Raspberry Lemonade Sweater

I know, strange name, but I was drinking raspberry lemonade as I was working on this sweater and they were the exact same color!!

I made this for a friend of mine who is having a baby girl next week. I found the pattern on ravelry for free, which is always a plus. The only problem is that the pattern is for a sweater, bonnet and booties and was very old fashioned so I did a few changes. It called for fingering weight yarn, but there are not a lot of fun color choices at my LYS so I used a sport DK instead. This did make the sweater much bigger than I had hoped, but as hot as it is here right now there is no need for it to be newborn size. I was hoping for 6-12 months, but considering that I tried it on Diya, who is 22 months old, and it fit makes me think that it will be awhile before the baby gets to wear it.
The body ended up being kind of short so I decided to make it a short sleeved sweater and it can either be a spring/fall sweater or she can wear it in the winter with a long sleeved shirt underneath. I hadn't crocheted anything in awhile so it was nice to have a nice quick project and to refresh my crocheting skills. That is one of the things I like about crochet, it is super fast, plus it is also a easy on the pocket book. All I had to pay for for this sweater was one skein of yarn and a $1.99 crochet hook. I love knitting but as I have stated before in previous posts, getting all the needles for a project can add up fast.

I love this yarn so much that I think I am going to get some more of it to make matching knitted sweaters for Isha and Diya for this winter. I am thinking about knitting them both at the same time so that they are finished at the same time so that the girls can wear them this winter, but that does mean doubling up on the needles.

My First Sweater

I had been wanting to try a more challenging knitting project and when I found out that Jai's cousin and his wife were expecting a baby boy I decided to try a sweater. I found a pattern in the Natural Nursery Knits book that I found at the library. I have to admit that I wish I had picked a different pattern, but this one was easy which was probably a good thing since this was my first sweater attempt. Next time I would like to find a pattern where you sew the sleeves on so there is more of a "professional" look.

I learned tons of new things by making this sweater. Some were basic things like how to M1 (make 1), what working even means, and using a stitch holder. I also learned to listen to my gut. If you feel like something isn't right, it probably isn't!! Trust me, I had to pull out about 20 rows because I just kept working even when I had this feeling that something was wrong. I also learned to not look to closely at the sweater once you are done. There are going to be mistakes and there is nothing you can do, unless you want to start all over, but the mistakes are what make is special and better than some generic sweater that was just bought at the store.

I hope that baby boy Kwatra stays warm in his sweater and I can't wait to give it to his mommy this weekend at the baby shower.

It Only Took Six Years

I know this is pathetic but I started this project over six years ago. I can't even count how many times I have ripped it out and started over. Now that it is finished I have no idea why it took this long to finish it. It is a super easy pattern, all you do is knit across and knit in the front and back on the end to increase by one. I guess after doing Diya's blanket I have found some knitting confidence.

I have no idea what I am going to do with a shawl. What was I thinking when I picked this project? It was so long ago I don't even remember. I guess I will keep it until I am 80 and then it will be "cool" to wear a shawl. I have to wear it some point because I spent a small fortune on the yarn.

Now I can move on to some other projects. I still need to finish a few projects for my craft game I posted on here over a year ago. Sara, Meg and Heather, I promise you will get something from me eventually!!! I am also going to attempt a sweater for Jai's cousins who are having a little boy this fall. Wish me luck!!!

Finally Finished

I finally finished Diya's baby blanket. I was originally going to finish it before she was born, then I moved my goal to by the time we moved her into her room, then it was by the time she was six months old and then there was my final goal of finishing it before she turned a year old.


There is no better feeling in the world than when you can finally start binding off on a long drawn out project!!! This is the biggest knitting job I have ever completed. My only other knitting projects were a felted bag and a few wash clothes.

This pattern was fairly easy but pretty. I have decided that I don't think I will every knit another blanket (I'm sure I will be eating these words someday!) It is very cumbersome trying to knit once the blanket starts getting big and the way the needles curl up drives me insane!!! I had a few problems while making this blanket, but luckily my neighbors mother-in-law watches
her kids twice and she is a knitter so I had someone to go to for help. It seems like I had more problems towards the end. I think that I was so anxious to be finished that I was making stupid mistakes.

Diya seems to like her new blankie. I hope she knows all the love that went into making this for her.

I figured that if I was going to show off my handy work I would throw in a picture of my two best creations ever!!!

W.I.P. Diya's Blanket

Actually it is Diya's Blanket 2.0. The first attempt was so full of mistakes that I pulled it all out and started a new pattern. This ones is much easier and is turning out beautifully!! I love the color and I can't wait to finish it.

