FO: Last Minute Rainbow Beanies

What's a knitter to do when they finish all their Christmas gift knitting on time? Why... stress themselves out by starting a new project 2 days before Christmas of course! lol On December 21st, I took my kids to a local thrift store to pick out a present for each other (this worked great, by the way, because they had the fun of looking through everything and it also counted as a gift - win win), when I came across a bag with 2 skeins of this yarn along with coordinating eyelash yarn for just $2.00. Normally I would never go for this type of yarn because it just sits in my stash, but since I had finished everything else I wanted to make for the holiday, I figured I had enough time to whip out 2 bulky weight hats.

The yarn is Yarn Bee Soft Illusion and this is the LA Cool colorway. They were different dye lots, which you can tell in the finished hats, but my kids actually don't seem to notice the difference because I have yet to hear them yell, "that's MY hat!" which is great. I was able to knit up one hat each evening on the 22nd and 23rd, so I got them done without my kids seeing them. This yarn is so squishy soft. The base yarn is buttery smooth already, but then the hairy bits are even softer. 

On the 24th, I made the pom poms. I broke out my pom pom makers and made the largest size I had and I think they are a great size for 5 year olds. Making these was such a mess! Pom poms are a mess in general, but add in some eyelash yarn and woo boy. I tried to do all my cutting over a bag just to catch the inevitable threads and after that I was kind of buffing the pom pom with my hand to try and shake off the excess. I still find neon green threads around my house as my kids wear these. Anyway, this yarn is Premier Yarns Lash Lux Sequins in the Neon Green colorway, which is the perfect highlighter green and goes great with the crazy yarn from the hat. My kids watched me make the pom poms and got to help shake off the excess, but they didn't know what they were for.

I always try to make them something that they know is a present from me and not from Santa each year. I wrap these and set them near the Santa presents (our Santa does not wrap - it's liberating, you should try it) and they tore right into it this year and loved them. We don't really get much wear out of hats here in Central Florida, but they still love wearing them. I made them some Sesame Street Hats 2 years ago and they still wear those to play pretty often, so I knew these fuzzy hats would be a hit. I have 1/4 skein left of this hairy yarn all together, which will probably languish in my stash for ages, lol. But I'm glad I found this yarn just in the nick of time to make this gift. Sometimes it's fun to just make a completely ridiculous hat for your kids, you know?

And that completes my gift knitting from 2023! I have two other project that is technically a Christmas gift but I didn't make it until January and that was known and agreed upon with the recipients (It was their fault as much as mine, lol). All in all, I'm very happy with everything I managed to make this year. I'm glad that the kids were so happy with their gifts and that their quality was so nice. I guess knitting for almost 12 years has paid off. 

Summary:

Yarn: 1.75 skeins of Yarn Bee Soft Illusion in the LA Cool colorway and 0.50 skeins of Premier Yarns Lash Lux Sequins in Neon Green - $2.00

Pattern: LA Cool Hat by Leenbacon on Ravelry - Free

Notions: Thread

Time: 2 hours

FO: Finger Knit Cushy Blanket

This project idea was hatched back in June when I came across 5 skeins of this enormous yarn in a thrift store. I'm not usually one for this huge yarn trend, but my mom had mentioned how she thought the chunky knit blankets were really cool and it lead to a whole discussion about how expensive the yarn is to make those and the idea seemed to dwindle away. So when I found a blanket worth of yarn for $5, I snapped it up and knew I wanted to make my parents this blanket sometime. 

The yarn is called Yarn Bee Eternal Bliss and is originally from Hobby Lobby for $7.99 per skein. This yarn is the Light Gray colorway, which is literally the perfect color for my parent's back room of their house, which is where they would watch tv with a blanket. This yarn is seriously 1 inch in diameter. So thick. I knew i couldn't do anything with needles for this yarn, so I looked into finger knitting. I came across this video on YouTube, which laid out the whole process and made this project so easy.

