FO: Minty Miette Cardigan

This past weekend marked a momentous occasion Chez Show and Tell Meg - I finished a sweater! 

And by "finished", I mean finished finished - like everything about it is done :) This is my Minty Miette cardigan, a free pattern by Andi Satterlund. It's a retro style cropped sweater with a lace detail that runs around the whole thing.

I do apologize for all the photos of me, lol, I was pretty proud of my self-portrait-style photo shoot, and I ended up with several good ones. It's always nice to pick up a skill you haven't used in a while and find you've "still got it". Plus, these pics were a lot of work to take, lol, and I was sweating by the end - wool/cotton sweater at 5 pm in Florida while jumping onto a chair to set the frame, then running to move the mannequin and position myself and look decent before the timer went off ... over and over and over again, lol. So, enjoy looking at photos of me. 

For those of you who haven't seen my "wip" posts about this sweater, I started it in March - shameful, I know, lol. I made it using Cascade Sierra yarn, which is a 80% cotton/20% wool blend, in the Waterlily colorway. This yarn is now discontinued, so I snapped it up for a great price. 

The pattern is very well written and easy to follow. I made a straight size Large with no modifications - I'd never made a sweater like this before so the idea of changing anything was frightening to say the least. Happily it worked out ok this time :) Somewhere along the line my gauge got tighter than I swatched, resulting in a pretty tight fit. Thankfully, knitting is stretchy, so it still fits fine - it just took some persuading to hit my waist measurement when I blocked it. Now that I've worn the sweater in real life though, I think the fact that it came out a full size smaller is a good thing - the cotton in the yarn has a tendency to stretch out as it's worn and it doesn't have enough wool to make it spring back to its original size, making this sweater grow quite a bit as its worn. In fact, I've read several reviews by others who used this yarn to make this sweater saying that their sweater ended up way too big; so who knew my tragedy would actually be a great thing? Wish I'd know that at the time before it made me stress so much, lol. I enjoyed this yarn all in all - it gives very defined stitches and I LOVE the color - it's the perfect mint green and it goes well with my general wardrobe.

I love the little squiggling lace pattern on this sweater. As you can see, if travels around the neck, down the front, then around the waist without stopping - so cool! Then it's also repeated above the ribbing on the arms. I love the sleeve length too and I made them exactly how the pattern dictated. Trust the pattern, it knows what it's talking about, lol. Also, the ribbing is a fancy twisted rib instead of just regular ribbing. I enjoyed the slight mental/physical dexterity challenge of knitting it and I really love the results. I know some people changed to regular k1p1 ribbing, but I will just put in my two cents - it's worth it! Just give it a try :)

Here's the full back view - including some bra-strap-back-fat ... you're welcome :) The pattern hit me right in between my bust and natural waist, which for my long torso seems to help balance me out. It seemed a little silly length when I first put it on, to be honest, but now that I see the pictures I really like where it sits.

Oh, the saga of these buttons. I searched through my button stash and fell in love with some vintage, gray, genuine mother of pearl ones that were given to me by the lovely Tara. I love that they are real pearl, they had just a little bit of detail with the carved fish eye slit, and the color complemented the sweater beautifully. The problem - I only had 5 in my stash. I immediately thought, "Oh, it should be no problem to find a few more of these fairly generic buttons." Oh, how wrong I was. I searched online and only found maybe 2 or 3 of the same buttons, all of which were sold in larger lots of buttons that I didn't need/want to pay that much for. So, I called Tara and begged to search her stash to steal more of her stuff, lol, which she very willingly allowed. No luck. As I rifled her stash though I set aside any other buttons that were remotely similar, so by the end I had a few others contenders - it even turned out that some of the others I set aside only had 1 or 2 of the buttons hanging around, so it pretty much was meant to be. I brought the buttons to work with me and had my dad polish them up and clean them ... only to drop on in our cart of work and lose it completely. I still have no idea how that could happen. We both saw exactly where the button dropped, and I tore everything apart, even crawling on the floor and sweeping in the corners of the room - it basically disappeared. I was so bummed, I can't even tell you, lol. A few days later I came across my Great Grandmother's little basket of really old buttons ... the whole collection had 1 of these buttons! Huzzah! Anyway, so there are 5 fisheye style buttons, two raised edge buttons, and then one lone carved edge button at the bottom. I was really worried about the pairing at first, but now that I have them sewn on the sweater ... you seriously would never be able to tell unless I point out that they don't all match perfectly. I took those close up shots to show you the difference. They are all the same size, same color, same sheen - I actually really love that they are different now that it's all done.

