Little Monster Bear

August 3I saw this little guy and thought he was incredibly cute, so I grabbed one of my partial skeins of Malabrigo and spent the afternoon working on him. It was a little tedious to seam it, but not too horrible. I don’t think I did a great job with the placement of the arms, legs, and ears, but he’s still cute.

I need to get some eyes and let him dry after felting, so I’ll post a picture in a couple of days.

August 4: Added eyes and took the picture.

Pattern: Little Monster Bear in 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in Purple Mystery

Felted Bag (Blue and White)

July 31: I just realized that my mother-in-law’s birthday is in a little over a week, and they just made plans to come visit us for that weekend, so I’d better get something ready for a present. Eek!

August 3: I have been knitting up a storm on this bag for the past couple of days and I finished just now. It’s currently in the washer for felting! I’m very pleased with the colors.

August 4: Added pictures of completed felted bag. It’s still drying, but it should be finished in time for my MIL’s birthday on Saturday! It’s a little fuzzy (I’m assuming because of the mohair), so I think I’ll try to find a sweater stone and see if that helps. But I’m very happy with how it turned out and how large it is.

Pattern: Angela's Fabulous Felted Bag
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky in Winter Blue (M-51) and in Aran (M-140)

Halter Top

I’m not sure if knitting this in wool is a great idea, but when that wool is Malabrigo, I don’t really care. ~grin~ It’s just sooooo soft!

I love the way the yarn is looking as it knits up.

July 20: Finished! Blocking right now. I think it turned out okay, so I’m looking forward to it being dry so I can see how it really fits (was a little tight under the arms before blocking). I’m not sure that I have enough yarn for the matching boy shorts, so I’m putting those on hold for now and will just enjoy the halter top.

Pattern: Gracefully Gathered Halter Top in Knitting Lingerie Style
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in Oceanos
Top has been sold in my etsy store: karendawn.etsy.com

Practice Socks

July 12: I’ve knitted exactly one sock - no matching sock. So when I saw this book (2-at-a-Time Socks), I thought it might be perfect for me so I could knit both socks at once.

I bought some cheap yarn (Lily's Sugar and Cream) for the practice pair and cast on. Ummm….something went wrong. Badly wrong. I gave up.

A few days later I tried again, this time really concentrating as I was working. The concentration is paying off and I’m finished with the ribbed cuff. Now onto the leg. (will post picture soon)

I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with this technique yet, but it does have some advantages, so I’m going to give it a try and if these turn out, I have already picked out my first actual socks (both yarn and pattern) to use this technique on.

July 17: Have finished turning the heel. Hmm…something went wrong there. I got it all to look okay, but I must have skipped a small step or done something wrong because I didn’t get the socks lined up correctly. I had to take one off using dpns and then put it back on the circular. sigh But it does look okay so I don’t think I’ve messed up the finished product. It’s just the process that I’ve messed up. [I later discovered that there was some errata in the directions.]

July 20: Finished! I think I’m getting more comfortable with this technique. (It helped that I found the errata.) I’m eager to make an actual pair of socks for myself now!

I do hate this yarn and it definitely wasn’t the right yarn to choose for socks (I went with the cheapest yarn I could find since this was just for practice.) I was going to give these to a friend’s child for Christmas (hence the colors), but there’s no way I want to give these to anyone. So they look okay, but they feel horrid and feel like they would be uncomfortable to wear.