W.I.P. Wednesday - Still muuhing

Progress has been very slow on my CAL , 'cause my secret project had a deadline.
Well deadline was yesterday and if you want to know what my secret project was, you can see it here

Back to todays W.I.P' s

I'm going to show 2 of them.

First is my progress on my cow.
I'm planning on doing a family of 3 and Mrs.Muhmuuh is the first . Not finished yet but getting there :

So far I've made the spots, body , legs and arms.

I recently bought Kitty Knits by Donna Druchunas and in my stash I have 4 skeins of Aimee, which can be used for The Peruvian Cat Lace Scarf , so this evening I did the CO and a little bit of the pattern.

I really love Aimee, to bad it's being discontinued. It has 90 % Cotton and 10 % Cashmere and it is soooo soft.


I know I propably shouldn't have started another project, since I'm joining a KAL that starts 1.-7. , but it was too tempting.

If you want to see more awesome W.I.P.'s jump on over to Tami's and check them out :)

Have a wonderful Wednesday :) 

Thank you for reading and commenting.

The Secret's Out

I was actually going to wait until the next F.O. but decided to post today.

Remember my secret project ? You can read about it here and here .

Well today was the day when the secret got revealed to the recepient., but first some background.
A while back I showed my 16 year old daughter Army Of Knitters website. We were looking at all the fabulous designs when we came across Hattie. And she was all "ohh I want one!" Can you make me one ?
She lives at her dads ,but ever since she saw that dress she's been talking about it everytime she's been for a visit.
So..her graduation day was today and my mom , my 6 year old daughter ,my 23 year old daughter ,my son-in-law, my grandson and me decided she should have that dress as a surprise.
It's not that easy to knit a dress when the one it's for keeps dropping by for a visit on and of and you only have like 14 days to get it done.
And EVERYTIME she asked if I could make it ,while she was here on vacation and I just had to pretend like nothing and say :  yes of course blah blah blah.
Those 14 days quickly went down to around 9 give and take , since I had other things to do aswell.
Anyway she was very happy when she got it :)

I'm going to have her pose in it when she's here on vacation, but until then these will have to do :

I'm very pleased with the outcome , considering it's been a while since I knitted a bigger project and it's my first big project using a US pattern.
Ohh yeah and the fact that I had a deadline.

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

F.O. Nicky Epsteins Winter Roses

This should have been this weeks F.O. but it took longer to finish than expected.

It has been hibernating for a long time and now I finally kicked myself into getting it done.
My selfish project. Yep something entirely made for myself.

It's knitted in Rowans Felted Tweed and to be honest I can't remember what the names of the colors are.
I've used size 6 and 9 mm knitting needles. The scarf part is knitted in 1 strand and the roses, all 21 of them, are knitted with 2 strands of yarn. It's a very fast end easy pattern to follow.

I fell in love with this pattern the first time I saw it in Nicky Epsteins book Signature Scarves

Since it has been hibernating I can't show any in progress pictures and the pictures could have been better, but there's no one around to help taking them.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

W.I.P. Wednesday - Progress and frogs

My teddy bear huggy blanket is still hibernating. At least until I'm done with my big secret project.
Last week I started participating in a CAL started by Stacey also known as Freshstitches. It's no secret I'm a big fan of her patterns, so of course I had to join.The goal is to crochet Jackie the Cow , one of her patterns.
You can read the start of my CAL here.
So far I've only done the body and one leg. Besides the dark pink and the white, I'm going to use a light pink.

Next is my secret project. It's coming along very nicely and I'm very close to finishing it.
I also got to make pleats for the first time when knitting, so you can say that I've learned something new.

Moving on to my frogs.
When I was looking for needles, I discovered that I have at least 3 unfinished projects lying around for myself. One is a scarf from Nicky Epstein's book Signature Scarves. It's almost done so I'm keeping it and will try to get it done in the near future.

