02.24.08
Ren’s Dice Bag
I finally finished up Ren’s dice bag! I needed a project to work on during gaming, a couple of weeks ago, so the darling hubby suggested I make a dice bag for him. I asked him to pick some yarn from my stash, and he picked the zebra. =)
So I happily knitted throughout playing an Amber session with our friends, and one of them, Leo, was a bit fascinated, and I offered to make him a dice bag too. Ironic, since we were playing a diceless game at the time. XD So he requested it in shades of blue, which I don’t have yet, other than my precious blue/brown, so I get to make another wee stash run! Woot!
I just did a k2 p2 ribbed stitch for a long swatch. I stitched up the sides today, and added the drawstrings. Really simple & fast.
Ren likes the ribbing, and loves his new dice bag! He poured ALL his dice into it (see pic) and it all fit — the ribbing expanded to accomodate them… so it’s perfect! I don’t even think it needs a lining!
I still want to find some great ribbon and replace the yarn drawstring with that. Also, think charms. 
So it can be considered “finished” per se, but I still want to fiddle with it.
And hopefully Leo’s will be fabulous, too!
01.18.08
Illusion Knitting Sample
Here are the two views of my practice sample for Illusion Knitting. Stripes from above, checks from the side! Pretty cool, huh?!
Unfortunately on this sample, the yellow yarn turned out to be slightly smaller than the red, so the red is really poofy… even though I tried really hard to find two yarns the same size in my stash.
I also bound off too tight, so the edge is too small and curls the piece a bit. I’ll have to watch that. I should have knit one more row before binding off, too, but oh well. Just a practice sampler!
Once I figured out what the instructions were trying to convey, this was pretty easy, and fun! I might even tackle the piano keys illusion scarf, sometime soon. 
But I’ll have to buy yarn for it… black & white, in the same size, and make sure there is enough of it to do a nice long scarf. And then I’ll have bought my first yarn after joining Ravelry, so I can actually put the info from the un-tossed labels into my Ravelry info! 
I can’t wait to get to the point where I can design my own illusion patterns!
01.17.08
Illusion Knitting
Here is my kitty, Nicolai, showing you my latest project… Illusion knitting!
Illusion knitting is where a piece looks like stripes when you look at it head-on, but when you turn it and look at it from the edge-on, you see something else. In this case, it turns into a checker board pattern.
Here’s where I found the instructions (although they’re kind of confusing and need to be communicated better).
This was just a sample to practice on. It’s just a swatch of knitting. I’ll see about making a scarf or something with the skill, later. =)
P.S. I also learned how to knit with two different yarns at the same time, on this one. I want to do it some more!
Fluffy Ear Warmer Headbands
My first ever real give-away project (well, besides the bookmark)! I knitted these ear warmer headbands for a couple of my best friends, for holiday gifts.
My daughter Sera is modeling the one I made for Selena, in the picture. Michelle’s was green, blue, and light pink.
On Selena’s, I used my old wrong-way-to-knit stitch (which works fine, but isn’t knitting or purling) with size 5 needles. Then I learned the proper knit and purl stitches, and made Michelle’s with size 8 needles, exclusively with the purl stitch… because I love to purl! Size difference didn’t matter.
Just a simple scarf-like project, where I bound the ends together as I did the bind-off. It only took one skein of the fun fuzzy muppet yarn, which I don’t know the brand of, but I will when I go buy more at the dollar store. =) It’s very easy to use!! You’d think it would be hard to see what you’re doing, in all that fluff, but it wasn’t really a problem.
I might try to figure out how to not bind the ends together, but make a button closure, instead, before trying to sell this product. Then one wouldn’t have to muss one’s hair to put it on.
I’ll have to see if I can get Michelle to pose in hers, to post a pic here. =)
