knitting-cat

Spring Forward

I'll start with the feather cat toys. Amber has already taken one to play with. She is quite the huntress.

The Akknitter spun the lovely yarn and it is so spring. I think that I might make fingerless mitts for the spring days we have when it snows. I think there is one more storm in our future. The green, purple and yellows are just gorgeous; and the weight is so me.

The kitty bookmark has a cat like Amber and one like Mr. Paws! I got a set of black cat playing cards shaped like cat heads!

The flower pencils are really cool, their purple tissue container was very creative. The funny thing is that I have flower pencils in my classroom for the students to use. I pulled out the erasure glued in a artificial flower. Then I use green electrical tape to cover the crimped erasure holder. These are so much nicer, but these are for decoration.

The food included sheep eggs with Hershey's Kisses inside. A suitcase with more kisses inside and a card that says "Any day spent knitting is a good day." I plan to have lots of good days over my vacation.

Kookaburra Wool wash which smells great. Cute little Clover needle holders.

A full half pound of Rayon chenille in my colors purple, teal, green and lavender. It is from the same zipcode I used to live in when I lived in Pittsburgh. Small world!

She also sent patterns for fingerless mitts with a picot edge, camera ready mittens and a felted bag.

She also sent a Japanese book all about purses.

Akknitter really found out lots about me and has left big shoes to follow.

and finally

This is the gift that touched me the most. My very own Hello Kitty stitch markers. They are so special. Thanks you!!

SP10 Final Package

I have been most fortunate during the Knitty SP10 round. My upstream was Boo. I was in the dark until the end. I knew I had a Canadian knitty but I did realize there were so many!

Her brother-in-law was in Japan and was able to score many really neat Hello Kitty items. A BIG THANKS to him.

I got a lovely pink mesh bag, looks like it is for beach toys, but I am going to use it as a laundry bag. A green apple Hello Kitty keychain.

Hello Kitty chop sticks with their very own case and a label so I could put my name on them. I am taking them the next time I go to the local Chinese restaurant. A white mug with another name tag. I think maybe the Japanese school children are compulsive about putting their names on things.

I now have Hello Kitty Stationary to write on.

There was also an assortment of Hello Kitty snacks - corn snacks, gummy kitties (I think), a strawberry marshmallow that was awesome, soft candies, bubble gum, pink hard candies and a heart shaped candy dispenser with kitty on the top.

Also two hanging clips which are perfect for notes to "He Who Usually Forgets".

The yarn content was also from Japan. Lovely Noro Silk Garden color 20 which has pink and purple. A pompom maker, stitch markers and row counters.

Here are a few more things that were camera shy during the first photoshoot. They are shown on the really neat tissue that everything was wrapped in.

A little purse that goes around the neck; a tooth brush and more candy!

Thanks so much for making me feel like a kid again.

Remember Hello Kitty doesn't need a mouth because she speaks from her heart.

My Love Shack SP

A jam packed box of goodies from Sweden. My first SP from a different continent.

I opened the scarf, and my husband thought that it was me, the colors were perfect. He thought he deserved a scarf dance!

Really cool crampons for the ice and we are getting more snow this week, so I will be able to try them.

There skeins of green/purple/yellow looks like spring; and it is feltable!

The two heart shaped boxes are really cool, the bottom point of the heart is like a comma.

Pony needles with loops for eyes and heart shaped playing cards!

And wait..theres more

Rose hips tea, red hots, a heart flashing pin, little white candies that remind me of Herbie the love bug. I do own a VW New Beetle. Also very nice smelling hand cream.

The box of chocolates was yummy, there are a few missing. My husband and I are sharing them. he can not eat them if I am not there!

The ginger cookies are very delicate and crisp. i just showed one.

Three more skeins of feltable yarn with white/grey/purple. The yarn reminds me of Mr. Paws.

This package had many different languages on the different items. It was fun to try to read them.

So THANK YOU SANDYKINS! This was a super package!

Cat Scarf

Modeled by Ms. Hello Kitty

This was in a kit from Morehouse Farms. The pattern warned to there would be just enough of the bulky yarn to finish the scarf. I was nervous about running out, but had just enough. The pattern was easy to follow. I used my Brittanies and my Denises. I used two cables with a 13 tip on one end and a 6 on the other end. That made it easier to switch when making the stripes.

The kit comes with the eyes, but I added the nose, mouth and whiskers. I know they did not include this in the pattern because it was difficult to get them looking nice.

The cat scarf reminds me of the old mink stoles with the beady eyes.

Knitty Sp10 - February Goodies

A great package arrived while we were on vacation from Toyko Kitty. For a cat she gets around.

Original Cracker nuts that are yummywith a little zip , Ritter chocolate with hazel nuts from Germany but OOPS they are not in the picture, they are in my tummy.

Purple and pink ones Nerds.

Two skeins of Panda Cotton in a sophisticated purple maroon color.

Plastic spirals for the kitties which they love.

Finally the most beautiful anklet socks in my favorite colors purple, violet and pink (Knit Picks hydranga). They are beautiful.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

Vacation Socks

Here is a pair of baby socks 0-6 month size. The yarn is Adraifil KnitCol(superwash) which was bought at Needleworks in Greenwich, NY. I got the pattern free with the yarn.

