Forest Play Mat Complete

It is 1:45 A.M. and I am tired, but too wired to go to bed.  I know I will just toss and turn and think of all I want to do tomorrow, which is...baking and candy making.  I need to go shopping first thing tomorrow morning to get the ingredients. I hope that I can get it all done tomorrow.  I will need to watch Cheryl's kids again for a few hours, but not all day as usual.  The one good thing is...I completed the play mat tonight, so that won't be on my mind anymore. Here are the final results.

Full mat with the hanging animals.   There are a bunny behind the owl and a raccoon behind the squirrel, as well as the fox and duck that are sewn onto the mat.  All together, the mat has nine animals in it.

Oliver Owl doesn't show up too well in this picture, but he can be seen better in the picture above.

This is the second Nutty Squirrel I have made.  Love the tail.

Teddy Bear is very simple and plain, but forests need bears, so he is in this woodland scene.

Frankie Frog is probably my favorite.

Stinky Skunk is really quite handsome in his black and white suit.

Just for fun, I lined up all the animals on the mat so that you can see all the animals in the scene.

What is a chicken doing in a forest scene?  Well, he isn't really with the mat.  I just made him today to give to Eva for all the things she has ordered from me.  It is just my small token of appreciation to say thanks.  I wanted to show it because I think it is really adorable. The tail doesn't show much, but it is really fun.

Done Again...I Think...I Hope!

Yes, I think I am finally done with what I thought I had already completed.  I finished Zoe's hat tonight.  It took longer than I had hoped it would.  Because I was trying to adapt a baby hat to a toddler hat, I couldn't get the right number of stitches.  I completed it once and it was much too big.  I took it out and used less stitches.  It looked good on the needle, but it is so hard to tell if it is going to be the right size when working with straight needles.  It isn't nearly as large, but I am afraid it might still be a little too big.  Another problem with this pattern is the number of loose ends of yarn.  This was because I didn't like the way it puckered the leaf pattern.  I am still having a difficult time carrying yarn across the back when using two colors across.  I decided to cut the strings that were too long, but some were too short to weave into the back to make it look better, so I decided to line the hat.  I figured that that would also make the hat fit a little bit better.  I found the perfect fleece material for it in my stash.  It is an olive green color with the edge already blanket stitched.  I cut it to fit, sewed it up and hand stitched the edge.  It will be a nice warm, soft hat...and it looks like a strawberry, too, to match her strawberry sweater.

This is what the hat looks like by itself.  You can see a little bit of green from the lining.

This is the sweater and hat.  I like it.

Just three more animals to make for Ezra's play mat.  It is a good thing I don't need it done before New Year's because it might take me that long to finish them, along with the family project that I want to do next week.

It is this way every year...I work, work, work right up until the last minute.  Then, when Christmas is over, I have a little down time before I get back to working on something new.  I never take too much time off...my fingers need to be busy all the time.

Did I say I was done with HATS?

Yes, I did say I thought I was done with hats.  Guess what?  I'm not done.  Last night when I was wrapping the presents for the kids because I thought everything was finished, I realized that Zoe's sweater was also not a hoodie.  I had made hats for Dot and Lucy because theirs were not, so I decided that I need to make at least one more hat for Zoe.  Her sweater has strawberries knitted into it, so I want to make a hat that looks like a strawberry.  I have a pattern for a baby hat that has the look I want, but because it only goes up to 6 mo., I need to do some altering of the pattern.  I hope I can do it because the top of this pattern is very complicated.  Also, it calls for only one color and I want to make it green for the leaves (top of hat) and red for the strawberry part (the body of the hat).  I hope I can do it because it is such a cute pattern.

I finished Eva's order today.  I already had the hats and most of the sweater done, so all I needed to do was finish the sleeves of the sweater and sew on the buttons.  I must have a thousand buttons, but wouldn't you know, nothing in the right size and color for this sweater.  I had to go shopping again, just for buttons.  Jo-Ann Fabrics must have been surprised...all I bought were the buttons.  I already posted a picture of the hats, so here is the sweater.

This is the same sweater pattern that I made for Dot and Zoe when they were one, the little red sweater that Eva purchased before and loved so much that she wanted another one just like it, and one for Lexi for this Christmas.  I think you can actually see the cable better in the picture of this sweater.  I was surprised, because it doesn't seem to show up as much on the sweater, itself. 

