the last post of 2009!

first of all merry christmas! and happy new years too! i have been a little lax as of late in the blogging world, trying to finish last minute projects for Christmas. so after last weekend, the whirlwind subsided and i'm getting around to a more recent post for all of you that are tired of seeing that turkey picture from last month. i have just a few projects to share at this time, first of all there is batman!this was knit for my husband, and finished on christmas eve, right at the last minute!
this little hermit crab came from a knitting book given to me by a friend for christmas and i cast on the day after, i couldn't wait to try the complicated patterns. it turned out so great, with pipe-cleaners in the legs to make it poseable! now who wouldn't want a knitted hermit crab!!!these little turtles are some of my favorite toys to knit right now! they fit in the palm of your hand and there is a rattle in them (actually a cat toy with a bell in it), so they are really fun!and for the future...oooh, cashmere. 400 yards of it just waiting to become something amazing and soft and heavenly...i just have to decide what. there are so many projects to be made this year, and i will keep you updated on all of them! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

happy thanksgiving!

What a wonderful holiday! first of all i do want to say how thankful i am for the best family and friends a girl could ask for, i just wish we were all a little closer... for those of you that couldn't make it to Indiana this year (and that was all of you :) i wanted to share our meal with you through pictures, it was delicious if i do say so myself.
the menu was: sage roasted turkey, homemade gravy, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, apricot-ginger cranberry sauce, cornbread and cranberry stuffing, brown butter and almond green beans and sausage stuffed mushrooms. nate doesn't really care for the stuffing and cranberry sauce, so the mushrooms were especially made for him. and to top it all off, our favorite apple pie recipe that has granny smith apples, a crumb topping and the most amazing custard filling.


we saw the stuffed mushrooms on one of food network's holiday specials, here's the recipe, they are delicious. i hope everyone's day was filled with good memories and good food. maybe next year everyone can come here?

homemade doll pattern

so i have finished my first official "toy pattern"... i've been trying to get some things ready to sell and have felt limited by not being able to sell toys that are not made with my own original patterns. my friends here in bloomington commissioned a "pirate" doll for a Christmas present and it gave me the perfect opportunity to try my hand at a toy pattern. so these first pictures are of the dummy-doll, plain as can be (but i still think it's cute that way)and then by simply adding the right elements for the character, i can turn my dummy...into a pirate!!! arrr, matey!nate says his favorite parts are the thumbs and nose! this is only the first official one i've made but there will be more to come before too long. stay tuned for more knitting projects especially since the holidays are rolling in!

the great KNITTED pumpkin

i knit a few of these last year and had so much fun that i ordered a bunch more orange yarn from joann's.com and set to creating a whole pumpkin patch for decorating with this fall. they are such a quick and easy knit. best of all the pattern is free: the great knitted pumpkin! you can make them big or small or in-between by changing the yarn and needle sizes, so really the possibilities are endless! the pattern shows green leaves attached to each stem, but i made all of mine without leaves because i thought they looked more traditional and simple. i don't know how many i will have by the time the craze passes but enough to be able to tell that it is definitely fall. and the weather outside is confirming that here in indiana! it's been a might chilly and we've been scraping ice off the car already. the leaves are pretty though, i hope to get a few shots of those before all the trees are bare and ready for snow.
happy fall everyone! happy pumpkin knitting!

the great ESCAPE!

1. If you could escape to anywhere in the world where would it be? --Kenai Lake, Alaska (anyone who says otherwise doesn't know about kenai lake!)
2. What song do you play when you are by yourself in the car? paul simon-Graceland
3. If you had a night to yourself, and money was no object, what would you do? put on a long movie like pride & prejudice or bleak house and curl up on the couch with my knitting and then i would order take out and tip all the delivery people exorbitant amounts!
4. What is your guilty pleasure? greasy cheeseburgers
5. What is the farthest place you have traveled away from your home? Russia
6. Last book that you couldn't put down? the brothers karamazov (i've only got about 100 pages left) and the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society that i just finished tonight
7. When you want to escape into another time, what movie do you watch? anne of green gables
8. What is your favorite local escape? the goodwill or michaels, you never know what you might find
9. How do you escape on a budget? i buy sweaters and unravel them and then dream up stuff to make with all my new yarn
10. Best food you've ever had while on vacation- good sushi!

