Month: January 2016

A New Project

Ever since I was little, I’ve had a fascination with roll-top desks. The fact that you can slide down this cover that appears out of nowhere…and hide all sorts of secret things in little drawers and shelves…they seemed magical. I’ve never had one though. Until now.

Roll top desk

This morning my friend Bryan brought me this beauty. You see, he and his family are moving to Florida and are getting rid of excess stuff and when he told me about this desk, I couldn’t believe my luck. He bought it for his wife 30 years ago when they were engaged. She said she’d rather have a roll-top desk than a hope chest. The desk has been well loved for many years and was probably beginning to fear it was at the end of its life, but I’m going to see what I can do. I’ve looked at some Youtube videos on refinishing furniture and I might be a little more confused now than I was before, but I’m still going to give it a try!

image

She needs some TLC. And sanding. And new stain.

image

She also needs updated knobs and handles. I think this is going to be fun. I will fill you in on her progress as I work on her.

And I also finished another Star Wars hat for my work friend, Ernie. Here he is modeling it for me. I know the hat makes Ernie look crazy cool…but the Walking Dead T-shirt makes him the SHIZZ.  If that shirt were in my size, I would have traded him the hat for the shirt.

image

Here’s a close up:

image

Three down, two more to go!

 

What I’ve been doing

Ok, I could take a lot of time making excuses for not posting for so long…but really, who wants to hear my well-crafted excuses that will try to mislead you all from the fact that I’ve been lazy? So let’s just move on. With some recent inspiration from my sister, I’m hoping I’ve got my blogging mojo back.

Although I haven’t been blogging, I have been knitting. A lot. So I’m just going to dive right in and show you some projects I’ve made in the last 2 years…not necessarily in order though.
The Force Awakens hat

The Force Awakens hat

 

cooper

 

Above is The Force Awakens hat by Hanna L.  How cool is this design?? I’m not even a huge Star Wars fan and I still think I’d wear this hat. I love the colors together too…an R2D2 color theme. I’ve made 2 so far and now I’m starting a third. Then I have two more to go! They’re in high demand. You can find the Ravelry pattern here.

Baa-ble hat

Baa-ble hat

Here is the most popular pattern of the year. It’s the Baa-ble hat. I made 3 of them, 2 in blue and 1 in purple. I fell in love with the cuteness. I might make another for me.

Li's hat

Li's hat

 

And here we have the Greystone hat by Melissa Thomson that I made for my little sister. The Ravelry pattern can be found here.

Maiya's hat

Above is Sumner by Wooly Wormhead. This hat looks so cool when it’s actually on a head, but I forgot to get a picture of my friend wearing it. If you’d like to see it on a head, or many heads, you can see it on Ravelry here. This was not an easy hat. It took a long time and was super challenging. But the end product was worth it.

Fox hat

 

Harlyn

Then we have the Foxy and Wolfie pattern. I made two of these. One was for an Angelman Syndrome auction, the other for the super-cutie seen above.

The Triplets

image

The pink bunny

I made 4 of the bunnies above. The pattern is called Henry’s Bunny by Sara Elizabeth Kellner. Each one took me about 5 hours to make. The first 3 that you see together I made from yarn that I spun myself.

Emmet in Jodi's hat

Jodi's hat

Above is the Emma hat by Jennifer Thomassian. I made it for my friend Jodi. Above her picture it is being modeled by my Emmet. He is my favorite model.

Li's socks

I actually finished a pair of socks! Not this year though. I made these in 2014 for my little sister. I can’t remember which pattern it was, just a plain vanilla ribbed sock pattern. They actually came out too big, and I’m not sure if she’s been able to wear them.

image

Above…above is what I’ve been actively avoiding. So I’ve been working on this vest for my mom for a LONG time, and I’m so close to being done. She wanted a white vest that looked like the one she made for my Gram, her mom. This was the closest we could find, and it is very close. It’s called Caldwell and the pattern is by Stephen West. I chose to ignore the stripes, as I think they look weird and make the vest harder to match to things you’re wearing. I thought a vest would be easier than making a sweater….no sleeves, ya know? I was wrong. Tons of cabling. And I hate seaming. And there’s 3 pieces to seam together (which I already did) and then there’s this ribbed trim that has to be picked up and knit around the edges. And buttons. And button holes. And I don’t think I have enough yarn left, although I thought I calculated correctly in the beginning. Ugh…I don’t want to think about this one right now.

So there we go. I did it! My first blog post in almost 3 years. I’ve actually knitted more projects that I didn’t take pictures of or have forgotten about, I’m sure. But here’s some of what I’ve been doing. Happy New Year everyone! I’ll have more to say soon….I hope to make this a habit again.