One of the reasons it took me so long to finish this sweater is because I wanted to stabilize the button bands ... and basically I just never cracked down and made myself try until I got it right. I'm ashamed to admit that this was the first time I used the button hole on my new machine and I was scared, lol. I really shouldn't have worried about it as it was nice and easy when I finally buckled down. It took some fiddling to get them marked correctly so they lined up with the knitted holes, but not too bad. I followed Lladybird's awesome tutorial and all went well. The hand stitching took quite a while, but I watched Frozen while I did it so it wasn't so bad, lol. Now the button bands don't pull and look like my sweater is too small - no fat girl in a little sweater :)

And here is a shot of it how it will actually be worn - realistically I never button my sweaters. I like how it looks unbuttoned too, so that's always good :) 

I've already worn this to church last weekend and I really loved it - I even made my quicky Instagram pic from Sunday my profile pic on Facebook which prompted all kinds of comments from friends. In fact, that is the reason I'm posting this today instead of on FO Friday. I still just love the alliterative title even though the group posting of our finished objects seems to have dwindled away. So, I think you'll be seeing more finished projects on random weekdays now :)

Anyway, I'm really excited to have this cardigan now and I'm also ridiculously proud to say that I made it :) Isn't knitting great?! Now if the weather would just go below 90º so I could actually wear it without fear of a health risk. Come on fall weather!

FO Friday: Say Hi To Cinderella

My second princess doll is finished! Here's Cinderella :)

Isn't she cute? Even though it was an interesting experience making her, I can put that aside because she's so adorable.

I love her little headband and earrings!

For this little lady, I used the Cinderella Amigurumi Doll pattern by Sahrit Freud-Weinstein. I said quite a bit about these patterns when I made Jasmine a few weeks ago, and the same problems ring true. I had so many issues with this pattern - so much so that I made the first arm at least 4 times before it looked right. I aslo have a big issue with the widely ranging sizes of the dolls. You'd think that a set of similarly designed dolls from the same pattern designer would all be close to the same size, right? Apparently not. This lady is designed to be only 5" tall! Jasmine came out almost 8", granted I did make her with a bigger hook, etc, but I did those same changes to this doll and she would not get bigger. I ended up having to add several rows and increases to the bodice and skirt (after making it entirely and seeing it was too small, I had to unravel it and start again ... yeah). She's still a bit short at only 6", but she's really cute anyway. Plus, considering no girls in the kingdom had a foot as small as her, I'm guessing she was rather petite anyway :)

Also, she has nothing under that skirt! It may be a good thing, since this way it can be played with like a puppet too, but I was expecting at least legs or something, you know? Especially since she's famous for her shoes! 

For those who are interested, I used Red Heart With Love in Daffodil for the hair, Vanna's Choice in Beige for the skin, Baby Bee Sweet Delight Pomp in Bare Blue for the lighter blue, and some unknown yarn for the main blue (yay for stash yarn). I really love the color combo :)

In spite of the pattern weirdness, I love how cute she is, don't you?! I'm very excited to get these to their new home. I just have to make the final princess and then they will be off to Japan.

FO Friday: Summer Fun

Well, I had the itch to try something new over Memorial Day weekend. I'd come across  a pattern for crocheted flip flops and knew they'd be the perfect experiment. So here they are:

I used the Flip Flops pattern by Tara Murray of Mamachee. She is a new designer to me and she has such cute designs! Since this was meant to be an experiment, I just fished in my stash of cheap cotton yarn (that I never use!) and chose the two colors that looked the best together. The soles are made from Peaches & Cream Twists in the Limerick colorway and the tops are Lily Sugar's & Cream in the Kiwi colorway. The greens aren't the same (the Limerick is a bit more olive), but I think they look good together. I'm glad I had several skeins on hand of the Limerick though because no joke this took all by 5% worth of 2 skeins just for the bottoms! The yarn is held in double, so it disappears really fast.

