Spring Reggae Hat

E.J. had asked me to make him a cotton dred hat for summer.
I'd been putting it off, but I finally designed a pattern and this is how it turned out.

The yarn had too much pink and purple in it for him though, so he wasn't gonna wear it. In the photo's, what looks orange is really hot pink LOL!! But the hat turned out like I wanted and it is now my prototype and I used one of my Christmas bears for my model :)
I guess he changed his mind though. He came walking through the door today and I was able to snap this shot of him wearing the hat.
He still thinks it has too much pink, but it does do what he wants, so I'll be making a new one, with more "macho" colors for him :) I'm also going to experiment with a lighter weight cotton. This one was done with Peaches and Cream and it's a tad heavier than what I want. I'll be looking for some sport weight cotton, maybe Aunt Lydia's Denim? in white and tie dyed? He'd be thrilled, as long as I don't use pink :)

Oh, it's hand knit, but I think I can adapt it for the machine and use one of the mesh type punch cards, then do the decreases and bill by hand and seam up the back. I'll be sure to post what I come up with. It's gonna be alot easier now that I have my basic design down.

One Panel Afghan from Super LK100

Lion Brand Suede One Panel Afghan/Bed Cover

This is the maiden project for my doubled up Super LK100 knitting machine. A bunch of us were able to snag the Lion Brand Suede yarn when it was .99 a skein at the .99 Stores around the states and I purposely bought another LK100 so I could put the 2 machines together (see how it was done here ) and knit up this luscious chenille yarn as a single panel afghan. In other words all in one piece instead of having to knit sections that need to be assembled because of machine length restrictions. It's laid out on a full size bed, and as you can see, it turned out to be almost a bed spread, if I'd have made it a little bit longer it would be the same size as a comforter. This was using all 160 needles on the combined machine , knit at tension 9.

A closeup of the crochet ends. I just did a single crochet around the whole blanket, this yarn doesn't curl much at all and the single crochet with a size K crochet hook did the job, but I wanted it a bit prettier so I did 3 rows of shell stitches on each end while leaving the sides plain. I like the look and feel of it. Oh, your eyes aren't buggy, there are stripes. Since this was an experiment I didn't want to use up all I had of one particular color so I alternated one skein Spice and one skein of Garnet. A weird color combination but it goes with brown leather, which is what my new sofa will be :)

This is the piece while it was still on the machine. This yarn is marvelous and super soft and cuddly. I will be making more of these. The texture of the yarn is sufficient for interest so no pattern is really necessary for a very nice item.

New Felting Projects

I just purchased this yarn from The Yarntreehouse on Ebay, these are their photos, it came in the mail yesterday and I didn't want to waste my batteries taking a new photo when these represent it perfectly. It's not as soft as merino wool, it's got about the same texture as Knit Picks, Wool of the Andes so I anticipate it felting up very nicely.

This is how the wool is supposed to knit up and I think it's soooo pretty. I can't wait to see how it's going to look as a felted bag! and a felted hat! Wouldn't those colors brighten up a dreary winter day! It's like rainbow sherbet :)

This is a picture of my first felted bag. I was warned that this felting thing could become addictive and it is :)

The Flower Beds

I don't think I'll ever understand this, we moved to the desert and E.J. has decided he needs to turn our yard into Hawaii :) As you can see, Augie doesn't get it either and he thinks it's his personal little hole digging, green eating, shangrilah.
E.J. was told that bulbs wouldn't grow here, so of course, he planted all kinds of bulbs :) and of course, they were all wrong. The day lilies hadn't opened up yet for the picture but the glads are blooming all around the yard. I thought the wind would break the stalks, but so far they are going like gang busters.
and get aload of these! I just love the orange ones, they are perfect and just beautiful. The snapdragons behind them were throw aways from the nursery last year. Guess they decided to tough it out too. I'll get some more shots of the other areas of the yard later, it's really hard to get anything descent because I still haven't taken my camera to the shop to fix the focus on it. It's only been a year and a half since Alex and I dropped it..... Sheesh, shame on me. I just can't seem to let go of it long enough to send it off.