Knitten Kitten!

I recently bought a pair of US 3 double pointed needles off Amazon for a couple different patterns I bought off Esty.  The main reason I bought them was because one pattern in particular needed 5 needles... which none of the stores around me seemed to have. Sigh. So I caved and bought these beauts... for $10 (ouch).

Anyway, the pattern that I wanted to knit was from Etsy called Telepathic Kitten by Cheezombie.  I forget how much it costs, but it's so creepy/cute looking.  It called for funky yarn which I happened to have a bunch of from a yard sale.  I thought "OH CUTE, FUNKY YARN" - when I should have thought, "OH CRAP, FUNKY YARN. THIS WILL BE HARD TO KNIT." Silly Laura.

See that little puff ball to the left? That's the kitten body. Too freakin' puffy... I've lost count of my stitches so many times. Ugh. 

Also, there was a new element in the pattern called Wrap and Turn... so I headed over to YouTube to figure it out.  I couldn't find a video that showed it in the round, only with straight needles.  Sigh. I also looked at New Stitch A Day's Wrap and Turn tutorial to help me figure it out. The more knowledge, the better, right?

I stuffed it using scraps of old yarn.  I've been knitting so much I had a bunch left over and I didn't want to waste it.

Well, it wasn't easy knitting it because of the yarn... but it also knit together in one piece which was different for me.  What I mean is I knit the body and the head together versus stitching it on later.  It worked well enough... but there was another aspect that didn't make sense to me - at round 40 it stated to use scrap yarn for k12 then removing it to pick up and make those crazy ass eyes.  So, I contacted the person who wrote it to ask her what the heck that meant. SO HELPFUL.  She was pretty awesome about answering my question and I figured it out... slowly. (Later I found this blog post which explained the concept well enough - I used the creator's advice since she did something a bit different but this is good for future reference for other knitting stuff).

You can kind of see the shape of the kitten. The white yarn is the scrap yarn for the eyes.

Can't even see it! Stupid fluffy yarn.

Using the tips Cheezombie gave me and winging it, I was able to make two eyes. Then I made the four legs. At this point, it looked like a deranged llama. 

Domino does not approve of me spending so much time knitting. Silly kitty. Also, as you can see the eyes are buggy. Very buggy.

Ta-da! The finished product.  You can see in the background on the monitor what it's supposed to look like... and it's close. But it still looks like a deranged muppet.

The tail came out well enough... used pipe cleaner like it recommended, but I couldn't find the end because of how fluffy it is.

So badly this thing wants Domino's love.

Domino isn't impressed... still. Sigh.

I think I'm going to try my hand on another one for myself.  This one is a little too... Raven's themed for me ;)

UPDATE: I made one in Eagles colors for myself and tweaked the pattern so it looked less like Beaker from muppets mated with a furby and more like a kitty. Then I made two more... And no matter what it comes out creepy! Ugh. 

 Maybe the collar would help them look more kitty like? Who knows. 

Sonic... the Hedgehog!

Shockingly, Pinterest is fueling my knitting love.  I found an awesome knitting pattern for hedgehogs. Hedgehogs seem to be the latest hipster animal.  First came owls, then foxes, and now.... hedgehogs.  But I've always had a thing for hedgehogs.  Sonic the Hedgehog was my favorite video game as a kid.  My first cat was named Sonic and I really wanted to name Bailey Tails originally (but she's not a Tails so it worked out - eventually I'll have a Tails and Knuckles....).

Also, the hubby got me a stuffed Tails!! He brought it home when I started working on this... fate? Yes, of course.

Let me clear: I am a new knitter, a novice at best. So, while I am critiquing the tutorial, I freely acknowledge that the fault might lie with me as I maybe wasn't ready for it.  

With that being said... The tutorial seemed simple enough but I wasn't a big fan about the make 1 right and make 1 left nonsense.  She had a tutorial linked to how to do it but it wasn't good enough for me.  Plus! She didn't explain how to do it in the round.  I had to practice it a couple times before it came out OKish.   Maybe, just maybe, if I had used a non-slick yarn that would have also made it easier.  But why did things the easy way when I can do it the Laura way? *grumble* So I Googled it and found a better visual of m1r and m1l from New Stitch a Day (love that place!)

I'm not going to lie. I started this project, got around 4 rounds into it, and stared at the tutortial for the next week and a half.  I couldn't get the courage up to try and complete it. I even restarted it a couple times to motivate myself to knit Round 5.  No clue why it bugged me so much, but it did.

The tip of the nose is weird. I don't think I did it like the tutorial wanted.

You can see it better here... weird with the m1l, m1r.

But once I got over my m1r, m1l fear it went ok into the belly (which ALSO had those lovely symbols).  Another thing that isn't written clearly is the last round on the belly to make 5 stitches. I misunderstood it and did something else.  I will give the tutorial credit for having detailed pictures to other knitting techinques that I didn't know (p2tog tbl for example).

 Somehow, I screwed up the final 5 stitches on the belly.

It worked out later with the grey body, but it wasn't easy. Had to add random stitches to make it work.

Now, the body. Ugh. I had all the materials for the project, but there isn't a clear way to get the new needles onto the head/body combo in the tutorial.  I ended up taking a break here and tried reading it multiple times until it made sense.

And then.... it did. A lightbulb went off. (I think too much with these tutorials sometimes).

