Booties for the Frog Set

I have really been enjoying making these cute baby sets lately (see the bear and monkey sets that I posted about previously).  Yesterday I blogged about the frog hat that I finished and I decided to make a cute pair of green booties to match. I used the Beth's booties pattern at Bev's Country Cottage website.

Happy stitching!
~Colleen

Frog Hat is Finished!

I used the eyes that I posted about yesterday to make yet another cute animal hat for my baby knits stash.  I attached them to a hat I made in Caron simply soft yarn following the sweet baby hat pattern at red heart's website.  I seem to have attached the eyes a little lopsided (oops!) but other than that I'm happy with the result.

Mr. Bear is super cute with his frog hat!  I seem to be on this animal hat kick lately.  I wonder what animal will be my next muse...

~Colleen

Knit Frog's Eyes *Free Pattern*

 I had so much fun knitting these eyes up.  They work as either amphibian eyes or maybe alien eyes.  Making them is really simple.  I didn't write things down as I went, so this is the best reconstruction of what I did as best I remember.

You will need:

• worsted weight yarn scraps in green, white, and black
• size 8 straight needles
• tapestry needle
• yarn scraps or stuffing to fill the eyes

Back of the eyes (make two)
Cast on 11 stitches (green).
First 10 rows: stockinette stitch
Row 11: ssk, k to last 2 sts, k2tog
Row 12:  p2tog, p to last 2 sts, p2tog tbl
Row 13: ssk, k to last 2 sts, k2tog
Row 14: p2tog, p to last 2 sts, p2tog tbl
BO all stitches

Front of the eyes (make two)

Cast on 11 stitches (green).
First 2 rows: stockinette stitch
Row 3: (green) k2, (switch to white) k7, (switch to green) k2
Row 4: (green) p2, (switch to white) p7, (switch to green) p2
Row 5: (green) k2, (switch to white) k2, (switch to black) k3, (switch to white) k2, (switch to green) k2
Row 6: (green) p2, (switch to white) p2, (switch to black) p3, (switch to white) p2, (switch to green) p2
Row 7: repeat row 3
Row 8: repeat row 4
Row 9-10: repeat rows 1-2
Row 11: ssk, k to last 2 sts, k2tog
Row 12:  p2tog, p to last 2 sts, p2tog tbl
Row 13: ssk, k to last 2 sts, k2tog
Row 14: p2tog, p to last 2 sts, p2tog tbl
BO all stitches

Finishing:
Sew the backs of the eyes to the fronts leaving the cast on row (the bottom of the eye) open.  Stuff the eyes with yarn scraps or fiber fill and attach to a knit hat or other knit object. 

If you have any questions about this (my first pattern!) just let me know in the comments below and I will try to get back to you as soon as I possibly can.

Also in other internet awesomeness, I know this is old... but it's new to me: Felicia Day+ Crochet= Awesome!

~Colleen 

UFO's Are Invading

As I'm sure most of you know UFO stands for un-finished object.  My house is filled with them.  So, I have several medium to large sized projects that are currently lying around the house.  These are probably the things that I SHOULD be working on, but aren't.  I started this checkered scarf months and months ago, and I just haven't managed to just pick it up and finish it.  I literally haven't touched it in months... yeah.

 I have been making this blanket knit in the diagonal for a friend's wedding a little bit at a time.  I knit a couple of stripes every week.  At this rate it's going to take me forever to finish.  Hopefully, it will be finished before their wedding this summer...

 This project is less important because it is just a scarf for myself to match a pair of mittens and a hat that I had knit previously.  It will most likely sit neglected in my UFO basket for a while.

 I'm making this Christmas stocking for my husband as part of his Christmas gift.  I was knitting it really enthusiastically because it was the first project that I have done where I needed to switch yarns mid-row.  Once I got past knitting his name though, it got a little dull.  I have practically the whole year to finish knitting this though, so I'm not worried.

These are only technically UFOs because I need to sew a button on each of these bibs and then they'll be done. 


So, I'm curious how many UFOs you have cluttering up your knitting space.  Do you put me to shame?  Do you have an even more cluttered UFO basket?  A UFO room?  Let me know in the comments and we'll compare notes.

Having to Unlearn What You Thought You Knew

I wonder if I am completely alone in this experience.  A couple years ago I "learned" how to do the purl stitch.  I made a few items, but they never looked like it did in the picture (see photo for what I mean).  It was extremely discouraging.  I went back to the video on YouTube that I had "learned" the skill from to see if I was doing it correctly.  I was doing exactly what it showed in the video. 

I don't know what made me think to look down in the comments, but I did.  Reading through the comments I saw many people politely correcting the poster that they were showing purl through back loop and not purl.  I WAS doing it wrong.  Many of the posters linked to videos that correctly demonstrated the skill and I set out to correctly learn how to purl.  It was very difficult to undo the habits I had formed, but eventually I managed and now purling is natural and easy.

Maybe at some point I will reattempt the pattern that I did incorrectly to make this Christmas ornament and post it to the blog.  Mental note: add to do to list.

Have you ever learned to do something completely wrong and had to reteach yourself the right way?  Let me know in the comments if you have.

~Colleen

Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth

The other day, I blogged about my first knitting project.  This is another one of those great first knitting projects.  It has only additional skill than the garter stitch scarf, the yarn over.  That makes this an awesome second project for beginning knitters.

It is a great mindless project for knitting while watching TV.  I think that I will knit up some more for my family's grab bag this year for Christmas.  The theme this year is made in the USA.  Obviously anything that I knit is made in America, but I think that I'll use American grown cotton to make it extra appropriate.

Happy knitting!

~Colleen

More Baby Knitting!

