I'm knitting a sweater(s)...

Yeah, I've been catching up on the 2nd season of Grey's Anatomy and cracked up when it got to the part where Meredith was "knitting a sweater" and signing off on men. That's NOT why I'm knitting sweaters. I'm married so I'm signed off on all men besides my husband already. But yeah, I've knit some shrugs and smaller sweaters but just tackled the top-down-raglan that you can make to your own measurements. I used this pattern: http://www.woolworks.org/patterns/raglan.html. It really wasn't as hard as I thought. In fact, it's quite fun and easy! So much that I started another one and then ANOTHER one! Crazy, eh? So, since I'm 8 months pregnant, I'm not going to model the first one for you. I'll have to wait till the baby is born to have it look the way I want it. But here's a pic and the specs.

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft
Needles: Size US 8, 29" circulars and 8 DPN's (for sleeves)
Changes to pattern: I added waist, sleeve, and boob shaping




The next sweater I started is from the newest edition of Vogue Knitting Mag. I had this thick/thin yarn for forever and had started a sweater but never finished because I didn't like how it was turning out. I wasn't sure what I was going to use the yarn for. And then I saw this pattern for thick/thin yarn in VK recently and said to myself, "yes! this is it!". It's a top-down-raglan type of pattern with a random lace pattern. However, I think I'm going to make it longer and long sleeved. I stopped where I'm at right now because I want to try it on after I have the baby for the perfect fit. So, it probably won't get finished for another couple months. But here's what I've started on...




And an up-close of the random lace pattern...


FINALLY, I'm currently working on this from the same pattern as the navy sweater but I'm making it into a cardigan. I had this yarn in my stash for another sweater I was going to make for a gift (it's half-crocheted and I'm not going to finish it). So, here's my progress so far...



You can't really tell how it's going to turn out yet but it's a soft boucle yarn that's mostly grey flecked with tan. More pics to come as the work progresses....

And that's it for now! **PHEW**!

My ALL-TIME favorite slippers

I made like 8 or 9 of these for gifts for Christmas and everyone seems to love them. They are felted slippers (a pattern by Fiber Trends). I recently made another pair... originally for myself but they may end up being a gift for someone else after all. Since I didn't take any pics of the ones I made for Christmas, I decided to post these. Here's a pic before the felting process...



For those of you who don't know, "felting" is a process in which a knitted item (knitted in 100 percent wool or other animal fiber) is agitated in hot water for a period of time until it has shrunk and "felted" to what you want the finished product to look like. It produces a fabric that is sturdy and a bit fuzzy. So, you knit what you want real big and then throw it in the wash (only using the agitating cycle) for a bit and WALAH... you've got a felted product! Here's the finished slippers...



These took me about 6-8 hours to knit and felt. And it's so worth it! It makes such a great gift! And they keep my feet nice and snuggly warm. Like I said, they are my ALL-TIME favorite slippers.

SOCKS!!

Ok, so I've attempted to knit socks before... twice. But I never got past a few inches of the cuff. I kept reading in these knitting books I got for Christmas that knitting socks is awesome and once you knit a pair, you're hooked, etc. So, I was DETERMINED to knit some socks. I bought some handpainted expensive sock yarn on etsy.com with some of my Christmas money, decided on a pattern and began. AND, I actually finished a pair!! Not only that, I found more yarn that I had started socks on awhile ago and finished ANOTHER pair! The only thing I have yet to master is to get the two socks to be the exact same size. I seem to have a problem with footwear and making one bigger than the other. But you can't really tell. Anyways, here's the socks I made in the handpainted yarn (using Size 2 DPN's... talk about tiny needles!)...




And on my feet...



And the sassy stripes socks (using Size 3 DPN's)...




So, yeah, I had fun making the socks. And, I will be making more in the future.... Ok, I'll say it... I'm hooked.