(my sister katie tagged me for this escape... thanks, kates!)

and i know the monkey photo has nothing to do with this post, but he looks like he's thinking about an "escape" and he's one of my favorites... i don't know if i ever showed him to any of you, he belongs to my nephew morgan now.

the deconstruction of a sweater!

this was actually a pretty nice sweater, but about 10 sizes too big. it was $2.99 at the goodwill and made of 100% beautiful chocolate brown lambswool. thrift stores can be an excellent source of great wools and cottons if you are willing to look for them. so i decided to take it apart! i washed it first to get the thrift store smell out. the next step is taking apart all the seams. usually a sweater will have side seams and sleeve seams and if there is collar or button band then those are the first ones that need to come undone.

depending on how the sweater was knit, there is usually a bind off row at the top of each piece that you have to undo before you can complete the fun task of just pulling on the string and watching it unravel. (for this sweater there was no bind off row, so it just fell apart after i pulled the seams out).
and in the end i got about 1200 yards of beautiful wool to recreate into something else!!!
i do have plans for this wool, but i haven't started on them yet, i will keep you all posted!

recycled elephant!

so, i've been working on this little guy for awhile. the pattern i was attempting to follow was full of many, many poor ideas and mistakes, so i had to spend some extra time making him look like a cuddly elephant and not an alien life-form. he spent a weekend with nate and i as a fully-finished elephant (even accompanying us to a Reds baseball game in Cincinnati) before being handed over to one of my coworkers who is expecting a little boy next month.

i forgot to take a picture of the unsightly sweater that this yarn once belonged to, maybe next time i will remember. but the good news is that a $3.00 sweater made this whole animal and left me with plenty for another, nothing like a good washable cotton recycled sweater!he is sure happy that nate let him sit on his lap and help drive! woohoo! go reds!

my striped cardigan

i bought this yarn on clearance last year for my birthday (thanks mom for the gift certificate). they didn't have enough of any one color so i mixed it up a bit with the stripes! the pattern is the "sienna cardigan" from interweave knits and it is truly one of the warmest, coziest sweaters, perfect for people that don't turn their heat on much in the wintertime. not so perfect for hot and humid indiana summer days... sorry i didn't post this when i first finished a few months ago. but better late than never.

and yeah, the pictures aren't really that great, i'd like to blame it on the camera but it's really probably just me and my inability to get simple settings correct!

After 1 1/2 years...

the Christmas-present canvas that my husband gave me finally became a painting. I am ashamed to admit how long it took me to commit an idea to paint form... but i won't say that i don't enjoy the empty canvas and seeing endless possibilities everyday leading up to the actual painting. there is something so promising about a blank canvas. but, i love to paint and have really enjoyed working on this one for the last few weeks. i think it turned out kind of cute. hope you enjoy.
So far it seems i can't paint anything but Russian folk women, but that's not the worst thing right? I still think of Russian babushki with a fondness and can't help it.

happy mother's day!

i just want to say thank you to all the great mothers and mother-figures in my life. happy mother's day everyone, what a blessing it is to have a mother that loves you...like my little kangaroo here, taking care of her little roo! she's now happily hopping around with my darling little niece mckinley jane!

thanks to my sister kate i felt the desire to go and do some window shopping of my own...the clothes i would wear if i had the cash, here's my look.it's funny how even though i don't own any of the things above, i feel like i do in some weird "cyber-reality" way. on another note, i am finished with the sweater i was knitting but have yet to take a decent picture of it, be patient with me... my photo skills are not world-class.

and last, but certainly not least!

here's my lovely aunt peggie modeling the bag that megan made for her! well, to all of you followers, that completes the bag swap of 2008, thanks for participating and i can't wait until next year, so much talent to swap around...

wee little knitting!

well, one of my co-workers just had a little baby girl named Audrey and i had been wanting to make one of these little cardigans for awhile from the Debbie Bliss book Essential Baby...(isn't it amazing how the timing just "worked" out?) i used a recycled pink cotton from a sweater that i unraveled and it ended up super soft and definitely baby friendly (washable and dryable). the embellishments with embroidery seemed to really complete the look of the sweater, i almost couldn't give it up :)

i know these aren't the best lit shots, i really need to remember to take my photos in the daytime, not at night when i want to get something posted, but i'm sure you will not judge too harshly.
sweet little baby clothes and toys are some of my favorite things to knit!

the Great Bag Swap, part 1.6

well, i have a few more pictures of bags to share with you all so we'll just get right to it! first of all here is my mom with the bag that grandma vi sent her.and here is my sister kate with the bag that peggie made for her, and an internal view to boot!so, that's almost all of them, we haven't gotten to see a picture of the bag that megan made for peggie yet but i promise it will get it's own spotlight and not get left out, but i know the rest of you are wanting to see these fabulous bags, so enjoy them and stay tuned for the conclusion!!

the great BAG swap of 2008, part 1

well, here is what you have all been waiting for: the photos i've received so far on the bag swap... this post will hopefully urge you that haven't sent me photos (and i believe you know who you are:) to send them my way so we can all share. first we have Grandma Vi's bag, courtesy of Kate!and here is my bag, made by mom (aka lynne!), inside and out!!!
here is megan with her bag, made by teresa!and finally (for this post at least) we have teresa with my bag!well, there we are, thank you everyone for participating in our annual little swap. i really love this exchange and i can't wait to see what our theme is next year, i hope everyone will be involved again... and i hope to get part 2 up on this blog soon so we can see the other bags exchanged! thanks again for a great success!