Knit Wit

I finished up my two knitting projects today. First is Skippy's scarf; he did quite a bit of the knitting himself. He looks quite happy with the way it turned out.

Second is my scarf, made with Pooch yarn. This yarn was a little more challenging to work with, as it didn't have too much stretch, and the nubby texture tended to get caught on itself. That's not to say it was difficult, however. Far from it.

You know how some people can toss on a scarf and it makes their whole outfit, and it gives them an air of being so cool and chic? I'm not one of those people. I don't know why, but I do not look cool in a scarf. On the other hand, again for unknown reasons, almost any hat looks good on me. But hats are never in style.

There was some interest expressed in the knitting looms, so I thought I'd share some info. I used the circle Knifty Knitter looms by Provocraft. The set of 4 is about $12 at Walmart, and about $15 at Michael's, which would make it about $9 with the 40% off coupon.

There are several other types of looms, including these long looms. They are $20 at Michael's (haven't seen them at Walmart), and I got them last week with the 50% off coupon, but I haven't used them yet.

Both of the scarves were knit as a flat panel on the circle looms, the orange scarf on the blue loom, the Pooch scarf on the red loom. They both were knit using the garter stitch. I found a really great tip for the garter stitch on Isela Phelps' blog, The Purling Sprite. She appears to be the queen of loom knitting. I also have one of her books out of the library: Loom Knitting Primer.

Some other helpful sites:
Loom Knitting Help
Ravelry
a list of loom knitting blogs
loom knitting patterns

There's a lot more info on the web; just google it. Also check Amazon for several more books on the topic. Hopefully this will help you get started.

The next project I (may) attempt is a felted bag from Loom Knitting Primer. I bought the wool today, 1/2 off at Michael's this week. We shall see....

I'm a Knifty Knitter

This week, I took up knitting. This is not my first foray; when I was a teenager in Canada I decided I was going to teach myself to knit, and started with a cable-knit shawl collar cardigan. I bought the needles, the pattern, and lots and lots of yarn, and off I went. I actually made some progress, and even got as far as figuring out the ribbing and the cable twist. But when I got to the first increase or decrease, I gave up. Uh, yeah, I think I was a little too ambitious.

But check this out...here's my first project this week. Pretty good, no?


Here's my secret; I did not use knitting needles, I used the Knifty Knitter looms by Provocraft. I came across these while browsing for Christmas gift ideas for Pinkerbelle. Based on reviews, I decided that she was a little too young for these and went with My First Sewing Kit by Alex Toys instead (it was on sale at Michael's). But I wanted the looms and I put them on my wish list.

This just involves wrapping the yarn around the pegs in various ways and using a little hook tool to loop it over. It's not brainless, but it is pretty easy. Skippy and Pinkerbelle have even helped out some.

The original hat was too small for any of my kids--I should've used a bigger loom. I had already started this garter stitch scarf with the rest of the yarn but didn't have enough. Instead of buying more yarn, I got the brilliant idea to unravel the useless (to us) hat. So the hat is now this ball of yarn, and will become a scarf.

Michael's is having a big yarn sale this week and this morning I went and picked some out. I didn't really have a specific pattern in mind, though, so that made it a little difficult. But I came home with this fun nubby "Pooch" yarn--a scarf, maybe? And Pinkerbelle picked out the soft pink fuzzy stuff, and wants a little blanket. These yarns are normally $6 and $7 a skein, but this week it's $2 for the Pooch and $1.5o for the pink. That's a really good deal and I was tempted to buy a lot but held back in light of my colossal waste of money on the sweater that never was. Better to actually accomplish something before I start sinking a lot of cash into this hobby.

I can't wait to get started!