Finished Baby Bear

It’s hard to post a lot when most of the things you are working on are going to be presents.  Not that everyone I know looks at this blog, but sometimes you just don’t want to ruin the surprise.

When I first bought this High Society Sock Yarn, I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with it.  It is very bright and colorful which always appeals to me but besides making socks (I haven’t finished the first pair that I started over two years ago) it wasn’t clear what I’d actually wear in such bright colors.

But then I realized it would make a great stuffed animal for my newest nephew and I found Susan B. Anderson‘s Baby Bear in her book Itty-Bitty Toys.

For my bear I mostly followed the instructions except that I increased the needle size to a US 5 and I waited until the end to put together all the parts.

The other thing I didn’t do was put a face on this bear.  I started with a nose and besides not liking covering his cute little yellow nose, I decided I didn’t like how my poor hand stitching made for a sort of scary face.

Knitting a whole project on DPNs is not my most favorite (see sock comment above) and you can see in some spots that the knitting could be a little bit nicer. But mostly I just love how he looks like a rainbow.

The pattern was so easy to follow and all of his parts look so great.  I especially love his cute little tail that took maybe five minutes to knit up.

Overall, I am very pleased with how he turned out.  I hope that he becomes a cherished toy that my nephew drags all around the house and snuggles with at night.

WIP Inventory

In the spirit of actually finishing some of my projects, it was time for an inventory of my current works in progress so I can really see how far I’ve come and how much knitting I’ll be doing to finish them.

Last night I decided to frog my second pair of toe up socks. I love the Mini Mochi but I think it will be best used on a different project maybe a Spectra (if only my hands could knit as quickly as my brain plans!).  The only thing I really loved about this particular project was the name Our Stock Would Plummet because they were toe up. Get it?

Anyway, I have another sock project still on the needles that I will finish one day (can you sense my lack of enthusiasm for socks?).  Right now, they are 25% complete.

I also have this Fishtail Lace Scarf that I started last April that I’d like to prioritize and finish. It’s 30% complete.

I love the color of this Kauni yarn and can’t wait to see it finished and blocked. This one requires a bit more attention so I prefer to knit this while I’m watching mindless TV.

I have my Honey Cowl which is half way there and could probably be completed within the week or so depending on the kind of knitting time I have.  This is great for movies.

And finally my One Row Lace Scarf which I’ve mostly been knitting on airplanes and long car rides where I’m the passenger because it travels so easily. It’s an easy lace pattern and it doesn’t take up any room in my bag.  It seems like I’m traveling so much but mostly I’ve been driving which makes knitting impossible.  It’s 40% complete.

All of a sudden, I feel like I can finish these projects and get started on new things. Taking inventory and frogging that half a sock really made me feel great. Hopefully I can get in a lot of knitting today.

The Noro Striped Scarf

From my time on Ravelry I’ve learned that Noro brings out strong emotions in people.  It seems very few people are pretty neutral about it. Most either love it or hate it.

I love the colors and the way they change.  Yes, sometimes they abruptly stop and they are joined with a color that does not transition so nicely, but if you wind the skeins before knitting, you can catch those knots and fix the problem. Yes there are sticks and sometimes wee little dead bugs in there, but it’s fine by me.  Others respectfully disagree.

It was on Ravelry that I first noticed the Noro Striped Scarf. It seemed that everyone had one on their projects page so I got curious. I was still new to knitting (I learned to knit and purl as a kid, but I maybe knit two or three things to completion from a pattern in the previous twenty years) and carrying the yarn didn’t entirely make sense.  So I poured through forum postings on how to do it and then bravely started knitting with two balls of yarn to make the color changes. Yes, the dark color really does change from browns to blacks and grays.

This pattern really appealed to my new found desire to knit because it is so colorful and especially to someone who was a novice, it was an easy way to do something that is so eye-catching and special looking. I made my first with Noro Kureyon which is 100% wool and an aran weight.

Then Mike decided that he liked the scarf so much that when I discovered some Noro Silk Garden on sale, I decided to make him one. Silk Garden is aran weight but 45% mohair, 45% silk and 10% wool.  It is softer to knit with than Kureyon but the colors are just as vibrant.

Both of these scarfs got matching hats.

I can totally understand why people feel so strongly both ways when it comes to Noro.  I think there are a lot of things to love and hate about so many different yarns. But I really do like Noro and have a some in my stash just waiting to be knitted up.

The Guys!

These are our guys.  We adopted them on Friday, April 13th from Centre County PAWS and it feels like we’ve had them forever.

This is Chica Barnfell.

She is a little six pound tortie who will be two in August.  She’s miniature – a perma-kitten. As a result, she’s called Chica but she also goes by Peanut and Nugget and a variety of nicknames of those three names.

She also has this respiratory issue where she snorts and wheezes a lot. They had her checked out a variety of ways and we are assured that she’s fine. The vet suspects that she had a cold or other infection as a kitten and as a result, her respiratory system didn’t fully develop. But she can run and keep up with the other kitty so that’s all that matters.  Plus, the way she snores is kind of adorable.

