theraineysisters knitting and so much more

My Sock Monkey Ornament acquired a girlfriend — and look what she is doing.  That little monkey girl is KNITTING!!!!!

A couple of friends found this lil gem for me — I could not believe my eyes.  She has a little felt (-ed) knitting bag with balls of yarn and another scarf she already finished up.  She’s more ahead on her Christmas knitting than I am!  She is a knitting diva.

I did finish the Tychus Hat.  It looks just like the picture when it’s on — a little too long and a bit bell shaped.  So, I may try to felt it slightly.

This picture shows the grafted edge (the longest purple stripe up the middle).  I like it for some reason and it was fun to make.  Might be even more fun to change a bit…

Wendy of Wendyknits has been in a bit of a controversy lately because she talked about the “Knit from Your Stash 2007” concept which is floating around the knitting blogs.  Some people accused her of trying to put knitting stores out of business.  Absurd.  It is far more likely that on-line yarn shopping will put stores out of business or the fact that too many stores opened up hoping to jump on the knitting band wagon.  People can say they are going to knit from their stash, but if they want yarn, they will buy it.  I try to shop my stash, but what I want is rarely there.  If it is, great, but if not I’m shopping.

I’m feeling more ready for the holidays and certainly in a great mood now that I have my girl sock monkey.  She completes me! 

 

Nothing says Christmas like a sock monkey on the tree! 

How cute is he?  I found these at a local gift boutique and got one for Sally, too. 

And what can you say about a guy who would pick out THIS card for your anniversary?

Yes, a match made in heaven (or something like that!).  True SOLE mates — could not resist! 😉

The StarTribune (local big city paper) featured an article today about Cutting Edge Crafters: people for whom crafting is an outlet for their [“out there”] individuality.  If you go to the StarTribune website they have an audio/slide show where Rebecca Yaker talks about Sock monkeys.  I will apologize in advance for bringing up this old, tired topic, but I could not resist when I saw the paper this morning!!

I want to thank the commenters about gauge, size, etc.  Lorraine mentioned that people have different purl and knit gaugeS — the knit stitch is actually smaller than the purl stitch.  This is very evident in some people’s knitting.  If you don’t knit the purl st tighter, it will show up in your knitted fabric. 

I had to work very hard to compensate for the large purl sts that occurred at the beginning of the wrong side row of my stockinette.  In fact, I avoided stockinette for years because I did not like the way mine looked.  You would think that just tightening the sts would do it, but in fact that made the problem worse.  By pulling tightly at the beginning of the purl ROW, the last few KNIT sts were pulled up too tight, so the purl sts became even larger to “fill in” the space.  The tighter I pulled, the worse it got.  I finally figured out how to get rid of the problem — I purl the first 4-5 sts of the WS row using just the very tip of the knitting needle, without pulling too much at the start of the row.  For the rest of the row I do purl more firmly.  It works for me!

We were discussing this in a recent knitting class and a couple of the more recent converts to knitting had never heard of this before.  They started knitting tighter on the purl side and the improvement was absolutely amazing. 

I must go knit (and purl — firmly).

 

 

Happy Hallowe’en, everyone!  I thought in honor of goblins, ghosts and other scary creatures, I would share the scariest of them all and return to the horrors of the Sock Monkey!  Last summer when Sock Monkey Dresses were haunting us everywhere, I got caught up in the moment and purchased some socks designed solely (forgive the pun) for the making of Sock Monkeys.  

I started my Sock Monkey creature immediately but did not put the finishing touches on until this evening.  I sensed from the first moment that this creature would not be loved, but reviled.  A creature so hideous and malformed that children would scream, women faint, and men tremble.  Perfect for Hallowe’en!! 

 

AND I got to use my pom pom maker!  Now the question remains: is he so ugly he’s cute or just fugly?  Look into those little black eyes and decide.

Happy Hallowe’en ;).

This comment From Jennifer (August 31) says it all………

“Okay, here I am watching Countdown on MSNBC — and the second “Oddball” story of the night was the sock monkey dresses from the MN State Fair — and the host comments that St. Paul has become the fashion mecca of the US??????

And YOU reported it FIRST!!”

What can I say?  Kyra Phillips — flush and move over!! 

Re: knitting — I am really looking forward to a long weekend to get some knitting done, get organized and get my kids ready for school.  They are 95% ready, so it won’t be too bad.

And congratulations to my oldest daughter: she got her license yesterday.  I don’t know if I should :) or :cry:.

 

I guess no one is safe — not at the beaches and not in the ballroom! 

In response to a comment regarding the sweater I made for Erika: does she have blue eyes?  No.  My brother has the darkest brown eyes you’ve ever seen in your life.  His wife is Ojibwe — so their two kids have gorgeous deep brown eyes as well.  Erika’s father is Hispanic.  So, Erika has brown eyes, but fairly light colored hair (?).