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.

A Better Bucket

I love the way this yarn looks and the way the colors worked out.

But I’m not entirely happy with the hat. It’s a little tight and the brim just doesn’t seem to sit quite correctly. I’m going to try blocking it (when the manikin head that I bought arrives) and see if that helps. Otherwise, I do think this might be the right style hat for me if I can make it fit right on my head!

Pattern: A Better Bucket
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in Amoroso

Tiny Sock Ornament

So cute! I plan to make several of these to give as gifts for Christmas. It took me about an hour and a half to make this first one, but since that was also figuring out the pattern, I think I could get them down to about an hour each.

Elvish Leaves Dishcloth

I like the way this yarn feels, but it seems a little thick for the size needle as I didn’t really get the lace effect with the YOs. If I try this again with this yarn, I’d go up a needle size to see if that makes a difference.

But it does feel really nice!

Erlenmeyer Flask Dishcloth

The purple is quite vibrant, but it doesn’t allow the image to pop out very well. The picture truly shows how it actually looks - you have to look really closely to see the flask.

My first time using this yarn (KnitPicks CotLin). I like how it looks, but it was a little slippery to knit with and I had trouble holding a good tension on it.

Dishcloth has been sold in my etsy store: karendawn.etsy.com

Shallowtail Shawl

We're going on a weekend getaway for our anniversary, and one night we'll be going to eat at a nice restaurant. I have a brown dress that I plan to wear and I really wanted a shawl to go with it. I got this yarn in the mail last week and fell in love with it, knowing that it was the right yarn for the shawl for this dress. (The yarn is yummy! It's called Dream in Color Smooshy. Isn't that just a cool name? The color is November Muse.)



Now I needed to find a pattern, something that I could actually finish in a week. A lot of people on Ravelry have been talking about this Swallowtail Shawl, so I thought I'd give it a try.

After a week of knitting, I am happy to report that it is finished! I learned a lot with this pattern and feel much more confidant about lace knitting now. I also learned about the magic of blocking. Blocking is basically wetting the yarn and stretching it out to the shape/size you want it and then letting it dry.

Pre-blocking, the shawl looked like a bunched mess of yarn:


Definitely not a gorgeous shawl like I want it. But with the magic of blocking, it now looks like this (it's still drying on the blocking board, so no pictures off the board yet):



MUCH better! And here's a closeup so you can see the pattern a little more:



It's a tad smaller than I thought it would be and I don't think I've stretched out the right side as much as the left, so after this weekend, I'll probably block it again and see if I can get it to stretch out a little more. But I can't wait for tomorrow when it should be dry and I can actually try it on!

Celtic Cable Neckwarmer

I had a partial ball of green Malabrigo and didn’t know what to do with it. If my calculations were correct, I had just the right amount of yarn for this neckwarmer, so it was a perfect combination.

June 26: Found some buttons to use - I really love the buttons so I’m looking forward to seeing how it all looks when it comes together.

June 26 (later): Stayed up late to finish this one. It’s currently blocking, but I had to take a picture first! I had to tighten the buttonholes a bit as my buttons were a bit on the small side. But I’m very very happy with how it turned out!