Blue Backpack

On Tuesdays, we go to a friend's house to play and to do our laundry. The last two times we were there, Margaret found a little dog-shaped backpack and refused to take it off (tears ensued when we had to leave).

So I decided to make Margaret a backpack. Her favorite color is blue, and I had this blue-ish yarn on hand, so I made this. I found the pattern in a book at the library. I don't normally check childrens' knitting books out, but it's not like Vogue Knitting has patterns for backpacks, you know?


Pattern: Bright and Beautiful Backpack from The Kids' Knitting Notebook by Cindy Craig
Yarn: Red Heart worsted in Blueberry Pie

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The pattern calls for bulky yarn and I used worsted. This made it a little smaller to fit Margaret, thought it's still pretty big for her.

Vegetables

Pattern: Garden Variety (link to pattern in the left column)
Yarn: Some acrylic I had on hand

The pattern includes carrots, celery, broccoli, corn, and tomatoes. I didn't do the corn because I liked the one I posted earlier better, and I didn't do the broccoli because it looked a little too phallic. I think the celery pattern was genius in how it incorporated how stockinette stitch folds up on itself. The instructions for the celery were a little off, though, and I'll note my changes in my Ravelry projects page. The carrots were a little too plump for my taste, but the tomatoes were just right. :)

Corn on the Cob

Yarn: Acrylic from my stash
Pattern: Corn

I chose this pattern because I liked the "shuckability" of the corn. It was a lot of fun and I think that using the "wrong" side of the stockinette stitching as the corn kernels was a stroke of genius!

Fingerless Gloves and Scarf

I finished these a few weeks ago and McKay finally consented to modeling them.

Yarn: Encore Worsted in a light gray and a dark gray.

Scarf: New York with a stripe added near the ends

Fingerless gloves: Cigar modified so that all the fingers are fingerless
The colors are the same in both projects, but the main color for each project is reversed.

Lemons and Limes

Pattern: Lemonlime
Yarn: Some Red Heart acrylic I had on hand.


This was very fast. I made sure to knit the limes tighter so that they would be smaller than the lemons and more true to real life.

About the pattern: it doesn't specify this, but it is knit in the round.

A Dress for Margaret

Last week I repurposed this shirt into a dress for Margaret.


I bought that shirt at DI when I was in college because it looks good with ties and I look good with ties. Ugly ties. There's nothing quite like walking around wearing an ugly tie. "Ha! I can look hot in an ugly tie. Let's see you do that!"

Anyway, it's and old shirt and after having Margaret, it doesn't fit around the bust anymore so I made it into a dress.


The band isn't permanently attached to it yet. I want to use a tie as a band and tie it in back like a tie. I thought that would be cute, but it needs to be detachable so I can wash it. Ties and shirts can't be washed the same.

I still have the sleeves from the shirt at my disposal. I think I want to make them into bloomers. This dress is really lightweight, so it isn't really the season for it, so she won't get to wear it much until the spring. I'll get some better pictures of it later. The back of the dress is the front of the shirt with all the buttons going down.

The legwarmers on her arms are some that I made. I found some cool stripey socks at the dollar store and decided to turn those into legwarmers like the other ones. She seems to go through them a lot, so having 10 pairs will be handy.

Holiday Planning

This post is really so I can organize my knitting for the holidays.

On the Go project:
Twisted Flower Socks- it's a frivolous project just for myself with no deadline. Really, I should ignore it until I get all the other knitting done, but it's small and portable

Need for Winter:
Basket to keep by the door to hold our winter clothes (hats, mittens, scarves, etc)
McKay's scarf needs blocking
Need to finish McKay's fingerless gloves
My fishnets
Make Margaret felted boots? Mittens? Hat?

Need by Thanksgiving:
Knitted gifts for Mandi's kids.

Need for Christmas:
Our stockings
Hat and jacket for Margaret's doll

I might need to knit more breasts- not sure. Need to email about that.

Quick knitting for when I'm bored: fruits and vegetables, maybe little birds and other stuffed animals. I have A LOT of stash to use up.

And I'd like to photograph my stash for Ravelry. I think. Maybe. Any Ravelers out there use that feature? Is it helpful or just extra work?

Also, I sewed Margaret a dress the other day. I need to get photos of it. I also have 4 more legwarmers to sew for her.