New Year, New Patterns!

Happy New Year!
   Love that word New!  This year there will be many New things in store for me but the first ones are patterns.  During December, the patterns just flew out of me and probably that was due to gift giving!  I love to give, so it inspires me to create new things.  I love combining different colors and textures and I love the way a good combo feels when it is done almost as much as seeing happy smiling faces when I give something homemade to someone who just loves it!
   My best friend, Geniene, got the first gift this year--Crazy New Years Hat!  She really likes pink so I combined it with black and purple and a little sandstone funfur to make this new design.  I never know what my designs will look like, of course, until they are finished.  It was the same for the Crazy Hat.  At one point, I was sure that I would be ripping rows, but it turned out great and she Loves it!

The next design was for myself.  I was inspired by Geniene's hat but not by the pink(not a pretty in pink girl here), so I started out with some royal blue, taupe, funfur again, espresso brown and nubby green.  
This time I actually drew out a design on paper before starting.  I played around some more with alternating stitches like the one I call notching.  This is doing one stitch through the top back thread only and the next through both top threads in stitch.  This I keep doing the whole row.   On Geniene's hat you can see this when you look at the second row of pink.  You can also see it in the black row right below that second row of pink.  Here is a pic of my hat with matching set of gloves:

I usually like patterns as in symmetry but sometimes I like to shake things up a bit. With my hat---> I made it symmetrical but the stripes in Geniene's hat are purple-funfur-purple, and then funfur-purple-funfur.

On both hats, instead of a pompom or nothing at all, I put a tassel and I doubled up the yarns to make it so it wouldn't look so droopy.  Here is a closeup of the glove.  I used the same design I had used in the hat but abbreviated it slightly at the fingers so I could fit in the last rows and end in the funfur.  On the design for my hat and gloves, I originally was going to make the stripe with brown-green-brown but it didn't look good until I added the blue in the middle of the green.  The blue made the green look like blue-green and I liked that effect more.  For those of you wondering, the funfur is not itchy and it doesn't bother me to have it on my fingers either.  The whole hat and glove set feel soft and warm.  Can't wait to wear them tomorrow to take the kids to school !  We don't get that many really cold days in Florida so I enjoy wearing my things when it does get cold!

James' Raccoon Hat

My 10yr old has wanted a raccoon hat (been nagging for one really for about a week and a half now!) and I have finally gotten around to finishing it...  He likes very colorful things and right now his favorite colors just so happen to coincide with the Gators colors...hmmm...   So his hat is very colorful!  I believe that kids should get to express their imagination as they see things , as long as it is tasteful.  I think as long as he is just asking for a hat to wear, what difference does it make if it is not traditional... He doesn't have a tattoo, or piercings all over or break the law so a colorful hat is Just fine!  What do you think?

Paprika Gloves or First knitting in the Round Project!

I love the look of a seamless project!  Up until now, I have knitted all my projects flat...on regular needles.  Oh, I have had double pointed needles for about 3 weeks now but have not had the patience to continue working with them.  They lay in the corner taunting me......day after day......after day!  I finally got mad enough to pick them up and do something with them!  I will not be beat by 4 skinny pieces of metal!!!  Not only did I learn to knit in the round, I also figured out how to make a thumb in the round after leaving it for the rest of the glove.  I am still perfecting this but it doesn't look to bad and I will have it figured out by the next time I go back to knitting gloves in the round!  Here they are!!  I love the feel of the cotton on my hands....so yummy!!   Makes me want to put them up to my face and rub
them like a little kid with his blanket! LOL  If you are just
starting out knitting and are interested in knitting in the round but maybe need some help, here is a book by Jeanne Stauffer on it.  Let me know how it goes!

Fun Hats!

The kids always start asking about hats when school starts.  I usually will do about one a week till everyone has one but this time I am a little ahead of schedule.  I will get 2 more done before Friday!  The current hat my freshman has asked for is a Raccoon crochet hat which I am almost done with.  Of course my grade schooler wants one with different colors!  He likes being noticed but the highschooler does not.  I am writing down my patterns as I go and will probably post one up soon!  Let me know if you like this hat!  I need some feedback other than a teenager's! lol

Need a local yarn shop!