This is Butler Lynn Belvedere.

He’ll be one in August and he’s already bigger (especially longer) than Chica and probably weighs about ten pounds.  He is the goofiest kitty.  When he’s playing, he makes these sloppy but slick moves that make him seem like a comic ninja.

Butler is big on toys.  He carries them all over the house in his mouth. When we adopted him, they gave us a bag of his toys and he came to us with a little yarn pom pom that we called Rainbow Guy. Poor Rainbow Guy has slowly died all over the house. So recently, I grabbed some yarn scraps and made them tons of new toys.

Here is Chica snuggling up to a new toy in her bed.

And here’s a bonus of Butler, ignoring his toys, and trying to hunt bugs outside the window.  Look how long he is!  Plus, see how he is being naughty but it is sort of adorable and hysterical?  Yeah, that’s how cats get away with doing things you’d never allow anyone else to do because they are too cute.

Here is a history of their closeness.  They were mere acquaintances that first day or two.

Then they slowly got closer.

And now they sort of do everything together when they are awake. In a little over two months, I am confident that they are super tight. They both clean each other now regularly.  The next buddy milestone I’m looking forward to is finding them sleeping with each other.

And here is the most recent shot of the buddies. If they were a celebrity couple, they’d be ButChic.

North Carolina Local Yarn Store Visits

One of the best parts of traveling regularly is getting to visit new places, see new things and meet new people. If I am somewhere and find myself with some free time, I try a new local yarn store.

I’ve made it to Great Yarns in Raleigh twice in a little over a year. Last year’s yarn turned into a bunch of baby bibs for the 2010 babies.  The buttons are from my local yarn store Stitch Your Art Out.

This past trip to Great Yarns yielded one skein of Malabrigo Lace in Amoroso (157). I’ve already purchased a pattern for this yarn and it’s a few projects down in the queue.

Malabrigo Lace

What is awesome about Great Yarns is they wound the skein for me!  I don’t know if this is a really common thing as I really haven’t visited that many stores but this is only the second store (the other was Knitting to Know Ewe in Bucks County, PA) that I’ve been to where they offered to wind it for me and it is such a treat.  I don’t have a swift or anything fancy.  I either have a reluctant volunteer hold up their hands (although my reluctant volunteer has gotten really good at saying know now that he knows how long it can take) or I sit with the skein around my knees and roll a ball.  So it is such a treat to get to work immediately.

I also had some time while I was heading out of Asheville to stop by Yarn Paradise.

One of the things I like to do when I get to visit a local yarn store is see if they have a selection of local yarns.  This store had a small selection (the Raleigh store didn’t have any but said their sister store in Chapel Hill had some) but as I wasn’t a huge fan of the yarn, I ended up with a pretty skein of Ella Rae Lace Merino.  I am in love with the colors as they are a rainbow but not so bright.  I am sure I’ll find some kind of scarf for it.

Ella Rae Lace Merino

On my needles

What isn’t on my needles is probably a better question.

I have six projects going right now (I’ll talk about the ones that are hibernating another time) and one that really should be cast on and knit as there is a baby coming in a month who I want to have a pair of booties!

The most active projects are three scarves that I am so excited to wear. Each serve a different purpose. The first is a Fishtail Lace Scarf which is being made with Kauni Effekt.

Fishtail Lace Scarf in Kauni Effekt

This is going to be my most colorful project yet. I’ve had the yarn in my stash for over a year and finally feel that I’ve discovered the pattern that will show off the rainbow best and in a way that I’ll be able to wear a lot. This is a wool that’s a little rough on the hands so delicate people might complain about it.  I love it and love the gradual color changes. This is my project that requires my attention and I can do it when I want to only concentrate on my knitting.

My next scarf in progress is a Boneyard Shawl made out of Wolle’s Yarn Creations Color Changing Yarn.

Color Changing Boneyard

I chose this pattern for this stranded cotton yarn to really show off the changes. I saw a few others on Ravelry also made from this yarn and I love the way they turned out.  This is a perfect scarf for summer so I really need to speed it up and it’s an easy pattern and great for mindless TV knitting or knitting in a group.

The other scarf in progress is a Sunday Market Shawl.

Sunday Market Shawl

I travel quite a bit for work and last month, when I was in Vermont, I was able to stop at the Northeast Fiber Arts Center in Williston when I had a half hour of free time. They have a whole display of yarn they’ve dyed in the store. Last year when I was there I discovered the shop and bought some of their store-dyed yarn that turned into striped fingerless gloves and so I knew I had to try something else because the colors are so beautiful. This pattern is really interesting because on the last row you drop every two stitches to create a beautiful loose shawl.  I hope it works out (I mean, it should if I followed the pattern properly) because I won’t know until the very end and on it’s own, it’s not very special. This is the easiest knit ever otherwise.  I could do it anywhere with any distraction.