A little while ago, I blogged about the bear and monkey baby sets that I made.  I've been knitting up a lot of baby stuff lately for my stash.

These are some objects for my baby shower stash.  They are knit up in baby weight yarn using the pattern for Bev's Baby Set over at Bev's Country Cottage.

I absolutely love the patterns for the booties and mitts, however I don't really care for the shaping of the hat and I've been playing with different ways to do the shaping, although I don't really feel like I've figured it out yet.

If you have any favorite baby patterns let me know in the comments below!

~Colleen

More Hats!

The other day, I blogged about the many hats I made for last Christmas.  I also used another couple of patterns to knit up some winter hats.

This hat was super fun.  I knit up a few in the 1-3 year old size for a some of my friends' babies.  I used this pattern from Bev's Country Cottage to knit them up.  They were knit flat and seamed.  I was really happy with the result.

This hat was knit up with bulky yarn using this pattern that I found on ravelry.  It was super easy, however if I made it again I would have knit it a little longer, because it came out a little short.  I would have done more rows in the ribbing as well.  Otherwise I guess I was happy with the result.

Tell me, what are your favorite hat patterns around the web?

~Colleen

Mittens!

 Yesterday, I blogged about the hats that I gave out for Christmas gifts this year.  I also gave out these fun mittens to match those hats (although I made far fewer of them). The pattern does not change for each size.  Instead, you have to change the size of the needles, which does make the adult sizes a little less warm.  You could of course just take the child size pattern and multiply it to make the size that you want for a warmer mitten.

You can knit them flat and knit them both at once on the same needles.  All you have to do is knit one pulling from the center of the yarn skein and knit the other pulling from the outside of the skin.  This is especially helpful when you are doing stripes, because you do not have to count as precisely (check out the photo below to see an example).

I had so much fun knitting these up.  I used this pattern from the yarn lover's room. 

Enjoy! Have fun.

~Colleen

Hat Happy

This project was so much fun!  This last Christmas I knit about 25 hats for virtually everyone I know.  I was kind of obsessed with knitting these hats. 

I used the easy fit ribbed hat pattern found on the red heart website.  I used all kinds of worsted weight yarns from my stash.  I even knit up a couple in stripes (which is a really great way to use up small amounts of yarn).

I had an absolute blast knitting these up.  It was much more fun that the scarves that I gave out the year before.  What is your favorite gift pattern?  Let me know in the comments!

~Colleen

Heartwarming Knit Scarf

I made this (mostly) following the heartwarming knit scarf pattern found on the red heart yarn website as a gift for my niece.  All I did was cast on fewer stitches (I don't remember how many, sorry) and decrease the number of times the pattern repeated.  Then I knit it shorter than the pattern recommends.  I chose pink because she is obsessed with the color pink and all things girly.

It was a really fun easy knit that I would definitely recommend. It was definately more fun than the first scarf that I knit.

~Colleen

Looking Back at My First Knitting Project

My first ever knitting project was a scarf (shocking, I know).  I made a simple garter stitch scarf.  There is a reason, of course, why this is the first project that every knitter tries their hand at.  The only skills that one needs to know in order to make it are:

• cast on
• garter stitch/the knit stitch
• bind off

Seriously it is the best project to start with to familiarize yourself with the very basics of knitting.  To make it a little more challenging you could add stripes to it to practice changing yarns.  One mistake I made as a beginner knitter, was making several of these scarves as gifts for everyone I knew.  This makes a great first project, however one is enough.  After you have made one of these it's time to try something different to add to your skill set.

I'm curious what everyone else starts with as their first project.  If your reading this I would love to hear about your first knitting projects in the comments!

~Colleen

Let's Monkey Around!

So, I guess this is a follow up to yesterday's post about the bear baby set that I knit up.  I had so much fun that I used the same patterns to do another set for a monkey theme.  I used Caron Simply Soft yarn in the color Bone this time.  I sewed the ears lower down to look like a monkey's and ... viola! This is so addictive and fun that I might just knit up a whole zoo for my stash!

The patterns I used were:

• Sweet Baby Hat and Bear Ear Tutorial for the hat
• Beth's Booties
• and Simple Baby Mittens with a few adjustments!

You really don't need much yarn.  I did all three with one ball and still have leftovers for another small project.  A tiny knit monkey might be a cute addition....

~Colleen

Beary Nice Hat, Mitts, and Booties

This holiday season I saw animal themed hats almost everywhere I looked.  I have been making quite a few hats, so I decided to give knitting up a teddy bear hat a try.  All three projects were knit on size 8 straight needles in Red Heart Soft yarn (worsted).  The cord for the booties and mitts is made from scraps of light brown yarn in a sport weight.

For the hat I used the Sweet Baby Hat pattern from the Red Heart website.  The pattern for the ears can be downloaded from Ravelry here.

Next, I made the booties using this pattern from Bev's Country Cottage.  The only change I made to the pattern was not changing from a main color to white at the top (although you could if you wanted to).

Finally I knit up the mitts.  They really do knit up quick!  I sort of used this pattern from Ravelry, but I made a few alterations. The pattern did not include any kind of cord or drawstring but I really wanted to add one so that it would be easy to cinch around baby's wrist and also to match the booties.  To do this all I did was copy the eyelet row from the booties and substitute it for the first row of stockinette in the pattern.  After the eyelet row, I purled the next row and continued along in stockinette as usual.  I crocheted about a foot of chain for each mitt to thread through the eyelet row.

This whole project was so much fun to make, and relatively quick as well.  You could knit it up in black to make a black bear or in white to make a polar bear.  You could add more detail by embroidering eyes, a nose, and a mouth on the hat.  You could embroider little lines on the mitts and booties to make them look like paws.  The possibilities are nearly endless!

~Colleen