back tack practice

With Back Tack three officially underway, I decided that a little practice was in order - so i made this little lady. K. is so excited about the kitty, she wasn't completely sewed up before he went down for his nap, but i promised him that when he woke up she would be ready to play with. And so she is. she is also a 'use what you have' project as everything is from my various stashes.


Things will change a bit for my final project. i have some fabric ideas and ideas about this pattern that i think i will explore.

In other news - outdoor climbing season is upon us again. here are some shots from Friday's beautiful morning. We were the only folks out there, just us and this garter snake(he's much smaller than this picture suggests, i used the macro setting):


Here's a shot from the top of our local crag, no leaves out yet but the buds are breaking and the first spring flowers are beginning to emerge:

One Skein Baby Hat and Soapmaking

Here is my first FO from the One Skein book. It's the little baby hat done in newborn size, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, size 3.5mm needles. It's quite sweet. The detailed bits remind me of seashells, this would be nice in a pale peach or ice blue color - but as it's 'use what you have' month, I used this puce color from my stash. It only took about .333 of the skein. Any ideas what to do with the rest of the skein?

Knitting on the tiny needles was a bit fiddly, but overall went quickly.
tonight's project is a pot of soap. see above, that's what a pot of soap just getting started looks like. lumpy and fatty. i'm making Lemint soap tonight per my husband's request. That's Lemon-Mint soap to the rest of the world.

Back Tack III

I got into Back Tack 3! Signups were last week and they were only taking the first 100 people who emailed. Back Tack II looked so cool, and I watched as people put together these incredible projects and shared them around the world. How could I not want to participate in that?

There are somewhat rigorous guidelines, which I think will make it much more fun. I don't think I want to do the Wee Bunny, but the Wee Kitty might be an option or there are some cool knitted patterns. i think i want to combine sewing and knitting somehow, and i have some ideas in my head. with a good enough start i should be able to flesh them out.

I'm sending to Priscilla. Who has a nifty looking blog and looks to be very talented with the needles.

Amapolola - who seems to be very interested in birding, will be sending to me. She has some lovely stuffies on her blog.

On my needles is the wee baby hat from this book:
it's coming out much nicer than the ones in their picture. I'm using Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and tiny little needles. Should be done later tonight, so come back for more pics later this week.

At first I wasn't thrilled with this book, but it wasn't that expensive and there are several projects that I think I want to do as well as some cable projects that I'd like to try my hand at. The patterns aren't necessarily 'easy', which I like so actually it's probably a good book for my current knitting status. I want to do the cable footies, love the cable hat and the baby bolero. I have some of the organic cotton that they specify and know of a new baby about to be born, so that might be next.

mandy

whip up

There's this crafty competition underway, Whip Up, which seems really cool and just started last week. I wasn't able to participate due to being gone for the weekend, but i hope to be able to contribute in future weeks.

Last weeks theme was 'Everyday Creativity'. It's interesting to see how widely that is interpreted. Some of the entries are really cool. Check out my favorites:

Knitted coffee cup cozy
Egg Planter Buddies
origami vultures - a nice diversion from the normal sort of origami

wee bunnies

done in time for easter! when i saw this pattern at Wee Wonderfuls - i knew that I had to make a few for our first easter decorations. (not our first easter, merely the first time i felt inspired to decorate.)

The smirking yellow guy is made from Marimekko fabric and a flannel receiving blanket that I had on hand. Mr. Pink & Blue comes from some fabric that I traded some of my yarn stash for. It was a great trade, this mama has good taste in fabric. I want to do one of the Wee Kitties with some vintage fabric from another trade.

K the knitted bear

Meet K the Knitted bear, he gains sustanence from being squished as hard as possible. luckily i think we found the right family for him. between the squishes, shakes and squiggles and being continuously tucked in for naps - i think he'll be very happy here.

Thanks to Jess Hutch for her book of knitted creature patterns. I used knitpicks Wool of the Andes for this guy, but I would recommend something with a bit more loft and fuzz so you have less stuffing showing through.

I'm currently trying to collect some fabrics to make K a nice bear quilt for all of his naps, so if anyone out there in blogland would be interested in a trade for soaps or yarn or Vermont goodies - drop me an email.

mandy

mandywisell @ hotmail.com

Child's Placket Sweater from the book Last Minute Knitted Gifts.
Yarn - Cherry Tree Hill Potluck Worsted (1 skein)
Size - i'm guessing probably 18 months.

This is for a good friend who is having a baby shortly. I wanted to do a sweater, and thought that something for when she is a smidge older would be fun. The pattern was great (I used the corrected pattern available online), super easy to follow, well written, and a pretty darn fast knit. I'm very happy with how this came out.

