Purling and Percolating

1. If you're wearing a watch with a magnetic clasp, be warned.  Your stainless steel sock needles could possibly get sucked out of their place and totally mess up your work.  You may need to re-cast-on three or four times because of this.  Take the watch off.  It will make things easier. 2. My needles are, in fact, stainless steel. 3.  Your magnetic clasp will also attach itself to the fancy new circular knitting needle cable that you love.  Take the watch off. It will make things easier. 4. If you value your life and your yarn, warn your husband before you untangle a giant skein of brown chunky cotton yarn.  Otherwise as you work, it will seem to be alive and crawl up your chair and everyone will get perilously close to death. 5. Ball winders are amazingly more complicated than you could ever imagine. 6. Brioche is not for sissies.  Brioche in the round is fine until you get to the join.  Then, I still don't know what is going on. 7. DO write down amazingly helpful

I am super excited that I am going to have a new niece of nephew. They aren't finding out, which is a lot of fun!  That is, unless you want to knit something super cute for a tiny tot.  I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what to do for this little one, not knowing whether it was going to be in need of pink or blue.  But the fact that they live in a land where football, reigns, and the colors red and white are king, helped my decision along.  I wasn't quite sure it was the right fit, but I remembered getting tired of seeing my little newborns in pastel colors, and figured it would be a good move. I am always looking for something new and exciting to do when I make gifts, and brioche caught my eye.  I made a little swatch of single color, but I knew I wanted a blanket with two colors, so once I had the hang of the flat single color, I went for the two color brioche.  I have a bunch of notes that I learned, so if you're beginning two color brioche, I wrote do

I have a sweet, sweet friend who moved away a few years ago, who had a baby girl recently. I thought it would be fun to make her something a bit unique. I used a Eurobaby SoftCotton chunky yarn for this, which is cotton, so nice and soft, but easy care as well. Using size 7 double pointed needles. Cast on 48 stitches, and join in the round. Begin with a K2P2 rib for 1" after CO edge Then continue in the round using stockingette (Knit around) until the work is 6" from the cast on edge.  Then, place a marker to keep track of your rounds K4, K2 together around to marker Knit around K3, K2 together around to marker Knit around K2, K2tog around to marker Knit around K1, K2tog around Knit around K2tog around Cut yarn and thread yarn through the loops, and finish off hat, weave in end.  I added a pom-pom to the top. For the bow body: CO 8 stitches Knit 8 Purl, Increase, Purl 6, Increase, Purl Knit 10 Purl, increase, purl 8, increase, purl Kni

The final Christmas gift hat, and my absolute favorite is this one. A few years ago, we were visiting family and my son showed his cousin the game Plants vs Zombies.  My nephew was probably 4 at the time.  Since then, he has become obsessed with the game, playing it, asking for themed birthday parties, building lego pea shooters to place in his yard to protect his house, and the whole bit.  It was very easy to pick his hat! I spent hours searching ravelry and the rest of the interwebs for a pattern for a hat that was to my liking. After a lot of looking and finding only a few patterns, none that were quite right, I set about making my own. Again, this is a hat with the base hat from Knit Guru's Minion Ear Flap Hat First Generation: This was it when it was completed.  I was in love with it.  It is a little flawed in that because it has three leaves, it should also have angry eyebrows.  (One leaf means no eyebrows) A few weeks after Christmas, my sister in law called me and

After finishing up the first two hats, I was really on a roll.  And the ear flap hat base from Knit Guru's Minion Ear Flap Hat was my inspiration.  The hats pictured were both using that pattern, with different pieces sewn on.  However, I have since updated how I do my ear flap hat, making a nice edge, changing a few dimensions and clearing up some areas that I found a bit confusing. The final hat I made for the nephews was based off of Blaze and the Monster Machine.  I have never seen this guy and it took some serious time and planning and tons of tossed out parts and pieces to put together.  However, I don't think it looks terrible.  It might not look exactly right, but a toddler won't know much difference, right?  Nevermind the grumpy model in this photo. My Kids have been my hat models and don't always appreciate having to do this. I didn't write down how I did this.  But again, this was the basic ear flap hat, with a combination of knitted and croch

I should probably give thanks to my nephew and his love of Where's Waldo, because that was a huge inspiration for me.  I have gotten back into knitting big time recently, and I really wanted to make something fun for him for Christmas.  I decided to make him a hat like Waldo's.  It's a basic beanie with a basic pom-pom on top. (I've learned to do much better ones.. this one needs a serious haircut!) I then used some crochet glasses and stitched them to the hat.  I decided I could see the glasses becoming an issue if they went down over his eyes.  Maybe I'll update the hat and send him a new one with better glasses.  Unfortunately for my first nephew, he's also gotten one of my first original creations, and I've learned a lot in the last month as my fingers have been knitting like crazy. Another nephew of mine is in love with minions, so I made him a minion hat using a free pattern I found, from the Knit Guru .  It turned out fabulous!  I made some moder