Hedgehogs and Pumpkins

We had to get a little more fiber in our diets, Tracy, and I, so we persuaded fiber goddess Janice to come over with the giant bag o'fluff, and her scary-looking felting needles, and we got down and dirty with the poking and created the cutest little things.

Aren't they adorable? I made the pumpkin (at least I'm moving away from the candy corn theme I had going the last few weeks) and Tracy was obsessed with making a little hedgehog creature. They both turned out great I think.

I'm now wondering what else I can do. I'm thinking a little bowl of 3D hearts for Valentine's Day?

It really wasn't hard, and is rather addictive.

We enjoyed welcoming Janice into the Naughty Knitters Wednesday morning group. We may even be persuading Tracy to do something other than a scarf again. And Lisa and Nolamom are booking on their second socks. Lots of progress even though there were pastries involved.

Words on Mittens, Pumpkins on Socks

I finished my Prayer Mittens! Yay me! (too much Disney Channel) Now I can move on to the next in my mental list of things I gotta knit. Xmas knitting is on agenda, as is the felted purse I saw in Interweave Felt. First I have to wind the 6 skeins of yarn....

I'm also working on my little pumpkin socks. This pattern is so easy that I can knit it without the pattern, so it is the perfect take along project. It has gone everywhere too. Lots of waiting opportunitites. I am very close to the heel flap, this photo is a few days old. I LOVE this yarn. This is Janice's French 75 yarn in "pumpkinhead" and the colors are so deliciously fall I am enjoying knitting this sock tremendously!!

In other news, yesterday was a day off of school that we ALL had off. Except Maurice, who was busy breaking his finger at the gym (ow). Since the fair ended Monday, and Disneyland wasn't in the picture, we ended up going up to the pumpkin patch and the movies.

The scarecrows were more realistic than the talking chihuahuas.

Felting Frenzy

Good Things this month was my turn. I had been requested to do a felting project, so I came up with three things to keep us busy.

I had played with felting soap with Mom, Carey, and Tracy, and I knew Janice was a pro at it so I wanted to do that with the group. I think we all enjoyed it, but none so much as Grace, who barely let Janice come up for air while trying to use every color of fiber we had (and we had lots).

Carolyn liked taking her agressions out on a bar of soap! Chrissy made a fall color soap, I made a candy corn-inspired soap, and Carolyn did a funky pink and purple soap. Carey of course, got complicated and made a cute one like a pumpkin. She'll have to show you the photo (hint hint).

We also had a regular felt gift card holder for fall that was shaped like a candy corn, but could be adapted to a Christmas tree, heart, wedding cake, just using simple shapes and blanket stitching and embroidery. I liked that one, but some of us are more needle-friendly than others. Speaking of which, Janice brought her needle felting needles and I didn't even have to visit the ER. Yay!

The last project we did was a cute little felt peony that I saw on whipup.net. It was so simple since the template was available for download, and it took literally 2 stitches to hold the entire thing together. Tracy did hers out of purple felt and put some yellow french knots on it, and it was a beautiful violet. I really liked this. Cute and simple. Perfect.

I was excited to get the Good Things gals together with Janice, she is so talented I had to show her off to the group. I think we all had fun. We each came away with something different, but we got a chance to play around with lots of different things. A good thing!

Mittens and Socks

My Jared mittens haven't been going well. I find the Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light to be VERY splitty and the alpaca fuzziness really obscures the pattern. I've decided they need a trip to the 'ole frog pond, and I will start again with some nice smooth Dream In Color Smooshy in a nice shaded solid brown.

But that is on hold while I work on other mittens. I have actually been planning these for some time - I had my friend Angela dye the yarn and I had to do the chart for them on the computer and get it all set up. They are the Poetry Mittens from Piecework Magazine. Instead of the poem the article used I put the Hail Mary prayer on them. They are for my daughter's teacher for Christmas. This year my daughter has her First Communion and she has a very special teacher, so I wanted to do something nice.

The first one is done - and it is going pretty well. They seem very long, but they do fit my hand quite nicely. Hopefully she doesn't have tiny hands.

I've got another First Communion project brewing in my mind. I'm thinking of knitting a lace veil for Grace to wear. I have been looking on Ravelry and found two different examples, one which uses a pattern from the Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel. I think I'm going to combine the cross panel of that one with some other lace patterns and create something new.

I did finish my Navajo socks too. They went off to be sold at the silent auction at Emily's school. I did get two new skeins of sock yarn from Janice of French 75 fame and I will turn one of them into the little pumpkins socks I saw on Ravelry. Those will be my halloween socks.

This is the time of year where I start my stealth knitting so I will give peeks here but not many details. My gift receivers aren't on Ravelry, so details will probably go there. I spend a lot of time favoriting and queuing over there, and I am starting to lose track of what my real "queue" of items I have to make is. There is the "want to make it queue" and the "someday I'll make this" queue. Wonder if everyone has that problem?