Tis the season to get crafty, tra la la la la....

Thanksgiving is my favorite time of the year... but Christmas is a close second.  I really like giving people gifts and since I've become crafty I've enjoyed making things for people.  I started making the knit items almost a year in advance as I originally wanted to knit all my friends a scarf.

See? Beautiful green one sided and pink on the other scarf! Way too time consuming.

I eventually scraped that idea as it was too slow, boring, etc.  Eventually, it morphed into making toys that reminded me of certain friends.

I pulled out an older pattern to make for some friends.

As Christmas drew closer, and I ran out of time, I postponed giving people things until their birthdays, etc.  Lazy... I know.

First up - a couple friends of ours thoroughly enjoys Mario Bros and requested I crochet them a Goomba.  However, when they originally asked I didn't know how to crochet but since I acquired a while crochet hook kit back in September I've learned... and surprised them with one.  Again, I found a free pattern on Ravelry.com.  I had to look up a YouTube video on what a Magic Ring was, but that was worth it as it's a really cool skill for crochet.

When making the pattern, I ran into a little problem... I lost count when crocheting one of the feet. So he's a little... lopsided. But it still looks OK (I think) and I did better on the next ones.

Next ones you say? Well, after I made him I realized that some of our other friends would like them too.. so I made a mini army of Goombas...

AAAAHHH RUN AWAAAAAAAY!! I crocheted Domino an army!

Well, the Goombas weren't enough. I asked the hubby what other friends would like a crocheted gift and he asked if there was another Super Mario Bros pattern I could do.  Luckily, Ravelry is FULL of free patterns and I found the 1-Up Mushrooms... which I promptly made several for friends (and us).

They're super cute and easy to make. My phone camera turns the green a funny color.

So I made another one. I still need to work on my crochet skills... all my projects come out different sizes, ugh.

I didn't just crochet two mushrooms... I ended up making about seven of them - either red or green depending on the friend.  Carpal tunnel, anyone?

And once I was SICK of making mushrooms, I moved on to different friend... the one who likes penguins.  For some reason, I couldn't find a decent free pattern for knitting but I did find one in crochet. There were a couple techniques that I used on the star post but were rusty for those one, so YouTube helped with those but overall this was a taxing pattern.  I made some alterations (ex: didn't do the legs portion and didn't make 4 feet as two looked great on the bottom) and then the white part slip was weird.  It worked... but I stitched it on wrong and lost count at one part so it's... off. And I hate googley eyes on crocheted/knit toys so I just did black yarn.

I liked him even with all my changes. But I felt he was missing something...

....So I decided to crochet him a Santa Hat.  I didn't use a pattern for that - getting better!

But enough toys! Remember the Moebius Scarf I made? Well, I made another one for someone else for Christmas and then I made a tiny one for my bro in law since he likes math (I didn't think he'd wear a scarf). It's just small enough to be a desk ornament.

I tried to use the colors of the school. See how tiny it is? It was really hard to do on Size 3 circular needles with only 10in cables. Talk about painful.

But I think it looks pretty cool for a little desk topper. 

I didn't do a lot of sewing this year and I regret that.  Maybe I'll make a table runner next year for friends/family.  Or I'll do something with clay... or Baileys. Oh the choices!

Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoyed my review of patterns =)

Moebius Scarf

It's been a while and I blame several things for that. In the summer I tend to be very busy thanks to work and then I went on several vacations =) It was wonderful. However, now that Fall is here I am going to be crafting up a storm for everyone's Christmas gifts.

While on one of them, I learned how to knit a moebius scarf! FYI... a Moebius scarf ends up being half purled and half knit when looking at the finished product.  The twisted cable within while you're knitting every stitch is how this happens.  It's pretty awesome I think.  I had originally looked at the idea of it from this blog post (which explains what it is in great, math-related detail) as well as several Ravelry patterns, but seeing it done made me want to do it immediately.  As soon as I got home I went out and got the correct set of circular needles and started at it.

The top is stockingette stitch and the bottom half is garter stitch.  Such a cool pattern.

For those of you interested in doing it this YouTube video is the exact method I learned.  The circular needles that are used in the video can be found at KnitPicks.  I bought a pair of metal ones from Michaels which work fine, but if you're serious about circular knitting I would go with the KnitPicks one.  The cables are easier to manuver.

See how it knits and spirals? So cool.

But once you've cast on and gotten through the first two rounds, which are super weird, you just keep knitting until you like the length! It's super easy and comes out looking really cool.  Hooray!

Domino, as always, isn't impressed with it. But I am! =)

It lays nicely. Smaller than I thought it would be. Hmm... 

It's smaller than I thought it would be. I think it's because I cast on 100 stitches... maybe I'll do 130 next time.

Thoughts? I might make two! Hooray Christmas gifts!

Scarves for everyone!

As I mentioned in my Christmas and several other posts, I've taught myself how to knit recently.  Since I've been learning or focusing on the basics I decided to stick to scarves (since they're knit on straight needles and are relatively easy to learn, etc.).

Do you remember my two garter (knit all the stitches, wrong and right side) scarves I gave my brother and dad at Christmas? They were done with acrylic yarn and I've stuck with that yarn as I'm learning (not wasting money on the good stuff).  Well, dear friends, don't be surprised if you get a scarf this year for Christmas.  I'm going to have ton of them and I only have one neck... =).

The third scarf I attempted was the Herringbone Stitch.  Looking back, I realize that I shouldn't have tried that one for my third scarf (really should have practiced purling more, but I'm stubborn).  I found a great tutorial at New Stitch a Day.com (LOVE this place!) and got started.

First off, this is just the starting swatch of it.  The finished product curls in (No, I didn't block it yet) and the yarn bunches at the edges.  When asking a knitting friend, she said that it's the type of yarn that I used and if I used "big girl yarn" it wouldn't do that (yes, but my bank account would be silently weeping in the corner).   I like it, but I didn't use a pattern and just knit until I got bored... so it isn't really long enough for any guy friends.

The edges are lying flat here, but the longer it got, the more it curled in =\

For the fourth and fifth scarves, I did Double Knitting, which is two colors being knit and purled at the same time to get the stockingette stitch on both sides one in each color (loved this one - but it took twice as long to knit).  The video I used is this one - she does a good job explaining it and since purling wasn't my best yet, it made me happy to have someone explain it simply.

This is the fifth one... the other one looks exactly like this, only pink/green.

And, of course, Domino wanted to "help" me ....

Dis MY yarn... *purr*

Hoping to post more pictures of scarves soon... not sure what my next stitch will be. Suggestions welcome!