the Uncommon Slug department. Our knit slugs are getting fancier and fancier. Slug royalty, fantasy slugs (huh?) even glittery slugs – ew! How lovely!

Lately I feel like everyone I know decided to go out, all at once, maybe even on the same weekend, and get themselves pregnant.  I have four (five?) friends expecting a baby sometime between January and April.  It’s like you’re all determined to make up for the last two years of childless friends in my life.

Because of this strange natural phenomena I’ve been searching for the “ultimate” baby patterns.  I know that one friend, for sure, is having a baby boy in three months.  Deciding on patterns is easy when it comes to toys, I just stick to mochimochiland and Rebecca Danger’s patterns  (pictured above).  I never feel buyers remorse when I purchase a toy pattern because they’re all so different, I know I’ll knit them multiple times.  I also know that the recipient will love them no matter what because guess what they’re not available at Target or Baby’s R Us so no one else will have one.  The knit toy will become a slobbery, well loved, unique item in the infants life that will either face certain death or a legacy and both are perfectly fine with me.

Jared Flood's BSJ

Baby clothes, on the otherhand, make me feel insane.  There’s the standard EZ baby patterns, like the BSJ (above) that everyone + 1 has knit.  After Jared Flood (Brooklyn Tweed) blogged about his it went from “traditional knit item” to “required baby gift if you want the child to grow up well-adjusted and healthy.” This happened with the Noro Striped Scarf as well, his beautifully photographed scarf moved this easy project from it’s “yay mindless knitting!” position to a much trendier “wtf you haven’t made this yet? are you living in a cave?!”

copyright © Thayer Allyson Gowdy

Do I stick to what’s popular, or do I go with something new?  I’ve got my copy of Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren, who is a fan-fucking-tasticly sweet person, and I’m thinking about going against the grain this year.  Call it loyalty, call it non-conformity, call it being bored with EZ, but I want to knit something different; Instead of sticking to the standard EZ generic cardigan & booties baby knitting I think I’m going to knit the Jasper Diamond Hoodie (rav link, pictured above) from VBK.

There, I said it.  As fantastic as the more traditional patterns are, I think I want to gift something new to my friends who are currently up the duff.  Toys from modern designers, like Rebecca Danger, Ysolda and MochiMochi Land are on my needles, and I’m hunting for the perfect yarn to use in knitting the perfect baby clothes.

That’s all for tonight.  Tomorrow I’ll have some knitting progress to share!

Our lectures rarely start on time.  Choir rarely starts on time.  I find myself with many small moments – too small for homeworking, but definitely large enough for little knitting.  It is good to do something with less potential for exposure to infectious disease.  Plus, you never know when you will need a sharp stick to protect yourself with.

Last night, I found the yarn for Baby A.’s Christmas fox.

The pattern is here.  The eyes are a little on the creepy side for me so I think I will be experimenting with other options.  Let us hope he looks better than the infamous green knitted bear.

But this, oh this…is the project of the moment.

Isn’t it marvelous!  And it comes with a “cozy rainbow pocket!”  It is still faceless and a little creepy, but that should be fixed by the end of the weekend and then this little darling is going in a box and heading to the frozen tundra.

The pattern is from one of my favorite designers, Jean Greenhowe.

I am doing my best to take advantage of the quiet moments.  To be still when I can be still, to knit when I can knit, to study…well, all the time.  We are through week 15.  This is good.

]]> http://finngarianknits.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/a-few-summer-projects/ Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:01:58 +0000 finngarianmama http://finngarianknits.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/a-few-summer-projects/

I have not blogged here in quite a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been knitting! Summer seems to be a good time for small projects. Socks, for example.

This is “Cables and Corrugations” by Cat Bordhi. She is a genius in the engineering of her sock patterns! The fit of this sock is amazing and I am looking forward to completing more pairs of her socks.

A while back I started a little knit dress for my daughter with some vintage-y yarn that I got from a friend. This is “Soli”, a free pattern on Ravelry, and the yarn is “Roulette” by Columbia Minerva. It’s a cotton/rayon blend. The dress is a little big for her but she should be able to wear it within the next year.

