Twins!

No, not me!  Not even anyone I know!  It's my new "Twins & Siblings" line of hats.  Usually I'm working from limited supplies of a particular yarn, due to getting it at close outs, thrift stores, vintage items, ripped out commercial sweaters, etc.  So, when I get a larger batch of yarn, I'm now going to make several same sized, but slightly different hats, along with a couple larger size ones.

The first of the line is in Bernat "Mosaic".  I love this yarn.  It's 100% acrylic, but has a rustic look, similar to Noro yarns.  Subtle shading, instead of distinct variegation.

 However, the hats all took about the same amount of yarn, and turned out quite similar.  I made the top left one, then the bottom left...finishes with the brim in orange, and then move to the top, 2nd from the left and it's orange to start at the top again.  There's two different stitch patterns used, I thought that would mix it up a little, but no....for my next batch of Mosaic hats, I need to make them really different patterns, or just scrap some yarn so they don't start at the same point in the colourway.  I bought this yarn, 3 or 4 balls in a bag, for $10--however, they had only two colourways, both boy-ish (bought them both). (One hat apparently missed this photo shoot!)

 This bunch of hats is in the grey yarn that i used for the Hershey Kiss outfit and layering blanket.  Still have quite a bit left.  The left and middle hats are newborn size, and of course the flower could be taken off to make the left one a boy hat.  The one on the right is the same design as the middle one, but a toddler size.  I think the flowers should have been on both these hats, and not the one on the left.

These hat patterns are all from poshpatterns.com  I did have to alter this one since the top portion just didn't come out right, so I used the same pattern/stitch numbers as the other newsboy cap.

Yarn In:  6437gr
Yarn Out:  230gr + 3677gr = 3907gr
Balance:  2530gr more brought IN than out
Costs:  $173.75/133 days = $1.31/day

Bear!

Every time I make this bear, I don't want to give him away.  One of these days I'll have to make one just for myself. 

 I like to knit all the pieces first, and then stuff them.  It doesn't look like much, all jumbled in a pile!

 Now you can get a better idea of his size!  He's made from Sirdar "Eternity", a nice, multi-fiber yarn that I've had forever.

 Ever get jealous looking at the great photos on other knitter's sites, or on photographer's sites?  My dog, Skippy, thinks it's his job to personally inspect every thing I take a picture of!

 Don't you just melt, looking at those little eye and nose?

Like my new watermark?  Now that I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Flickr, Weebly....got to protect myself LOL.  My daughter insisted I get an Instagram and Twitter account, don't expect frequent updates from me :)  I do want to focus on Pinterest a bit more.  The Weebly site is just to have a website presence other than the mass-media social sites.  I post a lot on my Facebook page though, so come check me out there too!

Yarn In:  6437gr
Yarn Out:  95gr + 3677gr = 3772gr
Balance:  2665gr
Costs:  $173.75/126 days = $1.38 per day

A Bigger Dent

I am donating a bagful of yarn to a mother on our School Community Council (Ontario's version of PTA); she makes afghans for cancer treatment centres (or donates the yarn to the baskets in the waiting room).  She's also getting a bag of "milk bags".  Here in Ontario, milk is sold in three pouches, together in one larger bag.  The outer bags are collected, cut into strips, and crocheted into plastic sleep mats for developing countries.  The plastic yarn is sometimes called "plarn".

Off to a new home is 700gr of Olive "Decor", 394gr of baby blue Berella 4, 81gr of green Berella 4, 174gr of green Zeller's yarn, 50gr of blue Zeller's Sayelle, and 580gr of bulky peach Canadiana.  Only the "Decor" is yarn I've bought myself.  The peach Canadiana is left over from the sweater that was found in my aunt's stuff after she died, with a partially knit sweater that I finished off for my mom.  Great sweater, except my mom is rarely cold enough to need a sweater LOL.  It feels nice to pass on some yarn, though I don't notice any difference in my yarn collection LOL!!  And seeing my totals below...I'm giving away more yarn that what I've used this year?!  What am I doing with my time?!  Oh, I do have a few projects to show, so it might even out.

Yarn In:  6437gr
Yarn Out: 1979gr (donation) + 1698gr = 3677gr
Balance:  2760gr more brought IN than out
Costs:  $173.75/121 days = $1.44 per day

A Little Dent

Life is busy, what else can I say...except also that the kids keep using up our internet usage amount before we get to the end of the billing cycle, so we have to go on an internet diet, or else go to the library (or the Home Depot parking lot--did you know they have free wi-fi?).
I think I've mentioned before about Dawn, and Hourglass Imaging.  She's the one who ordered the green Epic hat (along with a pink one I haven't shown yet), and the striped crochet earflap newborn hat that I showed on an Angry Birds stuffie.  She's been doing a bit of design/branding work for me, so she can show it on her website.  It's so exciting.  TracyKM Designs is going to have a new look!  Anyway, as a thank you, I thought I'd use up the rest of the yarn from the striped hat, and make a "matching but different" hat, more summery, and also nice for twins.

