More UFO"s

This is another UFO. I was making it for my son. It was going to be a V neck cardigan. It has been sitting around in my UFO box for a couple of years. My son is now living in a much warmer climate so I thought I would make it into a crew neck cardigan for me. It is a 'cut & sew' so changing the neck is not a problem. It looks grayer in the picture than it actually is. It is more of a warm brown. I am going to knit some pockets for it & use snaps for the front. It will be for causal wear. It was knitted on the GC. I only need to cut the neck & graft on the front & neck bands. Right now all the pieces are on waste yarn. 

Checking my UFO box I have a dozen or so projects that I haven't finished. I don't know why sometimes I lose interest in a project & forget about it for ever almost. One knitter suggested that it may be because the project is not going well, & so is abandon. I am determined to get them all finished by the end of the year. 

My Craft Room

 These are pictures of my craft room. They show my yarn trees (2), & my heat press for my tee shirts. My sewing table & serger thread rack & some of my shelves + the little red cabinet that I keep my bobbins, needles etc. in. Everything is very crowded as the room, which used to be my DD, is only 10.5 x 10.5 feet. I manage to get almost everything I need in there. (When I make a vac cover I use my kitchen table to cut out the pattern.) You can see my SR SK860 mid gauge machine but my longbed machine is behind the yarn trees. I have to move them to get to it. Everything is crammed in. I don't think there is an inch of space that I haven't found a use for. 

I have had a couple of orders for longies, but the season is starting out slow. I did so well this summer I am hoping that winter will be as productive. I am working on an order for sweaters right now. I had an order come in today for a longies so will get that out ASAP. Also, another pair of shorties. 

This is Winnipher. She is about 7 now. She is my sponsored child & lives in the Dominican Republic. She is my 3rd sponsored child. The children age out of the program at about 18-19. She writes me several letters a year & I always write her back. She tells me about her likes & dislikes, & her family etc. 

Once they age out of the program you never know what happens to them. We are cautioned not to send our address to the children, but it would be wonderful if I were able to correspond with the girls that I sponsored when they were little. I know it sounds silly, but I worry about them after they age out. But, there is always another child to help. 

  

Winter is Around the Corner

Warm Hats

Here is a hat that I knitted on the 'Knifty Knitter Looms' for this winter. When I knit hats on the looms I always knit a brim for the hat. I just don't like the rolled hems. Putting a brim on the hat makes all the difference in how warm the hat is. I buy the chunky yarn, usually from 'Discount Yarns' as I like to buy lots of yarn all at once & they have reasonable shipping charges. When I am not sewing up covers for my store I am knitting the hats for gifts. These hats, knitted with a brim are the warmest hats you will ever have.

To knit a hat like this use chunky yarn with at least some wool content.  32 rows for the brim, then another 30 rows for the the hat. I always use machine washable wool as NO ONE likes to get a hat that needs to be hand washed. (found that out the hard way.) They wind up going into the machine & coming out a felted baby doll hat. 

Shelves

I did put up some shelves to store my machines when I am not using them. It holds my sewing machine, embroidery machine, serger, linker & my EC-1 controller. Also, the top shelves hold my wool care products for my covers & also some machine knitting products.  That little wooden thing on the top shelf with the pegs sticking out is my Pom Pom maker. I have 2 of them. 

Storing the machines vertically saves lots of room. My craft room is small so saving space this way is a big help in keeping the room organized. 

BTW:this used to be my DD room. That explains the pink walls. 

My Store

I am already getting orders for this winter. Longies & footies are what sells for this season. My summer was so busy this year I only managed to send 2 pair of mittens to A4A. Also, did minimal scrappies for the 'Friendship House'. I did get several of the lighter weight scrappies in the sport weight yarn. Right now I have orders for 4 sweaters, 2 longies, 1 shortie & 1 pullon. I sent out 2 orders this morning. This has been my best season since the recession hit 3 years ago. ;-)

A Little of This & That

Here is a GC sweater that I knitted up while working on my orders. It is a drop shoulder with a 'cut & sew' neck, & grafted neckband. The sleeves are half length. It is made from Trenzado & turned out very nice. I like my sweaters long so this is hip length to fit down over my waist. I like the half sleeves because they don't get in the way when I'm knitting on the machine. Perfect fit to wear with a pair of jeans with the cooler weather that we have here in the Pacific Northwest.