I made the size 9-10 and I used one hook larger than the pattern called for since I crochet very tightly. The soles are actually 2 pieces that are sewn together as one. They do fit, but they're just barely long enough. If I was making them for an actual size 10, I think I would need to go up another hook size for the bases (but again, that's just because of my tight stitching, not the pattern). These only took a couple hours to make and the pattern was really well written. It had great pictures to explain everything.

I've just been using them as house shoes since I doubt they're last very long in the real world, and they do their job fairly well :) My only regret is that I went the lazy route and didn't stabilize the soles. The pattern includes instructions on how to attach them to cheapy rubber flip flop soles or to make them cushier/more stable, but those options all required extra materials that I just didn't feel like going upstairs to grab, lol. The problem with not doing anything to stabilize them is that as you're walking they can fold up under themselves. So they kind of drive me nuts, lol,  and I have to pay attention to how I walk in them. I may cut the soles apart and add some foam or some cardboard eventually. 

And I realized that in my crazy month of illness/hectic work schedule, I only just realized that I never fully posted about my pattern testing! I was lucky enough to be asked to test the new Bethany the Butterfly pattern from Adrialys Designs. 

For my Bethany, I decided to make a bi-colored butterfly. I used Red Heart With Love in Violet and Jade for the wings and some old Patons Canadiana in Gray for the body. I also chose to embroider a mouth on mine to make it a little happier :)

I just love these colors together!

I really liked how the wings are made - it's done with a combination of double crochet and single crochet so you get that great shape. One thing I will say is you definitely need to make sure you count out the first 2 rows correctly. I was watching a movie while making my wings and I had to start over 3 times because I'd get to round 3 or 4 and the numbers weren't right. This was totally user error, lol, I just wasn't paying close enough attention. Eventually I realized my mistake and gave it my uninterrupted attention for a few minutes while I started off and they came out great.

Back view

So my own personal butterfly was made with a size H hook, but again that's because I crochet so tight. I would definitely recommend going with the G if you make this to keep everything tight enough to hold in the stuffing. Also, be careful not to over stuff the wings because this can cause the dc section of the wings to separate and show the stuffing. I had to play with it a bit to get the amount just right.

Closer look at wing shaping

I had a few random ideas while making this. I think this pattern would double great as a throw pillow on a girl's bed - imagine a butterfly themed room! And you could make it in any colors you want :) I also think you could easily make your butterfly look more realistic by adding black felt outlines to the wings. I could see that working for a monarch or blue morpho or swallowtail - you name it!

I had a lot of fun making this/testing this pattern and I would highly recommend it for any butterfly lover. Also, my nephew really likes that you can flap the wings :) Incidentally, Adrialys is having a Spring Crochet Along and this pattern is included in the selection. You can get the pattern here and join in the fun.

That's all I've got finished for this week :) Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what lovely things others have made!

FO Friday: Long Overdue ...

This project was technically finished at the end of February, lol, but I wanted to wait until I had decent pictures of it before I posted it here. My husband and I were finally together with a camera and a freshly mowed back yard last weekend, so I ambushed him and forced him to take my picture. I'm so demanding, I know :)

This is my very own Boobholder/Minisweater which is a free pattern from Stefanie Japel. I loved the design of it straight off - bolero style sweater with puffy sleeves?! Count me in :) Essentially this sweater just provides me with sleeves, which is exactly what I need from a sweater - I live in Florida so warmth is not a requirement. The sad part about this project is that I started it in August of 2012. Holy cow, ya'll! In my defense, I had no idea what I was doing back then. I just jumped right into making a sweater, but really the pattern is not great for a beginner and I know that now. The pattern is only written in one size and it took me forever to track down that it is for a 34" bust. The pattern doesn't ever say the size it's designed for (I know, right?). I had to dredge through all the Ravelry projects and read their notes to find that out. Me having a 43" bust, I had to make it A LOT bigger. The raglan sleeve line in the pattern says to increase 17 times and I ended up doing 30 increases. I would just wor a few rows, then try it on to see if the sleeve ends met under my arms, then work a few more rows. It was very tedious, all that on and off the needles, but it paid off.