Well, it's back to hat making time.  I should be able to finish it tonight...unless I run into some difficulties, but I think I am already through the rough part.  I just started to work the red into it.  I have only done one row of the weaving in, which I already had to take out once because I didn't like the way it looked.  I do like the way it looks this time, so I think it will be a go.

Kids are Done!

It is hard to believe, but the kids presents are done.  I just finished doing a fun little project to go along with their bath robes.  I made bath puppet pals.  These little creatures were tedious, but fun to see come together.  They are an animal puppet made from a wash cloth.  It takes a lot of time to cut out all the little pieces and get them fused to the wash cloth and then they all have to be zig-zagged in place.  It is also a constant changing of thread to get the right colors and changing the stitching between straight stitch and zig-zag stitch.  Some have crooked mouths, or ears, or something, but it just adds character.  So, here they are.

Jackson's bear and Zoe's puppy.

Lexi's bunny and Joey's cow.

Ellis' pig and Portia's lamb.

Lucy's duck and Dot's frog.

I still need to embroider the names of the kids onto a small toy that I purchased for them while we were in Maine a few weeks ago.  When that is done, the kids will be totally completed.  I have one last big family project that I want to finish the week between Christmas and New Year's and I will be done for Christmas 2011.  I am nearly done with the sweater for Eva that I need to have done by the first of the year, but want to finish this week.  Oh, I just forgot, I still have three animals to knit for Ezra's play mat.  I guess I'm not done, yet, but soon I will be.

I Think the Hats are Done!

I have really had a month of hats.  Just when I thought I was finished, I got another order from Eva for two more hats and a sweater for her granddaughter, and she wants it for the first week of January.  I finished the hats in no time, and I am working on the sweater.  Meanwhile, I finished the sewing machine sewing for all the main items for the grand kids.  I still have one small project that I want to do for them on the machine.  I think the knitting is also finished.  I got Dot's and Lucy's hats completed last week.  I really have an extra week to work on presents this year because we aren't going to celebrate Christmas until New Year's Day.  That is good because I have one more project to complete as a family gift for each of the families.  I will work on it the week between Christmas and New Year's so that I will not be interrupted by little hands.

Lucy and Dot's hats took a little planning.  I wanted to use the same cable pattern as I used in the sweaters.  Lucy's was first, and didn't quite match.  I was able to finally get it right with Dot's.

I didn't have enough green yard left to do the hat for Dot, so I used an off-white color of the same yarn.

Lucy's sweater and hat match in color, but the cable pattern wasn't spaced quite right.  Still looks good, I think.

Cloth hat for Eva's grand daughter.

Knit hat in 100% wool, from the Vieira wool, for Eva's grand daughter.

I really hope that this concludes the hats for this year.  I like that they are so easy to do, and take so little time.  Just the same, enough is enough.  I'm also ready to take a little break from the machine for awhile.  Here is a peek at the bath robes that I just finished.  It was hard to get a good shot of them, but I think you can get the idea of how they look.

Portia's bathrobe.

Lexi's bathrobe.

Zoe's bathrobe.

Dot's bathrobe.

Lucy's bathrobe.

Joey's bathrobe.

Ellis' bathrobe.

Jackson's bathrobe.

I have made a lot of things in 2011.  I thank everyone who has given me orders.  I feel my first year of Shirley Made products has been very successful.  I will never make a fortune, but at least I can make enough to pay for my hobby of knitting and sewing and have fun doing it.  That makes it all worth it. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS to everyone.

Hurray! Hat Is Done!

