Child's Harry Potter, Weasley Sweater!

First of all, I am IN LOVE with the way this turned out! It's an adorable little sweater and it only took about 8 hours total to make!

Great gift idea for Christmas! I've made several of these top-down raglans as gifts and they fit kids from 6 months all the way to 2 years if you make the arms long enough. Just roll 'em up while they're too long, then let them down as the child grows!

Anyway, on with the info on this sweater...

So, the first sweater that I posted as a Harry Potter Sweater HERE was crocheted. Way back when I didn't know how to knit yet!

This one is knitted. This pattern is fantastic! It is a top-down raglan sweater which means there are no seams to sew up and it's all knitted in the round, so no purling!!

HERE is the pattern that I followed, with a few changes.

Changes:

I only did 4 rows of ribbing for the neck, bottom, and cuffs. I didn't want a turtleneck, but I did want just a touch of ribbing and that worked out really well!

I did not add the additional 3 stitches indicated for the underarms, which gave me only 100 stitches when the sleeves were removed from the needles.

If you've never made a top-down raglan before, it can be a little confusing. Here are a few pictures of the process that will hopefully clear up some of your questions!

This is what the raglan sleeve looks like as you do the increases.

Here are the sleeves slipped onto holder string while the body is left on the needles to continue knitting.

This is the body finished with the sleeves waiting to be stitched. If you bind the sleeves off at the step where you normally place them on the holder, this makes a really cute girls cap-sleeve shirt!

No seams, finished sweater! Didn't the raglan increases turn out well!

After finishing the sweater I did a duplicate stitch for the initial. I found a great site HERE that has charts for all sorts of fonts for the initial!

If you don't know how to duplicate stitch, this is a great video!

Duplicate stitch all finished!

Weave in all the ends and you've got yourself a Weasley Sweater!

You could do the same thing with a top-down raglan pattern for an adult sweater too... Happy Crafting!

Table Runner

Update:
I just took the table runner down from my blocking board and here it is on my side table!


I got a wild hair to make this really cute table runner that I found on Ravelry (I spend waaaaay too much time there!).

Here is the pattern!

I ended up not being able to find the color in the original pattern, which I liked alot, but I did find the brand in a different color and stayed with that! It is going to be a Christmas gift so I thought the more neutral cream would be better than the gray.

The finished product before blocking is actually tiny, but it stretches tremendously!

Here it is in the process of being blocked... I'll let it dry over night and then wrap it up for Christmas!

Here's a close up of the pattern. Cute huh?

Total time to make this project was about 5 hours. Not too bad!

Let me know how it comes out for you! Happy Crafting!

Crochet (Knitting really...) by Numbers!

I decided to really really take the plunge and generate a knitting pattern a la www.Totallee.net. It's worth a visit, click to be amazed!

She creates the most amazing crocheted masterpieces from images! I've known her for a year and have finally plucked up the courage to try it...

I could have gone for something small, easy... manageable. But heck, where would the fun be in that?

Here is the photo I created and will be turning into an afghan...



How much fun will it be to snuggle up with this! I'll be starting *soon* and I'll post updates as it progresses. The pattern alone is 63 pages long... so... it may take awhile!

Trip to the Yarn Store

A few weeks ago my husband celebrated his 29th birthday and his family drove down to spend the weekend with us in honor of the event. Had a great weekend made even better by the fact that I got to introduce my mother-in-law to the joys of knitting and yarn hording!

My mother-in-law had seen me knitting before and thought that she might want to try it out too. So we headed over to the local yarn store in Spring, Twisted Yarns.

They have SO MUCH YARN there, in all colors, sizes, and fibers you can imagine. I think it was almost too much for Julie to handle. She kept darting from one skein to the next; we had a great time!

At one point she turned to me with a big smile on her face and said "Is this what it's like to be a yarn whore??"

Well, an hour later and with several purchases under her belt, we headed home to play with our new yarn.















This is a skein of handspun/hand dyed yarn which is actually a lot more scarlet than purple in real life. I'll be making a drop-stitch scarf out of this.

Julie got two other skeins of yarn for scarves; one that I used on my new knitting machine and the other I'm knitting in a loose garter stitch.





















This is the knitting machine scarf being blocked. It was made with a superwash wool blend by Berroco which you can buy online here.

The last skein of yarn that Julie purchased for me to make her a scarf from was this beautiful Japanese silk!





















She kindly bought me one in scarlet for my efforts! I can't wait to get to it... in the meantime, here is the progress on her scarf. I'm using size 10 needles and a garter stitch to get the effect.

Cables

Well, since I just learned to knit a few months ago, I figured now would be the perfect time to try out one of the harder stitch types! Cables.

In all honesty, I had been wanting to try them for a month or so but was too chicken to try it and fail. But a few weeks ago I taught my mom how to knit and a trip to the yarn store ensued where many books were purchased, including several books on cable patterns.

Mom was SO excited to try cables, and since I was the one who taught her the basic knit stitches, I was the one in charge of learning cables first so that I could walk her through it.

SHOCKINGLY, it was pretty darn simple and fun! Here is the first cable we tried. The Cable Crossing pattern from 50 Fabulous Knit Aran Stitches















So then I naturally went Cable CRAZY and made a few other pieces. Some of which I can't show you yet because they're Christmas gifts... but here is one item that you can check out!





















This is a free pattern from Ravelry called Elegant Cabled Scarf or you can get the PDF directly from her site here. It took about 12 hours total to finish this scarf and it was well worth it, I love it!

Getting to Give Away The Gifts

This past weekend my husband Jason and I drove to Austin, Texas to see some friends and while we were there our friends Jeni and Andrew (the a fore mentioned friends who are having a "little geeky baby") were able to meet up with us.

There was delicious pizza and a tour of their new house and then... GIFTS! I had been making tons of things for them every since we had found out about their baby (all of these things have been featured on this very blog even) and I was finally able to give the gifts to them!



































































































Jeni and Andrew are the perfect people to give gifts to; they squeal and exclaim awesomeness at all the right moments :-)

We <3 you Jeni and Andrew... you geeky, geeky parents-to-be you!

BABY SWEATER!!!!!

So, one of our friends is having a baby. A "little geeky baby" to be exact. So I thought I should make her something fitting for that title!

And what better to fit the image of a "little geeky baby" than..... a yoda sweater!

































As you can see, I modified it just a little to have a button instead of a tie. I like it better, but either way it's ADORABLE!

It took about 10 hours total to make and was well worth it. It is just about the cutest thing I have EVER seen! If you make one (and I would really recommend it, it's great) let me know and we'll put a picture of it up.

Molly Weasley Sweater Update #2

I've been working on the body of the sweater for awhile now, in between Christmas projects and whatnot, and I've finally finished the first half which I attached to the sleeves and thought I would share!

I woke my mom up to have her model for y'all... she asked to remain faceless and I obliged :-)





















What do you think? I'd love to here your comments! Hopefully I will get the other half done soon and I'll have a full completed costume update for the next one :-D

Second sock... for the first time

I've made several first socks out of different yarns that I liked, but I've yet to make the second sock for any of the firsts. Until now!

















It's not very far along, but I'm glad to be starting it. Soon I will actually have a pair. I'm so excited! That's all... I just wanted to share :-)