A New Challenge

There is a new challenge up for our Native American Support group on Yahoo.

It's the Heet The Feet 2008 Challenge. You can read all about it on
Ann's blog.

When you get to Ann's blog you will see the cute little Baby Mocs she made from a pattern she purchased that is now no longer available. At least I could not find a copy.

So I made up my own little mocs that are "knock offs" of Ann's pattern.




These little guys measure about 4-4.5 inches long and are knit with odds and ends of worsted wt yarn on size 4 needles.

A good pattern to modify is Bev's Stay On Booties

Checking back on Ann's blog - I see she is having a little KAL for a recipe to create your own mocs! Yeah!!!!

For the Challenge, I've already got lots of slipper patterns queued up on Ravelry :)



Now for more FO's

The Golden Compass Hat is done! Really easy and I'll have to make more after the slipper challenge is over.






And a hat for moi! Did I mention I was going to Morrison Colorado in a few days?
It's cold and snowy there so I want to be prepared.



Just your basic 2x2 rib with a face opening.

Last Year's FO's

And a look back at last year's resolutions.

1. Knit From My Stash - yup! I did that and limited my new yarn purchases.

2. Reduce my pattern library by 1/3. Did that too - gave away lots of magazines and books.

3. Finish the WIPs - uhhh.... didn't even make a dent but I did finish some :)

4. Work on 2 projects at a time before starting a new one - HA HA HA- I knew I would not keep that one!


Now For The FO's of 2007

50 Hats
27 Mittens
23 Small Sweaters
14 Blankets/Lapghans
13 Pairs of Booties
12 Pairs of Slippers
8 Scarves
8 Pairs of Wristers
5 Pairs of Socks
3 Ponchos/shawls
1 Pair of Legwarmers
1 Crochet Purse

For A Grand Total of 165 Handmade Items!


So what have I resolved to do this year?

Probably the same as last year but with focus on finishing those aging WIPs!


See what I found while searching for some yarn? A little blue sweater that just needed the button bands and the buttons. UFO to FO!



Pattern - I don't remember
Yarn - probably Red Heart

Welcome 2008!

Lots of pictures today!

Here's the last FO for 2007 - another Thorpe Hat.


Size 7 & 8 needles, Bernat Softee Chunky purchased at Smiley's.


Now for 2008's FO's

These are Basic Fingerless Mittens - pattern from Crochet Me site.




I used an F crochet hook for my gauge and some aged Columbia Minerva Shannon.
This was a really easy, easy pattern!





So easy that it led me to improvise and turn them into mittens!
Same F hook and some aged Bernat's Soft n' Cozy yarn.



I just continued after the 7th row and started decreasing by 4 every other row until 8 sts.
About the same with the thumb, only I picked up 14 sts and crochet until 2 rows less desired length, then I started sc 2 together until 6 sts were left.




And another earflap hat - this time EZ's Maltese Fisherman's Hat with two strands of knitting worsted and #11 needles.




WIP's

Still have some 2007 Wips and some new ones.

A Hooded Baby Poncho from Lion Brand

The Golden Compass Hat from Froggie Meanie

A Sponge Bob Hat from Kody May Knits

And a few others that are hibernating for now.

Hey! It's An FO!

I had this Stockinette BSJ on the sidelines and I finally finished it!





Mods can be found at Panda Man's Knitting Corner

It helps to have knit a Baby Surprise Jacket before and I've knit dozens so I found this easy.

The only thing I did not like were MY increases and decreases. I think I was doing it wrong or else they just do not look as good in the stockinette. If you look at Panda Man's BSJ, you will see a much neater line.

I plan to knit up another and try again to see if I can improve the increase/decrease lines.

You have to have the original Baby Surprise Jacket pattern by Elizabeth Zimmermann to make this stockinette pattern. Go see his page for more details!


Here's a picture at the halfway point.






Sapatinho experimenting still going on and I just have to seam those little guys up.

Will post the results next, but I am leaning toward the 2nd pair I made with the garter stitch bottom. Easy to seam!

Another Red Hat

A very bright red!




Pattern can be found here

Back to finishing WIPs .....

More Knitted Cuteness

Cutie Patooties! These took only 1oz of worsted wt yarn. I used #6 needles. See the ones on the bottom? I seamed up the whole cuff and folded it down, but I think I like the open cuff best.



And another hat is done! Nope - it's not fair isle. It's just a combination of varigated brown yarn with solid brown yarn.



Several other Wips in line;
Curve of Pursuit
Ripple Scarf
Taptestry Crochet Kitty Bag
Cold Shoulder's Capelet from The Happy Hooker
Some slippers and another hat.
Oh yeah - Mittenz! Deadline is almost here!

Little Knitting

Not too much knitting going on with the bigger projects. They're on hold for now - too hot!

