New Amigurumi Pattern

I finished another amigurumi pattern over the week. I'm calling this one The Incredibly Hungry and Sleepy Puppy. It's a play set complete with puppy bed, puppy chow, and a little ball for it to play with.



The pattern features a reversible face so the puppy can be either sleeping or awake. Isn't it so cute? I think it's SO CUTE!



You know you want to make one. So visit my etsy shop and purchase the pattern before I get all sad that no one is buying my patterns.

Update: this pattern won a spot in the CrochetMe 2012 Calendar and will not be available in my etsy shop. Keep an eye out for the calendar for the pattern.

In knitterly news, I just finished a baby blanket and am now making another. I need to make some booties, too. All this for a very special January delivery.

My first amigurumi pattern

I spent a few nights last week coming up with a doll that was partially inspired by a Tokidoki character. It's a mishmash of that and my own whimsy. What I love about this pattern is the doll's reversible face. You can make it look scary or you can make her sweet.



She also has a cute little skirt and candy stripe legs.



The pattern is up in my etsy shop. Enjoy!

I'm currently working on a little puppy amigurumi. Almost done! I hope to post the pattern this weekend.

More amigurumi

My amigurumi obsession continues. Below is a little frog amigurumi (using the same pattern as the bunny one in the previous post) that I made for my little sister's birthday. My mom saw it and now wants one, so I'll need to get working on a doll for her, too.



This little guy was made for my nephew who adores Elmo. After seeing how easy it is to design your own dolls after you learn a few basic amigurumi shapes, it was easy to come up with this design. He loved it! I put some jingle bells inside, but I think the stuffing muffled the sound too much. Next time I'll place them in the little arms.



I'm currently working on my own doll patterns and hope to have a few posted to my etsy shop soon!

Hello again and amigurumi addiction

Hi, all. I'm back. At least for now. I've been working steadily on my dissertation, and I hit that mental wall that says I need a break. So I thought I would update this blog and take a dissertation break at the same time. Is anyone still there?

I've been so into amigurumi lately. All I want to do is browse patterns and make them. Here's my latest creation:



This was made using a pattern from K and J Dolls, an ever-so-talented amigurumi designer on etsy.

This was my second attempt at amigurumi, made using a pattern from Amigurumi World by Ana Paula Rimoli.



I need and want more little crocheted dolls.

finally some new socks and handspun

When I moved this summer, I packed a pair of socks to work on. It took the movers 12 days to get our things to us. You know I'm depressed if I can't bring myself to work on socks. Knitting on an air mattress isn't very fun. Don't ever use the moving company I used. Of course I won't give their name here, but if you're thinking of moving, contact me, and I'll tell you who not to use. 12 days late.

These socks were made with my very own Woolly Boully yeah oh yeah sock in the la mer colorway. They were done on size 1 dpns over 64 stitches.

I also made my first 3-ply yarn with this roving.



The roving is from Freckle Face Fibers and is 100% merino in the Patriot colorway. Her rovings are so fluffy and devine.

My singles took forever to spin. 3-ply handspun sock yarn is really a labor of love.



This skein measures 394 yards. I'm a tad bit disappointed: I was hoping that I would get more yardage, but for my first 3-ply handspun sock yarn, I think I did an okay job. There are some strange spots here and there, but overall, I'm pleased with my spinning progress.

After doing 3-ply, I needed a quick spinning project, so I grabbed some roving that I dyed up a few months ago. It's 75% superwash merino and 25% nylon, perfect for socks, and in my Country Apple colorway.



This skein is a sport to worsted weight and comes in at 168 yards.



I'm thinking mittens?

skein-a-day project

I miss dyeing yarn. I do. I really do. I just get overwhelmed by setting up and working on numerous skeins at a time and then all the clean up and rinsing and reskeining after a big dye-job.

My new Chicago kitchen also isn’t set up to production dye. You should have seen the work that Manly and I put into the kitchen for the Winter Sock Club skeins. It took the use of a broken bookshelf, some cardboard boxes, an old painting pole and lots of duct tape. I would do that all over again, but I have no idea where the duct tape is. We had to use A LOT of it. The whole contraption, however, made me feel completely insane, honestly.

I discovered that if I dye just one skein at a time, I’m happy, much happier, and I feel as if I have more room to play around in the dyepot. Plus, my kitchen stays sanely clean and organized, just how I like it. I love a clean kitchen. I have to make sure all the dishes are washed and put away before bed.

So, from here on out, I’m dyeing a skein a day. Some yarn will be kettle-dyed and some will be spaced dyed. I will have new and old colorways, but there will only be one skein a day. Well, okay, on days when I can do more, I will. On days when it’s impossible to dye, I won’t. Yesterday, it was impossible to dye, so I didn't. Today, I'll try to dye up two skeins between dissertation work and everything else.

I posted some skeins on my etsy site two days ago, and I'll have three more to post today. The seagrass that you're seeing in the photo above has sold.

Keep checking my etsy site if you’d like to get your hands on one of the skein-a-day creations.

In the meantime, I'm finishing up a pair of socks that I started in August (!) and spinning my first 3-ply sock yarn. Wish me luck.

A New Scarf for Manly

Manly doesn't always leave the house with a scarf; I think it's crazy. He had a really nice one once, but we haven't seen that one around. We haven't seen that one for about two years now. (I know--it's awful of me to let him go that long without a nice scarf.)