The other projects is a dress in drops silke alpaca  , both knitted and crocheted,  and a jacket made in fabel.
I'm going to frog both these since I'm in the middle of both and my tension and gauge has changed since I started them. Yeah they have been lying around for a long time.

I'm not sure if I'll do the jacket again what do you think ?

I'm propably going to start over with the dress. The yarn is discontinued and I bought it especially for that dress.

Well enough rambling from me this sunny Wednesday.

Be sure to visit Tami's for more awesome W.I.P.'s

Thanks for reading and commenting. 

Happy crafting!

Book Reviews and Giveaways: Color knitting roundup

If you want to know more about color knitting techniques, there's an awesome giveaway for some books on the subject over at Underground Crafter.

Book Reviews and Giveaways: Color knitting roundup 

The giveaway runs until :

11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, June 23, 2012.

F.O.Friday - Long long ago...

Once upon a time I used to only knit after danish patterns....
Then...
I discoverd US and UK patterns and a whole new World of knitting opened up.
So one of the unfinished things I had laying around was a cardigan I made for my daughter. It has been waiting for me to finish it for quite some time, and since I'm pretty busy with my secret project I thought that this cardigan should be this weeks F.O.
I only needed to attach buttons and sew some ends in. I'm not really that pleased with the finished piece , but my daughter loves it :)

Oh yeah and when I looked at some of the tails they were very short..and I was like ..WHAT!! I never have that short tails .......When I took a closer look it was obvious to me what had happened.

You see...I have 2 cats....One of them is a Maine Coon, he never ever touches my knitting or crocheting projects or my yarn or anything else that has to do with knitting or crocheting...except...if he feels overlooked  or if he's mad at me or just plain an eye for an eye like.."you scolded me ,now I am getting even...."

His the MASTER..at least he tries to be haha.

So..back to my F.O.

Tadaaaa

I used the original yarn from the pattern. The pattern can be found here  ( US version)

Drops BabyAlpacaSilk :  70 % Alpaca and 30 % Silk.
Circular needles size 3 1/2 and 4 1/2
Coconut buttons.


Have a great and productive weekend for more awesome F.O.'s be sure to visit Tami's

Thank you for reading and commenting :)

W.I.P.Wednesday : My CAL project and more.

So today is Wednesday and I have a lot of projects on my needles and hooks as always.
I'm only going to share pictures of two of them.

I'm still working on my Teddy Bear Huggy Blanket which you can read about here .No newer photos though since I have a big and important project going on.

So Stacey from Freshstitches has started a CAL, which involves crocheting Jackie the Cow ,one of her adorable must-make- patterns. Yeah I'm a sucker for her patterns and I'm not ashamed to admit it! haha.
Of course I had to participate.

I'm not quite done choosing my colors, but I've started out with a dark pink for the body :

I'm using a 100 % acrylic for this cow. It's Jette from Hjertegarn.

Besides that. I'm doing a secret knitting project.
And it has a deadline!
Oh yeah. A VERY short deadline I might add.
I REALLY hope I can make it. Haven't been knitting since before Christmas. And I already had to rip out 15 rounds of lace pattern.
Reminder to myself : Remember a safety line!

I'm using 2 types of yarn :
Muskat which is a 100 % mercerised Egyptian Cotton, it has a fairly firm structure when knitted which is needed for some parts of this pattern.

The other  yarn is :
Cotton Viscose , a 54 % Cotton , 46 % Rayon. It has a nice shine ,but is a bit slippery to knit with when not used to it.


A sneak Peek : 

I hope everyone has a great and productive Wednesday.
 Thanks for stopping by and if you want to check out more W.I.P.'s stop by Tami's :  

F.O. Friday - Nathan, the Platypus

This W.I.P I started a huggy blanket and I was actually determined it would get done so I could post it as my F.O.
Well...I didn't take in to consideration , that :
1. I never did Granny Squares before.
2.There would be a lot of ends to sew.

It actually didn´t  accure to me until I was about to start the blanketpart.