I was working on it the other night while watching the Virginia Gubernatorial debate and some how I managed to miss some stitches somewhere and I had to pull out a whole row. I was so mad because I messed up my blanket due to the fact that I was paying more attention to the two idiots on the TV and not to my knitting. The worst part is after an hour of watching the debate all I know about the candidates is that they both have a plan for everything. No specifics were given, just that they have a plan. Well DUHHH, I figured that. Anyways...while undoing my knitting I managed to do something weird to a few of the stitches and I had no idea how to fix it. Luckily I have a friend whose mom is a knitter so I went over to her house and she showed me how to fix it. Yeah!! So now I am back on track and making progress on Diya's blanket.

A Little Knitting

I have finally been motivated to start Diya's blanket!! I was so motivated that I broke my rule of knitting in complete silence and now I have a mistake that I don't know how to fix!! (That's what I get for getting overly confident in my knitting skills.) There were to many distractions and somehow I miscounted something and when I went to fix it I managed to add an extra stitch. All I need to do is undo a few stitches and then I could fix the problem, but that is the only problem with knitting for me: when I make a mistake I get stuck!! I decided to put it down for now and once the house is quiet tonight I might try to fix it. Wish me luck.

Just In Time

Here is the finished baby blanket for my friend Holly. She is scheduled to have the baby on the 8th of June and tonight we are all going out to dinner to celebrate this new little baby. Luckily I finally got motivated and finished the blanket for her.

These are a couple of little hats that I have been working on. Of course I made girl hats and everyone I know is either having a boy or not finding out. I'm sure I will find someone who needs one of these hats! I have so many projects to do that I really need to get busy. I have to start my blanket for our baby, do TWO blankets for our neighbor and friend having twins, finish my gifts for my little game I am doing on the blog for Sara, Meg and Heather, and finish a wash cloth and shawl. I guess I better get busy!!!

Progress

A friend of mine from work is having a baby this June and this pretty green blanket is for her new little one. She is tough enough not to find out the sex so I am making a neutral color that hopefully matches the bedding she has picked out. I really wanted to knit something for her, but since I don't have a ton of time I figured I better crochet since I am much faster at that.

I have made some progress on the shawl. It is slow going because it is just knitting row after row. I was hoping to have it finished for Easter since it is such a bright and springy color, but obviously that didn't happen!

Here are the wash clothes that I have knitted. I have realized that knitting isn't as hard as I thought it was. All the patterns explained how to make the stitches and if I'm not sure I just go to you tube and find a video to watch. I am excited to find a more challenging project. I think that I am going to knit a baby blanket for our new little girl on the way. Once I finish up some other projects I will be heading back to the store to pick out a pattern and some yarn.

If At First You Don't Succeed

I have been really lazy in the yarn department so I decided I needed to get off the computer, put the books down and pick up some yarn and retry a knitting project I tried a few years ago. I have been a crocheter for a very long time and it is really relaxing and easy, but knitting is not as easy for me. I have to have total silence so that I can focus on nothing but knitting. I understand the basics, but my biggest problem is fixing mistakes! When I took knitting lessons our teacher didn't teach us all of the basics, she just had us pick a project and then she helped us with that project. I wanted to try felting and it was fun, but the problem was that anytime I made a mistake the teacher would tell me not to worry about it because I would never be able to see it after the bag was felted. Hence my inability to fix mistakes.

So here is the project I started a few years ago (I am wondering why on earth I ever wanted to make a shawl) and made a huge mistake and when I couldn't figure out how to fix it I got pissed and pulled the whole thing out. That is why I have this gigantic ball of pink yarn, which by the way cost a pretty penny. I have felt guilty for awhile that it was just sitting in the drawer so I thought I would try again. This time I was only a few rows in before I messed it up. I went to Ben Franklin and asked someone how to fix the problem. She showed me how to work backwards to get rid of the problem. Of course I didn't stay at the store and do it and when I got home and finished I had the yarn from the ball weaved in at both ends of the needle. Why does this happen? If any fellow knitters could enlighten me I would really appreciate it.

I was tired of the big pink ball so I decided to try practicing on with a nice easy wash cloth. Well things have been going great until today. Somehow I managed to get 2 extra loops of yarn (not really stitches) on the needle. I know that without seeing it is hard to tell, but what do I do when this happens? Well anyways, I decided to pull the work off of the needle, pull out a few rows and try again and to my delight it worked!!!!

Hopefully I will have more knitting updates soon. My mom's group is working on having a knitting night so hopefully I will find someone here in town that can help me out. I may also look into taking more lessons.