The colorway is 044. I knit these on size 5 Brittanies. It was a fun knit. I made the cuff longer so that they would stay on the babies feet. It took about 2 days to make.

I took this picture on the beach at the end of our vacation and thought that it looked neat so I included it too.

I could really crank out socks if my feet were that small!

What I've done on my Vacation

Here are two things I made on my first few days of vacation. We took the train from Albany to Orlando. That was a lot of fun. We had a sleeper compartment and I was able to get some knitting done. Now we are visting my parents here in Cocoa Beach.

Pattern: Baby’s First Hat (from Blue Sky)
Yarn: Blue Sky Organic Cotton Color #84 Pebble I think I have almost half a skein left.
Needles Britanny’s Size 7

First I finished this hat for a colleague that had a baby in November. I really like using the Blue Sky cotton, it is very soft. The pattern was pretty easy to follow and I like the braided fringe. I think I might try this hat again with a colored base and a green top and fringe to make it look like a flower.

Pattern:Super Mitts
Yarn: Bulky Varigated Merino in Grapejuice from Morehouse Farms Color is better on their website.
Needles: Brittany’s size

I bought the mitten kit from Morehouse Farms during one of their sales. I pal of mine got me started with Morehouse and it is a dream to knit with. My first part of mittens. They were fun to make. The bulky yarn made it easy to see what I was doing and see my mistakes.

My current project is leg warmers in the same colorway but in double ply. They seem to be taking for ever

A Bunch of Little FO's

The one problem with felting little things is collecting them to get felted.

First up, Poops, my Knittyboard SP from SP9 send me a cute little Coin Purse Kit from Bully Woolies. First time I have done stripes one row at a time. The decreases for the flap were fun. I finished knitting it in September. In December, I seamed it so that it could be felted. Then I could not find the button. I had given up and decided to look for a suitable button, when there it was. The button had been hiding in my miscellaneous knitting bag. You would think that I could finish the purse which I had in my had last Sunday.

Nope, no where to be found. Asked my husband if he had seen it. We both went through our clean laundry incase it fell in the basket. My husband did find a few of my socks that got stuck to his. We finally decided that the cats must have snagged it as a toy. i gave up looking and tried not to be obsessed with where it went. Then there it was. it appeared in a basket behind the toliet.

So today it is finished, and so cute.

I went to Joanns's last fall and they had kits to make felted purses on sale. I got 4 skeins of yarn for $8. I could not resist the color. Instead of making the purse, I decided to make these little baskets, from one of my favorite pattern Special Companions. It is an easy knit and makes a great "catch all" basket. The colors so reminded me of Valentine's Day, I tried making a heart. I did it the simple way I knit 10 rows of 20 stitches; and then did short rows of 10 stitches until I had 3/4 of a square. I went and picked up all of the stitches around and knit until the sides were about 2 inches high and did an icord bindoff. I felted them in the washer and formed them over two heart molds that I have from Hartstone Pottery in Zanesville, Ohio. It doesn't look like they make these pans anymore.

First Sweater Finished At Last

I started this sweater about 3 years ago. I found the yarn on ebay and loved the colors. At the same time I found this pattern in the Noro book.

Took everything to my sister's, she is the experienced knitter. She helped me swatch, redid the pattern so that I could knit in the round and have no seams. She is a devotee of Elizabeth Zimmerman. I knit the body until it was time to add the arms. She helped me with DPNs so that I could do the sleeves. We made sure they were the perfect length.

About a year ago, she helped me knit the arms into the body. Then I did very little. This Christmas Eve, she came over and I asked what to do next. She looked at it, and the volunteered to work on it. She had a 12 hour trip to Indiana and back and needed some "easy" knitting. She knits lace(excuse me while I puke) and fancy sweaters. We are complementary. I knit large and funky; she knits lace weight and dainty.

When she came back the sweater was finished. She even blocked it. Horrors, the yarn bloomed and the perfect sleeves were no longer perfect, just longer.

My sister, ripped out the extra length and reworked the sleeves. I picked the sweater up on Friday (1/11) and have worn it for two days straight. Many compliments on my sweater. The colors are awesome.

My sister is the one who got me started on Knitty and is a lurker, so I will not out her here. But with apologies to Harry Shearer, thanks #3, with apologies to Harry Shearer.

Details: Started 3/2005 Finished 1/9/2008
Pattern: Earnshaw from Simply Noro by Jane Ellison
Yarn: Noro Kureyon color #36
Needles: Denises and Clover DPSs, but now I use Brittanies.

Knitty SP10 - January Goodies

Last week after a busy week, I came home to a package from Canada. It was from Tokyo Kitty and took much longer than she thought it would to go 500 miles. I thought it was coming from the south, but no, it came from the north, by sled dog I guess. Either that or Customs thought they would take a look. Anyway I was so tickled to get this package.

The beads and rayon are from a kit, by Swallow Hill Creations, to make a necklace and bracelet. The beads are so gorgeous, mostly purple. They call it a soup of beads and what perfect description. I put them on the plate to show you but the picture deos not do them justice. The folks at Swallow Hill have a sense of humor, they include a bandaid! I am looking forward to stringing them and then knitting them. I need to get 0000 or 000 needles.

I also got a really cute Hello Kitty notebook, can never have enough of those.

Finally some Dr. Stuart's Tranquiity tea, what a way to end the day.

Thank you Tokyo Kitty.