Mannequin

I am very excited about my most recent investment. I found a place to purchase inflatable mannequins to display my work on. The prices are extremely affordable. I got this mannequin with arms and the stand for about 42 dollars total after shipping charges. No more horrible pictures of me trying to model my stuff. Besides my daughter hates taking my pictures and she won't model for me either. She actually would make a great model though because she is so thin and cute. But now I can be more creative with my photos. This will help when I get my pattern book put together. Anyway here are some pics of what I have done with it today with the silver cardigan that I designed for my pattern book. This one is sitting on the table without the stand. This is on the stand. Now I can't wait to get my next design finished. This is really fun. It is kind of like playing with Barbies.

Finished new design

I finally finished my most recent design. It is the long cardigan that I had posted a picture of one of the fronts on my last post. I am now in the process of trying to get a good picture of it and I am working on perfecting the written pattern. I am not sure if I want to try and submit this piece for publishing to a magazine or just offer the pattern myself online. Maybe once I get a really good picture of it modeled I will ask for opinions to see if people would be interested in the pattern. Here is a picture of the completed project but like I said I need to get a better picture before I offer the pattern to anyone. If anyone is checking it out now and has the time please feel free to let me know what you think.

Here is a picture of me modeling.

New Year

Well here it is February already. I need to try and find more time to do this. I still have many projects going on at once. Work is still pretty crazy right now so I am thrilled to have time to knit and crochet I just am having trouble updating my blog. I just completed another hoodie vest that I have sold and I am in the process of designing a new crocheted cardigan.

I have one front done already. It is hip length with a fitted waist.

My goal with this one is to try and get the pattern out for people to download once I am done and it turns out okay.

Here is a picture of the hoodie vest I have sold.

The main yarn is Dream Baby DK from Plymouth Yarn Company and the strips are ModaDea -Dream. It is really soft to touch. I still need to sew on buttons to the band . The ModaDea is a worsted weight so when I was figuring my guage 2 rows of it in single crochet was the equivalent to one row of double crochet with the DK.

I still plan to get 25 things for charity done as well this year. It is already turning into a very busy year.

Christmas 2007

Well I finally finished the sweater for my future father inlaw. I finished it just in time for Christmas and even got it shipped to him in time. Here it is.

He said he really liked it. It actually fit him too. My Fiance's sister was very impressed. He says she is an excellent seamstress and knits also. I was hoping to get his dad to model it for me so I could show how it looks on him.

Aside from that Christmas was very nice for us. We spent it in Las Vegas. It was kind of cold there. I didn't win much money, but I didn't spend much either.

Then last weekend before New Years eve my daughter and I went to Grand Junction to visit my parents and brothers there. I even had time on Saturday to visit one of the local yarn stores there called "The Yarn Store". I bought 2 balls of Kertzer On Your Toes sock yarn and some new size 3 double points and spent 50 dollars. My mother thinks I am crazy for spending that much on yarn for some socks that I still have to make myself. She is not a knitter obviously.

We had a great time at her house on Saturday night and the kids and my step dad got some of the greatest slippers. Here is a picture of them:

I have been working very furiously to get some projects completed before Christmas. So I have not been posting very much. Aside from that I have been very busy at my full time job at the hospital I work for. Then, I made the mistake of taking on a time consuming cardigan for my future father in law. The only reason I decided to do it was because my Fiance is always telling him about the stuff I make and so he said he wanted one. I started it over six months ago but I keep working on other projects putting it off. Now here I am a few weeks before Christmans and I still have a sleeve and a half plus all the blocking, sewing and borders to go. I hope I can get it done without rushing too much. I've already had to rip alot out because I have messed up somewhere in the cable pattern.

Anyway here are some pictures so far.

The back and the almost done sleeve

I will post a picture of it when it is completed.

Finished Sweater for Best Friend's Birthday

I finished the sweater that I was converting from a hand knit pattern to my Bond machine. Overall it went very smoothly. I made a size medium according to the pattern. It fits me so I am sure it will fit her. We are the same size and only 5 days apart. We both turned 40 this month. I am a couple days past due but since she was out of town for her birthday I think giving it to her a couple of days late wont matter too much to her. Although I prefer to knit by hand as I have previously noted I cant help to get excited about how quick this was to make. It took me less than a week and technically I could have finished it sooner but I didn't work on it for a couple of days because I got distracted with other things. I did the collar, cuffs and bands all by hand and really I do not think it took any more time than if I had done them on the machine because it is very time consuming when latching up ribbing on the machine. Anyway, here it is.

This pattern is very plain and simple which is what made it extremely fast to make on the machine. I think that it would be very easy to add some design elements to it such as some cables or even a fairisle design. If I were to add cables however I would need to add stitches to the pattern in order to make up for the extra pull they would create.

I have so many other projects going on right now, that I have decided that I need to get some of them caught up before I can go yarn shopping again. The only problem with that is that I want to start a project to work on for charity. I am thinking of starting a wool baby blanket to send to the Afghans for Afghans project. It will be crocheted because I am a faster crocheter than I am a knitter.

New Blog

Well I have decided to start this blog to document my knit and crochet works in progress. I plan to post pictures and explain how I accomplished creating it. I will be working from patterns but also plan to post my own designs as well. If all goes well and they turn out nice I might actually publish the patterns or make them available to people if they want them. I will start my first blog by posting some pictures of some pieces I have already completed. Some of it I have listed on my Etsy.com site to sell. Most I have either given away to friends or sold already. Here is one of my favorite completed projects. It is adapted from a published pattern book but I changed the stitch and the type of yarn used. I call it my plush hoodie because the yarn is very soft and plush like when worked up. I used Hobby Lobby's Baby Bee Pitter Patter eyelash yarn for this jacket and I just alternated rows with single and double crochet. I sold this white one and was asked to make a second one in sugar plum.

The cutie modeling for me is my 15 year old daughter.

Here are some more of my completed works that I have done by hand.

Red Ribbed Knitted and Blue Stripe Crocheted

Evening Chains Crocheted and turquoise stripes knitted.