Finished those Little Kid Socks and they are really easy to knit up. The only thing I changed was to slip the first stitch of each row. The pink pair was without slipping and the seaming is not great, especially the back part. The varigated pair came out better, but seaming that back heel needs to be neater. Perhaps with a fluffy yarn the seams would be hidden or maybe omit the bind off and place the back parts on holders to weave in later?
Or maybe my seaming skills will improve :)





AND - I found another pattern!

Bernat's Organic Cotton Knit Booties



You have to sign in / register to access their free patterns.

Another two needle quicky, but I am thinking that the opening might be too loose to stay on.
Maybe go down a needle size for the cuff. Already on my next pair, so I'll be experimenting - again :)

Thanks for all the compliments! Keeps me knitting and knitting for charity!

Who Said I Don't Knit Socks?

Here is a cute pair. The pattern call for fluffy angora,
hence the name "Angel Booties"

When you use sport wt yarn, you get socks.




These knit up quickly, but those little #3 dps are a pain to maneuver around and I've tried the "Magic Loop" - don't really like it. I get the concept and can do it, but somehow I don't enjoy the part where you slide the loop.

Now For A Two Needle Pattern

Thanks to a fellow NAS member that posted the link to this pattern for
Little Kid Socks . I like these better as they are knit on two needles.




I'll be finished with these soon, but I am getting ideas as I knit along to "marry" both patterns.

Meanwhile a few more hats have been done!



Standard 2x2 rib with combined smaller weight yarns.



Another of Tammy's Flap Hats.



The "Jos" hat. Pattern no longer on the www, at least I can't find it.

The two hats above were knit with the same yarn combination but my camera did not capture the correct color on the Jos hat.




Child's Earflap Cap by Robin Hansen from IK Spring 1999

Love and Hate Relationship

Curve of Pursuit 2
Originally uploaded by Nonni Mariella

Almost there! I had to take this off the needles and put the ends on waste yarn just to take a picture.
I'm also trying out this "Post from Flickr" blogging feature.

I love this blanket, but I hate knitting it!

Clicking on the picture takes you over to my Flickr photo album where I am working on uploading my projects and my stash. Ravelry maddness has taken hold....

Updated Questions about this blanket pattern:

The Curve of Pursuit is a pattern by Pat Ashforth and
Steve Plummer
For details go to their site - Wooly Thoughts
I bought my copy from them via Ebay.
They have even more interesting patterns!

Little Red Baby Bonnet

A quick little project! Red Baby Bonnet all done.








Pattern: Top Down Baby Bonnet by Hello Yarn
I used one skein of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece with a bit left over,
and #5 needles.
It was very easy to follow, although I cheated at the start. I did not work the figure 8 cast on.
I simply grafted the top stitches together later. I'll have to try that cast on again, I am sure it would look much better.
Maybe it was working with this yarn as it was a bit "splitty". Glad I only had one ball in my stash.

Mess of Wips

Time to be honest and report my current WIPs.

Wip #1
I saw a Sideways Seaman scarf on this blog but the pattern is no longer available.
So of course I had to try and make up my own version because it is garter stitch with short rows, similar to my Sideways Mittens.

Last night I was happily nearing the end when I saw the mistake.
Can you see it?
Clue: The purple stripe is the midpoint and I did not repeat the stripes in the right sequence.
So it's rippit, rippit, back to the mistake.





Wip #2 is this cute cardi - Super-Natural Stripes from fpea's Free Pattern Fridays






Wip #3

Cold Shoulder Capelet from the Happy Hooker





Wip #4

Another hat!




Now to answer some questions!

Crafty Callie asked if I was going to post the pattern for the ripple hat.
Maybe I'll try and knit up another one and take notes. I didn't to that last time so I have no pattern - yet :)



Well back to reading Harry Potter and playing around in Ravelry.
My Ravelry name is KnittingNonni.
I finally got my invite and now to enter projects and such.
Love all the features and the ability to check out what other's are knitting.
Many, many ideas!

Quadruplet

It's official - I am on a hat binge! I just cannot stop making hats. They go easy if you have a pattern that works for you and they are so relaxing to just knit and knit.
Decreases my stash too!





The red hat is a knitted ripple type hat. Basic knitted ripple and I just made this up as I knit.
The other 3 are variations of Ann's Fat Hat pattern. I am getting so good at this that I can knit one up in a few hours!

No mitten knittin, yet...

On the needles, one sideways scarf from an idea on a blog. More on that when I finish.

Yarn Bargain

I'm back from my short vacation but I had lots of fun just hanging out with my sis!

One of the places we went to was the East Bay Depot. I had been to the original store a few years ago and I had fun digging thru all the bins.
This time I found some great old booklets and some pretty Red Heart for more hats and mittens.
$5 for this lot!







My sis saw this lovely scarf at her local LYS and she chose these colors and she bought the yarn so I guess that has no conflict with my KFYS rules!