Not much to show, without an adorable baby wearing it!  I've been using black for my backgrounds lately.  I didn't think I'd like it, and it started by accident (more on that in the next post or two), but I do!
This hat, though, took only 26gr of yarn (of course, that means if you buy a 50gr ball of yarn, you can't crochet two the same...you could knit one, and crochet one though).  This barely makes a dent in my stash!!  I'm so bummed, I'm not even going to tell you about the two spools(?) of #10 thread I bought to crochet daffodils for next April.

Yarn In:  6437gr
Yarn Out:  1672gr + 26gr = 1698gr
Balance:  4739 gr more brought IN than out
Costs:  $173.75/116 days = $1.50/day

I Found It!

I have expressed my love-hate relationship with crochet.  I love the quickness, the way it can blend tricky variegated yarns, etc.  I hate the lack of standardization in patterns, books with not enough pictures, or just plain lacking the info I need.  I recently got a crochet book by the author of some very popular knitting books.  I really liked her knitting books, so I thought it would be a good crochet book.  Instead, I was told I was holding the hook the "wrong" way and must hold it the other way.  There were no photos, only b&w drawings.  I was trying to do a flat circle, and couldn't find info on when you join the round, where do you start the next round...

Last night I was at the library to learn about geo-caching.  We weren't going to go into the books, but Lucy needed some.  I wasn't going to go upstairs...but the book she wanted was up there.  Since I was up there, I might as well look at the books!  It's hard to pick a couple while keeping tabs on the family, but I grabbed one that had lots of photos.

"Crochet, Step by Step" by Sally Harding.  This is the perfect book (for me).  To start with, she shows two ways to hold the hook, and two ways to hold the yarn!  There are detailed photos, with writing on them to explain everything.  Simple yarns, simple photos, simple text.  Quite a few nice looking stitch patterns too, and i really like some of the edgings!  Of the patterns...I'm not a big fan of that part of the book.  The yarns are mostly Rowan, Sirdar, and Stylecraft, with a few common US substitutes listed.  The hats/baby sweater are not shown on humans, or even on wig heads.  The hats give size as "newborn", not as a measurement.  The section on sewing on buttons--the pictures show doing it on woven fabrics!  But I love that the hook sizes give the letter, number, and mm size!  Some of my hooks have one, but not the other.

I'm going to get started on one of the projects right now.  Although I need to get finishing that Teddy bear!!

A Little Redemption

Working on my favourite baby gift for a family member!

What is it?  You can't tell?  :(  LOL.

It's my favourite Jean Greenhowe teddy bear.  I'm using Sirdar Eternity, I've had it in my stash for a long, long time (possibly 10 years).  It's a neat yarn, a mix blend of wool and alpaca and other things, but really, it needs to be knit somewhat loose to let the texture and softness come through.  I made a hat with it, and it's okay, but certainly not windproof!  It's knit a little tight for this bear, and the bear's not as big as I was hoping.  I wish I had double stranded it.  I'm in the process of stuffing and sewing now, but I weighed him before starting, and it's a whooping 95grams.  Yes, it is much easier to bring yarn into the house than to get it out of the house!!

Can't Stop Myself!

Had to visit Value Village to shop for my husband's birthday.  Had to just "check out" the yarn section.  Only two bags of yarn came home with me, but they sure do add up!  As well, I found a sweater to unravel.

 Two balls of Beehive Shetland Chunky to make another slouchy Beehive hat.  It's darker than the picture, a sort of tweedy dark blue (105gr).  "Pow Wow Machine Washable Indian Type Yarn".  It's a thick, single ply, 20% wool yarn, 180gr; teal acrylic (Vanna's Choice?), apple green with glitter (possibly cotton), and fuzzy light grey (Sear's "Giselle" again maybe); 169gr; unlabelled brown that was in with the Classic Wool and I thought was also Classic Wool but doesn't look like it once I actually held it (131gr); Classic Wool (111gr).  The balls in front are from an Esprit sweater (548gr).

 For some reason, I'm really attracted to slightly textured sweaters with a metallic thread.  I'd like to find a more summery looking yarn though.  I'm also wondering if this one is gender-neutral.  I like it, and I think it could be newborn boyish....but I don't have a newborn boy so I'm not 100% sure. 

I lucked out with this sweater.  No weird collars, no button bands, no pockets, just as simple as it could be.  What was surprising though was that there were still knots in the yarn; I would have figured they'd be using cone yarn.  The cowl collar was a little odd...about two rows after the cast on there was a knot.  In the cowl itself, there were probably 4 knots.  For $7.99 and I bit of work, I think 548gr is a great deal!

See, it didn't look like a whole lot, but it's 1245gr!!  And since my finished total is only 1672 for the YEAR....I have knit up more than that, but it's not quite finished yet.  But we're talking a few hundred grams, not a few thousand, LOL.

Yarn In: 5192gr + 1245gr = 6437gr
Yarn Out:  1672gr
Balance:  4765gr more brought IN than out!
Costs:  $15.78 + $157.97 = $173.75/105 days = $1.65/day