Mandy

works in progress

here is henry the bear from Jess Hutch's book of knitted toys. only he won't be a henry, he'll be called something with a K. I've been working on him for months and i don't know why i just don't finish. it's truly a quick knit. currently i'm avoiding doing the mouth and nose embroidery.





here's my current project, the one i'm really trying to finish. a scarf from ScarfStyle out of the handpainted alpaca that i picked up at the wool festival last fall. the pattern is easy to remember and it repeats in groups of four, so it's easy to pick up and put down again.




okay, got to go and get a boy dressed to play outside in the cold, cold snow.

Here's another little baby hat, this one for little Lucy. I don't get to knit for little girls very often, so it was a treat and meant i had to go to the yarn store and get all new colors. It was much too big at first, but her mother just flipped up the brim so it fit better. Now she's grown and put a few pounds on, the brim and earflaps came down and hopefully it'll work all through the winter.

ps - i got a note from one of my customers and she loves the new labels. Yay!

m.

knitting baby hats

though i haven't had the chance to do much knitting, a few little baby hats have been completed. it seems like new babies are arriving all the time. the baby hat is a very satifsfying project. quick to complete, mainly due to size, and you can really have fun with pom poms and tassles and so forth. lately i've been using the hat pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, though making it a bit smaller so that the babies can wear it earlier. but really baby hats are super simple, and the need for any actual pattern is negligable.

other news, i changed the packaging on my soaps. i think they look really nice and it's certainly easier for me to do. i just stocked the store with all the soaps that we were making in december, i hope i get some feedback on the new labels.



just so you know, George and i are sharing this blogger account and now my blog will show as signed by George. but it's still me.

m.

taking advantage

i have the rare luxury of a week off of my office job, and K. is keeping his daycare schedule so that i can do some work on my soap biz, start getting up to speed on the bike biz and just get some outside time before i start working full time.

yesterday we hiked the pinnacle in Stowe, it's part of the Worchester Range that runs behind our house and, unbelievable as it is, this was actually the first time that we've done this trail. It's only 1.6 miles to the top, but like most trails here it goes straight up.

View from the top of Camel's Hump.




10 year old Dagget running like a puppy.

see previous post for links and details

more holiday merhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

thanks to Keri Smith for her Portable Tree. I just put together a fun little package for some friends, including markers, scissors and glue so that they can trim-a-tree wherever they are this holiday. and it's recylable.

i've been busy working on another French Market Bag for my mom. I'm going to put in some soft yarn and big needles and a little 'learn to knit' book, as I think she's envious of my knitting.

some other friends are getting a matching set of Yoga Fart beer cozies from Evah Fan. Lovely, lovely stuff.

Lynn at Molly Chicken has been keeping me busy making ornaments for our tree. First these penquins. next up i'm going to have to make a couple of little trees. wish that i had lovely colors of wool felt like those. sigh.

Then i had to make a felt peppermint star, i did mine in red with white stitching and a green vintage button in the center. it's good, but maybe a little too country cute for our house and it might look extra fine on my mother's tree.

we have very few ornaments for our tree, and those that do are infinitely breakable so I love getting to be a little creative while making a pet/toddler safe tree.

cheesus rescues christmas

just in time for my maniacal holiday ideas - these nifty crafty recipe cards arrived from The Small Object. You can see that they immediately helped me figure out my crafty problem and outline the steps needed for this years Cheesus project. You see, around these parts we also try our very best to have a 'merry christass' and this involves cheesus who came on a rocket ship. if i get around to it, i'll post the whole christass story for you to read to your young 'uns on christass eve. in any case, after taking a few years off with the whole baby business, christass is back in a big way.

in a small way are all these mini-sweaters for the tree. i need hangers yet, but these will be great, unbreakable ornaments for our pretty bare holiday tree.

holidaze

It's not even December yet, but already I'm getting stoked for Christmas. It helps that my I'm shipping out tons holiday orders for my little business. It certainly helps that we've had several snow storms already, blanketing the area and taking the edge off of stick season. But the biggest factor is my little boy who, though only two years old, seems to firmly grasp the idea that he's going to get presents. He's so excited by the lights and random Santa sightings that I can't help but get excited with him.

Out of Last Minute Knitted Gifts I made this little stocking
Red Heart 100% acrylic. It's the first time I've ever knitted in acrylic, can't say I like it but the price was right and it was available at my local five and dime store. It's also the first sock that I've ever knitted. I'm going to do a couple for ornaments and other fun things.

