Moving Right Along

These gloves are truly representative my work in fiber. No measuring. I prefer eyeballing the size of things, hence, the one long glove with a short thumb and one short glove with a long thumb.

They're super thick and warm though!

They were made on the two purple looms.
I'll really try to be better about my craftsmanship. Those gloves will be good enough for keeping in the car, but not good enough for anyone to have close inspection of their construction. They also took a very long time to make.

I'm wondering if knitting on connected needles will go faster, so that's what I'm playing with now.

Just playing around and practicing at this point, I'm getting ready to look at some videos on "decreasing."

This sample knitting has tons of holes in it too. One positive thing about the looms is that if you miss a stitch, you see immediately that one of the pegs has too many pieces of yarn on it. You can fix it right away, and without taking out any previous stitches.

One thing for sure, knitting on these needles feels easier on my hands than the looms do. I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend playing with these.

Knitwits

My Wednesday lunch partners joined me today in the Art Room. Before winter break I had taught them both to use knitting towers. The plan was to bring in the knitting tubes they had made, and we would turn them into something else today.


Unfortunately, for various reasons, the knitting towers did not make it to lunch, but the kids were still excited to make something. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of my brain, I remembered watching a YouTube video of a kid finger knitting. Though I didn't watch it close enough to learn how when I watched it, I figured it out for myself today. The kids got a chance to practice, but didn't have enough time to really make anything. Next week all the Knitwits have to do is bring their fingers and we can get started.

This length of knitting was done in about ten minutes, and that includes the amount of time it took for the process to click in their brains. Next week we will get started early and try to make a respectable scarf.

Fixin' my Knittin'

I must have spent at least an hour online last night trying to find out what the problem was with my hat making. Of course I can tell that this hat was a bit on the long side, but I had intended for that length at the bottom to just roll up. Instead, it just flopped down.

All I could find on the web was that the looms labeled as "adult hat" size were all too big to fit any human head. No other solution presented itself, so pretty it isn't, but I fixed the loom to my liking.


Since this is a "flexiloom," I was able to cut a section off without breaking it. I cut off about an inch and a half with two pegs and then wired the loom back together.

I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but hey, it worked for me.

I got up at 4 this morning; undid the previous cap; then tried again on the "improved" loom. The fit was better but not perfect. I undid the hat for about the fifth time to try again. On the web I had read that you should use two strands of yarn instead of one.

Tada!!! That did the trick.


It's plenty heavy and as long or short as I might like it.

Those of you who warned me of yarn addictions were right on the money. I'm heading back to the craft store tomorrow. I need a red hat now.

Knittin'

Armed with knitting needles, looms and YouTube, I've taught myself how to knit over the last couple of weeks. My goal was to be able to knit wash cloths and scarves. Pretty simple goals. I've done both of those things and have tried to progress along.

I've pretty much gotten the knit and the purl down enough that it doesn't look like a hot mess. I'm not dropping stitches as much as in the beginning.

Since I want to find some projects to do with my lunch group of knitters at school, I ordered a couple of circle knitting looms. The large one is for hat making and the two small ones are for mittens.


I've made a couple of scarves on some mega fat needles and matching caps on the circle loom.

It's been a lot of fun to make these. The hats only take around 2 hours to create from start to finish.

Now to just figure out how to make them fit.

Crewel Stones

I absolutely am in love with these embroidered pieces by Patricia at the Zencrafting blog. If I hadn't just started playing around with knitting, I'd be all over trying this. It's just so gorgeous and I know it would be satisying to work on. She calls them "Crewel Stones."

She's hosting a giveaway for one of them, so go on over to her place and check it out.

Art Club Baskets

My own crafting endeavor is struggling at the moment (see knitting post below), but my Art Club kids are having no problems with their's. They had so much fun making these baskets.

Inspiration

I get so excited over the things I see in other people's blogs that it makes me all inspired to try them too. I got all jazzed about pysanky when I saw Valerie do it. When Miriam did freezer paper printing, I had to do it too. Then last week when I saw little Bea knitting, I decided that maybe I could give knitting a try.

I created my own knitting tower and then bought a bonafide real one. It was so easy that I thought it might not be a huge leap to real knitting. At the craft store yesterday I partied! It was so fun looking at all the knitting goodies Seven skeins of yarn and three sets of knitting needles came home with me. Oh, and a book about knitting for preteens.

Upon reflection, I probably should have bought the kit made for 6 year olds. That might have been more my level. All I really want to achieve is the ability to make a tidy dish cloth and a muffler.......winter scarf. M mentioned, well, pleaded actually, that he doesn't need any vests or sweaters.

Well, I learned the knitting part pretty quickly. YouTube has some helpful videos. My problem is neatness. I have knitted and unknitted the same length of yarn innumerable times in the last 24 hours. Why I'm not getting even stitches, I am not sure. I don't mind practicing time and time again, but I wish I knew what it was that I needed to correct. I just keep making the same messy mistakes over and over again.

This is my best one so far:

Hehehehe......Does everyone's first day of knitting look like this or am I just special?

I have had fun with it none-the-less. Last night I woke up at 4:00 am to the sound of ice hitting the roof. I contemplated ice for a couple of minutes and then became wide awake as I thought, "I can go downstairs and knit!!!" So I did. I've played around with it most of the day.

Hehehehehe.....Goodies on my Porch!

As I drove up to the house this afternoon I saw a couple of small packages on my front porch. One was a box of purchased goodies that I was expecting. The other was a surprise from my sister.

The box of things I expected had four sets of the "Knitting Nancies" that I ordered.

These will be gifts for my neices, my granddaughter and me.
Here's the makeshift one I made last weekend.

The bought one looks a lot prettier, but the t.p. version sufficed when I needed it.

The other package was from my sister. We don't exchange presents, but somehow we still manage to swap crafty stuff. Either it is something crafty we made ourselves, or something we think the other could easily duplicate.

These are clay ornaments. I think she didn't make them, but I don't know the story behind them.

Getting the two packages made me a bit giddy, and a little like Santa himself had left the goodies.

Toilet Paper Tube Knitting...I Think

I have never knitted in my life. I own no knitting implements, not even a ball of yarn. So when I read my friend Diane's post about her little girl being totally drawn in by spool knitting, I wanted to be drawn in as well. I even decided to order the little "knitting nancy" that her little one was using.

I got all jazzed up about trying this today. Right now! However, not having the power of instant delivery from the internet, nor the desire to drive to the craft store, I had to use materials at hand.

A worn out wool sock and a toilet paper roll should do the trick, right?

So I managed to get a small ball of yarn ready.

And I cut my toilet paper tube with what looks like castle tower crenelations along the top.


I'm not sure if what I did was really knitting. There were no directions with this instant made kit. It just seemed in my head like it might be the way to do it though. Plus, I did get a tube of yarn made.

Here's me in action.

Well, that was fun.