Owl Sweater

In March I saw the cutest sweater ever. I knew I had to have it. I headed over to Ravelry and purchased the pattern. That's when the trouble started. I didn't have the yarn recommended but found out that many people made the sweater with Lion Brand Fisherman's Yarn (which happened to be in my stash.) I cast on only to realize I had the wrong size needles. I ripped back and changed to the right size needles and started again. Everything was going great until I realized I'd forgotten to do the shaping for the back. Finally I got everything right and in mid-April finished the main part of the body. Then I realized that I didn't actually know how to do cables or how to attach the sleeves. At this point I was so frustrated with the thing that it got banished to the bottom of the stash for the summer.

As the days began turning cold I decided to bring the owls back. It turns out the sleeves weren't as I difficult as I was making them and the cables for the owls were actually really fun to make. I managed to finish this sweater at the end of October and have finally gotten pictures to share.

Don't you just love those owls?

Halloween, a bit late

Sorry for the long absence. I wish there was a good excuse, but there really isn't. I tried sharing these pictures Halloween weekend, but couldn't get the internet to co-operate enough to upload the pics. (The joys of harvest. No, we don't farm, but the dust in the air pretty much takes out the internet here.) Last February my brother-in-law and his wife made me a very happy aunt. Then in the summer one of my friends from college had a baby girl who I couldn't resist spoiling. I'm determined to win the title of craftiest aunt (even if I'm technically only aunt to one.)

I found this adorable hat on Lion Brand's website a few years ago and have been anxiously waiting for someone I know to have a baby the chance to make it. This was a really fast knit (I think it only took me one evening to make each hat.)

*If anyone is curious, I used the yarn suggested by the pattern.

This summer I was in the grocery store waiting to check out. I looked down at the magazines and there was a purse on the cover that looked exactly like a monster. I was so excited I immediately grabbed it to add to my cart. As it was heading towards my cart I got a better look at the "monster" purse. Apparently normal people don't make monster bags in July. What I thought were teeth were just half square triangles along the bottom and the eyes were just the handles knotted through some grommets. It was a cute purse, but wasn't nearly as cute as the monster bag I thought I saw. 

Then I started thinking and realized that I could make half square triangles and create my own monster bag. I wanted to really make it look like a monster so I replaced the knotted handles with square-in-square blocks. 

I struggled to get a good picture, but this gives an idea of what they look like. As I was laying out the blocks my husband suggested I turn the HSTs to make bigger teeth so credit for the green bag goes to him. 

Sadly this is the best shot I got of the yellow bag. The original picture I saw only had one row of HSTs, but I thought that two made it look much more like a mouth. 

Halloween Door

I was at my local library when I found a Halloween magazine from last year. On the cover of Women's World was this super cute candy corn wreath. Since I've never been one to worry about what's "in style" I decided to ignore the fact that the magazine was from two years ago and make the wreath anyway.

I used a styrafoam wreath, black duct tape, hot glue, 2 bags of candy corn, and black ribbon. Unfortunately I was so excited about this project I forgot to take pictures of the wreath in the making. For this wreath I used a rounded form, but I think if I make this again I'll use a wreath that is flat on the top. I laid out one stripe of candy across the wreath, then I worked in quarter sections of the wreath and laid out rows based on my first stripe. (This is where a flat wreath would have been better. Had my candies stayed where I left them I would have laid out the sections of this wreath and then gone back and glued it down.) The candies didn't line up perfectly so I made sure to tie my ribbon over the seam. I attached the candy on the top and sides and left the back of the wreath empty so that it would sit flat against the door.

We live in a first floor apartment and the front door opens straight into our living room so privacy was a big issue with this door. Many of our neighbors cover their windows with sheets of paper, but my crafty side said that I could do better. I made a frame out of card stock and covered it with candy corn tissue paper. It felt like it was still lacking something so I used black tissue paper to spell the word BOO! Our apartment building isn't very attractive so you'll have to take my word on this, but at night the letters look like stained glass. It's a very cheap and cute solution to privacy.

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Chocolate Dreams

The past few weeks have been very hectic. Normally I'm not much of a cook, but I took a group of my clients to an apple orchard recently and came home with two pecks of apples. I'll share my canning adventures later on, but today I want to share this delicious recipe for no-bake nutella cheesecake I found onA Law Studen'ts Journey. I meant to post this on Saturday but the Chicago Fire was playing. I'm pleased to report we won, but watching the game didn't leave time for much else that day. (Those of you not familiar with Fire they play soccer.)

