Owl has Arrived... awhile ago

Ok so I've been slow on keeping up with the blog but I'm here now and that is what matters right?
I received a fabulous package from my Hogwarts Sock Swap 3 (HSS3) pal last week and I just have to share! My pal is Chrysta the Cursed and she made me some absolutely lovely socks in my house colors Gryffindor.



and here is a picture of the whole package everything was packed inside the lovely Harry Potter wine box she made herself. She even made the stitch markers, supper crafty I wish I was that crafty.



my son keeps trying to steal the box to store his wand in that I made him but so fr I have been succesful at keeping him happy with just playing with it a little bit. She tells me that all of the photos are from a Goblet of Fire daily calender how creative.



And the handmade stitch markers are so cool nice and big I used them on my size 7 needles while making "Harry's Wand" for the big monster (more on that later) that is why one of them is missing in the photo.



And some lovely variegated sock yarn in my house colors and "Minerva's Lucky Quiditch Socks." pattern also a size 1 circular addi turbo needle that was ripped from the box and put into use straight away and are now currently being used for the Pomotamus socks from knitty for the may sock knitalong on Ravelry. Crazy me doing 2 monthly sock knitalongs at a time. lol gives me a good excise not to make the sweaters I bought yarn for. Me + Sweater = scary

Thank you so much Chrysta the Cursed also known as Terese on Ravelry I had alot of fun, and I love everything.

Here is a picture of the socks I made for my pal I made them wit yarn from Cosmic Fibers on etsy in self striping house colors. She is a Ravenclaw and wanted the book colors blue and bronze.



Happy knitting!

She Knits She Scores!

So I was struggling with the Nutkin Sock pattern (more about that later) which is the pattern some sock knitalong group on Ravelry picked as the April sock. It was in my queue and I had the perfect yarn so I said well heck yes. I say "some sock knitalong" because well I'm in a few sorry. I can knit socks in less than a week usually so why not right? Well those dang socks were giving me so many problems that I went stash diving to make some gifts for my 2 nieces and nephew.
Kimberly Chapman has this cute pattern for a caterpillar on her website and I've made it before and enjoy the simplicity of it. I made one for my nephew because all boys should have a toy bug don't you think well he is only 2 but he said thank you and then he told me to shut up so his mom says I prefer to think he said (Thank you so very much aunty Sinknitty) lol But he hugged it and threw it around so I could tell he was pleased.



Next my eldest niece got the gift of another of Kimberly Chapman's patterns. The first one she has ever put together in a collection as a pdf and sold. Only available as a Ravelry download as far as I know, but there is a link from her website. Well who can say no to a pattern for every letter in the Alphabet plus bonus simple for Pi. :) I'm making that next. I took her pattern and used some fuzzy purple yarn and appropriately sized needles and by Kimberly's simple explanation of how she used math to make the letters come out nicely the pattern worked just great with the novelty yarn. Paton's Twister left over from an ill fated poncho. She carried it around the playground with her all day long and showed it to everyone. My niece has a flair for the dramatic so it was her most treasured possession of all time for those couple of hours.



And last but not least a pattern that I love to make for babies is the baby chucks pattern from brooklynhandmade which I originally test knit for her and everyone loves these things! She doesn't at this very moment have the pattern available in her Etsy shop but if you message her I'm sure she would be more than happy to sell you the pattern. I had somehow lost the pattern and when I emailed her she sent a new copy along right away. They are purple but I couldn't get the color to come out right in the picture. I made these for my brand new niece and well she didn't seam to care but who would expect a baby to care one way or the other. My sister really liked them though.



I received my Hogwarts sock swap 3 package yesterday and I will take pictures and share later today. My son keeps trying to steal parts of it whenever I get it out to take the pictures so I will have to wait till outside playtime. :) Until them live well. And Knit hard!

Ravelraiser!

Well Ravelry has about taken over my pc knitting life. I hardly even blog anything anymore! Sorry to those of you who do read and enjoy my blog. I'd also like to apologize to those who wanted the pattern for the Bellagio mitts, the notes I took were limited and I can't seam to get my hubby to remember to bring them home even now that it's too warm to wear them. So... I will have to start over again and take better notes. Gail Knits here in Vegas has the Frog Tree alpaca yarn so I'll probably make myself a pair with that yarn. I really enjoyed the frog tree merino I used for my hubby's mitts.
It seams like I have 42 UFOs right now and we all know how much I hate UFOs but seams I have had startitis lately. I keep seeing fabulous patterns I want to make and grab some yarn and whip it up and then drop it at the finishing stage and pick something else up. Silly me. I've also been making a lot of new yarn purchases since Knit Las Vegas opened up right next to my mother in law's house so I've been scrounging at the bottom of my stash for projects to make with all my older yarn to justify the purchases to myself. Oldest out first just like stocks!
So pictures of about a million projects soon I promise!
For now how about a little about Ravelraiser
I am a certified Ravelraiser if you go to the groups tab on Ravelry and search Ravelraiser you'll find a group called ten lousy bucks. When you donate 10 lousy bucks you get entered into a raffel to win about a million fabulous prises. You have until the 25th of April to enter and every 10 bucks gets you an entry plus there is a little link to make yourself an avatar that says Ravelraiser on it or whatever else you like. I figured Ravelry has given me so much I wanted to give back. It's an amazing resource and especially now that they have the purchases available and it stores your purchased PDFs for you so if you accidentally delete it it's still available to you! woohoo!! It become part of your ravelry library. There are even free patterns done that way. Yippy! Wish I could add all my pdf patterns that way. Maybe they will add that in the future. And now the reveal my Ravelraiser really lame thoughtless avatar!

Chocolate Ribs Beanie

This is the hat I made for my sister's boyfriend for Christmas. And this is my sister's boyfriend. He liked it so much he didn't take it off for days. We draw names in our family and my husband drew his name and he wanted a beanie and well I can't buy a beanie when I can make one in a couple hours. It's a simple pattern and looks very nice. I made it with the newish bernat cashmere blend yarn. One weird thing about the yarn the dark gray color was thicker and stiffer than the brown. The brown is nice and soft. the beanie is a pattern I found on ravelry called "That chocolate's gone straight to your ribs" it's a 4 by 2 by 2 rib pattern giving the hat a more interesting look and very stretchy it fit my son's head and my head and Dave's head over all his curly hair just fine.



And here is the proof of how much he liked it he even slept in it.



The hat was such a big hit on Christmas that everyone wanted one, so I made one for my other sister's boyfriend for his birthday that was in January and he said he liked it a lot. He has a large head and has a hard time finding hats that fit well and this one was stretchy enough to fit him just fine.

I live with Harry Potter!