Catching Up #2

Yay! I've almost got this blog caught up to my current projects now. Let's see. Since the seahorse was a bit of a success I started playing around and making my own patterns up. I'm not sure if my method for this is traditional...but it seems to be working. First I'll pick whatever sort of creature I want to make. This may be inspired by the colours of yarn on hand, or from suggestions by friends and family. Then I'll try and picture how I want it to look and how big I want it to be and figure out what sort of knitting methods to use. A few have been inspired by wanting to learn new stitches.

This gecko for example, was inspired by a cute lizard at the pet store my mom works at. 
It was knit in the round on my new bamboo DPNs, but I made him because I wanted to learn two things. How to pick up stitches and how to knit an i-cord. I-cords are very basic and I was ashamed that I hadn't learned how to do them before now. I figured the legs on a gecko would be a good way to knock out 2 birds with one stone since they're so thin.


I used this picture I found on the internet as my guide.








This itty bitty baby panda was knit because...well because I was bored of the project I was currently working on. I'd love to try and make another in bamboo yarn and brush it like the koala.















I'd been making a pair of baby booties and a hat. They turned out pretty cute, but the hat was exceedingly boring to knit. Perhaps I've become spoiled with the instant gratification of tiny toys.

Before this I'd knit a gazillion scarves and blankets, without being bored. Most of which knitted a lot more slowly. I'm not kidding about the gazillion either. :D I used to work in a call center. We weren't allowed any paper on the floor for security reasons. So I knitted. A lot. It was a great stress outlet and I enjoyed it. I ended up teaching a few people there to knit as well. It was catching. There must have been at least 20 of us knitting or crocheting in between calls. This was a few years ago when the fuzzy scarves were all the rage. I must have knit at least 100 or so scarves in one year. I gave a good number of them to a woman's shelter. Some were given with gifts. I just recently found a bag of them, so I can show you too!

I also knit a beaded shawl back then. It's a very simple garter stitch shawl but with the beads sparkling gently in the sunligh, it is quite pretty. Sadly it was hidden away in the same bag as the scarves.










And that about catches us up. The only other recent crafting has been envelope bags. I found an article about them here while randomly clicking links from other crafting sites. Once I saw them I just had to try it out. They're quite easy and turned out well. My old stubborn printer refuses to print envelopes, so I decorated these by hand. I definitely plan to make more (with a bit more care in the decorating) to use as gift bags.  

Now that we're all caught up, tomorrow I'll share my current craft projects. Until then, happy crafting!

*huggles*