Terminology 

While reading another blog I was surprised to learn that MK terminology should be used exclusively for MK. I read this blog religiously & am impressed by the expertise of the blogger when it comes to MK. After thinking about it for a few minutes I realized that I use some HK & MK terminology interchangeably. The issue she had was that 'bind off' is for HK & 'cast off'  is for MK. I have seen 'bind off' used in MK pattern books as well as Manuals. I think that some terms can be used for either craft, like cast on etc. Do you use the terms for either craft??

Word Verification

I have turned off 'word verification' on my blog several weeks ago. So far it hasn't been a problem except for the first few weeks when I was getting all kinds of spam. I think for someone that gets lots more hits than I do it might be a problem tho. 

My Little Customers

I have been so busy this summer with my store & volunteering that I have not had time to do much of the things I enjoy. Posting on my blog is one. I do have alot of fun with my blog, but since I haven't had the time to do much personal knitting I thought I would introduce you to some of my little customers, all in shorties for the summer, & one little skirtie. Mom's send me these pictures & I love getting them. I love to see happy babies smiling, wearing their diaper covers. Pretty soon I can expect the longies to start selling. 

BTW:my goldfish has survived but still does not look well. I told my g'son that we might get ready for him to pass away. My g'son is very sad. The fish is 12. I don't know what the life span is for goldfish & I never expected him to live this long. 

Work Work Work!!!

I have been so busy with my store this summer that I haven't had the time to finish up very many UFO's although I did get a couple of them finished. 

This is the green GC sweater with the mis-patterned sleeve. Diana Sullivan gave me an excellent technique to fix this by removing the mis-patterned section & grafting on a newly knitted corrected piece. I knitted a piece to graft on & then removed the mis-patterned part by knitting on some waste yarn at the place that I wanted to separate the sleeve. Then I carefully removed the row below the waste yarn. I took the new piece on waste yarn & grafted it onto the sleeve. All was going sooo well until I turned over the sleeve & realized that I had knit an extra row, an easy mistake to make on your first try. I tried to pick it out but I had pulled out some of the waste yarn & only succeeded in making a big mess, so wound up re-knitting the sleeve. I was just in too much of a hurry I think. However....this is an excellent technique & I have added it to my bag of tricks & will try it again at the first opportunity. When I do I am going to take some pictures. If I had gotten the rows correct this would have worked out so great. An easy fix. Thx Diana. 

This is a scrappie for the Friendship House. It is made from Red Heart Sport weight yarn that I bought several years ago with the idea of crocheting Christmas Stocking to sell on my store. I made a few & gave them away to family & friends for their fireplaces. That left me with quite a bit of the RH sport as you all know, when I buy yarn I buy in quantity. I decided that some light weight sweaters for the shelter would be a good thing. I have more red, green, orange, & yellow so am going to use it for that. It knits up very well on my SR SK860  at tension 3. 

I am making a shortie for my store almost every day. With everyone having sooo many HOT days they are selling faster than I can keep up with. I am having lots of fun with them & trying out some new color combinations etc. 

Hope all had a happy 4th!!!

Afghans 4 Afghans Mittens.

I haven't gotten much done with the UFO's. I have had so many orders come in the last 2 weeks I haven't been able to do anything but knit them up & ship. I have been working on UFO's  when I have the chance though. 

I did get a swatch done for my tuck stitch mittens that I am making for the A4A program. They have to go out sometime this month so I had better get busy. I am only doing 4-5 pair of the larger sizes. I like making the larger sizes. It seems they get lots of the smaller sizes & not so many of the large. 

Also, I have been looking for intarsia pattern books & found a good one on Ebay. It is for hand knitters but has lots of simple graphs in it. They can be applied to any sweater & they are printed in small, 19sts x 26 rows, & larger sizes, 40sts x 52 rows. The graphs are small so I am scanning them & printing them larger so they are a little easier to follow. & I am still keeping my eye out for small easy patterns for children. 

There is a new group on facebook. It's called 'Machine Knitting Friends'. Join in!!