Anywho, I wanted a fast and easy dessert to enjoy with our game day meal and found these adorable little cheesecakes. For the crust I mixed 12 crushed oreos generic fudge cookies (it's called a budget) and 3T melted butter. Once they were combined I pressed them into the bottom of my glasses. I love desserts in jars and four of these divided perfectly between four jelly jars.

For the filling I whipped together a block of cream cheese, 2/3c. of nutella, and 1 t vanilla. After they were whipped together I used a spatula and folded in a tub of whipped cream. If I were fancier I'd probably pipe it in, but I just scrapped it in using my spatula.

These would be really fun and easy to do for a party or shower as dessert shooters. The recipe would be super easy to double or triple as need be.

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Sweaters and Socks

I've been doing lots of knitting lately. I'm on the shoulder of my last sleeve of the sweater. I've decided to leave the first sleeve as is. The person I'm making it for wears sweaters a lot like I do, with the sleeves pushed up out of the way of a computer keyboard. Since the error is fairly low on the sleeve is will get lost in the smooshing. I think that since it is a Christmas present and I want some element of surprise I'm going to wait until after Christmas to post pictures of the finished sweater. (I'm going with that excuse rather than the fact that it usually takes me a few months weeks to sew a sweater together, knit the button band and collar, and weave in all of those stupid little ends.)

The other reason that the sweater will have to wait for assembly is that this arrived in the mail yesterday.

My intention was to order the needles for my husband's Christmas sweater and immediately start working on that. After two months of working with cream yarn I want color. (There's a tiny voice reminding me that my husband's sweater is green which is in fact a color, but it's being drowned out by a whiny voice saying socks are fun and fast and we want fun and fast.) Since this is a pair of socks for my husband and he's given me permission to make socks before sweater the sweater will just have to wait.

*If you're wondering the yarn is Stroll Fingering in Harvest Tonal from Knit Picks.

Knit Picks did not sponsor this posting. 

Imperfection

There is a legend that Persian rug makers will intentionally put a mistake into their rug as a reminder that only Allah is perfect. As I've been working on my sweater this phrase has come into my head. This sweater is the first time that I've done cables. Over all I think I'm doing pretty good. (We're just going to ignore the fact that every repeat of the cables on the back, the first piece I did, is a different length.)

Then I got cocky. I started thinking that I knew the pattern. I started thinking that I didn't need the stitch counter and stopped counting every row. This worked great until I stopped for the night, picked it up the next morning and realized that I'd forgotten to include eight rows in the counter the night before. I didn't panic too much, just added in the rows that I'd forgotten to add and started knitting. Two inches later I discovered when I started work my row counter was actually right.

As a knitter I should probably know how to frog and then start knitting again once I've pulled out enough stitches to have pulled out the mistake. (I should point out that I'm fully capable of pulling out my stitches and putting them back on the needle, they just end up twisted the wrong way half the time.) Since I struggle to undo inches of knitting when it's flat knitting I'm terrified of frogging cabled stitches. I asked my husband what he thought I should do. He looked at it for a minute and then said the beautiful words, "What mistake?" I trusted him and continued happily knitting. After all, only God is perfect so little mistakes aren't so bad. Then I got to the end of the sleeve and my dear husband says, "Oh, that mistake. Yeah, it's pretty noticeable."

So let me put the question out there to all of you. Do I knit the sleeve over again or do I give it to the recipient saying the sleeve is that way as a reminder that only God is perfect?

Coffee Top is Done!!!

I'm starting to think that this quilt might have a curse on it. My first goal was to get the entire quilt done over the summer to show at my quilt guild's fall guest night. I was humming along nicely and only had to sew the rows together before the top was done and my machine broke down. I got my machine fixed and  managed to finish the top in time for guest night. (I even had a week to spare.) Then the week before guest night I start coming down with some coughing illness and am to sick to go to guest night. I'm slightly worried to see what new disaster will come up when I actually start to quilt this thing. (I can't decide what I want to do for quilting though so I have some time before that occurs.) Despite all of the problems with this quilt I'm absolutely loving how it's turning out. I can't wait to cuddle up under it this winter (or next if the quilting curse is bad.)

*It's not the greatest of pictures, but with the curse that is this quilt what else did you expect. I promise when I take the finished pictures they will be good. I've even started plotting locations for this quilts photo shoot.

If you're interested in the pattern it's based on this quilt on Moda Bakeshop's webpage.