Exterminate!

Do I need to explain why this dishcloth is awesome?  I'm not going to explain, so if you don't know what this is, go watch some Doctor Who.  You won't be sorry.

This cloth was actually kind of a pain to make but it's because I was tired and rushed and using old cotton and I hadn't knit anything on straight needles in awhile.  The bobbles are a little annoying but they actually make a really good scrubby surface for washing dishes.  Anyway it was totally worth it.

Cold Feet

I really want to make this hot water bottle cover.  I've been meaning to get a hot water bottle so I can make an awesome cover for it, but I haven't gotten around to it.  My feet get ridiculously cold in the evenings, and the walls of my bedroom aren't insulated very well, which means that I dread getting into bed because the combination of the freezing sheets and my ice cold feet is not a good one.  I think this cover is super cute and it looks really squishy and cozy, and cables are so fun to do!  I can imagine it knit up in a lovely plush chunky yarn so it would be soft and lovely on my toes.

Actually, I do have a hot water bottle equivalent and it works pretty well, although it has a tendency to either complain about the extreme coldness of my feet, or bite them.  It looks like this:

I win at decorating trees

The Enabler and I put up our tree yesterday, in record time too!  The time it took to take it out of the box, put it together, fluff out the branches, string the lights, place all the decorations, and then clean up the boxes and fallen "needles", was just over an hour.  And we didn't even fight a little bit!  The first couple of times we put up a tree together were a real test on our relationship.  Between the tree assembly and light stringing it could get a little hairy, what with me telling him exactly what I wanted and how I wanted him to do it, and him doing it completely wrong (just kidding sweetie, love you!).  Our fourth Christmas together we solved the problem by me just doing it by myself.  Last year and this year however have gone much more smoothly, and we put up the tree together again.  I think it's because we finally splurged and bought a tree that isn't half broken, and we finally have enough working strings of lights that are all the same colour to actually wrap appropriately around the tree.  I don't know though, it could just be coincidence.

Today's pattern is another cute, quick and easy ornament.  In fact, it's actually called Cute Christmas Ornament.  I made a bunch of them last year, and it was really nice being able to put up a bunch of handmade ornaments this year well before Christmas, and not worrying about having to make a bunch more to fill up the tree.  Here are a couple of my favourites.  Please don't judge me for my barely-existent embroidery skills.

Latin 101

So now that I've spoiled you with stories for the last few days, I have to come clean and admit that I don't have a story for today's awesome free pattern, Opus Spicatum.  I just think it's a great looking hat.  I haven't made it yet but I totally have yarn in my stash that would work for it.

Also it's a fun name.  I didn't know what it meant so I just googled it and Wikipedia tells me that it is "a type of masonry construction used in Roman and medieval times. It consists of bricks, tiles or cut stone laid in a herringbone pattern."


See, knitting is educational as well as useful!  I should totally learn Latin.  Hmm...


Eethray eeksway unhayiltay istchrayasmay!


Genius.

Team Charlie's Mustache

I have a confession to make, and this time it doesn't involve wool.  I went to see Breaking Dawn last night annnnnnnd I kinda loved it.  Now before you judge me, I must explain myself.  Back when the first Twilight movie came out, I mocked it and all of its fans and avoided seeing it as long as possible.  And then I read this blog post.  It just sounded too hilarious to pass up (I must add that the writer of that post is a self-professed Twilight fan, by which I mean that she read all the books).  So The Enabler and I procured a copy of it and sat down to watch it one night.  We laughed our asses off but we were thoroughly entertained.  So when the second movie came out we were like, yeah okay, we'll give it a shot...  And it was also pretty entertaining.  Same with the third.  And now... well... I'm not sure what Breaking Dawn was exactly, but I walked out of the movie theatre kinda giddy and totally looking forward to the next (and last) one.

