Category: Knitting

Saturday morning, I finally finished my nephew’s knitted amigurumi!

I was so happy that I could get this completed in time for their visit. I had planned on having this finished over two weeks ago; however, my father was taken to the hospital on 10/15/21, and so my knitting came to a standstill as I juggled work, being there for my mother, and still being the mom to my daughter. My father was moved out of the ICU at the end of last week, and things are slowly settling down. Because of that, I was able to focus on my nephew’s knitted amigurumi. Thankfully; I’d knitted the majority of the stuffed toy. The only thing left was to finish knitting the legs, which I did yesterday. I presented it to him when he and my brother dropped by the house this past Saturday. He told me that he loved it and is now trying to think of an appropriate name for him. 🙂

In the above picture, I stuck it next to my daughter’s knitted green amigurumi (she named it Izzy) for comparison. As you can see, her’s has received a lot of love over the years. I’m hoping for a slow weekend so that I can patch up Izzy.

Several years ago, I knit this voodoo doll for my daughter. I’ve made her a lot of amigurumi’s over the years. What’s amigurumi? Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small, stuffed yarn creatures. She loved that knitted toy so much, that I eventually knit her another one. Nine years later, she still has them displayed on her bed.

Two weekends ago, when my brother and nephew were visiting us, my nephew saw one of my daughter’s knitted voodoo amigurumi’s (I made two for her) and said that he liked them. I told him I would make him one. I hunted around for the appropriate yarn; however, I did not find that anything that was superwash wool, and so yesterday I logged onto Michael’s and ordered Paton’s sock yarn. I was happy to discover that they had a sale; buy one, get one free; because of that, I purchased eight skeins of yarn. Does ut take eight skeins to knit one voodoo doll? Of course, it doesn’t; however, the cooler months are always a fabulous time to knit socks, don’t you think?

I’m looking forward to an afternoon of hanging with my daughter while knitting the voodoo doll for my nephew. He’ll be here this coming weekend. I’m hoping to have it finished by that time.

In other news

I finished my first full week of simply working/without training. I must say it feels great. There’s still so much to learn; however, I’m surrounded by a fabulous boss, wonderful teammates, that it makes the career change transition much easier.

I finally finished knitting the handknit afghan that I was making. It took me a little under one month to create.

It’s made from 100% merino wool.

It’s squishably soft and handwash only or… I CAN wash it on the delicate setting (as long as I don’t utilize the agitate cycle) and let it line dry.

I added a crocheted border to this afghan and I do believe that I will hand-sew a lining also. I’m currently working on another knit blanket. This time, I’m using fisherman’s wool. It’s 100 % wool also. With crafting, I only use natural fibers. One of the many benefits that I appreciate about using natural fiber is that they breathe. So yes… I wear wool socks even during the summer. All the socks that I own were handknitted by me. My daughter can say the same thing about most of her socks. She does have a few socks that were gifted to her by Karen one of my blogging pals.

Although I don’t eat animals I have no issues using animal fibers that are responsibly harvested. There are plenty of sheep farmers that do that. I think it’s wonderful to see a face that goes along with the sheared fiber. Not only do I knit, I spin also. What’s my next project? I’ll be knitting an afghan, but it will be made from some of my raw fiber. I do believe it will be a mix of wool, llama and perhaps mohair. The fiber has already been cleaned by me, so the only thing left to do is card the fiber, spin, dye and then knit the afghan. 🙂

The first week in this month, my daughter had her homeschool review with our local public school system. For those that homeschool, they are reviewed by either their local jurisdiction or you can pay for use am umbrella program and get the review that way. For myself, it really made no sense going through an umbrella organization since I’m perfectly capable of going directly to the source. Also, it meant I could chat with my reviewer. My daughter accompanied me on the trip, and our review really enjoyed asking her questions. As well as she did in her local private school, I must say that she’s soaring even higher now. The reviewer loved how organized I was in displaying her work and she really loved seeing all the examples of her artwork, and how she logged her exercise and music (like a journal).

Here’s my long-term knitting project. I’m knitting a king-sized blanket. It’s made in Paton’s and Fishermans wool.

I can’t wait until this is complete. It will be extremely warm. Of course, it’s going to take a while to complete because of my arm/wrist issues, however, I’m fine with that.

The past week or so, I’ve been knitting a scarf for the BF. I made him a matching hat, which I gifted to him on his birthday. He loves that hat!

I’m at the halfway point and probably have already worked on this for about thirty hours. As you can see, I have a helper. Bella, decided to supervise. Perhaps she was checking to see if I had dropped stitches?

Not too long ago, I started knitting the hat that you see below for my daughter.

She wanted a knitted hat for the fall and she also seems to have misplaced her favorite owl knit hat that I’d made.

I consoled her and told her it would be no problem knitting her a hat.

This hat was made quite easily. In fact, I started on it the weekend we went to my BF’s parents house. I used a moss stitch for the brim of the hat, and the remaining stitches are good ole stockinette stitch. It’s simple mindless knitting that I don’t have to pay attention to at all. Which is perfect for when I want to pay attention to other things.

Guess what? I completed most of this hat while watching my BF in his Taekwondo class. I’m unsure if I’ll be able to finish this hat before Friday. I hope I do; however, if that’s not the case I’ll be sure to finish knitting it on Friday. My daughter will be joining me to watch the BF in his Taekwondo class.