Knitting Fingerless Gloves/Wrist Warmers

Today is my sewing day. I have several knit tops in the works. Hopefully, I can complete two of them.

Since I'm up early this morning, I wanted to post my latest knitting project.

Awhile back, I had posted about purchasing fingerless gloves at Walmart. My sewing friend, Clio, made a comment that I could easily find a fingerless glove knit/crochet pattern and make them myself. She was right. That thought stuck in my head for several weeks as I was getting back into my yarn hobby. I finally found this lovely knitting pattern over at Bernat's site.




So, here is my version (still a work in progress) of the fingerless glove. I modified this pattern by shortening the length. The overall glove length is about 13 inches. Way too long for me. My version is only 8 inches in length. Short and sweet. My ribbed cuff is knitted in black Lion Brand Wool Ease yarn for 2 inches. Next I did the stocking stitch (Lion Brand Wool Ease - Denim Twist) for about 3 inches and finished with the final 3 inches of ribbing.

That is one glove done. I am almost finished with the 2nd one. I am in the final ribbing phase. I ended up reversing the colors on this one as I was running out of the Denim Twist yarn. I had enough to make the cuff and switched to Black for the body and final ribbing. This was a great weekend project. I'm glad I was able to use up my leftover yarns from my scarf project.

I will post a picture later of my fingerless gloves and matching scarf set.

Clio...thank you for getting my creative juices going on this project.

A Saturday Christmas Play

As I mentioned in a prior post, I was tasked to take pictures for our Children's Christmas Program at our SDA church. From rehearsals to final production, I took over 450 pictures. Do you know how difficult it is to take pictures of youngsters? Always on the move, squirming, fidgeting, etc. As always, I enjoyed the picture taking experience immensely.




Here's a sample picture of some of the masks that were designed and used in the play. I see a french hen and a turtle dove mask.





The play was called "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and the kids were dressed to represent the 12 days of Christmas. There were many verses to be told and songs to be sung. They were all adorable.






As most of you know, I have to respect the parents' wishes and won't be posting pictures of the kids. Trust me, they were quite cute!

My Reflections on 2008

I was reading Lindsay's and Dawn's blog and enjoyed their post on their annual review of 2008. I thought I would do something similar and capture my goals and accomplishments for this year.


2008 Goals:

One of my goals for 2008 was to make at least 2 garments a month followed by their reviews. I mostly accomplished that for part of the year, but fell short by October when I came down with the nasty 6-week bug.

I do feel I can still accomplish that goal. I still have the rest of December to go with the last two weeks devoted to sewing. Yes, I will have to hold off taking my SM in for maintenance.

Another goal was to learn a new hobby. That was in the form of knitting.

And yet another goal was to share my sewing experiences via the Internet or through hands-on teaching.


My Accomplishments for 2008:

• Started my own sewing blog
• Became a sewing educator
• Made a pair of pants and several pairs of shorts. Still have some fitting issues to address.
• Bought my first BWOF subscription.
• Received my 3rd star at PatternReview.com
• Expanded my fabric, pattern, and notions stash by a lot
• Featured on Lazy Girl Designs’ blog
• Learned to knit and master the knit and purl stitches. Even took on the cable stitch.
• Learned to take better pictures. Practice makes perfect. Took over 5,000 pictures this year.
• Became a Mac user.

2009 Goals:

• Sew more of my clothes and stop spending money on RTW.
• Work on getting a good pair of pants to fit. This will help with the first goal.
• Make a coat
• Fine tune a hobby. Learn to play an instrument really well.
• Sew a guitar case (well, I could try)
• Sew down my fabric stash and limit new fabric purchases.
• Knit and crochet more to reduce my yarn stash...so I can buy more yarn.

I am sure I will be adding more to my 2009 goals list because I am constantly thinking of more fun things to learn and do.

Conquering the Cable...

...as in the cable stitch. Here's my sample. I was getting bored with just doing the knit and purl stitches. I picked my handy dandy Boye's I Taught Myself to Knit Pocket Guide and followed their instructions to do a test sample. My first attempted resulted in producing 4 additional stitches out of nowhere. I pulled my first sample apart. My second attempt turned out to my liking. With this knowledge, I plan on making a cable scarf. I've done some research and have found that some cable scarves tend to curl badly.

I think I'm going to use my sample reference and create my own cabled scarf pattern. I'll be back to post my results.

For those of you who are interested to know how I learned to knit...here's a picture of the pocket guide I am using. It's actually a kit that I purchased from Walmart at the beginning of this year. The Boye kit included this pocket guide plus a set of short size 8 needles. This booklet has taught me the basics of knitting with simple instructions with pretty good diagrams.

Another Hobby...Am I Crazy?

Besides sewing, knitting, and photography...I have added another hobby to my ever growing list of things I enjoy doing. I am teaching myself how to play a classical guitar. So far, I have learned to play Jingle Bells and Love Me Tender. I am actually reading & playing the music notes.

Okay, so how did this start?

The classical guitar has been in my family for at least 35 years. One of my DBs originally brought it. I remember when I was in my pre-teens, I picked it up and played a few notes (not knowing what they were). I picked up my DB's Alfred's Beginning Guitar book and learned a few notes. I ended up learning to play first few notes of Dueling Banjos and Scarborough Fair. Did I just age myself? That was the end of my young guitar playing career.

