knitting | Mustard Seed Yarn Lab

Category: knitting (page 1 of 8)

What I’ve been doing

01.1.16 / Danielle / 1 Comment

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Show and Tell

02.6.13 / Danielle / 7 Comments

Anyone getting excited for Valentine’s Day? I am.

1.) I made this little stuffed heart from this free pattern on Ravelry. It’s called My Whole Heart. It was fun and quick and now I’m addicted. I made another today but with bigger needles and thicker yarn. I’ll take a picture of that other one soon and post it to my FaceBook page.

2.) Remember the scarf I was working on for what seemed like forever? Ta Da!!!

This is Mustard Seed Yarn Lab superwash wool in bulky….named Triton. I only have one skein left and I’m unsure of whether to keep it or put it up in my shop. Hmmm…

And the proud recipient:

I think it looks like it was made for him. Ha! Mr. Stich patiently waited a very long time for his scarf, and the day I gave it to him was a freakish 60 degrees. Thankfully, the weather soon got back to normal (aka: freezing) so he was able to wear it the next day.

3.) I sell some of my hand dyed roving in a great yarn shop in Newburyport, MA…. A Loom with a View. Quite a while ago, a very nice woman named Helene contacted me to let me know she had bought some of my roving there and she had showed me a picture of the roving after she had spun it. I had called this colorway Emmet.

Then she turned it into this!

This is the Thermis Cowl. Is there anything cooler than seeing roving turn into yarn turn into something beautiful? And I love those buttons, too.

4.) Marisa from CA bought my yarn called North Woods and she made this:

Wow. Right?

It’s like looking at knitter’s porn. Seriously.

This shawl is called Pogona, by Stephen West. I soon realized that Marisa is quite the knitter. She has more of her lovely projects on her blog: Fat Button Girl. And she has bought another skein of my yarn so maybe at some point I’ll have another Fat Button Girl creation to show off. 🙂

Well, it’s late and I’m signing off now. My book and my bed await me. A big thank you to Helene and Marisa for sharing with me!

Good night all!

The coolest part about selling my yarn

10.7.12 / Danielle / 3 Comments

So what’s the coolest part of making yarn and selling it? You are going to think I’m going to say something like ‘getting paid’ right? Although that is definitely helpful, the COOLEST part is when I get to see my yarn all grown up into something. Up until recently, I’ve only gotten to see my yarn grown up into creations I made. I never got to see what other people have done with it. I will often send a note along to the people who buy my yarn, letting them know if they’d like to share a picture of what they make, I’d love to post it to my blog. Well, are you ready to see some beauties that have been knitted with Mustard Seed Yarn Lab yarn?

Above we have a shawl made by Patti from Denver. The name of the pattern is Rockefeller by Stephen West. Patti had bought my sock yarn called “Holy Moly Guacamole” and incorporated it into this super cool shawl. This was the colorway she bought:

She said she had so much left over that she was able to use it to make these mittens:

I only WISH I could knit something as complicated as these! I have yet to try mixing colors to make anything other than stripes. Above are the Woodland Winter Mittens. I’m so proud! You’d think I made them myself or something. Thank you, Patti, for sharing with me! You were the first person to do that!

And many months ago my friend Denise from Schenectady asked me to dye two skeins a blue and green combo. She sent me a picture to try to copy the colors from. I wrote about the process in this blog post. I did my best and sent her the colorway I called “Earth”. She was making a baby blanket with them. Well a couple days ago, Denise shared the completed blanket with me and here it is:

WooHoo!! It looks so great! I think she’s going to block it to make it even bigger. That will be one lucky baby boy. Thanks for sharing Denise!

So do you see what I mean? The most fun part of all of this is making something I know that someone else will turn into something even more beautiful. I look forward to seeing and sharing more pictures from people who’ve chosen my yarn. I have met so many super nice people buying my yarn on Etsy. I’ve even made few new friends.

So if you are reading this and you have bought any Mustard Seed Yarn Lab yarn, please feel free to share a picture of the finished project with me. I’m sure everyone would love to see it, and I would love to show it off for you!