A Bitter Knitter

At the end of last year, I knit up a handful of little random things for my toddler. First is a big mouth monster: The pattern is Rebecca Danger's Pocket-Sized Phone Friend , but I knit it out of bulky weight yarn held double on size 10 needles.  He's big enough to hold all sorts of odds and ends that my toddler picks up. Second is a pair of slipper socks: I improvised the pattern based on gauge and the size of her foot.  She, of course, promptly outgrew them. Third, a hat with rabbit ears. She got a Christmas book called,  "Shall I Knit You a Hat?"  about a little rabbit whose mother knits him a hat to keep his ears warm because a big snow is coming.  It has a pattern in the back that I heavily modified to create the above hat.

In the past couple of months, several of my friends have had babies.  Naturally, I knit. One friend decided not to find out if she was having a boy or a girl.  May I just mention at this moment how inconvenient  this is for a knitter?  Ahem.  I'll stop there.  I'm sure I'll mention the subject again some other time. Anyway, for this friend, I pulled out some "gender neutral baby barf" yarn from my stash and knit up a hat and booties.  Then I waited until the baby was born and added the relevant coloured buttons: I ended up affixing the pink ones for her baby girl: And for a couple of other friends who were both having girls, I knit up an apple hat: and a pair of purple booties: The bootie pattern is Natalie Larson's Bitty Booties , which I modify so as to not need a provisional cast on. The square hat is Carol Ullmann's Square Baby  with pompoms instead of tassels.  The apple hat is Iryna Boehland's Lil' Apple Hat , modifi

Once upon a time, while I was wandering around Ravelry , I came across the wonderful pattern that is Megan Wood's Vincent Cuff .  The Vincent Cuff is a wide beaded bracelet designed to remind one of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night knit on lace weight yarn with size 0000 needles.  When I saw it, I immediately thought of two people - my Doctor Who loving friend Pammie and my Starry Night loving mother.  So I ordered some deep blue lace weight yarn and some itsy bitsy pointy needles and picked up beads at the craft store.  And then created a labor of love. 1.  For the first one, I didn't have access to a color printer as mine having died after some toddler who shall not be named fed it cheddar.  Printers don't eat cheddar.  It kills them.  Poor printer - death by cheddar.  I copied each row with colored pencils onto grid paper. 2. The beads then had to be strung one at a time in the right order.  (For the record, the best bead needle is GUM Eez-Thru Floss Threaders .  

Early in 2013, one of my friends posted a notice on Facebook announcing a Pay-it-Forward.  The way it works is that she had signed up to receive something from one of her friends and in return would knit five things for other people who signed up, if those five people would agree to make five things for the people who signed up for them and so on.  I signed up to receive something from my friend and posted a notice on my Facebook wall asking for people who wanted to receive something from me and in return make five gifts for others.  One of the people who signed up was my husband's best friend, which caught me a bit by surprise as I don't know him very well.  As soon as he signed up, I went to my default knitting gift for guys: a hat.  Husband did some recon and came back with "black."  Oh, yippee.  (Sarcasm.)  Black is boring, and I had to do something  to make it more interesting or I would die with boredom before the hat was done. Enter Ravelry , a knitter's