According to the video, I had the perfect amount of yarn for a 3 x 4 foot blanket, so I followed her directions and chain stitched 28 stitches across (which was 3 feet). I knit up the whole blanket one night on a zoom call for about 2 hours and then excitedly went in my room to lay it out and see how it looked ... only to discover that I had dropped 3 stitches on the edge throughout the project, one of which was in the first quarter of the blanket. Ugh. I had to unwind all the way back and set it aside. This worked out for the best though because now I knew what I was doing and I could involve my kids in making it again. They sat on each side of me and would pull up the loops on their side of the blanket while I worked on the center as we went. Now they can say they made this blanket, which is always a big deal for a 5 year old at Christmas. Also because I had already knotted the yarn together when I made the blanket the first time, I had an absolutely gigantic ball of yarn I was working from - seriously it was bigger than a basket ball. The girls thought it was pretty awesome.

Here is the purl side of the blanket. You can see me joins if you look close, but they really aren't that bad considering how big this yarn is. I secured each join with a needle and thread as well as the start and end knots just to make sure it holds up to washing. Our stitching could certainly be a bit tighter, which might have made it look a bit more even, but for never having done finger knitting before and also considering I was letting 5 year olds help me, I think it turned out pretty great.

So now my parents have their chunky knit blanket. It's so thick and cushy that it works well as a mat for babies in case they plop their heads down too quickly, and the openness of the stitches makes this not a super heavy blanket. It's just enough to snuggle up in without making you too hot, so it should be great for this Florida family. My kids have been using it everytime they go over to my parents house, so I know I have their seal of approval. I'm happy with how this turned out and would definitely try out finger knitting again if I come across this kind of yarn again.

Summary:

Yarn: 5 skeins of Yarn Bee Eternal Bliss in Light Gray - $5.35

Pattern: How To Finger A Knit Blanket by Play Hooky With Me - Free

Time: 4 hours

FO: Pokemon Hat & Scarf Set

 

The final hat and scarf set was for my 11 year old nephew and I decided to make it Pokemon themed. He's been into Pokemon for years, so I knew this would be well received. I also knew I had the perfect yarns in my stash to make this happen, which is always nice.

The scarf was actually the first thing I made out of all of these gifts. I made it on the Sentro machine first, but I didn't like how the front yellow section had so many tucked stitches and it looked sloppy. When the Ravenclaw one came out so great on my flat bed machine, I decided to unravel this entire scarf and redo it on the Babylock machine and I'm so happy I did. 

I knew I had this almost full skein of Red Heart Super Saver yarn in yellow - I had only used it for little details here and there on toys over the years and it was in my Ravelry stash as 0.98 skeins left - but I had one heck of a time actually locating the skein. I found it amongst some skeins I had decided to donate years ago and then apparently never did. Good thing I didn't! I made this 50 stitches wide and just knit the yellow until it ran out, which didn't give me quite as long as I wanted it to be. Personally, I like my scarves to be long enough to easily double wrap around my neck and still show the end details, and my nephew is very big for his age, so I wanted this to be 72 inches. When the yellow ran out, I just color blocked in some black. This lead me down the very weird Mandela effect rabbit hole of whether Pikachu's tail has a zig zag of black at the end, which I always thought it did. Turns out that regardless of our personal thoughts on if it was changed at some point, the current games all have his tail as being all yellow and since that was what my nephew would know I just went with a straight transition to black instead of zig zagging it like I thought I would initially. he black is also Red Heart Super Saver, so the transition went well. I knitted about 15 inches more in black and then bound off.

I used kitchener stitch at the ends and mattress stitch along the sides - and man do these take a long time to seam together when they are so long. I took a photo of the kitchener end just to show how it looks. It does have a bit more bulk, but I just steamed the daylights out of it to lay as flat as possible.

The final touch was my home stitched Pikachu patch. I searched through the available Pikachu embroidery files and settled on this one because he looks so happy. This stitched out beautifully if I do say so myself. I used my same black linen scraps for the base and stabilized it well and he looks very professional. I just love him. He definitely makes the whole scarf.

Next up came the hat. I had seen a hat online that looked like a Pokeball and decided that would be my nephew's favorite. The inspiration hat has the button done with intarsia, which I could technically do on my machine, but I didn't know how yet and it would have taken me too long to learn and plot out and probably make this hat a few times to get right, so I decided to just knit the base colors into the hat and then figure out a way to add the circles after. Doesn't this beanie look so late 90s without the circles? How trendy am I? lol This is a picture of the mattress stitched back, which turned out great.

