Busy, busy, busy...

I've managed to finish the two requested items I discussed last time plus one other request!

First up, the brightly colored fingerless mitts with a matching hat:

Next I did the large mittens with a Breast Cancer Awareness ribbon stitched on:

The purple cabled slouchy hat was envied so another one in gray was knit up for another requester:

As far as personal knitting goes, the colorful fingerless mitts were also envied so I made up a second pair for my daughter.  Then I started on a second sweater for myself with some yarn I got for a great deal from DBNY.  At this point, the sweater still needs one sleeve to be finished.  I think the pattern turned out really nice and will be the perfect size once blocked a little.  Can't wait to get back to it and finish it up!  In the meantime I needed something smaller that I could take with me places, so I started up a simple shawl with some fancy yarn.  It is slowly progressing as I don't work on it except when I have free time outside the house.

As if a sweater on the needles wasn't enough, I decided to cast on for my living room afghan!  Ordered Brava yarn from Knit Picks in two shades of green and a brown and when it got here I just had to start...  I knew I wanted to do a zig zag looking pattern, kind of old school but a little Missoni.  I found a pattern on the Lion Brand website that had the stitch pattern to give me the zig zags and then I created my own sequencing of colors to get the Missoni look.  I got to about 8 color changes before I realized that after 4 color changes I had dropped one of the first stitches at a color change (before I'd tied the two ends together) so I had to frog back all that way... I haven't had a chance to get back to that because I got in two more requests this week!

First up was two items, a pair of short fingerless mitts in a gray color and a slouchy hat similar to the gray one above, but in a creamy off white.  It just so happened I had been developing a pattern for a cabled hat with ribs so I was able to perfect that and have it sold already.  I decided to go with a simple twisted stitch rib on the mitts and wrote a pattern for those as I went.  I realized after finishing the second mitt that they should really have a variation for left and right hands so I corrected that in the written pattern and ended up with two pairs!  I'll be able to post the second set in my Etsy shop, so no loss to me :-)  These items are finished and drying as we speak.

My next order is waiting for me to finish this to be cast on... another set of fingerless mitts (these must be really popular!) in black.  They are requested to be short, simple, and with individual fingers.  That will be a first for me, but I've been wanting to try for a long time so I'm looking forward to it.

And with that... I'm off to cast those on!

Hats, mittens, hats, purses, a scarf, and custom order hats

After finishing the striped blues hat (which ended up looking too cute on my daughter), I still had hats on my mind, but I also had the single mitten waiting for it's future to be determined.  I did a test drive in the mitten and decided it was definitely too big and would have to be frogged.  I'm glad I did because I now have a pair of mittens that fit and are snugly warm!

With that off my mind and a half skein of yarn leftover, I decided to knit up a quick ribbed hat.  The Lion Brand Yarn Homespun is so versatile!  I've made hats, scarves, wristers, mittens and wraps out of it and they all look fabulous.

One of my thrift store yarns finds was a large amount of a crazy mix of red, black, and gray.  I had used some for a ski mask style hat for my son so I knew it made great hats.  This one has ribbing around the brim and then knit the rest of the way around.  My crown decreases were done to create a bit of a puff on the hat, so it's not exactly a beanie.

The marbled grays cabled purse was completed without further incident.  It's turned out to be a bigger purse with a handle that will easily fit over the shoulder.  The yarn was not as "stiff" as my previous purse yarn, but it gives it a more hobo bag look.

With one purse finished I was ready to do the next... this one using LBY Wool-Ease Thick and Quick.  This was my first time using this yarn and I loved it!  It was surprisingly soft and it was the thicker, stiffer yarn I was looking for in a purse yarn.  The finished product is a cute cabled handbag, perfect for grabbing only your essentials and going or teens/pre-teens who don't have to carry everything under the sun in their purse!

Since I completed the purses I had in mind, I decided to get back to hats.  I still had some LBY Homespun leftover after the mittens and the hat, but not quite enough for another hat on it's own.  Turns out I had more LBY Homespun in a complementary colorway so I put them together in a striped hat.  I made the crown a little longer for extra head room.

Sitting in my stash for too long, I decided I had to find a good project for the sparkly yarn I'd picked up from DBNY.  It is a medium weight yarn with sequins mixed in.  I really felt something lacy was in order but hadn't found something that caught my eye yet.  Off the cuff I decided to try a ruffle look on the ends.  So I cast on 3-4 times more stitches than I really wanted the scarf to be wide and then did quick decreases down to the right width.  From there I settled on a simple yo, K2tog lace look.  This scarf is still on the needles and starting to curl a bit which I think is giving it another intriguing design element.

The aforementioned scarf is still on the needles and moving slower now that I have some hat orders.  I'd previously knit a versatile cowl/head warmer for her, similar to the one in my Etsy shop.  She wanted to get a few hats to keep her head warm but not get overheated.  After looking at some knit hats online, we collaborated to come up with two ideas to get me started.  The first hat is out of a lovely lavender lace or fingering weight yarn.  It's started with a lace pattern, that gives the edge a scalloped look, and finished with stockinette.  The second hat will be out of the red, black and grey yarn with cables and lace.

Phew... I've done a lot of knitting over the past couple of weeks!  A whooping 10 projects completed, on the needles or almost on the needles :-)  Next up is getting good pics of everything and updating the Etsy shop again!