I Love My Sock Monkey Scarf

I am finally done with the "Sock Monkey Scarf"!!!

Yay!!!

Here is the whole thing.

A little closer of the charts.

Up close of the stitches

I love how it feels the yarn is very soft.

I'll post the details and maybe even a pattern with the chart later. :)

Lake Run this Saturday!

I can't wait for Saturday! I am going to do the Lake Run!!

I have run this one, once before so I know I'm in for some major hills. But it's still fun to get out and run with a buncha other people. :-D

I have just gotten back into marathon training. I am slow, but I love running anyway.






Happy Running!

edit- I had a great time! I ran as hard as I could and was pretty slow, but it was still a fun race.
I remembered that it was hilly, but oh man... it is So hilly! I don't think there is a half-mile of flat on that whole course.

Next race~ The Flat Half Marathon on Sauvie Island. Yay! July 4th

Hair Donation~ Locks of Love gettting a package from me!

I finally decided to take it all (well, alot of it) off!

I went yesterday to get my hair cut~ really cut.

I found out about Locks of Love from a friend of mine about 3 years ago.
She had grown her hair out and donated it. I thought that was pretty neat. I hadn't thought of

actually doing it myself till very recently.

I had always wanted to have long hair. As a kid my hair would simply not grow.
So, growing up in the early eighties as I did, I had a Dorthy Hamil
style most of my childhood.

About 5 years ago I decided to see how long I could grow my hair.
It has been pretty long ever since.
Now, I was ready cut it off and send it away. (After taking a picture of it) *sheepish grin*



Here is the before shot. (sorry these are not great shots, I took them myself with the timer)





From the Back





And Now..... The after shot! 13 inches + gone!

Wow! I feel so much lighter! :-)





From what I felt on my head, I could have sworn they cut off a 1/2lb. of hair. But once I felt it in

my hand, I thought ...

hmm... probably only about 4 oz. I was wrong.

I weighed it and according to my postal scale it's not even 3 oz! More than 13 inches of hair and it

didn't even weigh 3 oz.





I will send it off today.

I love my new short hair, but I will kinda miss that bit *sniff*

I might grow it out again and donate another time. It's a fun thing to do.

Dining Room Chairs and Table

This has been one of those ongoing projects~ like for 6 years. ha ha
I have had some ideas lately on more images to add to these chairs. So I thought I should take some images of them how they are now.
Maybe that will inspire me to continue. :-)

The green chair has had the most attention and I don't think I'll add anything more to it.

I like how the legs on the green and yellow chairs turned out. I might do that same idea for all of them...

This is supposed to be the Taj.

The blue chair is my husbands to paint.
This is my favorite panel on any of the chairs. It's the pyramids in Giza. He had to do some field research for the painting.

The table and the chair pads are the same light green color to sorta tie them all together.

The poor red chair has no images at all on it. I am thinking of doing some Sock Monkeys on that one. :-D

My Favorite Slippers

These are my favorite slippers to make. I've made 4 pairs so far and have requests for about 8 more. Then, maybe, I'll make a pair for myself.

Here are a few of shots of them pre and post felted. Please excuse my foot. (I was using it for scale) ;-)

On this pair I used a contrast color on the band at the bottom. It is barely visible in this shot.

These are a couple of pair I made for a wedding. Her favorite color is green and his is orange. :)

His are actually too big, but he says he doesn't mind.

And finally my kitty cat. She can't stand not investigating anything I put on the floor to take pictures of. So, sometimes I take her picture. :) It's kinda funny. When I am trying to take her picture she never co-operates, but if I am trying to get a picture of something else she's all over it. hee hee.... cats

First project using Two-Handed weave-in Fair Isle

I absolutely loved the class for this technique. It was so fun just sitting around with other knitters doing what we love to do. And it really is a remarkable way to knit.
I wanted to do a project with the new style soon after learning it so I didn't immediately forget how. I have been working on monkeys so much lately though and didn't have time to make anything very big. So I sorta just free-styled a little monkey sweater.
There are a few parts that are less than perfect, but this little monkey prefers it that way. ;)



Happy Crafting!

http://www.sockmonkeyfun.com/Sock_Monkey_69.html

Class today

I am going to a two hour class today to learn two-handed fair isle weave-in technique.
I am excited. I have never taken any sort of knitting class. I have sorta taught little classes on the basics of knitting. But besides the very first few days of having a friend in Nepal show me how to knit, I have learned everything on my own.

If I get anything worth taking a picture of I'll post it. :)

Knitting Quiz!

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting
and do it all the time. While finishing a
piece is the plan, you still love the
process, and can't imagine a day going by
without giving some time to your yarn.
Packing for vacation involves leaving ample
space for the stash and supplies. It can be
hard to tell where the yarn ends and you
begin.http://marniemaclean.com/

What Kind of Knitter Are You?
brought to you by

Current and Future Projects

I have two projects on the needles at the moment.

A pair of socks in a beautiful self-striping yarn that I have had going for about 6 months... I am bad about that with socks. I have this tiny little tote bag and socks are always my 'travel' project. So if I am not going anywhere they don't get attention.

The other project is something I have wanted to make for almost 2 years and finally got started about a month ago. It's a scarf made from off-white and brown double strand (to look like the tweed that sock monkey socks are made out of) with a band at either end in solid off-white. And a little bit of red thrown in somewhere for the complete color palate of Sock Monkeys. I attempted this scarf in worsted weight wool the first time, but it was ~way~ too bulky. I decided on sport weight cotton. I am about a third done. I made my own chart for one end and haven't decided what I'll make for the other side. I am happy with how the fabric is coming out. It is heavier than I thought it would be. Cotton always seems heavier than I think it will be. :)

I'd like to make some sort of archive of past finished projects. I don't really know how to go about that though.

For future projects. I would like to make a pinwheel baby blanket for a friend of mine, who is due in 4 months. Also, I'd like to make that beautiful corset top of Annie Modesitt's to wear to my cousin's wedding this summer.

Happy Crafting,
Tamara

Felted Flower Tote Bag~

I think this project wins the longest I have ever let a project go on for.

This pattern was in the Winter 2002 issue of Knit It! In a section labeled "Weekend Wonders"... knowing how long it took me to finish it, that is almost a joke.

I used the same type of yarn as the pattern called for, (Lamb's Pride) but not all the exact colors (which I regret in the case of the yellow). I found out that if a yarn has been bleached it doesn't felt as well.

The flower is especially neat because it's all one piece and is knit in a spiral, the layers stack on top of each other. I will certainly make the flowers again. Only not out of that yellow color.


The body of the bag is knit in 3 pieces - main piece and two side pieces with garter stitch as an edge along the top and on the whole bottom of the piece.
The main piece has two channels for plastic runners to give the top structure and the bottom has a piece of plastic in it too. The pattern called for quilting template plastic. I didn't have any, so I used plastic rulers that I got for $.25 and stole the bottom piece from a different tote I didn't use anymore.

The pieces are joined with single crochet and then a return of slip stitches back over the the sc.

The main body is knit from single strand bulky weight Lamb's Pride (10 1/2 US needle)Flowers, leaves and vines in single strand worsted (8 US needle)Straps in double strand worsted (10 1/2 US needle)