And here is the inside because I think it just looks to cool, lol. It came out very clean and I'm always shocked by how precision the knitting machine makes things look inside. 

Once the hat was made, I had to figure out how to add the button. I had thought of just crocheting one, but that would have been really bulky, as would knitting one. Then I thought about finding an embroidery file and making a patch of just the button, but that would have been hard in the size I needed it. Then it hit me that I could just use a white base fabric and embroider circles of different thicknesses in black. This didn't require any files to do - I just used circles on the machine - and I think it turned out fantastic. The base fabric is a white denim my mom had on hand. Because this was just fabric, it was much easier to sew on than the thicker patches. 

This was the final item I was hurrying to finish so I could pop it in the mail, so my finished hat photos were all taken late at night, thus the lighting in the photos. I think the hat turned out great. If I was to make it again, I would do about 2 rows less of the white, but other than that I am so happy with this one.

And I had to get a photo making the same face as Pikachu, lol. This set is definitely my favorite of the bunch and I was really proud of it. I think the design idea was good as well as the execution, which is just always a nice boost. My nephew loved it on Christmas, which is also the icing on the cake. He now has a custom made but professional looking accessory set for the chilly weather and I hope he loves it for a long time.

Summary:

Yarn: 1 skein of Red Heart Super Saver in Yellow - $ 0.25, 0.23 skeins in Black - $ 0.25

Pattern: None

Notions: Pikachu embroidery file - $ 3.00

Time: 4 hours

FO: Spiderman Hat & Scarf Set

 Are you noticing the trend yet?

Once I worked out the sizing and kinks of making the Ravenclaw hat and scarf set, it was time to churn out a few other variations. My 5 year old nephew is very into Spiderman lately, so I decided to make him a set to feel super cool. I was inspired by a red and blue striped hat and scarf I saw online that I knew I could recreate and I dove in.

The hat came first on this one because I was making all the hats back to back. This set worked out to be a bit of a stash bust. I had various partial skeins of red and blue acrylic yarn that was given to me or leftover from other projects, so this was the perfect opportunity to use those up. The blue yarn is Red Heart Super Saver in the Delft Blue colorway, which I used up entirely, and the red in an unknown acrylic from a friend (I suspect it's I Love This Yarn) and I only have a small ball of that leftover. The hat was made with the same YouTube Video as the first hat and it worked great for this one too. The only difference is that I had to change the yarns myself since this wasn't self striping. I did 6 rows of each color for the striping and I think that was the perfect amount. The back is mattress stitched together and it's almost seamless, which I'm happy with.

The spiderman emblem was also made by me! Well, by a machine that I directed, which counts, right? I swear as more machinery is involved, I don't really know how to refer to things anymore, you know? Anyway, I searched online for Spiderman files for my mom's embroidery machine (I have an older machine that does embroidery, but my mom's is fancier and she has all the threads on hand to make whatever AND I was too lazy to set mine up, lol). The file only took about 15 minutes to stitch out, which wasn't bad. I used some black linen scraps as the base fabric and then we used several stabilizers to get this crisp look. I think the patches turned out really great. Once the file was stitched out, I just cut very close around it like a patch and hand stitched it to the center front.

Next came the scarf. I made this 50 stitches wide (same as the Ravenclaw one) and I just kept knitting until I ran out of yarn. Since my nephew is 5, he didn't need an adult sized scarf. The red yarn in this scarf is Premier Yarns Everyday Soft Worsted in the Really Red colorway, which I only have a small ball of left now. The blue is the same Red Heart and I ran out mid stripe, which was a bit of a bummer. I wanted the stripes to at least be the same width throughout, so I added a bit of black just to finish out that 6 row stripe. I think it still goes fine and no one has asked why it has a stripe of black. Design feature! 

I cast off when I ran out of yarn and tried it on my kids (who are one year older) and the length seamed just fine. I used a mattress stitch to close up the sides and a kitchener stitch at the ends and then steamed the daylights out of the edges just like before. 

And then I sewed my home-stitched patch at the bottom on the side with the black - I think this makes the black seem a bit more deliberate, don't you?

