Hooking Away!

We have a guest dog in the house this weekend. We are pet sitting my MIL's dog Minnie. She is just a ball of energy and she has been wearing us all out, but in a good way. Above you will see I was trying to crochet a little blanket for my cat while Minnie climbed all over me trying to see what was going on outside. Emma of course was calm and just hanging out.

 

Once the blanket was finished I placed it in Izzi's cat bed and she immediately curled up and went to sleep on it! She loves it and I was so happy. So often with pet knitwear (crochet wear?) I feel like you knit it for yourself - since he animal tends to not care one way or another. So to have Miss Izzi claim an item I knit for her was pretty wonderful.

Since her cat house has two beds I quickly made another one for her other bed as well. This is not the bed she spends as much time in, but I had the yarn and thought "Why not?".

 

I suspect she will love snuggling into both of these once Winter rolls in. As it is now still summer temperatures, she isn't getting the full affect I think.



Oops! I guess your a blanket now

 

You know how you grab a random ball of yarn out of your stash and think you will quick make a charity scarf? Well that's what I started here and it just sort of exploded on me and turned into a blanket I cannot part with. This is crocheted out of Paton's Divine and JoAnn's Angel Hair yarn (see more details on how much, etc on my Ravelry Project Page) and it is fluffy and light and just wonderful to curl up under. I have been rather obsessed with it and knocked this out in about 10 days. My wrist is none to happy with me, but I can curl up under my new blanket while I complain about it!

 

Bonus that I got 8 large balls of yarn out of my stash by making this as well. (Woot woot!) I crocheted this with a size (P) crochet hook and it was just under 1000 yards when I finished. I curled up under it last night while watching Bar Rescue and it was really warm but really light weight. Just love it!

 

Already I am looking at my stash and wondering what I can whip into a blanket next!

Sunflowers!

I am in love with sunflowers!

 

I planted a few sunflowers from seeds I have had in my basement for years. They said they were mammoth - but I had no idea they would get this big! We measured this guy and it was 10 feet 6 inches (Exactly twice my height!) when we took this picture. That is our telephone line from our house that it's next too. It's INsAnE and I just love it too death. I am plotting more sunflower fun for next year already!

i said a knit knot the knitty the knitty to the knitknit knot

 

I finished a little shawlette! It's the "Just Knit it!" pattern on Ravelry by Susan Ashcroft of Stitchnerd Designs. It was given out free during the Olympics and is now a pay pattern. Super cute. Super easy. And I got to stashbust on this (mostly) which is super awesome!

 

I knit this out of mochi and Sheep(ish). For the edge I ended up doing a row of single crochet all the way around the entire thing in gray. Then I went down to the lower two sides (not the neck side) and did a row of double crochet all the way across in the mochi (colored) yarn. I was going to go back and frame it all in with gray again - but I loved how it looked as is - so I stopped.

It is the perfect length and width. I can use it to wrap around my shoulders if I am wearing a dress - or wrap it around my neck like Emma is wearing it below with a jacket in the winter for super snowy day warmth. The mochi and the sheep(ish) went together like a dream and it is just squishy and so warm! I really enjoyed working on it!

 



Nice to have a WIP out of my Queue on Ravelry. I have had start-itis lately. Like RAGING start-itis. It's been killer. I am bored with items I have started already and want to do something New and exciting! Fickle knitter am I! So yay for getting something finished! Now on to the next!

Butter Beret

 

 I am not sure what made me do it, but I had a burning need to cast on a simple crochet beret. I call it Butter Beret as the color is the palest yellow. It's a free pattern on Ravelry called Crochet Hat by Corrine Leigh of Threadbanger Fame.

 

I wanted to stash bust so I used a thinner yarn than they used for the pattern. They used Lion Brand Organic Cotton, and I used Debbie Bliss Cotton. Reading through other projects I decided I better add a single row of crochet after each increase row to give the hat some extra poof.

Here is a view from the top. I think the center area got a little wonky when I closed up the starting hole, but I am fairly happy with my stitch consistency.

 

A view from the inside. The pattern calls for just two decrease rows and no additional rows, but I thought it needed a little more, so I added two single crochet rows after the decreasing to clean it up a little and just give it more of a band sort of look.

 

I am fairly happy with it for a first crochet hat, but I think I might agree with my hubby that the color is just a little too light and baby-ish for me. I don't do pastel colors very well. We will see. It might look better with my wool pea coat this fall.