The past few days I’ve been working on tiny knits. During my down time, I’ve been so busy hanging with my daughter — and squeezing in knitting. That I’ve completely forgotten to take pictures, I must change that.
Of course my daughter has reaped the benefits since the completed items were gifted to her dolls. It’s all part of using magic loop to it’s fullest. I’ve been good, and haven’t touched my DPN’s at all — although I’ve looked at them longingly. Since I have the simple knitted doll items nailed down, I think it’s high time that I add something more challenging to the mix, and so I’m looking at sweaters and knitted jackets/skirt combinations, all in miniature of course.
Naturally, this means I’ll need to purchase smaller knitting needles. I believe my smallest knitting needle size is either 0 (2.0mm) or 1 (2.5mm), but I’ve seen them go down to 000 (1.5mm.) Naturally Althea Crome came to mind, since she’s the miniature queen — in the knitting world.
I already posted the above video before, when I wrote about crocheting my first ‘Coraline doll‘ but I had to post it once more. The detail in her miniature outfits are amazing.
You want to know something? I find it much easier to make miniature knitted items than crochet. Perhaps its because I’ve knitted longer. I’ll be sure to post photos of some of my knitted creations within the next few days.
Which reminds me… I need to purchase appropriate purchase lace weight yarn for these upcoming projects. My birthday is right around the corner, and my gift to myself is another set of circular needles, yarn, card stock, and stamps. I might purchase some more fabric too.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, it happens in fall (which is one of my favorite seasons.)
Teeny tiny knitted skull. This one is about the size of a quarter.
This past weekend I decided to knit a few cute items for the upcoming holiday, such as the cute little skull featured here. This skull is tiny, about the size of a quarter, and was knitted in the round on my size 4 Knit Picks options circular interchangeable needles.
For my daughter’s fourth grade class, I’m making trick or treat bags out of muslin, it’ll be much easier to sew than knit 15 bags. I’ll then stuff the bags with all sorts of yummy treats.
But back to this lovely knitted quilt. It’s made by knitting hundreds of honeycomb shapes aka hexipuffs. I’m planning on making at least a queen size quilt… think about that, I’ll be turning yarn into honeycombs, which will then be joined to create a queen size quilt. That will take some time. This is an item that will be passed onto my daughter. The beauty of it is; she’ll be able to watch some of the process. I plan to start on knitting this quilt this Fall.
To take my mind off that quilt, I’ve done a few more rows of my lacy fern afghan, and while it’s coming along quite nicely, I really wanted to make something that would be thicker and warmer. More like a quilt you know? Well, I’m now knitting a Beekeepers quilt (I’ve also heard it called the hexipuff quilt) and before long I’d knitted 1.5 hexagons.
My first hexipuffs, ready to be stuffed with fiberfill and bound…
I wanted to finish the second hexipuff, but it was late and I was extremely tired. So the work in progress puff was tucked into my project bag to be completed sometime today. I’m really enjoying these cute little puffs, so it’s safe to say that I’m officially working on my knitted quilt.
I don’t think I’ll be knitting the lacy fern afghan for a while, the time spent on that will be focused on my knitted quilt.
As usual I’m not following the pattern exactly
I’m using worsted weight yarn instead of the sock or 4 ply yarn
I’m casting on more stitches
How I attach the hexipuffs will be different
To be honest, the pattern is quite easy to figure on your own, in fact I made my own knitted hexagons, squares, circles, and other shapes years before I purchased this pattern. But, I purchased the pattern, since I like supporting other designers. Since most animal fibers make me itch,the yarn used is 100% cotton.
How many puffs needed for my quilt?
Judging by the hexagon calculator, I’ll need at least 187 348 hexipuffs and 19 half hexipuffs to turn all the little puffs into a quilt, so this project will keep me busy for some time.
I’ve seen a few people comment on why people don’t join the hexagons as they go, and I can’t help but think that perhaps some of them are like myself…. I’ll be using a lot of colors and won’t know how they’ll look together until I’ve finished all the hexagons, so for me (and I imagine others) it makes sense to save the sewing together of all those hexagons (to form a quilt) until the end.
I’m feeling sad that I’ve sworn off my DPNs for a while, but I’m consoling myself by thinking that I’ll have plenty of hexipuffs to make when I lift the DPN restriction. However knitting in the round with my interchangeable circular needles is not bad, and making these tiny hexipuffs gives me the chance to use magic loop every single day.
My daughter loves the hexagons, and so I imagine I’ll be taking a detour to make a miniature beekeepers quilt for her Monster High dolls.
If you want to make your own Beekepers quilt, you can purchase your own pattern at Tiny Owl Knits website for $5.50, but if you’re a Ravelrer why not purchase and download it through Ravelry? In doing so, you can upload the Beekeepers quilt pattern to your queue.