Another confession.  I haven't read the books so I don't know how it all turns out.  I tried to read the first book after seeing the first couple of movies and it didn't work out.  It's probably the only time that I've ever felt that the movie was an improvement over the book.  I couldn't wade through the pages upon endless pages of tortured inelegant descriptions about how beautiful Edward was and how painfully moody Bella felt.  After about a quarter of the way through I gave up.  So sue me.

So to get on with the point of all this...  Whether you love it or hate it, you can't deny the appeal of Bella's Mittens which were inspired by the mittens Bella wears in the first Twilight movie (The link to download the pattern is at the bottom of the post).  They are simple and elegant (unlike Stephanie Meyers's prose), and work up quickly using a heavier weight yarn.  If you've never tried cables, this is a great pattern to learn with.  The instructions say to use the magic loop technique, but I did it with 4 dpns, using the 5th needle as a cable needle and it worked just fine.

And yes, I brought my knitting with me to the movie.

A bright idea

Happy December 2nd!  Only 3 weeks and two days until Christmas!  Perhaps it is time to put up the tree if you haven't already.  I always feel that the first weekend in December is a good time to put the tree up, if I can wait that long.  Sometimes it's earlier, I'll be honest with you.  My tree is not yet up, but if it was, I would totally take a picture of it and show you that it's covered with these!

When I say "covered" I mean that I have (I think) about 8 of them in different colours.  I made a bunch of them last year.  Actually, I probably made around 20 of them, because I kept making pairs of them and putting them on my tree, and people would come over and say "Ohmigosh those are so cute!" and before I knew what I was saying, I would always blurt out "Oh you like them?  Well you can have those ones, I can always make more!"  And so of course that's what happened, including a set of six for my mom.  I had already made her a pair of them and she decided she wanted more.  Mothers, eh?  It was a couple of weeks into January before I had actually made a set of them for myself that I was planning on keeping.

There are a number of things that I like about these.  They're super cute (obviously), they're really quick to make, they are great stash-busters, and they are virtually indestructible, unlike most ornaments.  Well don't take me up on that.  I basically mean that if the kids or the pets get their grubby little paws on them, no one is going to get hurt.  And if it doesn't turn out, the cats can always use another toy.  It's win-win!

It's beginning to look a lot like Knitmas...

Happy December 1st!

I decided I'm going to pose a little challenge for myself for the month of December, which will be to post every day in the days leading up to Christmas.  I don't really have the time or energy to come up with a full-blown blog post every single day (come on, you can't expect me to give up that much knitting time!), so what I'm going to do is this:

Every day I will post one of my favourite free knitting or crochet patterns.  I'm not sure but it might be necessary to sign up for ravelry for some of them, but really if you're a knitter and you're not already on ravelry, perhaps this will give you the push to sign up.  Some of them will be Christmas themed, I can't say at this point how many.  Lots of them are small things to make as a quick gift or decoration if you're looking for ideas.  Some of them are things I want to make but haven't yet, and some of them are things I've made over and over.  <shameless bribe> I'm not totally sure yet how it will play out yet so you'll just have to come back every day to find out!  Because obviously there is no other way to find free patterns than by reading this blog.  </shameless bribe>

So without further ado, what better way to start out than with Smitten, the knitted advent calendar slash mitten garland.  I think this is just the cutest thing and I'm definitely going to be making it at some point in the future, hopefully before I have kids.  I didn't grow up with the supermarket advent calendars with the chocolates behind the windows.  In fact, I had the audacity to be jealous of my friends that DID have them.  I know better now that what we had instead was much better.  My mom had sewn 24 little stockings and would pin them up on the wall, and every day my brother and I would take turns to pull out that day's treat which would be a sparkly pencil, or candy, or a tiny toy, or any number of awesome things!  It was a lot of fun and made a really nice memory, and I'd love to be able to pass on that tradition to my children someday.  Okay that was a little sappy but my point still stands.  What's the point, you ask?.....

TWO DOZEN TINY MITTENS!!!  ^_^