still knitting.. (^_^)

 Christmas is over and I'm still finishing up a few little knitted items. For my coworkers I have been making some little cup cozies and I have a couple more to finish. I plan to finish these today and tomorrow. The last of the Christmas knitting is off the needles and blocking. I really could have finished this cowl before Christmas. I had plenty of time after work but I was tired and just kind of zoned out instead of knitting. Anyway it's finished now, all washed and drying. I'm not going to mail it right away because I decided to make a couple hats to send along with it. Might as well since this is late anyway. As of today I have nothing on my needles but will remedy that in about an hour. We are all going out to look for a long needed new couch. I'm so excited!! And of course I will have my "bring along knitting" with me.

 I think this is my favorite Christmas present so far. It's a mouse pad with Micah and Jayden's picture. I get to see them all day long now.

Here is the Cabled cowl. The pattern is from Lion Brand and they yarn is Knitpicks wool of the Andes tweed. A nice combo for a guy. This is a really fun pattern and I want to make it again with just a natural color yarn. To me cables always look the best in the natural color.

Christmas eve

 I think this is just about finished. I has taken me the longest of all my projects. Probably because I was working on this in between all my other projects. I just needs about 2" of ribbing and it will be complete. There is always knitting on Christmas Eve. It's a tradition haha.

 My little Needle Gnome is complete and has already been given away. These were so easy and so cute I think you will be seeing a lot more of these in the future. I made it for the shorter wooden needles. I think I need one of these too. I saw these on ravelry but for small double pointed needles and I had wanted to make it as a gift but it calls for fingering yarn and all the fingering yarn I have is for socks and washable. The only felting yarn I had in my stash was worsted weight yarn. So I made it bigger and I made it on my knitting machine .. faster.

 More quick knitting machine gifts. These little cup holders went to my managers at work. I still have one more to make.

 The gifts are already arriving. Maybe this one fell off Santa's sleigh. We are going to have pancakes for Christmas breakfast!! I leave off with saying I wish you all a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas day full of all things wonderful. Off to finish some quick last minute gifts to be wrapped up tonight and slipped under the tree. (^_^)

last minute gifts

 Whipped up some last minute gifts on the knitting machine. I made another Stiller infinity scarf in a different color scheme this one is called regatta. The only thing I did different is to use 2 skeins of yarn this time. There is just a little left over because of where I ended the pattern. 

 This little fellow was whipped up on the knitting machine in a couple of hours before work yesterday. Last night after work I felted him and was pleased with how he turned out. I will tell the rest of this story in the next post with finished pictures tomorrow.

one more gift

 One more gift completed last night. Time is running out for knitted items. I have one more gift still on the needles and a couple more to make on the knitting machine and that will probably be all I have time for. Some time between knitting and work I need to get my tree up. Today is my first day off in 5 days and I'm kinda pooped. I got my house work and laundry out of the way first thing this morning and will start washing all the hand knits and laying them out over night to dry. There is quite a pile. Once dry each will be put in a gift box and wrapped. All will be sorted and put into shipping boxes to be sent out by Monday. Well that's my plan anyway.

The Pac Man hat is for someone that is hard to make or purchase gifts for. There are a few of those on my list. Not sure how this was going to turn out I was relieved after I finished knitting the little red ghosts. Now I want one too haha. In fact everyone that sees it wants one. I got the pattern free on ravelry. I believe it's written in French. I used the google translator which doesn't translate knitting terms  very well so there is a lot of guessing involved, but there is a chart which is basically what I followed. I used acrylic yarn because the person I'm making this gift for like to put stuff in the washer and dry.. Yikes.. so the yarn I used is Lion Brand Vanna's choice on a size US 7 needle. I think the sizing is perfect. Hope he likes it.

check.. Finished Christmas knitting!!

 The first picture is of all the kiddy knits that I have finished so far. From left to right.. Hooded poncho, Kitty scarf, Wild thing hoodie, Batman hat and Brobee hoodie.

As far as adult knits (I still have more to finish!) first is the Entrelac infinity scarf and cable hat, Machine knit lace alpaca scarf, little foxy scarf, ( that's a present to myself) Stiller infinity scarf and Elf cobbler wrist warmers. All the girl stuff is done and I'm still working on all the boys stuff. The boys seem to be more picky than the girls this year making it harder to pick out stuff to knit for them or even to buy for them.

 The elf cobbler mitts are really cute. I put the final touches on them last night and I like them in the Lion Brand Amazing. I like to wash and lightly wet block all my knittied items and I think they will look nicer after that. I will definitely make them again probably after the holidays. 

Okay... I have been fighting with this sweater and hat ever since I started it. Not so much the sweater but the hat. I knit the sweater on the machine and did all the finishing, and then knitted the hat by hand. I had to rip the hat out once because I didn't like how it looked and went up a needle size.. then I didn't like how the bottom neck ribbing turned out and didn't know what to do with it. Finally I ripped out the bottom ribbing and re-knit it and then grafted it to the sweater. That was a project in it's self.. but it's finally finished and not too bad looking. It felt like some kind of Frankenstein sweater with all the grafting..kind of looks that way to me too. This will be for a 3 year old. Next I have to knit the little fuzzy tail which I will work on in a few minutes. Gezz only a couple weeks left for knitting.. !!

foxy scarf

A quick update before work. The little Foxy scarf is finished. What can I say.. I love it and can't wait for cooler weather to be able to wear it. My Christmas knit to myself!! This has a little bit of everything. A crocheted head and machine knit body and legs. I lightly stuffed the head. It is knit in a soft merino wool that my son left behind when he moved to Washington state.

The Wild thing sweater is basically finished. I need to sew in the zipper. It was a quick sweater but I don't really like the shape of the sleeves. What I do like about it is the garter rib.. very nice.

This weird looking thing will be a little separate hood with ears to go with the Wild Thing sweater. Getting in a few rows before work and hope to finish this tonight. 
That's all for now. (^_^)