Rainbow Pig

Just a little pig I made for my son! He wanted a pig and wanted a rainbow pig. So, a rainbow pig it was. This was also a free Ravelry pattern.

A few things on tap: a lace sweater (Decimal from Knitty) made from a sport weight cotton/modal blend (Shine sport from Knitpicks). A hexagon afghan crocheted from the mountain of acrylic I have laying around. Moderne Baby Blanket from the first Mason Dixon book. More socks! (No surprise there, right?) Stay tuned!

Over the weekend I finished up the Monkey Socks and a platypus from “World of Knitted Toys”.  I love how the socks turned out and have already worn them.  It isn’t unprobable that I will knit them again in a new color.  From my toy book I found it not that bad to knit animals flat and then seam them up.  The wombat I am now working on does seem to be bigger than it should be, but it does measure a little over 7 inches, which is what the pattern approximated it at.  Unfortunately I ran out of black yarn so the wombat is put on hold ’til further notice.  But since I bought a handful of yarn I simply cast on for a kangaroo and will focus on knitting that ’til I can pick up more black yarn.

My mind is just brimming with ideas of what I want to knit next. Since “World of Knitted Toys” is divided into sections and humans to go with each set of animals I really want to knit each ’section’ to decorate the baby’s room. I think my favorite human knit toy is the Eskimo which is labeled as ‘challenging’ because of the cardigan jacket and hood, but I don’t think it will be that bad. Not only that but I’ve decided that with the remainder of bamboo yarn I have to find an easy baby sleeping gown pattern and knit up a few of those (or at least 2; one for us and one for my aunt). With the remainder of my sock yarn I’ll make a couple of baby hats and I think I’ll throw in some cables for fun. Not only all of this, but I still want to buy some of the organic cotton yarn from KnitPicks and see how that knits up.

Fun fun fun! Pictures to come of my wombat and kangaroo in progress!

Yes. I really do get stuck knitting many of the same items. When I make one and like how it turns out, I get all excited to make another. And another.

After making Oli’s cave gnome, I just had to have more gnomes in my life. So, in one afternoon, I made a mini gnome:

And later that week, I made a doll-sized gnome:

I think there are a few more gnomes in my life in spite of my just having started knitting another pair of socks. I may just have to squeeze in another one or two.

So it’s 8:20pm, and here I am studying for a humongous exam I have on Friday. As I look up for a brief second at my muted television I happen to see a Bla Bla sock monkey moving as if it were alive. As you can imagine for those of you familiar with the adorable, soft, hand-knit, perfectly squishy Bla Bla stuffed toys I thought I was imagining things…maybe zoning off thinking about something I forgot to do at work today (this happens alot!) but no I wasn’t imagining! There is a movie called Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (it has Natalie Portman, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Bateman and a few other noteables) It is about a toy store, I think it is supposed to be FAO Schwarz in NYC and in one scene they show a Bla Bla sock monkey that comes to life amidst a sea of other assorted Bla Bla’s…anyways to make a long story short it was really cute! And for those of you who have no clue what a Bla Bla is you must become acquainted with them at Bellani because they are truly unique and make for a very special little gift for a very special little someone!

~*Maryann*~

http://www.ravelry.com

I learned to knit about a year ago, maybe a little more. I had to teach myself since I did not know anyone near me who knits or cared to knit. Between the Internet and some handy books I managed to figure it out. And loved it! I was surprised. I should not have been because I love crafts but I never had an interest in learning. I even grew up around knitting and crocheting since my mom was always making blankets that way. It just hit me one day that I thought it would be really neat to do. No real reason. So I did.

I went crazy for awhile knitting scarves but that soon became tedious. I had no one to share my projects with (I could never fit my schedule with knitting groups) and no real good way to learn something other than scarves. Bleh. I stopped knitting for about 6 months.

Then someone pointed me to Ravelry…

…A monster was created. I now have so many projects in queue that I doubt I will finish everything. I have a rapidly growing stash and a favorite local yarn store.

