Saturday, January 22, 2011

Teaching Tools and New Yarn

As a language teacher I am always trying to find ways to make students interact with each other and have fun at the same time. One such method is to use a ball that is thrown from student to student. Students then either ask each other a question and elicit an answer or you go around reading something one line, word, letter at a time. I generally like to use the ball, because I don't have to pick people and students will keep track of who had a turn and who did not themselves... so its fun, they interact and I don't have to keep track... Yeah.

In Missouri, we had a tennis ball for such occasions. And quite honestly I never liked to use it because obviously you can really hurt someone with it.... Not a good idea even in a college classroom. So for the most part I use a very soft cow... (Yes the animal you would usually see on meadows grazing...). Obviously I do not have any of those things here in NJ. So I just knitted a ball-like thing.


It worked perfectly as we went around the room reading the alphabet... No one got hurt... We do need to practice the throwing... but all in all well worth spending the two hours to knit this. It also used up most of my left-overs from the owl-knit.


I also purchased new yarn today... Very very pretty blue. It is a heather so the color varies just a little throughout which adds some interest. Originally, I was looking for a nice gray. But this color just caught my eye and I had to have it. It is also perfect for my very first cardigan of which I have already completed 7 rows.

You may be asking what happened to all the stuffies I made in the beginning and why I am not working on those anymore... And no worries, there are still stuffies being made, although considerably less. I just finished another ninja. Since he is going to be a birthday present pictures are going to have to wait till March though. But he turned out quite well. I still have not decided on his special weapon though. I am also still working on some underwater themed stuffies for Andrew although I have not been having much luck with the box-jellyfish and giant clam so far.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Rainforest

Yeah... it is done. My first Lace project is all finished and I am in love with my new beautiful scarf. I still need to block it (and figure out how to block a knitted piece first) but I could not be more satisfied with the result.



Admittedly, I don't know how many times I had to open up entire rows again because I forgot a Yarn Over in the pattern row before.. but it was all worth the trouble.
I will definitely post another picture once it is blocked and even more beautiful.
The pattern is available for free on knitpicks. It is called Winter Flame by juliet romeo juliet.


I also still had about 1.25 skeins left after I finished the scarf so I went and started a pair of fingerless gloves. They are done with central cable... Very pretty, if you ask me. I have by now finished the first one and I really like them. I can't belief how easy they were to make.... I guess I always think things are way more complicated than they actually are... go figure. This pattern is available as a free download on ravelry. It is called Humanity by dlotter.

I also started another Ninja... So many birthdays coming up soon that I have quite the list of stuffies to make.... The ninja was just the easiest choice for right now... I guess I will start on the more complicated stuffies this weekend... (Permitting lesson prep does not take up all weekend....)

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Finished and in Progress


I finished the starfish from Hansi Singh's Amigurumi Knits The center is knitted a little too tight. So the arms are really sticking out, but it's fine. I like how he came out. I love the changing colors in the yarn (Red Heart Super Saver Brand, Color 0794 Bay Print)


The under-sight was also done in a Red Heard Super Saver yarn which is called Aran Fleck Color 4313.


Right now I am working on Hansi Singh's Sun Star and I am designing a box jellyfish. I also started my very first lace project. Admittedly I am not doing it in a lace yarn but you have to start somewhere, right? And I read that it is better to start with a thicker yarn so I choose Lion Brand Amazing in color 202 or Rainforest. After 4 repeats I am in love with the look of it. Pictures of the finished product coming soon....

Mine and Semi-Mine

A little while after I started knitting and making stuffies I was over at my host parents house for dinner. That night their son Andrew told me about his biggest wish for Christmas. He wanted a stuffed animal Lilo and Stitch Experiment 345. Unfortunately no one makes such Elastico (the name of the experiment). So I had my work cut out for me. At that point I had knitted enough stuffed animals from Knitted Wild Animals so I started experimenting with the forms.


I started with the hands. The first hand I made had fingers but the wrist was all wrong. In order to fix that I made a second one with a modified wrist and thumb pattern. In order to safe me some time I did not give this trial piece fingers though. On the finished stuffie I did a combination. I used the second wrist and thumb and gave it the fingers from the first trial. I modified the fingers in the finished one by knitting them in the round instead of straight with seaming.


Then I worked on the body. This part was fairly easy. I just had to get the placement of the purple dot in the middle right. Again I ended up making two and got it right on the second trial.


Then came the most daunting part. I had to make the head.... As you can see it is not the easy kind of head. It is actually constructed of a total of 11 pieces: the head itself, the white mask, two dark green eye patches, a nose, and three "spikes" on top each made out of two pieces. I found the finished product rather creepy and jokingly called it the creepy alien clown every time I talked to my host parents about him.

Making the arms and legs was fairly easy. I finished him just in time. An hour before I went over to my host parents house on Christmas Eve.

