March 26, 2010

Little Star Sweater

Back on New Year's Eve, 2008, I decided I was going to teach myself to knit, and that became my New Year's Resolution: Learn Something New. I had always wished I knew how to knit. There are so many fun, cute, and practical things to be made...I even had a Knitting for Dummies book that I found in the dollar aisle at Target, but never read it. It was time to get my full dollar's worth from that book!

So I headed out to Michael's to buy some yarn and knitting needles. I had no idea what kind of yarn to buy, or what size needles to get. I was completely clueless. Maybe I should have read that book first? As I was browsing the yarn aisle, I found some knitting books, and one caught my eye instantly: Adorable Knits for Tots, by Zoe Mellor.


I flipped through the book, and fell in love with all the adorable items. An adorable baby blanket! An adorable hat! Adorable baby booties! Yup, ADORABLE. I soooo had to have this book. It didn't matter that I had no clue how to knit. A little voice in my head told me it was a complete waste of money to buy this book so early in my knitting venture, but I didn't care.

As I was waiting in the checkout line, a lady in front of me asked me if I was going to knit the sweater shown on the front cover of this book. I hesitated, and said, "Sure!".

"Liar", said the little voice in my head.

Let's just say I was being optimistic. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I did knit this sweater! As it turns out, knitting is very easy and completely possible to learn on your own, with a little determination and help from many, many knitting blogs and web sites. My favorite was http://knittinghelp.com/, which has videos to help you learn visually. A HUGE help.

Anyway, here's the sweater:


I've learned a few things along the way, and this project in particular taught me about yarn choice. Yarn matters. It was hard because I didn't want to pick something expensive in case this sweater didn't turn out right, but I also didn't want to pick something really cheap becaue a lot of time and energy went into making this sweater. Sigh. In the end, I chose a somewhat inexpensive cotton, and it turned out to be a bad choice. The colors ran a bit in the sleeves and star area, and this cotton is a bit pilly, so after I washed the sweater, it looks a bit cheap. It's a little disappointing, but not much I can do about it. I have since found a much nicer cotton to use, and will use that for future projects.

So, that's my knitting story. Now it's time to start a new project!

March 10, 2010

It's been a while!

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything, mostly because I was so busy knitting up Christmas gifts. Here are a few things I made, all of which I found in 101 Designer One Skein Wonders (except for the coffee cup cozies, which I found on Ravelry):

Shruglet for my sister Lisa:

Cabled baglet for my sister Marisa, who preferred to use it as a hat:

And finally, some gifts for my coworkers - first: wristlets/hand warmers, and second: coffee cup cozies. I actually didn't finish these in time for Christmas, so I ended up giving them out as "Happy New Year's" gifts!

These were all such fun projects that were fairly quick to knit. However, next year I need to remember to start my Christmas knitting much earlier so I finish on time!