dog house

For Christmas, I knit Felix a little dog toy. The pattern is (ravelry link): little black dog by Suvi S. (blog) 50 villabeikkoa (flickr) little black dog
yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock yarn #S188


He LOVES this little pup, and named him Shaggy. Only problem was he kept misplacing Shaggy, so he and his dad made a dog house. They used a cardboard box, glue and paint.




Shaggy's house has a handle for easy carrying. We took him to lunch the other day. Felix is playing a video game with Casey. Casey from Ravelry.


And, here is Shaggy hanging out in the garden at home.

thank you

Thank you for all the nice comments this past week. I've been busy knitting and taking care of this little guy.....


He had a touch of the flu this week while I was finishing a knitting project. One night, he woke up crying and asking for all his toys that I've made him. The ones that I couldn't find, he described in detail and made me promise that I would find them later, or make them again. It was so sweet. I feel like all the toys I've made for my son were really made for me because I love to knit so much; but knowing that he loves them too is the best feeling of all.

puppet and shrug

I'm wearing the Alpine Shrug from Rowan 42. It's knit at a smaller gauge than the pattern. I saw Celtic Cast On's shrug on flickr and loved the snug fit. Lately, Felix has been taking photographs. Some of them look really good. I asked him to take a photo of me in the new shrug. Not bad, right?
I'm pretty happy that I have a helper!


The puppy puppet is from JudyKits by Judy Head. I made it for Felix to help get us through these tough first days of school. He has a habit of being mad at me when I pick him up. Instead of running towards me and giving me a big hug, he yells at me! Yesterday, he started in on me and I pulled out the puppet and soon he was laughing and we were making up stories for the puppy to tell us. Felix named the puppet “Vulture”.
I don’t know where that name came from, but he seems very sure of it.




Anyway, I think it’s one of the cutest toys ever! One thing I didn’t take into consideration is that I would have to be a puppeteer, and come up with a Vulture personality. At breakfast this morning, I coaxed Felix into eating by having Vulture tell him how yummy the food was. Felix said, “hm, mom that’s not Vulture’s voice.”

back to school

It's been a busy, and emotional week with the first days of school; rocky for both of us, but after a couple of tearful days, we are now easily saying "see you later".


The night before school, father and son did some serious doodling with brand new markers and notebook. When I think back to my school days, most of what I remember is doodling while dimly listening to the teacher.


To ease the separation anxiety, I knit Felix a little cat toy. He named him Captain America after a friend's darling black cat. I gave him the cat first thing in the morning on his second day. He was so happy; it helped getting him off to school that day.

The pattern for the cat came from Invisible Threads in Knitting by Annemor Sundbo. A knitter's bliss: a project that heals the nerves of two people and uses small left over bits of sock yarn.

yellow bird

Here's my first attempt at a bird toy. I'm pretty happy with her! The next one will have a wider tail and then I want to make some with color work. She's an easy knit for a knitter, but maybe too much for a beginning knitter. I tried a couple of super super easy bird shapes but they didn't please me. One attempt was a finger puppet that I think would work in finer yarn.


The alley cat that protects us from other critters is eyeing us very suspiciously! I tried to get the bird closer to kitty but she wouldn't allow it. Oh well.


And check out these moon jellies that we saw this weekend at the aquarium. Amazing! Ethereal! Mysterious!

more projects for knitting class

Hello, meet two friendly snakes, Scarlet and Grellow, these garter stitch fellows are another project idea for my kids learn to knit class to be held at the Wisdom Art Club this fall!


And, ta da, the sporty wristband!

a few gift knits

I managed to eek out a couple of hand knit gifts this year. For our little artist friend Eliza Bee I made this Unicorn from Dream Toys by Claire Garland. I started knitting this toy months ago but put it away until two days before Christmas. I was feeling kind of stressed out about finishing it in time but the stars were aligned and I happened upon the movie The Science of Sleep and was totally inspired by the characters to finish my dream toy. A whimsical grey felt pony features prominently in the film. This is my new favorite movie!


With most toys I find the finishing touches the most enjoyable. The eyes are antique jet buttons that sparkle slightly. The mane and tale are two shades of white kid silk mohair. I imagined that Eliza Bee would braid the mane and sure enough she did shortly after opening the package. I guess that's what I would do. The blanket came from my swatch pile. It's kid silk mohair with a strand of gold thread with an eyelet pattern that I was playing around with for the Pretty Pink Dress pattern in Greetings from Knit Cafe. I always feel good when I can reuse my swatches.


These golden autumnal socks were made for my mom. I was supposed to give them to her for her birthday in November but instead she got a card with a pair of socks drawn in pencil with a giant skein of sock yarn taped to them with the note "coming soon" attached. I feel I owe her another pair since these are birthday socks, so I'm busy making those right now while I have some free time. She picked out the yarn for these and loves pooling so I had a lot of fun watching the colors change instead of worrying about how they were changing. I was going to make them a simple k4 p2 rib but I got bored after a couple of rows and threw in some cables. She loves them so we're all happy.


I asked Felix to model Johnny's new hat. I used my basic Johnny Cap pattern with some stranded colorwork and (what you can't see) a ribbed top that spirals nicely. Whipped it out in one night of fun tv watching. Saw a movie with Robert Duvall infatuated with tango. Tango is good entertainment.

happenings

Meet Bobbi and Mimi my beatnik dolls from Boho Baby Knits. We had a great time last weekend at the Knit Cafe book signing. It was cool to see all the knits from the book out of storage and in the world. And it’s always fun to meet knitters and hang out in a yarn shop, especially one as beautiful as the Knit Café.
In other happening news:
The new Knitty is up and I'm so happy that they reviewed my book!