Homemade knifty knitter!

I just made a Knifty Knitter! Basically an easy to use knitting loom, Knifty Knitters are a great fine motor and concentration activity for children (and adults, too!). Ever since I saw this post on Craftzine, I've been thinking of ways to make knitted wrist warmers with my Lunch Bunchers at school.

Whenever it rains, I bring an indoor project for us to do together. It's gotten to the point that the children actually hope it will rain, and rejoice when it does, so we can do another project together. I will have to post some photos of our past activities. One of the first things we did was finger knitting. Only involving yarn (I chose some variegated acrylic to make things more interesting) and your fingers! The children loved the project, though they only made "bracelets." Since then, they occasionally ask me if I will teach them "real" knitting. I only have an hour in which to teach them a project, start to finish, including clean up time. So, I'm not sure we're quite at the point where I can teach them knitting with real needles. But Knifty Knitter, or loom knitting, we can do! I bought a GIANT skein of fun coloured, variegated yarn and am going to split it into equal balls so the children can make little wrist warmers for themselves. I'm more than halfway into my first one, and could barely stop to write this post! I think they will really enjoy this! Best of all, including the fantastic yarn, this project will cost only $1.25 per child. If you'd like to make your own knitting loom, here's a basic tutorial. I will post photos when I make the rest for the children.

Make your own Knifty Knitter
(for child size wrist warmers)

Materials (to make one loom):
5 Low temp glue gun sticks (the oval kind, about 5" long)
1 pvc pipe "hub" (hunt around at your hardware store, it's with all the elbow shaped sections, only this piece has no screw threads, mine 2.5" in diameter and about 1.5" tall)
duct tape (coloured would be fun!)
scissors
Glue dots (optional, but quite helpful)

Here's what you do:

1. Cut the glue sticks in half so you have 10 sticks, each about 2.5" long.
2. If you are using glue dots, evenly space 10 of them along one edge of the pipe. This will be the "top" of your loom.
3. Stick one glue stick half to each of your glue dots, leaving about 0.5" space at the bottom, so that about 0.75" sticks up beyond the top of your loom. These are the pegs around which you will wrap your yarn, so don't make them too short or your knitting will easily slide off. Of course, don't make them too long either or it will be difficult to actually knit.
4. Once the sticks are held in place by the glue dots, use the duct tape to hold them on tightly. I pressed in the edges to really prevent any wiggling. Align the edge of the tape with the top edge of the loom. You will only have about 0.5" to wrap under the bottom edge.
5. Wrap a second piece of duct tape around, this time aligning the edge with the bottom of the glue sticks. This will generate about 2" of tape hanging off of the bottom of your loom. Cut slits in this tape to allow it to fold nicely into the inside of the loom. Stick down each of these "flaps."
6. Make sure the tape is all stuck down so it won't catch on any of your yarn, and you're DONE!

If you make a loom, I'd love to see it and photos of what you make!

Sweater woes...

I have been loving open front cardigans lately. Anthro had a nice array of them, just in time for the indecisive weather we've been having. You can never be sure how the temperature might change while out, and then what the temperature will be like inside wherever you will be. These are great because they are warm, but not too warm, can be worn over almost anything, and are easily stashed away in a purse.
Last week, I found this pattern. Since I have already spent money on buying a few from Anthro, I decided to try my hand at making one. They seem simple enough, right? I bought some wonderful yarn from KnitPicks - a pima cotton and modal blend. Perfect texture and weight for spring/summer. I got the yarn and cast on this past Saturday and had the whole back piece of a size small finished by Tuesday! Yesterday, I started on the left front piece and... DOOM! The pattern all of a sudden gets confusing; lots of "AT THE SAME TIME"s and weird stuff that doesn't seem to match up. So I drew out the instructions, row by row and what do you know? The math doesn't add up. Fortunately, I do have the back piece to use as a guide and I was smart enough to record exactly how many rows I did, where I made increase and decreases. New plan; use the back to make the fronts. Do you think it'll work?

Snow (&) owls

We finally got our snow! Yep, snowed almost all day yesterday. We got our first day off. Then it iced and freezing rained last night so we have a second day off today! Snow days are such a nice and unexpected little break from life. Since it was actually quite treacherous driving yesterday (dropped T off at le Metro and then went to get Sneetch from home), we basically stayed in and I got to finish my owly sweater! I suppose snow days are the benefit of living in a place that gets so cold, as opposed to living in Hawaii or somewhere else where it's warm and sunny year round.

Anyway, I finished the sweater! My little owl friends just need button eyes now. I am leaning towards finding some nice little wooden ones. That would look cute and not too scary, right? I also still have a little more than half a skein left. Not sure what to do with it. Since this sweater only used a skein and a half, I'm thinking I might just knit up another and buy another skein. It's quite nice yarn; a little itchy since it is 100% wool, but it's bulky so it knits up quickly. The best part is that it doesn't untwist. I hate it when yarns do that and your needle points get all tangled.

I have decided that my next project is going to be knitting little bear sweaters with all my tiny balls of stash yarns. Then, I'll sew some little bunnies to wear the sweaters. :) I'm starting with this really pretty forest green handspun yarn that has pretty sparkly gold thread spun in it. I got it in a swap on Craftster and haven't been able to come up with the perfect thing to make with it. I think sparkly sweaters for (yet unmade) bunnies will be perfect.

Still no snow. It's been getting progressively colder, and we are supposed to be getting the coldest air of the season this week, but no snow. We're hoping for "flurries" tonight and "possible light dusting on Sunday." But no real snow. Meanwhile other parts of the nation are being buried in snow and can't seem to shake it. Too bad there's no giant blower device that could blow the snow clouds our way.

In other news, T and I invested in a new bed which has been absolutely wonderful. It's got a 3" pillowtop and we bought 2 sets of new, super lovely sheets. Getting into bed is like climbing onto a cloud. Even T agrees that it's worth every penny. Since getting the new bed last week, we have spent 90% of our time at home in it. The other 10% is reserved for showering and occasional cooking. We've gotten hooked on the show NCIS which has only compounded our desire to never get out of bed. The show itself is pretty good, but the fact that we were able to watch almost all of season 6 on Netflix instantly helps a lot. Speaking of tv, we got a new one to go with our new bed. With the bed being taller and all, we needed a bigger tv so we'd actually be able to see it. SO, now we have a new tv to watch from our new bed. And, since we've figured out how to hook up our wireless speakers to the computer which can be connected to the tv, good luck getting us to do anything outside of the bed from now until... until we finish watching every episode of NCIS I guess.

Not to worry, though. I am still being crafty and productive. I finished my awesome mittens using the pattern and beautiful yarn my sister (Flea) gave me for Christmas. One of these days, I will get a decent photo of them for you. I have knitted 2 presents and am working on a third. I have organized my entire yarn stash (minus some leftover pieces I brought home from work yesterday - working on it) and have been cleaning up photos to be uploaded to Etsy any day now. All I need is to be able to continue along in this mode of relative stress-free crafting for about a month and I think I'll have all my crafting loose ends tied up! Cross your fingers...