Lemon Aid Stand

This is my g'son's Lemon Aid Stand. He set it up over the weekend & made $12 with it. He was so proud of himself & had so much fun. We don't live on a very busy street, but he did get some traffic & everyone was more than willing to stop & buy his Lemon Aid. The neighbors came over too, so he was very pleased with the project. 

I am going to start on a new box of scrappies. I promised not to buy anymore yarn until I have used up what I have, but it is sooo  tempting. I love to go look at all the beautiful colors & am thinking of making some baby clothes for the women's shelter as they said that they need them. 

I like to use Andino for my summer baby clothes & Trenzado for my winter baby clothes. I have plenty of both. When I buy yarn I buy in bulk. I know that no matter what color it is I will find a project for it so buy lots of different colors. I buy in quantities of 6 cones of each color, as that seems to work out the best. 

I was reading Mary Ann's Oger's blog, & she cautioned against buying yarn just for the sake of buying it. I am afraid that is a habit that I have fallen into. Over the years I have gotten more yarn than I can possibly use, but I love every cone or hank completely!! I always thought of that as a good habit, but can see now it might not be. I still have a full bin of Bramwell & they have been off the market for a while.

Mary Ann also cautioned against buying too many machines. I have 5 machines. 2 of them haven't been used for a year, my longbed(great for making baby blankets) & My Brother 270 bulky. Last time I used that was over a year ago when I made Diana Sullivan's Slippers. I have 3 Standard gauge machines set up & am thinking of taking down 2 of them, & the bulky if I can force myself to do it. LOL 

 While making scrappies I have been using up all the partial cones & hanks first, then will start on the full cones etc. I have barely made a dent in it. I am using mostly the worsted weight yarn first because I have so much. Then I will start on the lighter weight yarns. 

Smaller Size Sweaters for the Shelter

Here are several sweaters in the smaller sizes for the Women's Shelter. Right now I am working on some larger sizes. Even tho summer is just around the corner, we don't always have warm weather here. Sometimes it rains all summer long!! So sweaters are still useful esp. in the evenings & nights. If the yarn I am using is thin enough I like to embroider designs on them because the kids love that so much. & the brighter the colors the more they like them. I get lots of cute embroidery designs from Artistic Thread Works & it's just $19.95 for 90 days subscription. You can download as many designs as you choose. Take a look!!

I have Wendy Phillips book of designs for children & am going to make some fairisle sweaters using her books. They are out of print now but you can still find them at the auction sites etc.

Another "Scrappie" (made from scraps) Sweater for Charity

This charity sweater is made from scraps, odds & ends of skeins that I used for different projects. I wanted to stripe the sleeve too but ran out of one of the blues so made them a solid green instead. This is made from Red Heart SuperSaver worsted weight yarn knit with my Silver Reed, SK 860. It is a size 4 & will fit a pre-schooler. The sweater is a raglan sleeve crew neck pullover, designed by KnitWare that is hip length to cover the whole torso. My Scrappies look as good as my family sweaters & I do make scrappies for my neices & nephews kids too. I am very pleased with the way this sweater turned out. 

I have had several orders come in so will be knitting them for the next few days. Then, back to my "Scrappies."    

Toddler Sweater for Women's Shelter

This sweater was designed with KnitWare as a crew neck, drop shoulder, hip length pullover, size 2 toddler sweater with grafted sleeves. I like to make my toddler & pre-schooler sweaters hip length so that there are not any cold tummies & the whole torso is covered. It has a comfortable fit so that it will go over clothes. Grafted sleeves mean that the sleeves were knit from the shoulder down. For grafted sleeves you should hang the drop shoulder area of the sweater on the machine with the purl side facing you. Bring the needles to holding position & close all the latches. Knit the first row carefully. Check to make sure it knitted correctly. Continue with the shaping & knit the sleeve. I made this sweater from 2 skeins of leftover Red Heart Soft Baby Sport weight yarn. The front & back are knitted with a light blue while the neckband & sleeves are knitted with a blue fleck yarn. I didn't have enough of either yarn to make a complete sweater but am very satisfied that I could use up these two leftover skeins of yarn to make a warm & pleasing to look at, toddler sweater. Some little kid will be thrilled with this new sweater & it will keep him warm too!! I wish the pictures could do the sweater justice but they are never as good as I would like. Alas, I am no photographer, but do my best.

This is the first sweater that I made to carry out my New Year's Resolution to knit up my stash & odds & ends. I am going through it & finding the bits that aren't enough for a whole sweater, but that can be matched up with other leftovers to make a cute & wearable garment. I had hoped to have more done with my stash but my store has been really busy so haven't had the time to knit more of it up.     

This is a sweater that I made for the women's shelter here in town. It is a childs size 12 & made from Red Heart Super Saver. I make sweaters size 2-12 for the shelter & also make baby clothes for them. Here in Western Washington it is cool most of the time so we have the ideal climate for sweaters. This was knit on my Silver Reed SK860. It is a raglan sleeve with a shaped neck & flat back. I make a lot of the raglan sleeve sweaters for the women's shelter as I like to make them different color stripes so they will be more interesting to the children. This sweater was also designed with the 'KnitWare' program.