Inspired by the mini stocking, I purchased Holiday Knits today from my local, independantly owned bookstore ($7 more expensive than on ebay including shipping, but I didn't feel like waiting.) There's several things that I'd like to make, but most important are stockings for the family. In fact, after I bought the book I bought a stocking stuffer for G. Nevermind we don't have any money for holiday shopping due to the whole job fiasco, I was just in the spirit. So if anyone wants to do a trade this month, just drop me a line. Money is tight, but I've got some great soaps and stuff :)

finished objects

i finished another pair of mitts for the warm hands knit-a-long. this pair is for me because i deserve to have warm hands. the pattern is the same pattern that i used for the toddler mittens, only expanded for my mom-size hands. the yarn is 2-ply Sweet Grass targhee from Bee's Knees Knitting. She has a great selection of handpainted yarns and great prices on
Cherry Tree Hill potluck. Excellent communication and my order was shipped very promptly.

The missing vintage button collection appeared today - just where i had expected it to be, but couldn't be found two weeks ago. So, Spherey from Jess Hutch's collection of knitted toys, who i call Quadrapussy, finally has his little eyeballs and all is right with the world.



sorry about the dark pictures, seems that the only chance i have to blog is 11 o'clock at night when light is a little scarce in these parts.

In personal news, my knee which was toasted during the marathon is finally showing signs of recovery. Today I would say that i was 99% pain free, which is a huge difference from this weekend. It's so bizarre that three weeks ago I ran a marathon, and since then i've barely been able to walk to the mail box. Climbing is the only exercise that feels okay right now, which is fine because i need lots of practice.

the people that you meet

i 'meet' the nicest people through my little business hug-a-dub-dub. recently i had a customer who wasn't quite certain what flavor she wanted for the Baby Wash and so using her preferences I created Creamsicle - only the best essential oil blend ever concocted. anyway, this wonderful mom and i have had a few lovely email exchanges and she posted a fabulous rave over at her blog which has resulted in some fabulous orders. Yay!



moonrise over the mountains behind our house - because i love posts with photos.

Warm Hands

Inspired by the warm hands knit-a-long - here are my newest FOs so that my little guy can have warm hands. After exhustive mitten pattern research I ended up using one that someone posted for free on her blog. I'll add it if I can find the link again. It was a top down pattern for toddlers, quick and easy. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Potluck worsted leftover from a previous project. However, I ran out of yarn in the cuff of the second mitt, hence the subtle length difference. Thumbs were done is another color of CTH potluck - i love the stuff.

They're too long and a little airy, so into the washer they went and I'm trying to felt them into the perfect little pair. Though I'm not going to put too much effort into them as kids and mittens are easily parted.

It was a quiet weekend, the first in a long string of weekends with nothing planned. A bit depressing actually. I need something big to hold my attention and keep me excited but due to job situations and the time of year there isn't much going on. It's hard to change gears from G. traveling all the time to him being home all the time. And from long training runs for the marathon every weekend, to physical therapy to get my knee working again without pain. tomorrow - off to Boston for two days of meetings and then a super-secret interview (shhhhhh!)

a cold november rain

Want to see something fun? Here is Quadrapussy from Jess Hutch's new booklet of knitted toys. He's knitted out of a merino-possum blend a friend brought me back from NZ and still needs official eyes, but my collection of vintage buttons has gone missing!

it's about 33 degrees outside and pouring down rain. true vermont november weather if i've ever seen it. it's not all doom and gloom, here's a shot of the sky the other night, so gorgeous. You can see Camel's Hump in these photos, my favorite mountain in the whole wide world. it's always looking out for me. In the first photo you can see our neighborhood Elm tree. So stately and handsome, how i wish Dutch Elm Disease had never come to the states.



i'm at home alone on this cold, rainy night. G. is at band practice. a new batch of coffee soap has been carefully crafted and is setting in the special place, waiting to harden up. the shop has been updated with new soaps and scents, so take a look - link is to the right.

if it's not one thing...

here's the other. the morning of the day that G. found out he no longer had a job he booked tickets for a trip to Switzerland. You see, he had a meeting the week before Christmas that was going to take place at a resort in the Alps. So what better opportunity would there be for me to go along and do a little snowboarding at Saas Fee. Because we have a little boy and need to be organized, we were finalizing all the details in a timely manner. that afternoon he found out that he wouldn't be attending that meeting because he no longer was employed. he told me that he didn't actually book the tickets, but alas it appears he did and now we have to pay nearly $700 for my ticket for a trip that it doesn't look like we'll get to take.

hmmmm. seems to me that if i have a ticket to CH that has to be paid for, that I should go to CH. if my ticket was non-refundable, than G's ticket should also be non-refundable. which says to me that we should just go. stay with friends or in a hostel. but just travel and live a little.

because i hate blog entries without pictures, here's one for you:


and to prove that i ran a marathon