Little did I know just how challenging this Fair Isle hat would be.  I knew that it would be a little difficult to knit because of the small needles and the thin yarn, but I was surprised to find out just how hard it would be.  First of all, the weight of the yarn was supposed to be the same, but for some reason, some of the colors were thinner than others.  This made the tension difficult, and the nice Fair Isle patterning did not show up as nicely as it should have.  Unfortunately, the camel color was one of the thin ones and that was my main color and the color that the cuff was knitted from.  Because it was so thin, I had a hard time keeping the tension even since I had to keep passing the yarn back and forth between front and back on every stitch.  It took me two days to do the 4 1/2 inch cuff, and when it was finished, it was so thin that it didn't really hold its shape.  I anxiously started the Fair Isle pattern for the body of the hat.  I always get excited to see how it actually looks.  It is fun to see it all come together.  I really liked it at first, and thought it was going to be really pretty.  However, after two more days of working on the hat, I finished it and was very disappointed.  I didn't like the way the top looked, and I was still unhappy with the cuff.  After weaving in the twenty-five or so dangling strings on the inside of the hat because of so many color changes, altering the top so it wasn't so pointed, and sewing the cuff in place instead of just leaving it folded, I actually started to like the hat.  I think it is going to be okay now.  At first, I didn't even want to give it as a present, but now, I believe it will actually be quite nice.

This is the final look. 

I still don't think I am finished with hats yet.  I looked at the sweaters for the kids and realized that everyone got hoodies except for Dot and Lucy.  I really wanted to make the Fisherman's cable knit sweaters for them and completed theirs first.  Without thinking, I did all the other sweaters as hoodies.  I feel like I need to make hats in place of the hoods, so it is back to knitting more hats.  It shouldn't take nearly as long as this hat since I can usually finish a hat in a day...two at most.  I plan to try to make their hats cabled to match the sweaters.  It might take a little while for me to figure out how to do it, but I think I will be able to.  I have knitted cabled hats before, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Never Enough Hats!

After I contacted the lady customer from Boston to tell her the hats were completed, I was shocked to find out that she only wanted one hat.  I'm not sure why I thought she wanted two, but I really thought that is what she ordered.  Anyway, since she only needed one, that meant that I needed to take both of them apart.  I took one completely apart to use the yarn to lengthen the other hat.  I took that hat out as far as the end of the decreases for the crown.  I added another two inches and finished the hat once again.  Now, the hat should be plenty deep.  At lease, I hope it was.  I haven't heard from her since I mailed it to her earlier this week.
 
I have had a very productive week.  After I altered the hat, I got back to completing the Christmas presents for the men.  Mission accomplished.  I also finished the sweat suits for the grand kids' presents.  I made five little stuffed animals (machine sewn) for some infants in a family shelter.  I forgot to take pictures of them before I sent them off, so I cannot show them, but I made an elephant, a camel, a kangaroo, a horse, and a dog.  I like the pattern for these little animals because they all have little necks, or legs, or trunk, or something for a baby to grasp hold of.  I made some of them for Ellis when he was born and Ellen said that that is what she liked about them most.  He could hold on to them.

I guess I will show pictures of the pajamas and the sweat suits that I have finished for my little loved ones.  I know some Mommy and Daddy eyes may see these before Christmas, but that is okay.  They know that I am making them anyway.

Portia's sleeper

Lucy's pajamas

Lexi's pajamas

Zoe's pajamas

Dot's pajamas (no surprise, dots for a Dot)

Ellis's pajamas

Joey's pajamas

Jackson's pajamas

This is what all the boys' sweat suits look like.  They have a camouflage jacket and black pants with a brown piping stripe.

This is what Dot's and Lexi's sweat suits look like.

This is what Zoe's and Lucy's sweat suits look like. For some reason, the pants look lighter. They are actually the same material as in the pants above for Dot's and Lexi's pants.

This is Portia's sweat suit.  I didn't have enough gray material to make Portia's pants, so I used black like the boys' pants, but with pink piping.

As I said in my title...never enough hats.  I am making yet another hat for our Christmas Eve adult family exchange.  This year, we are going to have a Yankee Swap, and we need to give presents for the value of $25 that is gender friendly.  I planned to make a hat from a Fair Isle pattern that I found from free patterns online.  I thought that it would be appropriate for either a woman or man.  I didn't think the value would match the amount, but when I went to buy the yarn, I found it to be very expensive.  I wanted to use a new store that is local here in Westport.  I didn't bother to ask her the price per skein and was surprised when she told me the total cost.  I guess the value will match the present limit after all.  Anyway, the pattern calls for sock weight yarn (very thin) and for a really small needle.  That means that it will take longer than a day like most hats take, but I think it will be fun.  I have only knit Fair Isle style once before and it is a challenge to keep the gauge even.  Wish me luck...I will need it.