When all else fails....

Do a picture post. For some reason I've been feeling kind down so I will just show off pictures of the things I was working on lately... Enjoy!








I will be at the last Wesleyan Market of the season this Saturday, October 3rd 9am - 1pm. If your in the Middle Ga area, stop by and say hello!

Boy's Fleece Tie Blanket

I finally finished doing the work for my mom yesterday. I completed the fleece tie blanket for a boy. It's more for crib decor until the kid is older though. The blanket would also be good as a cover for long trips with the kids (toddler and below.) The final product is quite spiffy in my opinion, just take a look.


Also, I am pretty excited because I was working on my repurposed handspun yarn scarf tonight. This is a pretty big deal to me since I hadn't worked on it in a few months. Tonight I braved the needles though and fixed the mistake that paralyzed my progress. I picked up slipped stitches and you know what? It worked. Oh happy day. Now I can finish it sooner rather than later.

Done and Done!

So I finally finished the hand knit blanket for my Mom's co-worker. The finally specs ended up being 90 stitches wide times 6 skeins. So instead of having vertical stripes we ended up with horizontal stripes.


This picture is from Friday night. Saturday morning I wove in the loose ends and traveled to Atlanta to take it to my mom.



Also, here is a picture with the original blanket for comparison. If I went with the original 7 skeins of yarn the blanket would have been both longer and wide. Still this is a good size for a baby blanket.



Mom also picked up the pink fleece tie blanket for her other co-worker's baby girl and commissioned a blue fleece tie for the baby boy. Whew! No more blanket knitting for a while. =D

Working, Working, Working....

At least, that's is what I try to believe I am doing. I spent approximately a week long period being ill. It was just a summer cold but being uninsured can make any cold feel longer than it needs to be. Early this month I got started on a custom blanket for my mom. She has several co-worker in various states of pregnancy. When we went to visit my parents back in July she asked me to make three blankets in the same soft materials I made the yellow and white one. She just wanted three blankets, 2 girl blankets and one boy blanket by the end of September. Of course that makes you feel like you have a little time but in reality you don't. So then Mom calls up at the beginning of August and says, "one of the babies is due end of this month." Okay I say... "I will work on the blanket now." Which is fine even though I need more content for the market this month. But guess what? a week later Mom calls up and says. "The baby came early... she was born on Sunday." ARGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!! So now its super crunch time.

But needless to say... I have pics!


I really dig these colors and I am not even a fan of pink. Lovely! =D


I'm a little further along now but technically I said I would be done by Wednesday. Something about talking to my family makes me overestimate my abilities...... Hopefully by Thursday's knitting group. *fingers crossed*

Craft Fail

Everybody makes mistakes.... and that's what CraftFail is for. I just wrote my first post there all about my baby blanket. Read More here and be sure to leave a comment and read other peoples experiences as well.

Quality time with the No Sew Blanket

So far in my crafting world there have been very few things that I count as a shared experience with my son. I once tried to teach him to spin on a spindle but apparently he already knew everything. (well excuuusse me!) Needless to say that didn't go very well and now there is a handmade spindle with some yarn on it sitting around the house. Perhaps the problem was that he had seen me do so much of it that he figured he wasn't going to need my help. I don't know... that was about a year ago or so.
Recently we had a break through with this little activity from CraftSanity. Sure, it might not be the original creation of the blogger.. most crafty projects aren't (as you will see in this post) but it was in the right place at the right time. In fact, it wasn't just my son and I... even my husband participated in the breaking and assembling of crayons. The only thing that would make it perfect would be if, in my delirium, I didnt think our obviously non-working stove would work. If it cooks chicken in 8 minutes flat and never clicks off at 400 degrees... well, you can't melt crayons in it either. So instead of 15 minutes it was like 5.5 minutes and some smoke were the paper cups were trying to burn. This is why adults should always supervise their kids craft projects. (And sometimes adults should have another adult supervising them.)

