Winter Warmies

Time to share some more crafty, okay, mainly knitty, projects I've been working on that last couple weeks. Though a couple recently completed projects won't make an appearance until after Christmas because some people are nosy.

I finally finished Tony's "Random Bump" hat, which I only had to rip out 4 times but now fits him perfectly. As if it were made for him, LOL! I had seen in a knitting book once where a lady knit a sweater in a chunky yarn, and just randomly threw purle stitches into the body of it so that there was an occasional "bump" or even sometimes a line of 6 or 7 purl stitches. I thought that was so neat so decided to do that with Tony's hat. He wanted a solid black hat and just knitting it seemed rather boring; it needed some texture. I used NaturallyCaron.com's Country yarn which is a microfiber-acrylic/merino-wool blend and is lovely to use! Very splitty, almost like knitting with 10 unplied threads, but once you get used to that it's worth it I think. The knitted cloth is VERY nice!

My Goddaughter Lily LOVES cake. With a passion. It really is all about cake. I thought I would knit her some cutesy pieces of cake but after attempting on piece twice I gave up and threw it out. (gasp!) I can knit sock without a pattern but plain triangles? No! Then I went and picked up some cheapy craft felt, cut out a piece and hand sewed it. Nope, still wasn't right. Sure the pieces were right but the hand stitches didn't look secure enough for a 2 year old to chew on. I finally went with machine piecing them and hand sewing the pink beads to the "icing" (top piece of felt), then handsewing just it on. I LOVE the way they came out! SO cute, I think! Jeremiah says Hannah needs some of these for her birthday. Her birthday is in April, so I'm good.

My Godchildren are army kids; their Daddy is right now in Afganistan. My Godson Rush just turned 5 so he's about the same age as my Jeremiah. I found this pattern on ravelry.com that was SO cute, it was called "Kiddie Cadet" and made a little, military-style cap for kids. I knew I wanted to make him a hat using the pattern for Christmas. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to by the camo-colored/patterning yarn. Don't know why. Instead I picked up the same type of yarn in the blue/brown camo colorway. And it didn't pattern like camo! Still though, the hat is pretty cute! I have no idea why Jeremiah closes hisa eyes for every picture now. The flash on my new camera is BRIGHT but Hannah doesn't do it. Who knows.

Today I've been working on him some mittens to match. I used Jeremiah's hands as a guide and got one mitten started and finished in about 5 hours, taking 2.5 hours out to have a nap with the kids. They are quick knits! I have the ribbing done on the other and I'm almost ready to start the increases for the thumb. Hannah had to try on everything I had Jeremiah try on today. Jeremiah is absolutely smitten with the mitten, saying he wants some out of the SAME yarn! No matter that I am almost out of this yarn and will be lucky to get the 2nd mitten, and I still have almost all of a huge 244yd skein of the navy blue I used for the lips on his fish hat. Does he want navy mittens to match his hat? NO! He wants blue and brown stripedy mittens. Of course. So...probably I'll buy another skein of this yarn.

I have also been working on a pair of "Budding Gothling" fingerless mitts for a friend of my sisters, for Christmas. I have kind of designed these around 1) the ribbing I used on Tony's hat, loved the chunky look and 2) these distressed pewter skull and cross bones buttons I saw at JoAnn's last week. :-D Originally I was just going to sew 2 buttons in the purl stitches of the ribbing on th cuff but then I had a bright idea to pick up stitches and knit a flap, pull it over and sew it down with one button. The button then of course is non-working but still looks really cool! They are just a tad small for me but not everyone is built like a dockworker with man hands, so I think they'll fit the recipient nicely. Made from the same Country yarn as Tony's hat.