Some great free patterns

I have a so many great patterns saved in my bookmarks. I wish I had unlimited time and unlimited supplies to make these great projects! Thought I would share some of my favorite free patterns.

This Boredom Buster Bag from A Simple Stitch blog, is a so cute!

 This beautiful Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl is available as a free download.

The Haruha Scarf pattern from MadeByMyself is so pretty.

 I am such a geek and I absolutely love this Goomba Hat pattern. I keep meaning to make this for my boyfriend, I just love it!

What to do?

A while back I ordered a bunch of skeins of yarn off of Ebay. I love the colors and the yarn, but I have no idea what to do with them! They are a total of 300 yards and 150 grams. I was thinking of a hat, or gloves? Or a cowl? I have no idea, they will probably sit in my stash until I stumble on the perfect project for them... 

I did a pair a socks with another set of skeins a while back, the kabuki pattern is from 'Knitted Socks East and West'. I love these socks! They are so warm... So maybe a another pair of socks is an option? 

P.S. If you love knitting socks, you need to get 'Knitted Socks East and West'! Such a great book with some really nice pattern in it!

Some WIPs

I have been showing you guys a lot of finished projects lately, but I seem to have run out of things to finish! I'm working on a few of 'bigger' items that are taking me a while to get done. Such as this afghan for my sister-in-law. 

 

I showed her some pictures of different afghans and this is the one she chose. It is from the Creative Knitting Fall 2009 issue. I am making this 'Quick and Easy Afghan' with Loops and Thread's Charisma yarn in Forest, with size 10.5 needles. I don't know how quick this is going to be, but it is a good pattern for mindless knitting. I definitely should have used longer circular needles though, it is bunching up like crazy on the 29" long ones!

My second project is these socks for my boyfriend. I got the pattern from the Son of Stitch 'n Bitch book, Treads is a great pattern for a men's pair of socks. It is simple with a little touch of cables for some visual interest. I am working these up with Lion Brand's Sock Ease yarn in Sour Ball, and I am liking the colors!

Lookie at what I found!

I always love it when I find a website that inspires me to create things. Add in the fact that these are Dollarstore items, and we have got a real winner! Dollar Store Crafts is a great blog to just look through and find all kinds of amazing projects, I spent about an hour yesterday going through the site and here are some of my favorite projects.

 

 This doily-covered soap project looks so great. They say to use store-bought doilies, but I would probably make my own!

 My mind was blown when I read what this was made out of - toilet paper tubes! This faux wrought iron wall art just looks so good and would be so simple to make.

I have noticed a new fad springing up all over the net, friendship bracelets seem to be getting really popular and this friendship bracelet loom is an easy way to get in on the fun!

I am always loosing my stitch markers. I don't know where they all go but I am now using paper clips to keep my spot when I'm knitting. I can quickly make up a bunch of these cute little stitch markers so even if I lose some, they can be quickly be replaced!

Shoot! What stitch comes next?

When I first started knitting, I had a real problem keeping track of which stitch I was on, and this made the rib stitch especially difficult. That is until I realized that the knit and purl stitches looked different. That was one of my great "AH HA!" moments. Now I'm so used to looking at these two stitches that I don't even realize that I'm doing it, up until I read a post by a fellow blogger. When she mentioned messing up her ribbing it brought back some memories of me doing the same frustrating thing! I know there are probably tons of people who have already put up some helpful pictures/tutorials for this, but I figured I would just put up a simple picture of each the purl stitch and knit stich. 

 

 

If the stitch looks like a 'V', then it is a knit stitch. When working a rib, then this means you are going to knit this stitch!

 

If the stitch is bulging out, then it's a purl stitch. This means that if you are doing a rib stitch, you purl it!

So those are two pretty simple pictures, but next time you're knitting and you're not sure whether you need to knit or purl, just remember that the 'V' is a knit and the bulge is a purl! Hopefully this will save some frustration for someone!

This week's FO is...

This is another project I completed from the Early Fall 2011 issue of Vogue Knitting. When my mother-in-law saw this vest, she said she really loved it; the yarn had 'bling-bling' in it and it was perfect for her. So I had to find yarn that had some sparkle in it and Patons Lace Sequin turned out to be perfect for this project! I had to use bigger needles then what the pattern called for (3.75mm & 5mm) to match the gauge. I had no major issues with the pattern or the yarn (but the sequins did make it difficult to rip up my first try at the vest!!) and I absolutely love the results. 

If anyone wants to make this pattern, I have only one suggestion: make sure that when you are binding off for the armholes, do not do it too tightly! I had to undo my first attempt at this vest because I binded off waaayyy too tight!

  The Boatneck Top is another pattern that I would love to try out, but after reading the pattern and seeing the number of stitches involved I got kinda intimidated. Maybe I will make it my next challenge for myself and try it out... We shall see.

In the meantime, Happy Knitting!

A Birthday FO!

 
For my sister's birthday I wanted to make her something special. I thought a pretty granny square afghan would be perfect! I have wanted to learn how to crochet for a while and this was the perfect project to begin with. Some simple granny squares that I learned to make with a great tutorial I found on Youtube.
I taught myself how to knit from Youtube, and now it has showed me how to crochet! This was a great tutorial that walks you through each step and clearly explains what you are doing.
This was a great first project that used up a lot of my scrap yarn!