Now, here I am with the guitar in my possession. It has moved with me through the years and left in many basements. I made contact with the guitar when the hot water heater broke late last year & we had a tiny flood. I scooped it up before water could damage it. This guitar had developed broken strings over the years (from aging) and remained that way until last month. My DB#2 replaced the strings for me.

Okay, so how did I learn to read music?

A few years ago, DB#2 told me that since I type really, really fast...I should be able to play the piano/keyboard. I know it sounded ridiculous! But hey, what the heck...both of my DBs know how to play electric guitar and I was the only one without any music talent or instrument. So, I picked up a Yamaha keyboard (really good deal). I taught myself to read music and learned the keys on my Yamaha. I started out with Christmas songs...you never forget those famous tunes that stay in your head forever. I ended up playing tunes from The Sound of Music using both hands on the keyboard.   It was a long struggle and a huge milestone.  

Relearning how to read music didn't take me long. I'm just struggling with learning where to place my fingers on the strings of my old/new guitar.

Naturally, I'm now thinking about sewing a guitar case to protect my dear old friend.  See, it didn't take me long to figure out a way to get my sewing hobby mixed in with my music hobby.

Tracing & Cutting & Baking Day

While the bright sunlight was blazing in my sewing room, I spent most of today tracing and cutting out patterns. Of course, my BWOF 12-2008-113 took the longest time. Being my first BWOF attempt, I had to make sure I added the seam allowances to the pattern pieces I traced. I also figured out the roadmap to the pattern sheets. That will have to wait for a separate post on my first BWOF experience. Stay tuned.

I zipped through tracing and cutting out New Look 6735. Another knit top in the works.

In between tracing and cutting, I also spent time backing up all my photos and data onto two separate external drives. I've been taking about 500 photos a month...that's been the average. This coming week, I've been tasked to take some pictures at our church...rehearsals for the Christmas program. This should be fun.

Now, it's time to bake some cookies. I think the last time I baked cookies was over 15 years ago. I used to make wonderful desserts (e.g. cream puffs, cakes, pies, etc) and baking with chocolate was my specialty. I just hope I am not too rusty to bake oatmeal cookies.

** Update **

Well, my oatmeal & raisin cookies came out pretty good and I didn't burn them. I should have left them in the oven for another minute to get a bit more browner. But they are yummy and chewy. I used parchment paper on the cookie sheet before placing the dough on the sheet. I got the recipe from America's Test Kitchen site.

I was a little apprehensive to use their recipe as the directions included: using two cookie sheets with one sheet placed on the lower rack (oven) and the other sheet placed on the middle rack. Bake for 22-25 minutes. About half-way through the baking process, swap the sheets on the two different racks and then turn the cookie sheets halfway. Basically, the lower sheet moves up to the middle rack and the middle sheet moves down to the lower rack. Then take the cookie sheets and turn so that the back cookies are now in the front. You know what? It really worked. All the cookies were evenly baked. I won't doubt any of their recipes again. I do love watching their shows on PBS.

Diving into BWOF and Other Things

Looks like I'll be sewing something from BWOF. I have been looking over the last 7 issues I have (new subscriber) to find a simple top to make. I have decided on 12-2008-113.



Naturally, after seeing the pattern sheets I feel a real challenge to tackle my first BWOF pattern. For those of you who never laid eyes on a BWOF mag, here is one of the pattern sheets from my 11-2008 mag.




On the knitting front: I have finished the two previous posted scarves and now working on another two. I like making two at a time. If I get bored with one color, I can switch to the other scarf. This one will be for a child. I am using Vanna's Choice yarn from Lion Brand. This will be a simple garter stitched scarf.

This one is for me. I am using two yarns, one in black and the other in denim twist color. Wool Ease by Lion Brand. I love the effect so far.

I feel another productive weekend coming on. My Christmas shopping is done...no need to be in the stores or on the Internet.

I might even bake some oatmeal cookies...yum, yum.

Simply Knitting for the Month

I am doing a little side project. Since I am almost done making gifts for Christmas, I thought I would start making gifts for our local SERVE. SERVE provides assistance for families in need as well as a place to get hot meals and a temporary place to stay. My side project involves knitting scarves in different colors and different sizes to give to the families during Christmas. I am not sure how many will get done, but I feel the calling to do something special for them. I will be posting throughout the month, the scarves I knit.



The yarn I am using for this colorful scarf is Homespun by Lion Brand in Tudor color. I am using knitting needles size 11 (8.0mm). I have cast on 14 stitches, knitted (garter stitch) 10 inches, knit a row/purl a row (stockinette stitch) for 25 inches, and finish with 10 inches in the garter stitch. I just have a few more inches to knit and it should be done this evening.


I am also working on this scarf in Wool-Ease by Lion Brand in Wheat color. This is a great yarn to knit with. For this scarf, I am using knitting needles size 15 (10.0mm).




I love the design of this scarf pattern. I personally do not like having anything bulky around my neck. The stockinette stitches in the middle of the scarf results in the scarf curling towards the center...making the scarf narrow. I love it. I might have to make one for myself.

I am getting a lot of practice with the knit and purl stitches. I was a bit nervous in knitting with the light color yarn, but so far my stitches are looking pretty even.