The cold in Chicago is insane; it's not your normal cold. So I refuse to let him leave without a scarf. He's been wearing the first one I made him ever: it's so ugly (to me) that I feel so badly for him when he wears it. It's my knitterly self looking at my first tries of garter-stitch (which I didn't do correctly, mind you) and feeling all embarrassed. He must love me enough to wear it.

He wanted orange. So orange it is.

This scarf was knit on size 10 needles over 32 stitches using Lamb's Pride bulky in the orange you glad colorway. I found the pattern in the first Stitch 'n Bitch book (page 58), and it calls for two skeins in the book. Don't believe it. You'll need three. Normally, I could get a scarf from two skeins of the bulky, but this stitch is so compact. Use fewer stitches and size 17 needles if you want to have more drape and use less yarn. I would prefer my scarf that way, but Manly likes a very dense knit.

Oh, my!

I've been gone a long time.

Well, I think that maybe some of you might have thought that I was done with knitting. Oh, no. I'm certainly not done with knitting. I don't know why I don't update my blog as often as I should. You see, I have all of these FOs and haven't shared any of them. I'll need several posts to show you the things I've made and spun lately.

In the photo above, you'll see the yarn that was sent out for the Woolly Boully One-Shot Sock Club in December. The colorway was Brooklyn Peppermint. I have a Brooklyn Candy and a Brooklyn Holly colorway, and, well, yes, I do miss Brooklyn.

I spoiled myself this past fall and joined Wooly Treasures' batt club. Here's my October batt:



And here it is all spun up:



I love spinning batts. They're so soft and fluffy and decadent. I love all the various fibers and colors and I do love the glitz.

Places I have been since you've read me last: Texas, New York City, New Jersey, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Chicago is all covered in glitz. When I woke up this morning, it was 2 degrees. I mean, the glitz here is in the form of icicles and snow and jack frost scrawlings on my windows. People don't know, but they should be envious of me and my handknit wool socks.

I want a fireplace. In the next place I live, I'll have that and a dishwasher. I want a dishwasher.

A wedding gift and a gift to me from me

A few days before my wedding, an Express Mail package showed unexpectedly. Inside was a beautiful shawl from G. (G. if you want me to use your Ravelry name or something else, just say the word!) She ordered a custom colorway from me, which happened to be my wedding colors, and then she went and did the sweetest thing: she made me a shawl from it.



It's so stunning and beautiful, and I can't imagine how many days she spent knitting it. As any knitter knows, a knitted gift is priceless. Thank you, G. Getting this gift was such a treat, but it also made me remember how many great people I've met through my fiber love.

So, I broke down and ordered a Lendrum DT complete. (I ordered it from Paradise Fibers on a Monday and got it on a Friday. A few days later, they were all sold out. Stores can't keep this wheel in stock; I must have gotten lucky.)



This is my getting-to-know-my-new-wheel skein. It's just some roving that I dyed before my move. I'm sorry that I didn't take any pictures of the roving before spinning it up. There was some getting used to, but once I got used to the wheel, I couldn't believe I had been spinning on my Louet S17 when I could have been spinning on something heavenly. I thought I didn't know how to control the fibers and that I was a bad spinner, but I just needed a new wheel. I'm spinning more consistently, and my ability to draft and control the fiber is amazing now. Seriously: there is a world of a difference.

This skein is about 3.2 ozs and 240 yards, fingering weight. It's a 2-ply. I want to spin a 3-ply sock yarn next. With my leftover singles, I practiced at Navajo plying, which is easy-peasy once you get the rhythm down.

Oh, and there was a little update today at my etsy shop. All the colorways were named by Manly, who also helped with the dyeing. Thanks, Manly! Oh, and Manly was also my biggest new wheel enabler. You see? I did marry the perfect guy.

ugh...I want a new wheel

I want a new wheel because I'm just fickle like that. I like my Louet S17; it's all right; I taught myself to spin on it; it makes yarn; it plys; there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I just want a double treadle wheel now because I'm getting a bit sensitive to that dead spot on the wheel, which I never noticed before or cared about before. Something happened. I began to spin ever-so-finely. That's just how I spin now, and I want a wheel that can really accommodate that. Or maybe I just want a new wheel just for the wanting, but I can't justify that expense right now. I think that maybe I should have a wheel for at least two years before I get a new one; this means I have to wait until May. That's terrible.

I spun this up about two weeks ago. It's BFL dyed by Pigeonroof Studios. Krista makes beautiful roving.



This was my third time spinning up BFL, and I have to say: I'm either really bad at spinning up BFL or I just don't like it: I think I just don't like it. It's not as slick and smooth as merino, which I adore spinning. I also can't get the BFL to spin up as finely as I can spin merino.



Hence the pure ugliness of this yarn, or maybe it's my wheel: I want to blame my wheel so that I can get a new one.

I want to start doing Navajo 3-plying. I saw some beautiful handspun sock yarn at a Thing for String. Micki's handspun is so awe-inspiring. I want to make handspun that's as lovely as hers. I know this is my destiny and that somehow a new Lendrum DT is a part of that destiny.

I have some silk/merino sock yarn drying. It's going to Pam at Yarny Goodness, and that will be all for the wholesaling for the foreseeable future. I promised Pam this yarn a long, long time ago. Oh, and she's having a sale today, so you should stop on by.

I may need some spinning wheel money, so I might list some skeins here and there on etsy; you'll know how badly I want a new wheel by whether or not I start dyeing.

I want to thank all of you who took time to leave comments on my last entry: I miss knitting-blogging. It was nice to know that you were thinking about me.