Monday, April 27, 2009

Felted Bag Swap

A while ago I joined in a felted bag swap on Ravelry. I had just figured out how to felt in my front loading washer and I became obsessed with felting. I thought this swap would be a ton of fun and it has! My partner had a list of felted bag patterns she liked and this was one of them. It is a really pretty bag, plus it's even a free pattern, which makes it even better. It knit up pretty quickly and I like how it turned out. Here's a picture of the finished bag:
I added a lining with a pocket since you can never have too many pockets! My partner really likes the bag. That makes me happy! :o) I'm still waiting to get the bag made for me. It should come within the next week or so. I'm so excited to see what it looks like, especially since I have no idea what pattern or yarn was used. Yay!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Test Knitting

I found two fun groups on Ravelry called "the testing pool" and "free pattern testers". Basically, a designer can find people willing to test their patterns to see if there are any issues with them. I've done a few test knits, but one of my favorite ones was for Abstract Fiber. They sent me a skein of yarn and I could knit whatever I wanted to with it. I then send the item back to them to display in their store. How cool is this? And that's not even the best part...once they receive my item, I can pick out any skein of yarn for FREE!!! Yay! I love free yarn!

Since I love to make hats, I decided to make one for this project. The only problem was that I had to find a pattern that used sockweight yarn. Hmm. I eventually decided on this pattern from the Spring 2009 issue of Knitty, a pattern called Reverie. It was a lot of fun to make, especially using the awesome yarn I had. :o) I have never used handpainted yarn before and now I know what the fuss is all about. It is absolutely beautiful! I can hardly wait to get my hands on more of this stuff! Luckily I'll be getting more soon, with getting the free skein and all. ;o)

Here's what the hat looks like:
Isn't this yarn beautiful??

Saturday, April 4, 2009

a few firsts...

.....not only for me, but for Madelyn as well! This is her first Easter and I was excited to make her something special. I decided a while ago to make her a bunny blanket, similar to this one I found on the Oh, Fransson! blog. I guess I got a little too excited when I bought the fabric to make it because I had a lot left over, enough to make her a dress. I have to say that I'm not very good at sewing clothes, mainly because I don't like to follow instructions. But the pattern I chose was very straightforward. I didn't even need to call my seamstress sister once to help decipher the sewing jargon! :o) Here's what the dress ended up looking like:
I added the ribbon trim along with a piece of fabric that I cut out from a coordinating fabric. I also made the ribbon rose with some leftover trim I used on the bunny's skirt. By the way, here's the finished bunny blanket...
...complete with a signed back...
...and one happy little girl! :o)

Happy First Easter, Madelyn! :o)