Yukon projects...

baby sweater by mellie for kiki
chick chick! to use up the yellow mohair I've been hoarding for some nine years...
baby quilt. an attempt to practice basic skills, handquilting and binding. I was especially proud of the binding. It was very neat and tidy. My grandmother would enthusiastically approve.

So I'm not posting a lot here but it's not because I'm not making things....though things had taken a turn toward more artsy endeavours and then about two and a half months of nothing but work, work, work, blech. and then I went on a crazy one week stretch of crafty productivity and finished this. What is this? It is a playmat with roads and blue mountains and fields and a river and a covered bridge one can drive their little cars through... I sewed magnets into these pieces so they couyld change them and have a barn and apple trees....
or fall trees...
or a house and spring trees....all of the doors open so they can drive their little cars inside if they so desire....
and I handquilted it which was really fun...though I don't know if I'd have the patience to do a full size quilt....not by myself anyhow. but fun....very relaxing.....this is the back....i believe that the stitches are supposed to be small and consistent...mine are neither but the whole thing was a bit of an experiment. I gave it to jen and mike and jacob and their newest, avery.
a welcome back to nb and I knew jen would appreciate the work and that it would get used at her house...

The attempt to use stuff up continued. I finished these things ages ago but never put up images. The hat is from treats and treasures and the cowl I made up. I wanted to experiment with tiny cables.
And this mellie made for cathy! still love those colours together.

You knit it - I'll wear it!

Man, I've hacked into itchy&scratchy to post some of my finest knitwear in hopes of encouraging others to knit me more!

I'd like to start off by showing you one of my favourite winter outfits. When I have the winter blues I just wear orange! (Plus, I'm all set for hunting season in the fall.) My cozy sweater and matching hat were a gift from the lovely and talented J. Ward. The sweater fits me perfectly. Can't tell you much about the technique, but I'm sure Jilly can supply you with any details requested. Man, you may recognize my socks - we bought the yarn together in Halifax and you knit them up right good for me! Mark also helped out in adjusting the size to fit snug like a glove by giving them a good once over in the dryer. No harm done and they smell good!




Next, I am wearing another ensemble that always turns heads when I am wandering around town on a snowy day. Again, bright colours serve dual purpose - spread cheeriness throughout the world on dreary days and promote safety when walking at night. This time I have Lil' Mel with a big heart to thank for my matching scarf and mittens. I watched her knit a similar scarf for another friend while she visited me in St. John's and she used those fat-ass needles that look like giant syringes for that one, so I assume she used the same to make mine.? The purse, although not knit, was hand-made by Ms. Jenny for me as a birthday present. It is tough as nails and I wear it almost everywhere these days because I like it and it's the perfect size.




Finally, I wanted to display my beautiful winter pearl necklace scarf that you knit me for Christmas not so long ago. I'm not sure if that's what it's called but I certainly feel like I'm wearing a delicate string of pearls every time I put it on. The colours remind me of the light reflecting on a snowy field at sunset. I think it goes quite nicely with my vintage hat that Mark picked up for me at a second hand store.



That's all! Thanks everyone for keeping me warm and well-dressed this season!
meg

Ohhhh...the mittenis of things. this winter they just keep coming. I continue to be inspired to make warm things. and wear them. some of these things were designed to be gifts but once i wore them....it seemed impossible. a few things made it out and others are still waiting for their owners.

I made these for e., my best guess at the target wave mittens (scroll down) without the pattern. You can see that even after blocking there is still a pesky pucker around the thumb. It kind of goes away when you put them on. I probably knit these at least 3 times before I was happy with them. Even when they were done and blocked I still thought they seemed a mite small for a big boy.

So then came these, which i tinkered around with until I had them right. And then.....

I had leftover lopi. they're not perfect but they work and they used up lots of little odds and ends. striping is tricky with the jog between rows...i did my best to hide it. No great knitting feats here but it was fun to make it up as i went and speedy projects are satisfying.

This was, once more, a project on my odyssey to use things up. I had bought this yarn at the Fleece Artist eons ago and made several different things with it. I believe I was tinkering with it the very first winter after school when Mel was here visiting.

I used a lace pattern from one of my knitting books, it's called rickrack, don't know if you can see the zigzagging there....but it was fun to knit, it used up the whole ball, i like the softness of it around my face and i've always loved the colour. I'm actually wearing it now!

This is Quant from Knitty. Totally fun to knit and turned out well. I added big pompoms to the ties. This did go to the intended recipient even though I really liked it

The most recent knitting foray has been into the big bag of noncolour mohair. I love soft, fluffy stuff and i love almost colours so I have accumulated a bag of this stuff and never really had a plan for it.

I worked really hard to learn how to crochet in japanese because I wanted to make this.

It was something I was saving for when I had energy reserves built up. So I figured it out and enjoyed learning how to read charts and felt kind of dumb when I realized that I could probably find the same hat pattern in English easily enough but no matter. I'm not a very good crocheter but was getting better. I think. But after three attempts (three is the magic number!) I've decided to try something else. The mohair I'm using is kind of slubby so it's just not working. Trying to do a delicate pattern with it is just dumb. So I'm going to try making an afghan or a throw with it, for a wee babe or for me depending on how far the balls go. All of that fluff can be deceiving.

That said, I really would like to do a crochet project now but i don't like crochet! I like doing it but i don't know if I want to wear it. A lot of it is just yucky. People like to make things or see if they can but sometimes the journey is more satisfying than the finished product. I see this in art too...but sometimes silly is good.

This is a fungus infested finger. The fungi actually come out for kids to play with. There's more here:http://mochimochiland.co/(I think this one is actually knit....but most of this toy making, amigurumi, is done with crochet)
and then there's always room for a silly hat or two.

This owl hat is from this source: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2006/11/fun_animal_crochet_hats_by_naz.htmlI think if I made something like this I'd make it kid size. Are all of you breathing a collective sigh of relief?

And then there's this:

which I've been threatening to make for a while for my uncle, who loves breakfast more than anyone i know. He likes to laugh too, important for a hat such as this I think. I could see him wearing it flipping eggs.

well that's all for now. more winter to come which will surely mean more knitting.

Ok mellie. I've gotta get on with this, my projects are starting to pile up! It seems funny to be starting this when my interest in knitting is maybe a bit on the wane but all the same, there'll always be something no doubt....and december and january were uber productive.


This is the Hello Bonnet from Hello Yarns,


I knit it for Sally with Twilley's Freedom Spirit which was really pretty, hard to tell in my dark photos.


It's a cute hat, very, errr...swimming cap after a light fulling. You can se my sister is inspired by this below.




















































I knit her thrummed mittens to match and I knit Katrina a drop stitch scarf with the ribbon yarn you sent Mel....very pretty. Aannnnndddd I took photos of these things that I have subsequently lost or erased.

And these are mittens that I gave to my grandmother for her birthday. The yarn came from a blanket factory on
PEI. I picked up a huge cake of pencil roving there and haven't known what to do with it...

The pattern is from Spinderella's. It worked really well. They're pretty jumbo prefelting. Kinda fun.

I thought the mittens were quite boring though and got inspired by this Norwegian book. My version is a little less ambitious but all the same...fun to do.
























And this was Jaime's late great birthday present. I wanted to knit this since I first saw it in Interweave Knits. It's free here. Totally fun to knit and pretty fast.
















































There are three or four more projects at home being blocked so will put them up and then move onto secret not for Mel's eyes project.:)
Jill-a thought re. your vibrant mohair, because I'm sure having a newborn and knitting go hand in hand, but when that fated day comes...a thought, from treats and treasures...