Our next little project happened this weekend. I had acquired the instructions for a no-sew fleece blanket and thought I would try my hand at it. After a few days it dawned on me that this would be a good project for my son and I to do together. With this project, instead of me making something for him, he got to make it for himself with my supervision of course.


First, we did a search for fleece materials that would coordinate. (He has a love for all things elephants so you can see what he settled on.) The instructions were obtained from my job under the guise of a "Lunch and Learn" program. What they really wanted to do was provide us with the same employee morale benefit without having to sacrifice time at the end of the quarter. (So... if you recognize this packet... ummm... you don't know me.)
Anyway, the project really only consist of 3 yards of material, scissors, pins and manual labor. The manual labor was provided by the (near) nine year old.

To start the blanket we laid the two fleeces down with the right sides facing out. Then we were instructed to smooth the fabric down to remove wrinkles and any bunching. In other words stare at the blanket and your child and remind yourself that the end result will be HIS BLANKET!


So now that we are done adding more removing the wrinkles, its time to pin the fabric together.


Once you have secured the two pieces of fabric to each other you cut away the selvage edges and trim the fabric to that they are both the same size.



(Sorry, I just like the child labor shots. Its a boot camp around here I tell you!)

Next we cut 4 inch squares from the corner to start the fringe. The packet stated you can also do 5 inch fringe but you have to create a five inch corner cut instead of 4 inches.


... and then measuring the size of the tassels....

.... cutting the tassels....


(*ahem* supervising...)



... tying tassels... That was a two person job...























... and finally the blanket with a happy 9 year old holding it up.


All in all, it took about 2 1/2 hours to complete the blanket. It was tons of fun to do with him and he was able to do most of the work himself. Plus, he hasn't gone to sleep one night without it covering him since we made it. I recommend this project for parents who want something to do together with their child(ren). However, its is always up to the parents to determine the child's maturity, temperment etc... before undertaking a crafting project like this. (Trust me... there are some nine year olds I wouldn't trust with a pair of scissors even if I was doing the cutting for them.)

So yay for quality time with TheBoy!

If people are interested in the detailed directions I followed let me know and I will summarize and paraphrase in great detail. If you made it this far, thanks!

Soft and Squishy

The last few days I have been working on a baby blanket for a co-worker. I was recommended for the job through word of mouth. I don't actually knit terribly fast but I accepted the work anyway. It's awful funny that I never said how much this was going to cost and she never asked. Not really expecting it to turn out very good in that respect.


The blanket is a knit stitch on size 11, 14 inch straight needles. The LYS owner prefers circulars but I wasn't in budget for that. Really, I wasn't in budget for any of it but I never said that the lady had to buy the yarn before I would start. That doesn't really make sense anyway, she wouldn't know what to get. Also, she was letting me pick the yarn because she is just ready for the grand baby to get here. I got to choose the colors as long as it was neutral to the normal color associations. No pink, no blue, no purple.

This project is so soft and squishy that I hate having to sell it. It is made with Plymouth Yarns "Heaven" which is a 100% nylon yarn. Not inexpensive, just not wool. What I do hate so far is that of the two full skeins I have knit through (total of 5 skeins but I am working on my third now) there have been knots in the last fourth of both skeins. I know that the company wants to minimize waste but when you pay $5/skein for something like 50-75 yards you expect something better. I have Red Heart, I expect that from Red Heart. I do not expect it from the higher end yarns. Blah!

Overall this is an enjoyable and easy project. However, from the last 5-6 years spent as a desk jockey in corporate America, I can't make more than a row before my hand starts to fall asleep. If I try for a second row my hand becomes painfully numb and lacking of proper nerve sensation. So much for ergonomics. I don't even like the corporate peon job, especially since it manages to make what I do like extremely difficult. Great, just great. On the other hand, no pun intended, before I go nutty and quit this job I plan to have my workers comp claim finished out. Preferably where I would never have to file a claim again (third times a charm?)