Little red riding hood

These are gifts that I made for my sister n law. She absolutely adores the color red, so obvious color to knit...........................come on................................take a wild guess...................................RED!

I used the pattern from interweave knit the dumpling bag, however I altered it to the extreme to make it bigger due to I was felting it once completed. This is the first project that I used lamb's pride wool, I usually use alafoss lopi for my felting. Lamb's may have converted me, you only have to felt it once and your done, lopi I have to do it at least twice which is a pain. None the less, I still love to use both, it all depends on the project that I want to work on etc......................started to run away in a deep train of thought there about my theories of yarn, merino, wool, mohair......................................caught myself again.

I thought that this would not be enough for her gift, decided to make a scarf by casting on like 300 stitches and knit back and forth changing the colors and so forth. This was good practice for me to knit the german way, unbeleivable how faster you can knit using this method compared to the english style. Still need to work on my tension, but I'm pretty sure I'll get it down path soon. The scarf was made from a blend of merino, wool, kid mohair, so you can just imagine how soft and warm that is going to be. I added a fringe, the trick was to leave at least a 6 inch tail of the yarn between switchs and just to fasten them in as well, so it doesn't seem as a bulky fringe, sometimes those silly fringes can get in the way of zipping your jackets. I think we've all been there before........................no comment!

I still didn't think that this was enough for her x-mas gift....................................I know, I went a little crazy in the creative department. I decided to make her some gorgeous, and warm thrum mittens, and yes it is in red...............................imagine that........................lol......................she's a lucky girl, all of these gifts will last her for quit some time.

A set like this usually I wouldn't sell for cheap, but I find she's a really nice person and this is the gift that I created with my hands and am willing to part with for her to put too good use and too show off my talents to the world.

The Purple Monster

Ah yes the purple monster that I decided to tackle in May of 08. The story behind this monster, my grandma had a sweater that she has been wearing for many years. It’s at the point where it’s been so worn that the yarn is extremely thin, and if you touch the yarn it’ll disintegrate, the sweater is like ancient. She told me that her mother made this for her a long time ago before she past away, she’s had it for almost 40 years. I asked my grandma if she would like me to make her one for x-mas, she said “not to worry, I have more sweater’s tucked away in one of my cedar trunks. I never wore them because I don’t like the colors” she giggled and left it at that.

Stubborn as I am, I decided to show her some beautiful Aran cable sweater patterns at Christmas of 07. She fell in love with one in particular, I suggested to her that once I find her favourite color (purple), and finish the sweater that I was making for myself at the time, that I will buy the yarn and commence on the monster. It took me from x-mas to the month of May in 08 to find enough yarn in a very pretty shade of lilac, also nice grape colour buttons that have an imprint of flowers that have a little sparkle.

So, here I go on my mission to start this sweater, I first decided to start with the sleeve first. I find that once I have finished the first sleeve it gives me more courage to tackle the other pieces. Then I moved to the back, then the other sleeve, front left, and now am currently working on the front right.

Between each piece, I have started to work on other little small projects. You can only look at so much lilac before you start seeing purple people all over the place……………………not kidding…………………………….I can here you laughing! The projects that I have made, started, and finished are: 2 pairs of socks, a granny square blanket that I had abandoned for almost a year, and then my hoodie cable sweater that I posted in September of 08.

This will be a good memory for me, getting a call from grandma at least every 2 weeks asking me " is it done yet?"

Finally on November 28th 2008 at 8:36 pm to be precise I finished the monster. I even called my mother to tell her, I was so excited, and now I plan to surprise my grandma tomorrow. She is coping with a nasty flu, plus going for some surgery to remove her cataracs on Monday, I thought this would be anice surprise for her in during the rough patch that she is going threw. I have to admit, she's looking really good at 81 years old in her purple monster.

Waiting for a long time

Well here it is, finally finished, my first cable hoodie sweater. I first saw this sweater while visiting a special yarn store called Cricket Cove in Moncton NB, and told myself that this is a must have. I bought the book however waited a bit before getting the yarn; I had ten thousand other projects on the go and figured that I would wait before diving into it. My husband was kind to me on my birthday and bought me all the yarn that I needed to make this awesome sweater. With self discipline, I decided to wait until I finished certain projects; however, I couldn't contain myself anymore and decided to start working on it right away.

I started the sweater in November of 07, worked on it like crazy, at work between calls, in the car when taking long trips, at home, even fell asleep knitting a few times and was still keeping track somehow.........................have no idea how I managed that but I did. I had started with the back part first thinking that I would tackle the biggest piece; moved onto the one sleeve, front, then on the hood.

I decided to start sewing the sweater before it was completed, never a good idea folks, I was too eager to wear it, a huge discovery has been made, I screwed up the sleeve royally. When trying the sweater on, the top part of the sleeve buckled right up, no matter which way I would try to make it rest on my shoulder it looked awful.

So, here I am, all frustrated and annoyed with this piece of garment that I have been working on like crazy. I decided to give it a rest and stowed it away in my cabinet full of yarn until I got the courage to destroy some of the hard work that I have done. This sweater has been taunting me all summer long, saying "fix me; fix me so you can wear me". A month ago I decided to un-sew the sleeve, took it apart to a certain point, and finished it properly. Started the other sleeve, took me a good 2 weeks to finish while working on other projects at the same time.

Finally, at 11:46 am this morning, the whole sweater has been sewn up and ready to be shown off to the world. It took a lot of patience, but let me tell you, it was well worth it.