Christmas gifts part 2

Thanks to some quality knitting time during chorus and a late night gabfest with a friend, I finished Meghan's turtle over the weekend!

in the end, i gave up on the last little bit of the shell pattern, but it isn't noticeable, really. it was an extra "icord" around the bottom of the shell where the dark and light parts meet. and when i tried to do that, the directions defeated me. Besides, that part of the shell isn't really all that visible.

So - without further ado, here is Sheldon!

Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup 2010

i thought i was dropping out of the HPKCHC as of this term.  it has mushroomed in size and the busy threads started to remind me of leaky lounge post-HBP; i couldn't keep up! i felt the group had lost that little home-away-from-home feel i was first attracted to.  however, to be honest, i couldn't keep up project-wise either. RL kind of sucked this autumn with a big re-org at work threatening my livelihood and friends losing jobs all around me.

the sign-up form went up yesterday for the jan/feb/mar term and in the end, i just couldn't resist.  after all, their challenges have been so well thought out and fun to work around!  

so, stay tuned for more HP silliness in 2010.  ~snakey

  

Christmas gifts

When I was a kid, I was never really one for handmade gifts, giving or receiving them. I tried to be polite about it, but the scarves and hats were scratchy or didn't fit well, and the gloves were simply a pain. I HATED all those pieces of thread inside. they caught on everything - my fingers, any jewelry I was wearing (rare though it was), band-aids....

So what am I doing?

Knitting presents for my niece and nephew. Duh!

The difference is - first off, I checked first with my 8yo nephew and let him pick out the stuffie he wanted, and he has seen a bit of the progress on it. (pics of that will come later) As for my 4yo niece? Well, first I was going to make her some stackable cats, cuz she loves cats, Then I was going to make her the chicken-and-egg, because i loved dolls that inversed like that when i was little. She may still get that one for Easter.

But then i remembered this pattern.

And it can be dressed up later....

Dang. i may need to make MYSELF one of these!

Here is how far I am so far:

a win/lose situation

Well, I signed up for quidditch last term. They divided us into 7-player teams and made us come up with background and goals for charity knitting. Our team ("team Chance") chose to knit 3 items each, for a total of 21 items. We could each donate to the charity of our choice. We had 2 1/2 months to knit our 3 items; the term started Sept 1 and ended yesterday, but we had to have our pictures in to our Seeker in mid-Nov.

I originally chose Knit for Kids, an organization that sends knitted sweaters to children in need both internationally and here in america. The pattern was dead-easy and came in sized from toddler to pre-teen.

then i encountered a long string of setbacks. the first project, easy as it was, took 2 weeks to knit the first half of the toddler sized sweater. oops! so i abandoned that project (although i plan to finish the sweater sometime) and cast about for smaller endeavors.

At the beginning of October, i decided to knit newborn caps, as one of my teammates had done that and had already finished 3. So i ordered appropriate weight yarn and needles and got to work....only to discover that i had chosen a really complex pattern that did not knit up easily - and worse yet, you couldn't even tell when i was finished that i had done anything fancy to it at all. (see the preemie cap in the middle) that little preemie cap took me over 2 weeks to make. So I abandoned that pattern in favor of a different one. Unfortunately, the next one i chose also was time/labor intensive, as it called for 3 colors of yarn in a dropstitch pattern. the result (the larger striped one on the right) looks AWESOME and it is stretchy, thanks to some better sock yarn. But between the flu and the length of time it took to knit that, it was now well into November and i still had one more hat to do.

the third pattern i chose turned out to be the simplest of all and the fastest to make. the hat also probably will be the easiest for newborns to wear, it is soft and stretchy without being binding. i love the vertical stitch pattern it made like lazy wide ribs. (see hat on the left.)

i finished it....just before thanksgiving. if i had been able to take its pic and post before i left for my folks, MAYBE i could have helped my team. as it was, today was the first day i could even upload the pics i took at mom and dad's, where this shot was taken. So - EPIC fail for my quidditch team. I am so embarrassed i haven't even been on ravelry to see what happened with them.

also, i don't yet know where i am going to donate these caps. i haven't gotten organized enough to call the local children's hospitals and i didn't find anywhere online that looked like a good, legit prospect.

anyone know of a place that might want 3 cleveland-colored newborn hats?