You’re so busy that it can be hard making time for yourself. The past few weeks have been like that for me, but somehow I still managed to squeeze a few minutes to work on some craft. That usually occurred a few minutes before my bedtime. And even though I haven’t had too much time for crafting during those few moments I’m able to get the creative juices flowing, and set aside time for myself.
Here’s the left side panel of my Lacy Fern Afghan.
Recently my creative time has been focused on knitting this Lacy Fern Afghan. I’m almost completed the left side panel. I still have the center panel, and the right side panel to complete. Because of my schedule, some days I only manage to do one repeat, or even a few small rows… but I cannot complain, I’m able to do many things I enjoy — even if (sometimes) it’s only in small doses. The left side panel of this afghan works like this; one repeat = 12 rows; each row has 36 stitches. That adds up to a lot of stitches.There are 17 repeats that make up the left side panel. I’m just starting repeat 14.
This is another shot of the left side panel. I really love the simple lacy design of the Lacy Fern Afghan. Although it’s a large project, it knits up quickly.
This afghan measures 45″ (114.3 cm) so I’m almost completed the left side panel of my Lacy Fern Afghan. If I’m not thrilled with the length at 17 repeats, I’ll go up to 20 repeats.
Since my skin is sensitive to most animal fibers I’m making this afghan with cotton yarn. The yarn is incredibly soft, and I’m looking forward to snuggling in this afghan during the cooler months.
The Lacy Fern Afghan can be downloaded for free. Depending on where you look, you might see it called another name; Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw. The only error seems to be with the center panel, so be sure to check out the errata page for the Lacy Fern Afghan aka Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw.
I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw Bentley with his knitted amigurumi snake. It seems they’re getting along famously right?
Would you look at that face? I can almost hear him saying… Mine!
It looks like I had nothing to worry about, his old snake has been replaced.
Don’t even think about taking my snake!
This amigurumi snake pattern can be found in the book, Knitted Wild Animals by Sarah Keene. This is my first knitted amigurumi project. I’ve made several crochet amigurumi. All the knitted amigurumi projects within the book are knitted flat, and then seamed. I worked this amigurumi snake on my circular needles. If I use this pattern again, I’ll convert it to a circular pattern using my DPNs. Yes, yes, I know I can use magic loop, yes I know how to do them, but I much prefer doing small circular work with my DPNs. For larger circular projects, I’m all about using my Knit Picks circular needles.
The downloadable pattern is called Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw. I must say it was a bit confusing because although there was a errata page it’s labeled as a Lacy Fern afghan. After a few moments of digging, I learned that Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw and the Lacy Fern Afghan, are the same pattern,they just have different names. If you’re looking for updated pattern information for the Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw or the Lacy Fern Afghan, check out the errata page.
Initially I was planning on casting on another afghan from the book Gorgeous Knitted Afghans, but I couldn’t find an errata page. The afghan I loved had a lot of errors. While I still enjoy looking at the gorgeous afghans within that book, I’m a bit disappointed that the errata page isn’t easily found.
But back to my lovely afghan that I’m knitting…
This pattern consists of 12 rows, repeated 17 times. I’m just starting on repeat #6. I still have the humongous center panel to complete, and the right panel. Yep, this will take a while, but I’m enjoying this project immensely. It’s simple and relaxing a perfect project to knit, while hanging with my daughter.
This weeks finished objects were made about a month ago, I just never gotten around to posting them for Finished Object Friday.
Both hats are ribbed stitch followed by rows of stockinette stitch. The purple preemie hat also has a diamond design that wraps around the hat.
These are preemie hats that will be given to a local hospital in my area. It just happens that my mother’s a nurse at that hospital too. No pattern was used. I’ll hold off donating them until I have about thirty hats. Synthetic yarn is what the hospital requires for all the crocheted and knitted preemie hats. Over the past several months I’ve gradually increased my supply of charity stash yarn. The yarns I selected are incredibly soft. All the yarns in that stash are either 100% man made fibers or a cotton/synthetic blend.
This is the Elizabeth cowl, you can find the pattern in Wendy Knits Lace. This cowl was simple to make. It’s squishy soft! I still haven’t decided who’ll get this as a Christmas gift.
Say hello to my knitted Elizabeth cowl. I still need to block this cowl. I found this knitted cowl in the book Wendy Knits Lace. It’s the first time that I ever made a lace project with worsted weight yarn. For some reason I was thinking that title belonged to my Diamonds and Pearls shawl, but obviously I was wrong since I’m still working on that shawl.
This cowl is tucked away in my gift bin. I only make items for those that are craft worthy. Currently I’m unsure of who will be receiving this as a Christmas gift. Decisions, decisions… But, the good news is that most of my handcrafted Christmas gifts (crocheted, embroidery, knitting, and sewing) are almost complete. Yeah! I started working on my Christmas list in April.