So that's the Spiderman set :) My nephew was very excited when he opened it - much more so than I thought a 5 year old getting clothing of any kind would be - so that was really nice. It's always nice to feel like the gift recipient appreciates what you gave them, which is so hit and miss with kids. I'm glad I could make something cool enough to make him that happy.

Summary:

Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in Delft Blue - Free, Premier Yarns Everyday Soft Worsted in Really Red - $2.00, Unknown Acrylic in Red - Free

Pattern: None

Notions: Spiderman embroidery file - $3.00

Time: 3 hours

FO: Ravenclaw Scarf & Hat

 

In deciding to knit hat and scarf sets for all the kids, I first started off with a pokemon one for my nephew. I used the Sentro 48 pin machine and cranked out a yellow and black version, which was mostly fine except the machine had tucked stitches no matter what I tried to avoid it. I had a heavily tucked section in the most visible area when worn and I really wasn't thrilled with it. I decided to try the second scarf on my flat bed knitting machine to compare the two - if I couldn't get the flat bed machine to do better then I would just use the pokemon one as it was. Anyway, this was what started my adventures in finally making things on my flat bed machine, lol. 

The scarf was my first project even though I finished it last. Since I was trying to make the same size as the Sentro machine, I made this 50 stitches wide - 48 stitches and then 2 stitches as seam allowance for sewing it into a tube. I like a scarf that is long enough to really wrap you up, so I made this 72 inches long. 

The yarn was a very fortuitous situation. I was planning on buying some navy blue yarn and striping this scarf myself with some gray I already had, but one day on a visit to the local library one of the lovely ladies asked me if I would like some yarn. She knows I'm an avid knitter and brought me into their classroom where they stored yarn for knitting classes and pulled out 5 trash bags and a few tubs filled with yarn and told me to take whatever I wanted. They had too much on hand and people tend to bring their own to the classes, so this was all going to go. It was mostly all acrylic, but I found 3 skeins of Red Heart Team Spirit yarn in Navy and Gray stripe. This is a self striping acrylic yarn and I immediately knew it would be perfect for my Ravenclaw project. My boyfriend's son discovered Harry Potter this past year and he saw he is a Ravenclaw, so I knew I had to facilitate this. Sometimes the universe just makes certain projects a possibility, you know?

So I made this using my 1988 Babylock knitting machine. I watched the series called Know Your Bond by Cheryl Brunette on YouTube and just knitted until it was 72 inches long. Since I didn't have to change colors, it went extremely smoothly. I think I made this in about an hour on the knitting machine. I'll admit it probably took me another 30 - 45 minutes to seam it up and then another 30 minutes to sew the patch on, but still for a plain stockinette scarf that's 72" long, I'm fine with that time frame, lol. I originally wanted to add tassels, but in the end I didn't think they were needed. I ordered 2 of these patches from Joann because they were on sale for $3.25 each and that's cheaper than I would have been able to buy the embroidery file let alone spend the hour to stitch them out myself. Work smarter, not harder, right? For the scarf, I just used a mattress stitch along the sides to sew it into a tube and I used a kitchener stitch to close up the end, then I steamed it heavily on the seams to get them to sit flatter.

Next up - the hat! I actually made this hat twice. At first, I used my own numbers for how many stitches it should be and it turned out way too big even for my head. It was good practice though and I was able to make the next one according to the numbers I got from this YouTube video. I was grateful to find this video made on the machine I was using. It was a nice walk through. When making this hat on the flat bed machine, at least 75% of the time is making the brim. You cast on every other stitch, knit a few rows, then add in all the rows and knit some more, then you go in with a latch hook tool and drop down every other row and re-knit them by hand to be knit stitches on the wrong side, giving you a ribbed brim that is already cast off when you're done. It's very much worth the time and effort, but it just feels like it takes forever in comparison to the time of the entire hat.

Once the knitting is done, you draw up the crown to cinch in and seam the back. I try to be very accurate when seaming anything striped and I think it turned out really well for this one.

I used a mattress stitch for the seam, which leaves a very small seam in the center back. It actually looks very clean inside thanks to this being machine made.