He's super cute.

The nose still looks funny. No amount of stuffing could fix it. Although, I will admit I should have used more.

You can see that I had a hard time in the beginning attaching the grey to the teal.

Soooo... here's Sonic! I'm going to make a couple more for others =)  I loved the teal and grey combo! (For those that know me, this isn't shocking).

Aren't his ears cute? He looks like an ardvark or anteater. Sigh. I'll pretend it's a hedgehog.

Dominio wasn't sure what to make of him.

"He smells funny."

"Meh, I'm more important than that."

Such a cutie.

Thoughts?

"Did you ever see an Elephant fly?"

Remember how a couple posts ago I was making Flying Pigs left and right?  Well, I am still making them (because they're awesome) but I wanted to do something a little different for Dad.

Did I mention I have his sense of humor?

Looks good in blue.

My dad is pretty awesome and I wanted to give him a yellow pig (yellow is his favorite color).  But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to give him a pig, but something a little more personal. DUMBO!

You can kind of see how big it is.

When I got my first car, it was originally my dad's who just gave it to me. He used this opportunity to buy himself a new Ford truck.  It's huge. I forget all the fancy dimensions, but it's a great farm-ish-use truck.  But here's the best part - the rear-view mirrors stick out so much from the side that he nicknamed it Dumbo (get it? Big  grey truck with big ol' ears?).

So, in honor of his beloved Dumbo, I modified the following tutorial to make Dumbo... the flying elephant.  I skipped on the wings part because it wasn't true to the Disney version of the animal.  I did have to make a small little yellow hat to match.  And, I agree, the ears aren't quite big enough to be considered Dumbo but it's close enough for me.

I still think he's cute.

The only modifications to the tutorial that I did were on the snout and the ears.

Snout modifications

- Round 11 - Don't purl.  Instead, knit until you've got a 1" or 1.25" tube.  Then decrease your stitches to 3 per needle (prior to this step you had 4 per needle!).
- Knit with these 3 stitches per needle for another 1" - 1.25" (depends on how long you want the trunk"
- Once you've reached your desired length, purl one round
- SSK, Knit to the end (you will end up with 2 stitches on each needle or 6 total).
- Then continue as it states in the tutorial for the last step: Cut the yarn and place the end on a yarn needle. Pull through the remaining stitches and pull up tight to close the hole. Secure with a couple of stitches. Pull the end to the inside and trim.

Ears/Inside of the ears

Cast on 4 stitches as it instructs
- k1, m1, k2, m1, k1
- Purl
- k1, m1, k3, m1, k1
- Purl
- k1, m1, k2end
- Purl

Once I reached the max. width of the ears that I liked, I then started k2gether at the beginning of each row and p2gether at the end of each row (it helped create a rapid drop look).

His legs make it look even more lopsided.

Any suggestions on how to make the ears better, I'd love to "hear" it (ha, ha..).  I know one of mine is lopsided. But ah well! At least he flies (thanks to the bouncy ball inside..).

Dumbo's Signature Yellow Hat

- Treat it exactly as one of the legs in the tutorial until you get to round 3. Knit 3 more rounds (total of 6).
- Round 7 - k1, m1, k2
- Round 8 + 9 knit
- Round 10 - k1, m1, k3
- Knit until you're happy (total height = 2" for mine).
- Bind off then fold up the just finished end to make it look like a beanie. Whip stitch the original end together to it's a hat!

I think he's SUPER cute with the hat. I had to hide him from the hubby (as noted in the other post,  he tends to steal gifts not intended for him....).

Front view. I love the hat!

 His tail has embroidery thread tied on it to make it look more like an elephant's tail.

Here you can see the ears being off. Argh.

But he's still SUPER cute! I hope Dad likes him!

Sir Hops Alot and Blue Bunny

Since November I've been knitting non-stop.  I blame this pattern.

I found it on Pinterest back in October and thought it was the CUTEST thing ever.  However, when I read the pattern instructions it scared the hell out of me. It might as well have been in Chinese.  So, I taught myself via YouTube channels and friends how to knit.

My most recent adventure was finally taking the leap from scarves to knitting a toy on straight needles.  I found this adorable knit bunny pattern (thank you Pinterest!) and it seemed easy enough for me to make. 

Introducing... Sir Hops Alot!

And Blue Bunny!

I used this tutorial to make Sir Hops Alot and Blue Bunny.  I used a long pair of size 4 straight needles to make Sir Hops Alot, but that ended up hurting my wrist.  So, my Blue Bunny was knit on size 8 circular needles which made it a lot easier.  Highly recommend that (although, I don't recommend buying circular needles with 36" cables. The cables get twisted and it frustrated the crap out of me. Newbie mistake!)

To make the ears, I followed the instructions in the tutorial for decreasing and increasing the stitches, but I used this video as a guideline to make it a different color on each side.

I didn't like how she did the normal ears.  It looked too... ehh. I really wanted to add some flare to it.  Another project I'm working on had me whipstitch another knit swatch to the ears to give it two tones, but I thought was still phfft.  Tried to make it a little "me" I guess.  Plus the faceless bunny look was going to give me nightmares so I added some eyes, nose, and some whiskers.

Also, the same blog posted a new tutorial on an easier bunny... but I haven't made that yet.  It's cute, but I like mine more.

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!