I used Premier Yarns Everyday Soft Worsted Yarn in Aubergine. Being such a new knitter when I started this and not having any yarn requirements listed for larger sizes, I bought 4 skeins of this stuff, lol, I was very paranoid that I would run out and never be able to buy it again (yeah, turns out this yarn is easy to get and pretty consistent in color - I had no idea back when I bought it). The pattern for the 34" bust said it would take 400 yards of Aran weight. I ended up using 485 yards, which was only 2.35 skeins, so I have plenty of this left. I'm sure it will become animal parts or something, lol. 

Now for the true confession - my sweater ended up a little too big! See how it's ripply at the neckline? I must have increased too much which basically made it too wide in the shoulder. I don't worry about it too much though because my hair always covers this up. Also because of too many increases, the sleeves don't really puff up like the pattern shows they should. I think if the sleeve cuff hugged my arms a bit more then they would puff up more. Also, this made for severe overlapping at the closure. The pattern only calls for one button, but when I tried it on I saw it was definitely going to need two. So I ripped back and did the bottom over again to include two buttonholes. If I hadn't done this, it would have been noticably huge or the little tail created by the single button would have slid out all the time, so it was worth it. Live and learn :) 

 The back fits nicely. See the little gathers at the top of the sleeves? I wish they would puff out better. Oh well.

Ok another confession - being the knew knitter that I was, I wasn't so great at remembering to always garter stitch the first and last 5 stitches of each row, so I ended up having 2 places that I basically had to fake it later. One was way up by the top and I was just not going to rip all that out back then. Another spot was at the curve of the v-neck. I have no excuses for that spot since that was part that I did fairly recently, lol, brain fart I guess. I'm sure you can see the spot now that I've mentioned it, but most everyone in person has no idea there is anything wrong there so I guess my fake-purl-bump-embroidering was a success. 

I was also excited to scrounge through my vintage button collection and found these beauties. These are vintage buttons from my friend Tara and they match perfectly. The best part is that I only had these two of them! So they were obviously just destined to hold this bad boy onto my boobs - case closed. I think they are super cute with their little carved design - so much more fun than just plain colored buttons like my last sweater :)

And since we were out taking nice pictures, I finally got good ones of My First Sweater :) So I figured I'd post them here just cause, lol.

And of course Gordo joined us for our little shoot, so I have to include a cute shot of him :)

Look at that sweet face!

That's it for me :) Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what others have completed lately.

FO Friday: Springy Animals!

First on my finished pile this week is my new pal, Hazel :)

I used the Well-Dressed Bunny pattern by Fuzzy Mitten and absolutely love how he came out :) 

The bunny is made using Patons Canadiana yarn in Flax, the jacket using Lion Brand Microspun in Turquoise, and the waistcoat Red Heart Designer Sport in Mint. I picked the Canadiana because it was the color I want, and it was really nice to work with except one thing ... his ears! The yarn is actually a little too soft for this pattern it seems, because the ears just don't want to stand up. I can position them and then with the slightest movement they fall down. I'm still contemplating starching them :) Also, I think the yarns I used for the clothes were too large because his clothes came out a bit big. I doubt anyone really sees it but me though - it's just a small thing.

Hazel graced our table at Easter dinner and he was definitely a big hit :) Even my nephew likes to hold him by the ears and make him hop (this is a big deal because he usually couldn't care less about my animals, lol). He made a great center piece.

Here's a full frontal nudity pic, lol. Isn't it funny - all my other animals I would never think of as 'naked' even though I've never made clothes for them, but since this one has clothes I just look at this pic and think he's incomplete. By the way I named him Hazel after the main character in Watership Down :)

And here's his little accoutrements :) I never would have thought making what are basically doll clothes would be fun, but I really like it. I'm sure there will be many more articles of clothing in my future.

I also finished my pattern test for Adrialys Designs :) I'm not sure how much she wants me to divulge about it since the pattern hasn't been released yet, so you just get the one pic for now. I'll post about it fully once she releases it! It was lots of fun to make.

So that's what I've finished this week :) Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what others have finished (and this week she did actually post an FO Friday, lol, so there are things to see!)

FO Friday: Meet Jeffrey Duck

I officially finished my Easter animals this week :) Unfortunately, I didn't get to take pictures of my bunny, but you will definitely see him soon. In the meantime, meet Jeffrey Duck:

Look at his cute little face! I just love this guy.