Isha's Little Dress

Here is the finished product. I am glad that I finally got around to finishing this because it turned out to be really cute and if I had waited any longer it wouldn't have fit her! There is a head scarf that goes with it, but I am not sure that I am going to make it. Isha isn't good about keeping things on her head. Plus it is so hot here in the summer that it would be uncomfortable to wear.

I had to redo the stitches around the top because the hole was to small for her head to fit through. After a few tries I finally came up with something that worked. This pattern can be modified for bigger kids so I might even make another one for her. I think it would be cute to make it shorter and then use it as a shirt. I have even thought about making one and putting a long sleeve shirt underneath and some cute tights and then she could wear it in winter. We will see if I actually get around to any of these cute ideas.
We went out to dinner last night with some friends so we will be doing our local meal tonight instead. I will post our meal here tomorrow. It isn't very creative, but that is the beautiful of local meals, you just go with what ya got!

Birthday Presents

Poor Amelia! Here is her birthday present. I finally got it finished and now I just need to get my lazy self to the post office to send it to her. I am going to send Hadley's along with it and maybe the fact that hers is one month early will offset the fact that Amelia's is one month late!

Cute Onesies

In trying to keep up with the booming baby population of my friends I have had to come up with some easy and quick gifts, but still cute and hand made. Okay I didn't make the onsie,but I did make the little flower. I am going to give this and a few of my hand made burp clothes to my physical therapist, who is have his third baby girl this summer. I figured that when you are the youngest girl of three your future if full of hand me downs so I thought it would make something nice and new just for her!

Finally A Finished Project

This is the little purse that I posted about earlier. I bought the material years ago and wasn't able to figure out the pattern. I don't know why I couldn't do it before because it is really easy. Working with the fuzzy yarn wasn't easy, but I figured it didn't matter if it was perfect because you can't tell if there is a mistake in all of that fuzz! It feels good to finally have something finished. This has motivated me to get going on some of my other projects. There is a one year old back home in Boise patiently waiting for her birthday present so I better get busy. I think I am going to send this purse along for her big sister's birthday in June!

Weekend Projects

These two scarves have been sitting around half finished for quite awhile, so I finally finished them up. The green one is a Szechuan Scarf, the yarn and directions came in a Chinese takeout box. I got it at a Christmas party a few years ago in a white elephant gift exchange. The blue one has lots of imperfections due to my beginning knitting skills. Thank goodness for chunky yarn, because it does a great job hiding mistakes.
I have been wanting to make a picture frame out of all the shells we found at Myrtle Beach this summer and today I finally got around to doing it. I had hoped to have an adorable picture of Isha at the beach in it, but due to technical difficulties with the printer I have to post this picture of just the frame.
And finally something I have been wanting to do for awhile now. I have all this left over yarn from other projects and these little flowers are a really easy way to use it up. It took me awhile to find the clips, but now that I know where to find them I think I will make more of these. Especially since almost all of my friends have little girls. I have lots of other ideas about things that I could do with these flowers so I am sure you will see more of them in the future. I have a purse that I felted and I think I am going to make a bunch of white flowers to sew onto it to give it a little personality.
Here is Isha modeling her new hair clip.

By the way...I can't seem to get spell check on blogger to work, so I apologize for all the spelling errors. Has anyone else had this problem?

Old Projects

All of the creating on Heather's blog has me inspired to start creating some fun stuff of my own. I was all gung-ho to start some new projects and then I saw all the unfinished projects I have sitting around the house so I figured I better finish some before I start any new ones.
I love to crochet baby blankets, but now that I have Isha I don't have the time to do it and all my friends are having babies so fast I can't keep up. So I found this cute pattern where you just crochet the edge around a piece of fleece. While it is faster than crocheting a whole blanket it is still time consuming. Most of the work is spacing and poking 350 plus holes in the fleece. The other thing that makes these hard to do is that the yarn is rather small (fingering weight), but the finished project is worth the work.
I started this one about 6 months ago for Isha and the pattern I chose for the edging was miserable to do. The picot stitch was almost impossible with the tiny yarn so I pulled it out and started a new pattern. While this design wasn't as pretty it was much more realistic.

After the blanket I started to make this adorable little purse that I have tried to make before, but couldn't figure out the pattern. I feel like my crocheting skills have imporved so I thought I would try it again. Well the status on the purse is: after four attempts and a call to my grandmother the purse is still a big ball of purple yarn. My grandmother is coming to visit in March so I think I am going to try it agian while she is here to help me. In the mean time I definitely have enough to keep me busy.