Once again I added the patch from Joann - I did sew these on even though they are iron on. The iron on always fails eventually and I want this to be easy to wash and wear for an 8 year old.

And there you have my first scarf and hat set of this Christmas :) I love how this turned out and the recipient seems to like it as well (even if the scarf was a bit large, lol). Even though I knit these first, they weren't "finished" until after everything else because I was waiting for the patches in the mail. C'est la vie, eh? They didn't arrive until 2 days after Christmas, but they were done and in the mail before the mailing cut off, so I still count that as a success.

Summary:

Yarn: 3 skeins of Red Heart Team Spirit in Navy and Gray = Free

Pattern: Scarf - None, Hat: Here - Free

Notions: 2 Ravenclaw patches - $6.50

Time: 4 hours

FO: Teddy Bear Baby & Toddler Hats

Alright, it's time to talk about Christmas gifts I knit this year. I decided in the summer that all my nieces and nephews would be getting hats and scarves this year and I originally wanted to use my Sentro knitting machines to make them - churning out gift hats and scarves was why I originally justified purchasing those things anyway. So I started out with some samples on the 22 pin and the 48 pin machines. The bigger machine would work for the older kids no problem, but the 22 pin was too small and the 48 pin was too big for the babies. Knowing a baby hat wouldn't take much time to make and also knowing that I was using my knitting machines for all the other kids, I decided what the heck and just cast on the baby hats to knit by hand on my DPNS. I wanted them to be cuter than just a plain beanie, so when I saw a baby hat with teddy bear ears it was decided. I cast on and got going.

I used my go-to hat pattern: Basic Hat by Michelle of Ooo Baby Knits, which is a free pattern and easily adapted to whatever size you want. I needed one for a boy and one for a girl, so I searched the stash and came up with some cute options.

The girl version came first and this is actually the only photo I have of it because I had to get it in the mail earlier than the others. I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease in the Dusty Pink colorway and made a basic beanie. Then I hunted Ravelry for free teddy bear ear hat patterns and just added the ears from Bear Ears & Face Hat by Tara Marie, which worked great. The hat itself is a bit long, but that means it can easily be folded up at the brim for now and it will grow with my niece and she can wear it for years. 

For my nephew, I know his mom wanted blue, so when I came across this cool yarn in my stash I decided to go with it. This yarn is I Love This Yarn Colors! from Hobby Lobby in the Morningstar colorway. It gradates from blue top green and has a heathery look. I bought it in 2014 because I loved the colors and then I could never figure out what to make with it. Huzzah! I love using up a long stashed yarn.

I made these hats 70 stitches wide and it turns out that actually can squeeze on my own head, so with the extra length from folding up the brim and the width being what it is, I know these hats can grow with their recipients for a few years at least, and that's always a nice feeling :)

The pink hat was my first gift I made this year before jumping head first into machine knitting and the blue one was made in the midst of the rest. This is my crop of gifts I mailed out to my nephews - just envision the pink one added in there since it was already gone when this photo was taken. This was the most complicated year of gifts I've ever made and I was so happy that I was able to get them all done in time :) Stay tuned for the deets on all these items over the next few weeks. 

Summary:

Yarn: 0.50 skeins of Lion Brand Wool Ease in Rose Heather - $1.50, 0.35 skeins of I Love This Yarn Colors in Morningstar  - $3.66

Pattern: Basic Hat by Michelle of Ooo Baby Knits - Free, Bear Ears & Face Hat by Tara Marie - Free

Time: 3 hours? Ish?

WIP Wednesday: Finishing Touches on Gift Making

I've been working pretty diligently to finish up all my gift knits in time to pop them in the mail before Christmas. I managed to finish all the machine knitting on Sunday and then do some machine embroidery. Here is a sneaky peek of my makes...

I have a machine that will embroider, but my mom has a Brother Stellaire, so very much fancier than mine, lol. I opted to make the patches on her machine Sunday night and after a practice run on Spiderman, these all turned out great. Shopping for embroidery files is interesting because a lot of the result seems to depend on your machine, so I'm glad I used my moms new one instead of mine for this part.

