Weebies!

My cousin is having a weebie (read: baby) in Feb! I am a little upset that I won't be able to see the new baby on Passover this April because my break is during March, and it's a little ridiculous to try to get out to NJ for one night. Anyway, I thought I would knit something for the weebie. I went to Michael's to look for soft yarn. I was very disappointed in the selection, all ugly blues and pinks and whites. I really wanted a nice yellow or sage green. Finally, I found an OK yellow yarn, Lion Brand Pound of Love in pastel yellow. Luckily, the tag had a pattern for a hooded blanket. OK, I'll admit it, the picture of the baby on the tag is what sold me on the pattern and the yarn. That baby is so darn cute!

Anyway, here is the blanket thus far. It's super soft, and looks pretty nice! My only complaint is that the picture is of the crochet pattern for the blanket. I was unprepared for the difference in the pattern for knitting.

Anyway, if anyone of my friends decides to have a baby, I'd happily make you something. I decided that this is the nicest kind of knitting. I am making something easy and adorable and I don't have to keep it! I get so sick of knitting things for myself and I don't have time for an exciting knitting project for myself while I'm teaching. Therefore, little easy projects for others are much easier. Yay weebies!

Venezia Inspiration

So I enjoyed knitting with wire so much that I decided to make some jewlery with the rest of the beads and wire that I bought. I searched the internet for something equally as beautiful and I ran across Venezia Redux! It is a bracelet pattern written by the same knitter! The idea is essentially the same, but the knitted wire is wrapped around plastic tubing to keep its shape. Genius. I have successfully knitted 3 thus far.





I like the green/crystal better than the red/crystal because there is more of a contrast with the different greens and crystals. The larger beads are also bigger than the large beads on the red bracelet. Also, I ran out of small crystal beads and the local Michaels had no more, so I bought larger green and crystal beads after making the red bracelet.



My only fear is that they will not fit my cousin's. They didn't fit over my hands with the knitted wire, but I figure my 13 yr old cousin and 15 yr old cousin will have much smaller hands than me. I also have huge hands.

99.9% FO!

I have knit my 18th (and last) napkin ring!

I re-knit all of my red/crystal napkin holders because the difference between 32 gague and 30 gague are incredible. 32 was much easier to knit with, but the finished products bend easily and were very small (see old posts). I began the green/crystal and the green/black/crystal on 30. This size wire is a little more difficult to knit, but the final product is much more sturdy and the large beads look better against the larger wire.

All of my Christmas presents are finished. I bought wrapping paper, boxes, and notecards this week and now I can wrap up this knitting project! (Both literally, and figuratively.)

Info: Venezia

I used size 6, bamboo circular kneedles and 30 gague wire (24 gague was WAY too difficult to knit with and 32, which I tried first, made them too small and easily bendable). Each napking ring took about 45 minutes from start to finish (a little longer if I was watching something interesting). That means, with a little math, it took me 13.5 hours to finish them all.

Also, I got two new cameras today! Yay for Black Friday. I bought a pretty Canon G9 and a Canon Digital Elp SD1000. Craig is selling one of his lenses on Ebay, so the hurt won't be as much. But now I can take pretty pictures of Salt Lake City, my classroom, my students, and my knitting!

oops

I've been really doing well with these knitted napkin rings, but i broke my camera two weeks ago and have not been able to take pictures of them. (Note: tea + camera = very broken.) I finished the red set and bought new wire in 30 gague and they look much better. I have three done of a second set and two done of a third. If only I had pictures.....

It's working...kind of

So I think that the wire recommended by Knitty was a typo. I couldn't even find 34 gague wire, so I had to settle for 32 (which is thicker). It works, but it does not look like the pictures from the directions. And the napkin holders are thin and tiny. I understand that my big beads may be larger than the ones used, but even the seed beads compared to the wire looks wrong. I figure I'll just make one set out of this gague and buy 24 gague wire and make some more. Luckily they knit up pretty quickly. It takes longer to sew it up than it does to knit it.

Thinking About Xmas Presents

I've been super busy with teaching and have been feeling really not creative lately. But today I realized that I need to think about Christmas presents for my family. Every year my mom, brothers and I have thought of and created presents for the whole family with a specific crafty theme. Here is a list of the presents of years past and the years that I remember...

1995: Salt-dough basket and napkin rings and decorated napkins (remember that paint that you made raised dots with that created a pattern? We used that).
1996: Quilting
1997: Latch Hook Rugs
1998: Fimo decorated items (pens, pins, earrings, butterflies, etc)
1999: Decorated Candles and Homemade Beeswax Candles
2000: Picture Frames
2001:
2002:
2003: Mosaics
2004: Decorated Christmas ornaments
2005: Knit hats, scarves, and backpacks
2006: Homemade Calendars and pj pants

this year, I decided to pick up a knitting pattern that I had seen last year but hadn't convinced my mother to use: Vanezia.

I can even make some to make for Craig's parents!

So I went to Michael's and bought a whole bunch of stuff (pictures coming, I left my camera in my classroom), but bought the wrong kind of wire. Note: bead stringing wire is MUCH different than beading wire. Now I have to go back out and buy some new stuff. Ah well, too bad I LOVE craft stores. :)

And the sweater is finished!

This will probably be the last thing that I knit for a while, I have a large move to make and no inspiration for my next project. I also sent almost all of my stash to South Jersey to wait for me until I get there next week. Ah well. At least this project is finished and Craig's b-day present is taken care of.

Have a good summer everyone.