Jeffrey was made from the Silly Duck pattern by Fuzzy Mitten. I used Red Heart Value Texture in a nice aqua color for the body, Caron Sayelle in baby yellow for the beak and feet, and accessorized with some light purple Red Heart Super Saver - all of these yarns were in my stash and were either given to me, cost a stupid cheap amount at a thrift store (the Sayelle was 25¢ for the full skein), or were purchased more than a decade ago (the purple has been around since I was sin high school ... yeah), so I'm pretty much counting this guy as free to make :) Hooray!

I did have a bit of trouble with the weight distribution, so he doesn't like to stand up unaided (thus the clothing shaver in the photo, lol). I love how all his colors look together and I just love his body shape! The textured yarn came out better than I had hoped. It's just fuzzy enough without being impossible to see any stitch definition. You can even see some of the ribbed design on the wings.

I love the pattern on the wings as it seems to aid in the wings holding their shape. I love posing them :) This is one of my favorite shots.

I waited until Barbara Prime put up a tutorial on how to attach the beak and feet and I am so glad I did! The tutorial for the feet is here and the beak is here. It made a huge difference in how these pieces look - I had already attached the beak, but I cut it off and did it again to make it look right. I also got to use my tiny pompom maker for the top of the hat :)

So, that's what I have to show this week :) I just love my little Easter buddies and I can't wait to show my bunny. Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what other lovely things have been made this week!

FO Friday: Zombies and Turtles and Mysteries Revealed

This past week was filled with far too much knitting than is good for anyone, lol. I've had to promise my husband that I will cut back a bit just so the house doesn't get covered in funk. At least I got everything finished by the time I needed to :) I warn you - this post is very picture heavy. I look at it as the amount of pictures is in direct relation to the amount of time the items took to make. So without further ado ... I present the most complicated item I have ever knitted: Briggs' Birthday Zombie.

I used the Classic Zombie pattern from Knit Your Own Zombie by Fiona Goble. I just love that shot above, lol, I had a lot of fun with my little photo shoot.

The cool thing about the book is that the zombie pieces and parts are designed in a pick and choose fashion, so you can mix and match patterns at will. I stuck to the Classic Zombie pattern except that I added a brain and a brain pocket.

lol As you can tell - my photo shoot was a lot of fun especially when I realized that he would stand up on his own. The eye sinew will soon have an actual eye ball on it. I checked everywhere for an evil eye bead like the book uses, but in the end I had to order some online and they hadn't arrived by Sunday. I'll update with a new pic when it's on :)

And here are all the pieces I made. The brain is removable, as are the stomach and intestines. I made the hole in the torso a deep purple color (to keep with decaying body realism, lol). The pattern calls for velcro that matches the yarn color for the head and torso, but in a design decision to keep it gruesome I hunted down some red velcro instead. I love the effect of it! Much more gory. The arms have metal snaps to join them together so they come off as well. The arm and one leg have nasty wounds on them. These are made by actually knitting a red limb, then the green outer limb, sliding the red inside the green, then embroidering with a burgundy yarn around the edges of the wound to attach them. This guy also has toe nails and finger nails that are long black bugle beads. The rib cage is (again) embroidered. The pants were knitted like normal, then I embroidered around a spot I wanted to make a hole and then (gasp!) cut the knitting! It was a scary moment and it didn't really work out as easily as the pattern made it seem and I had to whip stitch around the edge to keep the knitting from unraveling, but the effect is awesome.

lol I love this picture with the nubby arm and the guts sticking out. So gross. The entire face is embroidered on - no easy feat, let me tell you. It took a lot of time, but I really do love how it came out. The teeth are more bugle beads. I decided to use the black instead of white like the pattern calls for because, duh, dead and decaying body!

And here are all the parts laid out. The body parts are all sewn as separate pieces and seamed - holy crap did that take forever. Then I had to embroider everything, sew on beads, sew on velcro, sew on snaps, and make clothes. I had knitted all the body pieces over the course of about a week and then used my day off to put it all together. I'm not kidding when I say that this is almost all I did all day! And I still had to make the clothes!

I had to include this shot ... because it's awesome.

My brother definitely loved his gift, which made it worth all the work :) We kept teasing him that he got a doll for his 15th birthday, lol, but it was all in fun because everyone had to agree that it was gross and awesome.