Ravelrygave me a knitting/crocheting community to share projects with, get wonderful patterns, share ideas, and so much more. There are even groups you can join that is related to knitting in some way but tend to be based on favorite topics as well. About anything you think of, you can join it. You can even knit favorite sci-fi characters from a favorite TV show. It is international so you are not limited by very much.

You get your own space to customize to a degree (I am geek, hear me roar). It starts with the usual profile stuff and links to any blog you may have going. From there you have a notebook listing your yarn stash and equipement (good for trading or organizing your things), patterns, books, favorites, a friends page (yes you can friend people), groups, and ongoing projects. Each of those categories can then be expanded from there. I have found all ages and interests on there. And yes, there are even some men!

People are very nice and helpful. It is a wonderful community. You can be as social or unsocial as you wish. You can even just use the site to organize things and not participate in anything else. The people who designed the site are always improving it and have some very unique ideas that make the site fun without being annoying. I will let you discover some of those goodies.

There are also links for shopping opportunities as well. Also, some members are designers and have their own stores linked to the site that you may never run across otherwise in a nice time frame.

If nothing else, if you are sick of searching the web for patterns, then by all means join this site. You can type in a search term and get patterns! Many are free, some are not but reasonable (with reviews! ). Want to charity knit, you got it. Toys, dolls, clothing, unusual, it is there.

I have yet to find anything like this site. It is not based on any commercial company. A husband and wife team developed it from their own home and you can tell the wonderful difference. No bias for products, no spam in your email, and there is definite care given to how the site runs. The only drawback is that they have to manually add anybody wishing to join. This means you may have to wait 2-4 days or so to finally log on for the first time. Worth the wait. Just put in the email you will want to use and go about your routine. The place to sign up is on the right hand side below the log in section. Click the add me to the list and a little box will open for you to enter the email you will use for it. If the box does not open, click it again. It might be finicky. There is now a place you can click to check the progress of the waiting list as well. Eventually you really will get that email letting you join. And free!

My ID right now is VirtuallyAmy. Please feel free to drop me a message from there letting me know you found the site from this post. I love knowing a blog of mine was useful. And if you wish, feel free to friend me as well! (you can send messages without being on each other’s friends list) I swear I am not one of those that will then try to become your best buddy. I am safe. I swear!

If you came here searching for some pattern links and do not want to bother with Ravelry.com, then please visit my knitting links blog and check out my knitting category listed on the right of the page for projects I post. Both of these are always getting new stuff as time allows. Thanks!

(Gush!)

I’m a little late in thinking about Easter baskets this year. Maybe it’s because it’s been so rainy & gray? Or because Easter is just so early this year? It was mid-week before I even began to stress about cute decorations. In a bit of mindless surfing, I stumbled across this adorable knitting pattern. So cute! Within a day, I’d easily whipped up three of these.

These will be gifted to some of our little friends and I have plans for a few more…..you could say they will be multiplying like rabbits over here.

After listening to my boys fight all weekend over who’s GI Joe got to wear the only pair of pants they own…I decided to knit them a pair (or three or four). I could not find any knit patterns so I made one up.

Hopefully, this pattern will save some other mother of boys’ sanity

GI JOE PANTS

Yarn: Scrap yarn
Needles: Size 8 dpns
Darning needle
3.5mm crochet hook

Cast on 36 sts

Knit 2 rows.

Next row: *K4, K2tog, yo, repeat from * around.

Knit 10 rows.

Divide sts in half, placing 18sts on a scrap piece of yarn using a darning needle. Rearrange the remaining 18sts on the dpns, join & begin knitting the pant leg in the round.

Knit in round until pant leg reaches 4.5″.

Purl 1 row around.

Knit 1 row around.

Purl 1 row around.

Bind off.

Place the stitches saved on scrap yarn back on the dpns, join yarn and knit in the round until pant leg reaches 4.5″.

Purl 1 row around.

Knit 1 row around.

Purl 1 row around.

Bind off. Weave in ends.

Using crochet hook & scrap yarn, chain 65. Weave the chain in & out of the yo holes for a belt.