And I really wanted to participate this F.O.Friday, so I had to think of something else, that was fast and easy to make.
Since I already bought the yarn and the pattern, I decided I would crochet a Platypus for my daughter.

And so I present to you  : Nathan, the Platypus

The pattern is designed by Stacey Trock aka Freshstitches. She makes so many cute animals, it's hard to choose which to make first. Eventually I'm going to make them all. Probably in pairs. One for me  and one for my daughter.
Sorry about the strange light in the photo.The color is supposed to be  Turquoise and orange.

Nathan has been renamed and is called Perry, my daughter is a  big fan of Phineas and Pherb hence the new name.

I used Roma from Hjertegarn a cotton/acrylic blend. It's a very soft yarn to work with and I really like the feel of it.

I did have to rip once. You see, my printer decided to die on me. Very annoying when you buy pdf patterns and do a lot of printing. Since I didn't want to spend x hours fixed in front of my stationary, I moved the pattern to my notebook and placed the notebook on my coffee table. That way, I could watch a movie ,talk to my daughter etc. when I needed a break without having to leave my project.
Well mind you , always make sure  the part of the pattern on you screen is where you're at . I didn't.....I was crocheting the bill and I thought "Hey that is one big bill ,Nathan is going to be very big" ...For some reason the pattern has scrolled down to the head ,so I was actually crocheting the head in orange haha.

Anyway...I ripped and then everything went smoothly. He's so much fun to make.
After taking his photo I put him in my daughters bed (she's 6 1/2 Years), so she would see him when she woke up.
First thing she said this morning ,even before saying good morning; was " Aww he's finished ,thank you ,I love him mom "

Got to love your kids when they appreciate the things you make for them with so much joy and excitement.

So that's my finished project this week, what about you ?

If you want to see more finished projects , you should pay a visit to :

Tami's is the one responsable for F.O. and she has a list of links to other peoples blogs where you can see some awesome projects :) 

Thanks for stopping by and reading and have a wonderful Friday :)

Edit : Better photo 

W.I.P.-Teddy Bear Huggy Blanket

This is my first W.I.P.
Reading about other peoples projects, seeing their progress and the enthusiasm that shines through, when they write about their projects are very catching and made me want to share mine .
I always have several projects going on at the same time , but I'm only going to share one, at least this week .

The Teddy Bear Huggy Blanket  which I'm making for my grandson.

My progress so far :

I have crocheted the head, muzzle, nose, ears, neck and started on the arms.

When I had to decide which yarn to use, I decided it was time to try out acrylic, so I bought Jette from Hjertegarn.
I have always avoided using 100 % acrylic yarns, 'cause I don't like the feel of it, but this one is soft and there's a bonus : it's cheap!

I went with these colors (light blue as MC) :

What's on your hook/needles this W.I.P. ? 

If you want to read and see what other people are working on visit Tami's, she's the founder of the W.I.P's

Thanks for stopping by and reading.

Please take a moment to like me on facebook, thanks :) 

The cutest

grandson anyone could ever have, came to visit his grandmother.
 I don't get to see my grandson very often ,so I was very happy when my daughter and son in law asked if I would babysit for 2 days...
Those 2 days got extended to 4 days since everything went smoothly (they had stuff to take care of) , I'm a bit surprised at how smooth everything went. 10 month old and not once did he act up or seem to miss his parents.

I haven't really crochet that much in those days, but I did finally finish a dog for my youngest daughter. More about the dog here

Better late than never and I think he turned out just fine.
I made him in 100 % cotton worsted weight and a size 4 mm crochet hook.

I also made a beanie. A friend of my daughter asked if I could make one for her son when she saw  my grandson wearing his. I used  a 100 % cotton, Victoria  from Marks and Kattens. Double stranded and a size 10 mm crochet hook.

I bought the pattern at Craftsy here and it's designed by Busy Mom Designs

Thanks for stopping by and reading.

Please take a moment to like me on Facebook. Thanks :)