next up is my dad’s hat, which was a christmas present. i just finished putting on the earflaps he requested after wearing it awhile. this was knit in yellow and black wintuk, which i’m not that impressed with. it’s barely a month after christmas and there’re all sorts of pills already.

also, as promised, i have WIP photos of my cabled scarf. it’s about two and a half feet at this point:

currently i’m working on a cabled scarf for a swap, WIP pics of which are forthcoming.

my next project is going to be a calorimetry for another swap… and then most likely another one for myself, because they are so. damn. cute.

p.s. i just put myself on the waiting list to get into ravelry. yaaaaaay!

p.p.s  still haven’t had the heart to re-start the MST3K blanket.  just thought i’d let you know.

i guess i should have known there was going to be more to it, but i just don’t understand.  i’ve been looking at tutorials and i know now that i should have just kept the “other color” yarn connected – i get that part – but do i start the thing with the other yarn present?  wait until i get to that row and start with the new color wrapped in at the beginning of it?  just add it in the first time i need it?

the problem was that i was snipping and adding in the new color (and then the main color) each time, which made for a LOT of loose ends…  which then came loose.  and made huge gaping holes that i could not fix.  so this entire night of knitting and three or four others goes into the toilet.  i had to frog the entire thing.

i’m depressed.  i’m not even sure i want to start over.

it seemed easy enough to make, so after much searching, i found some chunky lion brand wool-ease in white and got to work. it didn’t take me long to knit a rectangle in stockinette stitch on fairly big needles – they were thirteens, i think. once the rectangle was bound off, i made and stuffed a little white felt pillow. i folded the rectangle over it and sewed up two sides. then, i flipped the cover right side out and top stitched the rest of it closed. after that i added some ribbon in the near-center, tied some fake rings on, and voila:

Amanda’s Squatty Sidekick from Knitting Daily

 Easy felted bag, super cute.  I want one.

(this one belongs to Craftster’s tygra)

so this is my hot water bottle cover. inspired by… the hot water bottle, which we were having problems with (i.e. the towels we wrapped around it for usage always got rumpled, and sometimes it leaked from cat-claw punctures) that i figured would be resolved if a cover existed for it. i hunted online for a cozy or cover, but they were either funny looking or really expensive. …and then i decided to make one.

originally, i had thought about sewing a cover, but knitting seemed easier and i had some nice fuzzy Lion Brand Boucle yarn in Rose that would feel nice against anything swollen or sore. so i started out knitting a rectangle. i knit in regular old knit stitch for as long as i could – using the entire skein. after folding the rectangle in half, i used some pink scrap yarn to sew up the edges, leaving room for the spout and the tab on the bottom (i’m guessing to hang it up for draining). then i turned it right side out, slipped it over the bottle, and it was good to go. here it is:

 after that, i decided that since i like to type more than i like to write, i like to discuss projects, and since all of my photos are already in digital format, i’d be totally original and start up a knitting blog.

 and so it was done.