Yarn Works

When Joseph and I finally get the kids down for the night, we veg out and watch shows on Netflix together for an hour or two, and sometimes late late into the night if we're watching a particularly riveting drama like Veronica Mars, before we head off to bed.

I'm not the kind of person who can just sit there and watch tv and do nothing else. I have to be doing something else with my hands. It often involves a late night snack like ice cream or candy or something else equally loaded with sugar, but since I've been on a stricter diabetic diet (more on that in another post), I can't mindlessly eat whatever whenever I watch tv. Fortunately, I have another habit that keeps my hands occupied while I watch tv: knitting and crocheting.

In the last two nights, I have finished two projects. One I've been working on for a couple weeks. The other was a spur of the moment project that only took a couple nights.

So, I've got this sweater that I made about four years ago when I was pregnant with Moses.

It's a lovely sweater. I love the color. I love the style. It's so cozy to wear on cool to cold evenings. I even embellished the original pattern a little bit to fit me. The sleeves were a little short, so I added cuffs that I can roll up. I also added belt loops and a belt (not pictured) so I could tie it closed when I needed to.

I get compliments all the time on it and people, unless they're also knitters, are flabbergasted when I tell them I made it. I'm really proud of it. It's one of my favorite articles of clothing.

However, after four years, it's getting a bit tattered. The left arm is snagged from where my purse had caught it:

It's also pilling like crazy:

I'm sure I could take a lint shaver to the pills, but that wouldn't take care of the snags at all. The yarn has also lost its sheen, so the sweater has become more dull over time.

While I didn't want to retire the sweater, I decided it was certainly time for a new one, so I started searching for patterns online. There are tons of free knit and crochet patterns online.

I found a pattern I liked, got my yarn, and got crackin'. It took me a few weeks to get this project done, but I'm really pleased with the result. Of course, I'm not very pleased that I got it done just as the weather is really warming up, but hopefully we'll have a few more cool days where I can wear it. It's supposed to rain next week.

I picked a neutral gray color this time, because the red didn't always go with what I was wearing underneath. This sweater was super easy. You basically knit a long rectangle, sew up the sleeves, pick up stitches around the opening with a circular needle, and knit a tube for about a foot and a half. This is opposed to regular patterns where you knit each piece and sew them together like you would with a sewing pattern.

It looks cute on me, too, but I can't take a non-tacky self portrait of myself. I'm sure you're all dying for belly shots, too, but we're all just going to have to wait till Joseph can take pictures of me on a day when I actually do my hair and makeup.

This jacket has no closures, so I'm thinking of crocheting a flower and sticking it on a pin so I can either close the jacket around my mid-section, or else leave the jacket open and pin it on the lapel.

The next project that I finished is for the kids.

Way back when I started blogging, one of my first posts was about a sandwich puppet I crocheted named Mokiko. Lately, Joseph has been adding a girl character into the Mokiko bedtime stories that Mokiko has a crush on. Joseph asked me to make a puppet of her, too.

I'd like to introduce you to Polly:

She is a neapolitan ice cream sandwich. Like Mokiko, she is improvised. Only my second improvised project ever (Mokiko being the first). She was much less complicated to put together than Mokiko, perhaps with the exception of the eyelids. I had no idea how I was going to do those, but I got them to work out just fine. I'm really pleased with how Polly turned out. She only took a few hours to put together.

I couldn't figure out how to do the eyelashes at first, but then it dawned on me, Duh! Just go get some falsies. I think I'm going to replace them with a thicker, longer, more robust pair than what she's got now, though.

As my knit and crochet skills increase, I feel more confident in my abilities to make up my own patterns. It's about time, right? I mean, I learned how to knit when I was 11 and how to crochet when I was 19. Dang! I've been knitting for 20 years? Okay, there was a long time between the ages of 11 and 19 when I didn't pick up a pair of needles, but still...

Those hats and blankets I made a couple months back for my nephews and friends get compliments all the time. Everyone is telling me I should sell them. I can't, though, because they are not my patterns. I can make as many as I want and give them as gifts, but I'm not legally allowed to sell them because I don't own the copyright.

I had an epiphany one night a few weeks ago while I lay in bed with insomnia. All these super cute ideas for baby hats came flooding into my mind. I'd really like to see if I can get them woven into something tangible. I mean, I've already got an Etsy shop set up. (I can't stand how you have to create one in order to buy anything on there.) Joseph's mom has been hounding me to make more Mokikos to sell.

Of course, I won't be able to do that for a while. I'll be really busy getting things ready for the new baby and then I'll be really busy with the new baby, and the other three kids, of course. My ideas will have to wait for now. But it is something that I'm excited to see if I can 1) actually create these patterns I've got floating around in my head and 2) sell them, either the pattern and/or the finished project.

Only time will tell...