Andrew (the lucky 7-year-old) was very happy about the end-product. And Elastico is well cared for now. He gets to sleep in the bed every night and is kept safe from any harm. He even gets to take refuge in the car when something is happening in the house ;)




Apart from this big pre-Christmas project, I also experimented with the patterns I had in the books. I changed the monkey body from Knitted Wild Animals . My modified version is wearing a jacket and a blue tie. Doing this was sort of confusing at first, because I had only been knitting for a few short weeks and did not really know too much about patterns and how to best modify things and figure out how everything will fit together in the end product etc... but I figured it out. I like Mr. Monkey with the tie. He is very cute and was adopted into our stuffie collection.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Book 3

The most recent book I acquired is Hansi Singh's Amigurumi Knits. I literally just got this book a few days ago. It is by far the most challenging of the three books i knit from. But it also has the most detailed and intricate designs. I so far have knitted only one pattern out of this book:


And it is a vegetable... or more specifically an eggplant. It was fun knitting this. I also tried the jelly-fish in this book... unfortunately I messed up somewhere and it just ended in a big mess so I opened it up again and I am going to try again... when I am less tired.... If you want to try you can find the free pattern here.


I also knitted two Nautilus shells. This pattern was written by Hansi Singh as well and is available for free on the internet here.

I am currently working on the sea star featured in the book... and one arm in it is going well....

More Christmas Gifts and other Knits from Book 2

The second book I have been knitting with was written by Katie Boyette and is called KnitWit: 20 Projects for Beginners and Seasoned Knitters. I love this book. The monster inside are really creative and fun to make. I find the patterns in this book a little more challenging since most of the things are knitted in the round and bodies and heads are generally made in one piece... so it is a little harder to follow what is going on in the structure once in a while... but I figured it out and once you have done one or two it is very very easy... (I have to admit I also started with one of the most difficult patterns in the book)... Well here is what came out of it:


The angry squid now lives in a stuffed animal hotel located in a seven-years-old room. He even got his own bed and cover...


Frank Monster lives with us. He also found a spot on our increasingly crowded sofa. My husband took him in since he had to live without an eye (and hat) for over 4 weeks. I simply did not have felt to make them with...


The small red ninja was initially intended as a gift but my husband (and everyone else) got really sick over Christmas and so I he got to keep the ninja and it made him very happy...


This black Ninja is going to live in Brooklyn once he gets picked up (or I receive a mailing address). He is a bit bigger than the red one, simply because I knitted him with size 5 instead of 3 needles.... Because he is bigger he got to have two shuriken and I knitted him Nunchucks (10 row long 5 stitch i-cords with a braided white connection...)... He is truly ready to fight ;)


This is Rosie. She currently is looking for a nice home and has taken shelter on our sofa. I might knit her some ears at some point but have not really felt like it yet....


Little Digit is made out of absolutely amazing yarn. It is all fluffy and changes color slightly as you use it.... he also has five heads of which you can see 3 in this picture. He also lives on our sofa and has become really good friends with Frank Monster...


This young lady is called frock. She has 6 legs and is wearing a really short skirt. I am not really happy with the way her eyes came out... So I may change them soon...


This funny critter just got done yesterday. He is a parrot-owl and quite happy. He is the first pattern in this book but I actually found him more challenging than any of the others. It took me a few tries to figure out how to join the eyebumps together... Maybe I was just really tired when I made him as it was late at night...



I am definitely going to make more of the monsters featured in this book. I really really like making them. And I have quite a few requests for knitted Ninjas.....

If you are interested in seeing more of Katie's creations go and check out her blog and Etsy store.

What I knitted for Christmas... Book 1

As I said I started knitting about two and a half months ago. I taught myself how to knit when I was really young, maybe 10 from a kids book. I am German so I learned the Continental (I belief) style of knitting, which really confused me in reading the patterns I was knitting from. But I figured it out. I started out messy... by now I can achieve a pretty good amount of details, my knits look "clean", and I am pretty sure I can knit every animal, monster, or other being that a child could come up with.

I mainly use three books to knit my stuffies.

I started out with Sarah Keen's Knitted Wild Animals and most of the knitted Christmas Presents I gave this Christmas were patterns from her book:


My husband wanted a koala... so he got this little critter.


The Panda's eyes somehow ended up looking a bit creepy, which I think was my fault. I kind of messed them up a bit when I sew them on....


I think the elephant is really really cute. Unfortunately the kid who received him really wanted his brothers stuffie instead and thus ignored the poor little elephant...


The monkey is one of my favorites from this book.... so I changed the pattern a bit and also made one that is wearing a tie and jacket....


I love the tiger. My graduate schools Mascot was a tiger and so this lovely lady went out to Missouri to make my former roommate happy. I also knitted her the scarf she is wearing since it can get really really cold out in Missouri...





I also knitted the giraffe and another snake like Harry (which is also a pattern out of this book). I enjoyed knitting the patterns from this book. They are really easy to follow and it is a good start if you want to knit stuffed animals. All of the patterns are made up of individual flat pieces that are latter sewn together and stuffed so it is really easy to follow the development of your animal and get familiar with the structural components that a stuffed animal is build with. The animals in this book are also great for smaller children since the animals are fairly big and there are no small parts that can end up as choking hazards, which makes these ideal as presents for the next baby-shower,... not that I have ever been to one...

Aren't You too Young to Knit?

When I first came home with a ball of yarn and a pair of straight bamboo knitting needles (US Size 3, if you are wondering) in late October last year my husband looked at me bewildered and asked: "Aren't you too young to knit?" Instead of answering his question I started on my first project, a green snake with yellow and black stripes. When he saw the finished product he immediately fell in love with him, named him Harry, and introduced him to the collection of our childhood stuffies that already occupied a part of our sofa.

Ever since then I have been knitting relentlessly every free minute of my days, evenings and nights and I have no intention on stopping anytime soon.


This is Harry on his first stroll around our bed.