Not much else to report. I have to get back into my mitten knitting but want to start the scarf and some other new projects I saw in Blogland!

Vacation Knitting

I'm currently on vacation - visiting my older sis and took some knitting with me.

We're running around so much that I have not had time to knit but I did finish another pair of mittenz before I left.













I also managed to knit up two more hatz!








Both are basic beanie types.
The top one with odd bits of leftover yarn knit every 3rd row.
The bottom one is a combination slip stitch brim of 3 inches and then the Helix hat method for the top part.

Well back to running around the Bay area of California!

We Have Hatz!

The Mittenz Blitz is still going, but now we have a Hatz Blitz.
Oh I love knitting hats!

Some Fat Hats

Knit with 2 strands of knitting worsted. The pattern is from our Cheyenne River group's site
Helping Hearts For Cheyenne River.

It's one of Ann's creations - Ann's Knit Fat Hat



As you can see I had lots of orange to knit up and it is so much fun to combine colors.
The design on the bottom hat was done with one strand of yarn and duplicate stitched.


Triple Treats!
These are done with 3 strands of knitting worsted and so quick to knit up!
Pattern is from WhimsyKnits - Tripple Treat Toddler Hat





Crocheting A Star
I wanted to crochet a ripple like hat but with an 8pt star on top.
This is what I came up with. No pattern, no notes. I love to improvise and see what develops as I crochet.




Side View

Knitting & Rocking

I've been nominated!




Monika over at Smoking Hot Needles has nominated me as a "Rockin' Girl Blogger".
Well Golly Gee! I am honored and humbled.

I'm supposed to nominate 5 more from all the Blogs I read. I have many more than on my sidebar because I use Sage Feed.
I do enjoy everyone of the blogs I read - can't decide who I like the best - you are all great reads!

So here's a random 5

1. Ann from Sheep Shots for sure!

2. Gail from Knitamaniacs

3. The Knitting Angel

4. f.Pea

5. Sugar Bunny Boulevard

I could go on and on - I read alot of blogs :)


Mittenz Update

And another pair of Mittenz for the Rez!



I've pretty much memorized the pattern so it is easy for me to throw in mods here and there.
With these I added a few more stitches for length and only used 9 sts for the thumb - 18 instead of 20.
And if you notice there is a slight flare at the wrists - I added short rows to the edges to make them flare out.

Wipping Along

Well summer is finally here - hot, hot , hot!
Temps in the high 90's and low 100's.
Oh, and no A/C.
All that means less bulky item knitting and sometimes even less time knitting!

I've started off the week with a few Wips.

Another pair of Mittenz - smaller needles - smaller size





Crocheting

I have been wanting to try my hand at Tapestry Crochet and finally decided to join the group over at Yahoo. You can find out more about Tapestry Crochet here.


The original pattern for this was supposed to be a bigger bag - more kitties - but since I am just learning, I decided to make a smaller version. So far it's been fairly easy and fun.


A couple of hats for the latest Hatz Blitz!



As you can see I started a 2x2 rib on circular needles. I love circular needles, but for some reason they were hurting my hands. So I switched to straights and happily k2, p2 my way to a few hats with Lion Brand Homespun.

Mittnz Update

Here is another set of seven pairs!



Those bright yellow ones and the smaller rainbow ones were knit from my latest sideways mitten pattern. Everytime I knit the original one, I keep getting different construction ideas.
Pattern for the new Mittenz on the sidebar.
The yellow ones were knit with Red Heart worsted wt on size 5 needles. The rainbow ones from (I think it is Red Heart) a thinner varigated yarn on size 4 needles. See the difference in sizes?

Here are some more pictures of these Mittenz










These lovely tan ones were knit by Carol, one of my "test knitters".

Special Announcement Time

Time for a break in my regular scheduled knitting activities.

It's another Mitten Challenge for 2007 - 7 Pairs in 2007

Details on Ann's Blog here.

So here's my first pair - 6 more to go!




I used a 2 strands of knitting worsted and a very basic pattern.
Here are my "mods":
Cast on 24 sts, worked a k1,p1 cuff to the bottom of my hand, then a few more rows.
The thumb is EZ's famous afterthought thumb with waste yarn on 6 sts.
Knit until I was almost to the tip of my fingers and did decrease rounds.
Picked up thumb sts, added 2 more on each end, knit 2 rounds, then decreased them down to 13. I kept trying it on to see how far to fit my thumb and then decreased, gathered up and mittens were done!
They fit perfect! Someone on the Rez will fit into them too - I'll probably make more and have fun combining my yarns.


The crocheted squares blanket is officially an FO!




I used light worsted wt yarn from my stash. The multi-colored yarn for most of the centers is Moda-Dea Sassy Stripes. A good way to use up the sock yarn I bought and thought I would knit socks.

Here's a closer view.