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.