Catching up...

I am way way behind in my blog posting...primarily due to Christmas knitting. :/

So here is the practice bear...

I guess he could have used a bit more stuffing...though he seemed overstuffed at first. This is my first stuffed knit item, so I guess I am learning there. I got the nose on but am having horrific trouble embroidering the eyes (you can see a bunch of fuzz from my prior attempts). I am hoping someone at Ktog will be able to help me next week.

Here is Reece's bear minus face embroidery:

I actually don't like the duplicate stitch effect around the neck...so I don't think I'll do that for the next one. This one definitely turned out better though, aside from my forgetting how to do m1 increases without making holes....it's not so bad that I feel the need to rip it out though.

And my pet project - this is what I keep bargaining with myself on....if I do some work on the bears, I can do some work on these....

This pic was taken a few days ago. I'm now past the heel and just finished the gusset decreases. I love love LOVE this pattern. Very easy (though not so mindless I can read a magazine while knitting), really fun, and just LOOK how beautiful it is!

Close-up:


This sock is really all I want to do. I'm going to the symphony tonight, so this will be coming along with me for the car ride (the bear just isn't so good for car knitting).

Knit, Knit, Knit...

This time, the reason I haven't been posting is that I've been KNITTING!!! (See, the Grasshopper socks are done!)

For the last few days I have had my head down working on Christmas knitting. Here is my progress on the teddy bear for my nephew Reece:

This knits up nice and fast. I'm glad I did a practice one though - I found it much easier to continue on from the body and do the head right away, rather than putting the stitches on holders, doing the legs, and coming back to the head. I'm ready to start the legs now.

And I'm getting ready to start another pair of socks (I may have cast on already by the time you read this):


One of the yarn stores in Ohio a couple weeks ago got me obsessed with finding an autumn-y orange/brown yarn to do some socks in. They had a great display, but unfortunately I couldn't find a combination of color, texture, and gauge I was looking for. This is the whole package, found on Etsy. Hopefully I'll like knitting with it. The plan is for the Embossed Leaves socks.

I also signed up for Netflix today. We've been talking about watching more movies, and I find movie-watching time to be prime knitting time (especially for stuff like that bear). I'm going through and rating things and adding stuff to my queue. So far my queue seems to be full of documentaries and foreign films.

Knee High to a Grasshopper!

Finally, finally, FINALLY done!!!



Pattern: Knee High to a Grasshopper (April '07 Rockin' Sock Club Pattern)
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silkie in "Walking on the Wild Tide" colorway
Needles: Size 3 (3.00 mm) Knitpicks circulars
Started: June 6, 2007
Finished: November 8, 2007

(just remember these were hibernating for quite awhile, because I didn't want to do these the same time as Bayerische.)

I love the yarn. The "mesh" pattern is very difficult, basically it's a lot of yo, p2tog. There are a few holes I need to patch up because there are a few spots where I purled together two yo's (oops). I think I only did it once on the second sock.

I do love the socks, but I'm not anticipating using this pattern again.