I am super proud of how this project turned out, I can't lie. It was a crazy amount of work and the pattern certainly doesn't help in that. I'm used to American patterns that include a certain amount of (sometimes unnecessary) hand holding. This British pattern did nothing of the kind, and I've now discovered that this is common with British patterns. For example it would just say, "Seam pieces together. Embroider rib cage.," and the like. No walking you through how to do it, just referring you to a one picture diagram at the beginning of the book. In spite of that and in spite of how sick I was of making this thing when it was done, I would not be opposed to making another. The response from everyone who sees it is really great :) And even though it's gross, it's just so cool that it 's interactive. Even my 1.5 year old nephew loved to take the brain out (in fact we had to force him to give it back, lol). So, I would say there will be other zombies in my knitting future :)

But my making didn't stop there! I was also participating in the Fuzzy Mitten Mystery Knit-Along and the final clue was released last Friday. Now that the mystery is over, I am left with a super cute ... kangaroo!

This was my first ever Fuzzy Mitten project and it did not disappoint. How cute are they?! When I finished them, my husband said that she should be named Charlene (only to be read with a heavy Aussie accent), so this is Charlene and Jake :)

This project was made over the course of a month for me (it was actually 6 weeks with 1 clue each week, but I came in late). I used Vanna's Choice yarn in Toffee and Beige for the body - both were in my stash and they seriously turned out to be the perfect colors.

The cardigan comes off and all the limbs are jointed, so I can make her sit or stand or put her hands up - so cool! I will say, she didn't really like to stand up without her tail on, but that's a non-issue now since she has a tail. The joey was part of the final clue and you want to know what is the coolest thing about him? ...

He's a finger puppet! This is pretty vital to the design because it makes it possible to shove this little guy into the mom's pocket. And the body is made all in one piece! No sewing on teeny little arms and legs - so cool! I'm now obsessed with the idea of making lots of finger puppets, lol. The joey has 6 mm safety eyes and the mom has 10 mm ones.

The obligatory back view :) I love that it's really a little play set. I imagine that I kid would love to play with these. And most of the Fuzzy Mitten animals have similar sized bodies, so you can mix and match their clothes. I would have been all about that when I was little.

The cardigan is made from Red Heart Pompadour in blue and Aunt Lydia's Iced Bamboo in Icicle for the white stripe (it has just a tiny bit of sparkle in it). The cardigan was the first item to make, but it sat unfinished because I was waiting on buttons. I had to order these from Joann's and they are 7mm size. At least now I have a bunch more for the next project. I love that the cardigan only has those two buttons at the top so it can be worn and still see the joey :)

I had loads of fun making this set! I really love the fun of a mystery knit or crochet along, and the Ravelry groups always make it 10 times more fun. I'm so glad I was able to participate, and I have already almost finished my next Fuzzy Mitten friend. I know that I will be making plenty more of Barbara Prime's designs!

And there's one more item! This wasn't really anything I had to make, but it was just too cute and I have a feeling it will be useful and fun at the same time. I've had Ana Paula Rimoli's book Amigurumi On The Go since my birthday last year and hadn't made anything from it yet! I had to remedy that :) So my nephew now gets a super cute turtle tote!

Isn't he fun?! This is made just like any other crocheted amigurumi - you just add a long bag part to the top :) The whole bag is just hdc and then you add the stripes. Originally I didn't know if I wanted to add the stripes since it looked cute without them, but I am so glad I did!

I think the stripes really take this bag to the next step and make it less homemade looking (not that 'homemade' is a bad thing!) I made my stripes in dark red, yellow, orange and gray - all yarns out of my stash. The green and blue are both Red Heart Super Saver. 

The top cinches in with the pull cord. The bag is much bigger than I thought it would be! He is 9.5" tall and  5.5" wide, but it fits a surprising amount of stuff. I hope that my nephew enjoys putting things in, and then taking them out, and then putting them back in again :) He likes to do this with other bags, so now he will have one of his very own that no one will mind when he unloads it, lol.

Phew! That's all my projects from the past week. Crazy! If you have endured this entire post, thank you! I know it was really long but hopefully the pictures were cute enough to stay interesting :) If you're still interested (lol), head over to Tami's Amis' Blog and see what others managed to finish this week!