I'm now working on sewing everything together and getting it officially done while I wait for 2 patches I ordered from Joann. I made an order specifically for these patches but I added on some fray check and a few random notions just because I was making an order. Well the other things have all arrived but the patches haven't even shipped yet. Of course. So if they don't get here soon then I will have to just machine embroider them as well if I want to make the Christmas deadline with shipping them to North Carolina. Everyone think good thoughts for me!

Are your gift makes going to be done on time? Let me know what you're making too!

FO: Pusheen

My niece who got the embroidered jacket turned 1 and after I made the jacket I realized that I hadn't made her a gift yet, lol. I immediately started hunting through my Ravelry library to see what I could whip out in just a few days.

How cute is this guy, eh? My sister loves Pusheen, so when I saw this pattern in my library I knew it wud be a good one. I grabbed yarn from my stash and made this within abut 24 hours.

The yarn I used is all I Love This Yarn in the Gray Mist and Greybeard colorways. The little bit of colorwork was fairly easy to accomplish. This pattern is Pusheen the Cat by Emma's Animal Creations and it is free on her blog. I was able to just keep the webpage open on my phone next to me and get this whole thing made

I decided to make baby safe eyes since my niece is only 1 so she could decide to chew on this a bit. I simple used black yarn and made a circle in chain stitch and then a French knot of the gray in the center. I embroidered the rest of the face with the same back yarn scraps.

While I was making this, it brought up the question: What is Pusheen from? I didn't know if he was just an internet cartoon or part of an adorable Japanese show or what, so I looked it up. He was just an internet cartoon created by some people from Ireland. Very interesting. He's so adorable in general though and now since he has gifs and emojis, he is a household known face whether they know his name or not.

I stuffed this bad by into a flat rate bubble mailer and I was pretty proud of my stuffing abilities on that package, lol. I had to tell my sister to open it carefully But he arrived and my niece loves him as much as a 1 year old can really love anything, so that's god. My sister thought it was awesome, so that's what really counts on a baby gift, right?

FO: Baby's First Planet

There have been so many babies in my family this year and I was majorly feeling the pressure to make them all gifts. I've made a baby gift for all of my nieces and nephews, so when my sister had her 3rd baby I knew I had to keep up the tradition. But what to make? My sister was planning a space theme for his room, which was surprisingly hard to find patterns for. In the end, I decided to keep it simple and just make my newest nephew a planet.

This is the My Own Planet Amigurumi pattern by Stacey Trock, which is a free pattern. I have a soft spot in my heart for Stacey's patterns because she is how I learned to crochet amigurumi. Her patterns are always a pleasure to work with. This was an extremely simple shape, so I was able to make this up in one evening.

I had this really neat skein of Lion Brand Mandala Ombre I picked up in a thrift store a while back and I knew it would be perfect for this project to add some interest. The previous owner had wound off each color into separate balls and the biggest one I had was the darker blue color, so I made that my main color. You knit most of the main planet, then you stop and make the ring, then finish the planet and tuff it all. Pretty cool, but I ran out of the main planet color where I stopped to make the ring. 

No problem! I just used the lighter blue from the ball of yarn to finish it up. Because of the marled nature of the yarn and it's a planet, I just call it a topographical difference, lol.

Since I had the different colors of yarn that all matched, I decided to switch colors in the middle of the ring. The pattern just uses one color for the planet and one for the ring, but why not have fun with yarn when you can, right? It was a very easy change to make. I also put a rattle inside this to give some interest for the baby when he gets bigger, and the more I think about it the more I think this planet is the perfect baby toy. It rattles, it's compact, the ring is perfect for little hands to grab and chew on. It's washable, lol. All good things.

In the end, this is what yarn I had left, so it worked out great. I really liked this yarn - it was very soft and stitched up great.

And I was able to bring this with me to the hospital to give to my fresh little nephew :) He was born on May the 4th, so space is definitely going to be the theme of his life. I'm glad I could keep up the tradition I've made of making something for my newest little family additions. I hope this little guy enjoys his planet as he gets older.

Summary:

Yarn: Partial skein of Mandala Ombre by Lion Brand - $0.50 (thrifted)

Pattern: My Own Planet by Stacey Trock - Free

Notions: Jingly Cat Toy - $0.25

Time: 2 hours