For a while now, I have been buying yarn at Walmart when I can because I don't have to drive for 30 minutes to get there.  Today, I had to go to get fish food (for some reason the fish think they should eat a couple of times a day...)and I could tell as soon as I walked in that things were changing.  I walked into the nursery entrance, and as soon as I got into the regular part of the store, I was greeted with arts and crafts...not the usual array of plant food and fertilizers that are normally there.   Not good.  The arts and crafts were missing some things too.  I know what you are thinking..."Didn't they tell us all they were phasing out the material section?"  and yes, I know that too.  But really...why My Walmart?  Did they have to start taking the things I enjoy out of My Walmart?  I am already having difficulty finding the yarn I need.  Yes, I am glad they still have Peaches and Cream cotton yarn but I really would like to see more Charcoal colored wool or wool blends.  This is a dream obviously, that will never happen.  Now I have to drive out of the way to get to Joanns where I will have to pay much more and still not see much charcoal.  We really need a local yarn shop here!!!  And if there is one, Someone needs to tell me where it is!  Okay....I'm off my soap box now and I think I will pick up the double pointed needles and paprika cotton cuff I am working on and continue.....

Golden Harvest Gloves

My second effort at Knit Crochet turned out ok.  Although it wasn't exactly the color scheme that I wanted, it still looks nice.  Will be trying out a purple/ variagated red-violet-pink/ and orange next.  The Sugar and Cream cotton I used was really sweet! (no pun intended lol)  I love the feel of cotton.  Working on figuring out how to transfer the patterns to PDF so I can send it out!

Fall Glove Pattern

Bear with me as I have not written a pattern this complicated before (even if I have made something more complicated...  : - )

Skills:

Crochet: slip st, single crochet, half double crochet
Knitting: Rib knit 2 x 2

Materials:

2 regular size 8 knitting needles                                         
1 size 9 crochet needle
1 darning needle
scissors
1 ball of Carron Simply Soft Chocolate yarn       A

1/4 ball of Red Heart Classic in Dark Sage         B
1/4 ball of Red Heart Classic in Copper             C


Directions:
With knitting needles, cast on 32 sts in A.
Rows 2-12, rib knit 2 x 2 in A.
Row 13, Bind off in rib knit 2 x 2 in A.
Using darning needle, sew side seams together with an invisible vertical seam.
Row 14.  Turn cuff inside out and crochet with crochet needle and color C, from the cast on row of cuff, in a single crochet until you have 29 sts evenly around cuff and join the round with color B.
Row 15.  Turn glove right side out again and half double crochet in B in both top sts.
Row 16.  Half double crochet in B in top stitch only so that there is a line in color B in the row beneath.
Row 17.  Join row 16 with color A and chain 3, attach into both top sts with a slip stitch and repeat till the end of row and join round with color B.
Row 18.  Single Crochet in color B in the back post of the previous row of color A.  Join round.
Row 19.  Half double crochet in color B into both top sts of previous row.  Join round with color C.
Row 20.  Single crochet with color C into first both top sts of previous row and next stitch into just front top stitch so that you make a v with C into the previous row.  Join Round.
Row 21.  Single crochet with color C into both top sts of previous row and join round.

Making Thumb hole:
Slip stitch forward into next 3 stitches and then chain 7 and attach chain to 6th stitch from chain backwards.

Row 22.  Chain 1 and then single crochet into the chain by making the stitches go entirely underneath the chain of 7 (thumb hole). Single crochet into first stitch to left of thumb hole and continue around until you meet the 1st chain of the thumb hole.  Join Round with color A.
Row 23.  Half double crochet with color A into both top sts of previous row.  Join round.
Row 24.  Chain 3 and half double crochet into 3rd st from chain.  Chain 1, skip a st and half double into next stitch and repeat until you end round.  Join round.
Row 25.  Half double crochet with color A into both top sts of previous row.  Join round with color B.
Row 26.  Chain 2 with color B, skip a stitch and attach with slip stitch into next st.  Repeat till end of round.  Join round with color A.
Row 27.  Half double crochet next round into back post of last row of color A in color A.  Not Green Row.  So that green sticks out and new row is partially behind green row.
Row 28.  Single crochet with color A into both top sts of previous row and join round.

Making finger holes:

With color A, half double crochet into bottom loop(inside of glove) of previous row and chain 3.  Attach with slip stitch across the inside of the glove, into the bottom of previous row just like other side, chain 2 and slip stitch into top stitch of inside of glove.  Half double crochet over the chain just created from one side of glove to other for 3 sts and slip stitch into top of glove on original side.  Slip st next 3 stitches from left to right then repeat whole process 2 more times and tie off.
Row 29.  Using color C, slip stitch across top of glove and tie off.


Finished project should look like this: