2014: The Year of Sweaters

I know I've said it for the past two years, but this is the year! I only have to finish up the never ending sweater I'm working on right now (a Harry Potter "Weasley Sweater" that I only have 8" left to finish but it seems like I never get anywhere on), an elephant, an infinity scarf, a monkey, and a child's wrap sweater (that is already partially finished) ... and then all of my current orders are finished and I can start on personal knitting. Here is my list of some sweaters (in no particular order) that I hope to accomplish this year:

I really want a cozy, fuzzy, warm open cardigan. This one is for me!

This one is for my daughter. She is five and a half, and I let her pick out
both the pattern and the yarn. If you couldn't tell, she's very girly.

My dad asked me a few months back about knitting him a cardigan a la
Mr. Rodger's style. (I'm kicking it up a notch.)

This one is on my Christmas gift list for my mom. She picked the pattern
and the yarn, I just have to put it together.

Another one for me! I just can't resist this lacy pattern and I love the
berry color.

Another for my daughter. Now that she's to an age where she's not
growing out of each new size within just a few months, I'd really like to
make her a couple of sweaters.

I'm sure this list will grow as the year progresses --hopefully I'll find at least one sweater to knit for my 3 year old son as well-- but this is it so far. Not that it isn't already substantial. I'm excited to take a break from knitting solely for profit though and make some things for myself and my loved ones. Now I just need to start saving up for all that yarn ...

All sweater pictures were found on Ravelry.com. Yarn sample pictures are from Lion Brand and Knit Picks Websites.

An Update of Sorts

I have been busy lately; my daughter started Kindergarten this fall and I went back to school myself as well. Bachelors degree, here I come! (Finally!) But that has meant much, much, much less time for knitting and crocheting. I have been slowly working on projects for friends of mine, but no holiday knitting is taking place and no knitting for pure enjoyment at all. I'm not complaining too much though; all in the name of education! I've wanted to go back to school ever since my daughter surprised me as two pink lines on a plastic stick, and I am so glad I am finally able to.

Today I finally was able to go through some pending comments and reply to them, so if you have been patiently waiting for a reply to a question or comment you had, there should be one now. I'm so sorry it took me so long!

Right now in my limited spare time I have been working on a pattern for a Minion hat, and I hope to have one up within the next couple of weeks. After that I do have a couple other ideas; a crochet Aviator/Bomber hat, a crochet Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hat perhaps, and maybe some more knitted ear warmer styles. Hopefully I can get the time to get some of those patterns written out!

I've also had a few people ask me over the past few months why I offer my patterns for free and don't try to sell them, so I thought I'd address that here too while I have a chance. The answer is quite simple really; because I don't want to. Knitting and crocheting is a craft that most people do for relaxation and a sense of achievement -- it feels good to finish something and have it be a useful product. It makes you feel pride and a sense of accomplishment to finish a project and have even just one person say "wow, you made that?!". Why would I charge someone to obtain that feeling? I'm not that kind of a person. If you want to be able to make something special for your friends, families, or anyone else who may want it, why should you have to pay to do so? You already have to pay for the yarn, needles/hooks, and all the other notions required for your craft; I'm not going to make you pay anything else to do something intended to make you and others feel good. That's just not the type of person I am. (I guess that's why I'm going to school for Psychology and not Business, huh?) So if you have any special requests for patterns you'd like to see here please feel free to say so with a comment and I will try my best to come up with something for you -- just don't fault me if it takes me a while, and remember that I am not a professional pattern writer by any means, I'm just doing the best I can.

Happy crafting! :-)

The Importance of Blocking

People often ask me what blocking is, and why it's necessary. I used to rarely block my projects, so I was definitely one of those people that didn't think it was very important. And really, a lot of projects don't need to be blocked ... but there are also a lot of projects that do. Lace projects almost always need blocking to show the pattern correctly, for example.

I'm certainly no expert on blocking, but it's hard not to see the importance of it when you compare the two pictures below:



The picture on the left is a "slouchy" hat straight of the needles -- no blocking. As you can see it just looks like a regular beanie, maybe a little too long. The picture on the right is the same hat after blocking. You can see how the cables have spread farther apart and the shape is completely different. The purl stitches between the cables have a natural tendency to give the hat a ribbed appearance. After blocking, the hat takes on a completely different look -- no more ribbed appearance. And you can see how blocking the hat around a small plate gives it the shape necessary for a slouchy hat, as opposed to the tubular style it takes on while it's on the needles.

There are several different methods of blocking, as each fiber and project requires it's own specific technique to ensure you don't ruin your yarn or mess up your project while you're blocking it. For an overview of some of these techniques follow this link: "How to Block Knitting". (If anyone has a better link they recommend, leave it in the comments, please!)

Hopefully the pictures make it easy to see the importance of blocking. It's a hard concept to explain (especially to non-knitters), but it makes a big difference in a finished project.

(P.S. - The pattern for the hat shown above will be available within the next few days! Stay tuned!)

PDF's are here!

I've been working hard making up PDF versions of my patterns. Along with my kids deciding to go back-to-back with being sick (strep throat first and then a sinus infection and asthma for the other), that's why I haven't updated in a while. Just hard at work!

I know I prefer downloading the PDF version of patterns and keeping them on my computer much more than finding the webpage for each individual pattern, so now I'm offering my own. I already went through and added a link to the PDF version of each pattern on their posts, but I'm going to put the list here as well:

• Intertwining Diamonds Cabled Headband Earwarmer


• Simple Headband Earwarmer


• Simple Crochet Bow


• Easy Rolled Brim Hat


• Cheeseburger Hat

Hopefully you guys like them, because I worked hard putting them together!

Now I just have to figure out how to fix the header on my blog that I messed up today and I'll be golden ... :-/

Sick Day

I'm under the weather today and taking a break from all of my projects in fear of infecting them. But that leaves me with nothing to do, and I'm not very good at having nothing to do. I like to be busy. So today while I filled myself with chicken noodle soup, fluids, Sudafed, and ibuprofen ... I've also been updating my Ravelry account. I have a bad habit of never adding my projects on there, but I find the vast majority of the patterns I use on there, am almost always checking out other peoples' versions before attempting a pattern myself, looking for samples of projects made with yarn I'm wanting to use to see what color I like the best for a specific project, and am always saving pictures of other peoples' projects for color of pattern inspiration. I figured it was about time for me to update with all of my projects too. Lesson learned: every thing is easier if you do it as you go, and not in a lump at the end. Holy moley it's been a long time since I updated my Ravelry account! I'm not even sure I'll be able to get everything added before I run out of steam and head to bed, but I am determined to get it up to date, and keep it up to date.

If you have a Ravelry account make sure to add me as a friend and leave me your link in a comment here so I can add you as well! Like I said above, I love getting inspiration from other peoples' projects and would love to see yours! Here's my account: http://www.ravelry.com/people/devinlikestoknit. There's also a media icon underneath my Gravatar in the left-hand column for easy access!

Update: I managed to get it updated before I went to sleep! Almost made it to 100 projects ... so close!

Flower Girl Dress

So ... this post isn't about knitting or crocheting. Whoops! Sorry! But I'm really excited about this dress I just finished up last night for my daughter to wear in my brother-in-law's wedding this October. I found the inspiration dress on Pinterest ... but it was $102 when I finally found it on etsy. Like I have $102 to spend on a dress my 4 year old is going to wear one time! So I decided to make it myself. I used to make tutu skirts for my daughter and her friends when she was a toddler anyways, so I knew I could handle that much of it. I even had two spools of lavender tulle left over from then, so I saved money right there. And I had lavender thread, so there was more money saved. All I needed was some stretchy crochet elastic material for the bodice and flowers to sew on. Lucky for me Fairy Flowers and Bows was able to make all the flowers I needed, as well as a head piece for her to wear if she's not willing to sit still while someone does her hair that day (which is likely, she doesn't even like me putting her hair in a ponytail most days), for $30. So when it was all said and done I made almost the same dress for less than $40, and that's factoring in the cost of the tulle and thread I already had. That works much better for me. I still need to sew a little lavender slip for underneath that attaches to the bodice to keep her undies from showing, but even after that it'll be right at $40 for all the materials. It's definitely not as good as the inspiration dress, but for 60% less cost I think it's pretty good.

(The big flower doesn't look as odd and out of place in person as it
does in the close-up of the bodice.)

Foxes for Foster

A while back a friend of mine sent me an e-mail about a pin she found on Pinterest. She's having a baby in a few weeks and his nursery theme is "woodland" -- which obviously I love, being that it was my little boy's nursery theme as well. I even knit him a little fox to sit on his shelf that he now enjoys cuddling with in his crib some nights. Well, my friend is quite fond of foxes as well, and the pin she'd found was for a little fox photography prop. Heck yeah I can make a fox! I love foxes! So I told her I'd love to make it, and she told me she'd let me know when she had decided for sure about it.

Fast forward a few weeks and she e-mailed me again, telling me that she was going to go with just a fox earflap hat because it was more practical than a photography prop and she was trying to be good about her spending. Obviously I told her I could make that too! So I whipped it out real quick and sent it along in the mail.

But of course I didn't just make her the earflap hat, when what she really wanted was the photography prop. Does she know me at all? Come on! So I whipped that up too and added it as a little surprise.

(Pattern can be found here.)

She got them today and luckily had no idea I was sending both. I always get worried when I give surprised that I haven't done a very good job at keeping the secret and that whoever the surprise is intended for has an idea, which makes it not as good of a surprise. I'm not very good at keeping surprises in -- I get too excited, lol. This time she really thought she was just getting the earflap hat, and now we're both even more excited (if that's even possible for her) to welcome baby Foster into the world and see him model his new fox set. Hopefully she'll let me share a picture when she gets one. :-)

Sorry I'm a Sucky Blogger!

I'm sure you've noticed by now that I'm not the world's best blogger. Sorry! I get distracted for a while by "real life" and slack a little on here. I'll try to get better about it.

Lately I've been working mostly on newborn gifts (a set I did for twin girls is shown below) and bow and flower clippes and ponytail holders. That's been taking up most of my knitting and crocheting time so far this summer. But my goal for the summer is to get a few sweaters done before the cold weather hits. I am moderately obsessed with little knit baby and children sweaters. I think they're just so cute when they're well done. I've wanted to make some for my kids ever since my daughter was born almost four years ago (Eek! My first baby is going to be four this month! How did that happen?!), but I've just never gotten around to it. I always put it off to do other projects thinking that eventually I'll get around to making the sweaters I want to make. Starting yesterday, it's my mission to be working on one sweater at any given time between now and when I start getting cold-weather orders again. Hopefully I'll be able to show you all some cute ones soon!

What Addiction?

I came across this cartoon on the blog "Knituition", and boy can I relate! I have a 10 gallon tub full of the craft store yarns I use for various personal projects, a Closetmaid 9 Cube Oragnaizer with drawers filled with the yarn I use for items I sell, two totes of Knit Picks yarn I use for personal projects I'd like to be a little higher quality (sweaters, socks, etc), and a large black garbage bag full of extra yarn I haven't gotten to yet in my basement. My husband no long supports my yarn habit, lol. There are just so many brands, colors, and textures to choose from! It's too hard to say "no" ...

Featured Pattern of the Week!

My Cheeseburger hat is the featured pattern of the week on Crochet Pattern Central! I don't know who submitted it, but whoever you are -- THANK YOU!

I've made several knitting patterns over the years, but have only been crocheting since last fall and this was the first crochet pattern I've made up entirely from start to finish so I'm just a little surprised at how good the response has been. I really appreciate it guys! Don't forget to upload your finished projects on Ravelry for me to see!

Hello Blogland!

If you don't know already, my name is Devin ... and I like to knit. And crochet. A lot. I seem to always have 2 or 3 projects going at a time, and I dabble in patterns of my own which I have no place to put down, so that's what this blog is for. Instead of bugging all of my non-fiber friends, I'm going to try to keep it here! Enjoy. :-)