Christmas Knitting

Have been busy trying to get some Christmas knitting out of the way, as well as busy designing a few things and NOT actually knitting... so here's my Christmas knitting.

First, I made this for my Secret Santa in a swap on a dog message board. First dishcloth I ever knit!

Unfortunately, the multi-coloured yarn made it REALLY hard to see the paw print "pop out," no matter what angle you looked at. Mistake noted. Will never do that again.

Oh, and just for fun! This is the handmade tag I did to go on it:

I got to use my nifty new Christmas stamps. I also used these to make tags for everybody's Christmas gifts, but I didn't take pics of any of those. You'll have to take my word they were really pretty!


Other side of the tag, with care instructions.


So, while I was knitting dishcloths, I also knit up a set for Auggie's lovely breeder...

This one is my original design, using the chart I worked up for the Boy + Girl scarf... the LARGER chart, that is. I don't like how much empty space ended up above and below the sheltie... it's like two rows of stockinette too many, IMO.


Doghouse! This one was a nice pattern, actually. Maybe also suffers the "two rows of stockinette too many" symptom, but it matched the sheltie cloth nicely as far as size and overall design goes! The ribbing for the border was also different than most patterns I've seen. It was kind of a fun change.


Tried again with the paw... hey, you can actually see it this time! The second time I knit this, and in comparison to the other two dishcloths, this one is HUGE. I'll have to definitely make it on smaller needles if I ever do it again.

And finally, I decided to knit something for my mom. I bought her something but I didn't feel like it was enough. But what to knit? I KNOW... a monkey.


Mr. Monkey was knit from the Mr. Dangly pattern, using some modification to knit him in the round. I also worked his ears in double-knit to speed along a little faster.

More pics:








I had to knit him almost entirely at work to keep it a secret. I normally attract some attention while knitting at work because people want to know what I'm knitting (or to tell me they can only knit scarves) but just about everybody was fascinated by Mr. Monkey. He was really fun to knit, I've never really knit anything like that where watching it take shape is exciting and fun. I put his ears on his head, then his head to his body, and his arms and legs on, then ran off to show my co-workers how cute he was turning out. I like this one a lot.
(Also, Mr. Monkey is an excellent headbanger. We tested the theory to some rock music.)


And there you have what I've been up to! I also CO my skully armwarmers again after deciding what I wanted to do as far as the pattern went, so the first of those should be finished shortly. I'm busy working on a few fun designs for things, mostly dog related... and by that I don't just mean dog sweaters or anything. What can I say - my passions often overlap.

Two WIPs down

Knocked out two WIPs I had on the knitting needles this week. My Mom had a hysterectomy and was in the hospital for three nights, so I took knitting to work on while sitting in the room with her. The first night, I finished my armwarmers:




After that, I realized I should probably work on the knitting project I have FOR my mom... which is a 2x2 ribbed scarf that I started two winters ago, pretty much right after I learned to knit. Er, whoops. Well, she has it now! Before this next winter, even!



Mom's scarf was on my 10's, which I have now moved back to my Pinky Scarf... an ink pen was previously holding the stitches for that scarf.
I also got my magnetic knitting chart holder in today, so I can work more on the Space Invaders scarf! I was starting to get confused following the pattern (I hate crossing out or highlighting lines on a pattern, because I sometimes screw up and have to rip back or unknit rows and the highlighting messes me up) so this will hopefully help a lot.

Chompy-Chompy

I like to knit while watching football. (GO BEARS!) Sometimes it can be hard to do. Close games and overtime tend to wrack my nerves and make my hands tremble. Knitting is supposed to be relaxing, isn't it?!

Anyway, I knit this guy up yesterday while watching football, and finished him later while watching Law & Order.

Chain Chomp Scarf

He is lovely! And surprisingly warm.


Laid out on my bed, at home on the circle pattern. He says RARR.


The inspiration started with other knitter's intarsia of video game characters on scarves, the thought of "Chompy!!", jumped here for the chainlinks... and then my own dorked-out brain imploded to create the rest. It took some trial & error and lots of ripping out stitches after my silly novice ideas failed, but hey! In the end, he turned out pretty cute. I love it.

illusion knitting

Two FO's that were made as Christmas gifts in 2006. I adore the skull pattern, and think I require one with pink!


Made from this pattern.


Made from this pattern, minus the "I" chart... changed the robots a little bit too.

boyfriend scarf

I call it the boyfriend scarf, merely because I saw the yarn in the store and thought "Wow, this is a nice boy yarn!" and 'boy scarf' gives me an entirely different mental image/inspiration.

Garter stitch in some yarn I have since forgotten the brand name; 15 stitches on US 8s.


It's so very warm, and it stands up nicely around the neck so when it's really cold out, it's easy to bury my nose down in it!