Happy Halloween!

About a month ago my oldest told me he wanted to be a bat for Halloween. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that "YES, I can make that!"  Wouldn't you know it I actually could.

The low down:
Pattern: Get ready...I totally made it up! I used a plastic glow in the dark bat for reference, free hand sketched it out and man it turned out pretty darn good.

Fabric: 80% wool felt
Notions: Boning and elastic.
Other materials: Black hoodie and black pants.

I made two separate wings, each with 3 pieces of boning, one at the top and two in the main wing to mimic a bats bones and to give the wings shape. The cool thing about the boning is that it's just hard enough to give the wings a great shape but soft, bendy and light enough that a 4 year old can still roll around, jump, eat dinner and dance without them being in the way.

I connected the two wings together  at the upper back so they stayed together but had lots of range to move freely. I attached 4 loops of elastic. One loop at each wrist and one loop at each shoulder. I made them a bit loose. I imagine these will go in our dress up box and will be used over and over and as they grow I still want them to fit.

Lastly I sewed ears onto the hood of the black sweatshirt. You would think this would be the easiest part, nope. I redid them 4 times and finally gave up and just went with what I had.

The only thing that really matters is that he totally loves his bat costume. My little one got the shaft and has  a very cute chicken costume we found at a second hand store, luckily he loves it and has a mean "Balk".

Action shot!

Fab Fall Friday

            

After being sick all week we were glad to feel better just in time for a chilly but super sunny day!

He had just said "this is so pretty"

Crazy Lady

Sometime in August I hit a knitting drought *gasp*.  I had several finished objects, which means in my world that they were off the needles not actually, you know, "finished".

What did I do?

Yup, four projects I'm currently working on.

I went a little crazy!

But wait, that's not all!

Add in a sweater for my mom and...

one for me because 5 projects just didn't cut it.

Gone Fishing!

More Slap Dash Sewing stuff...Introducing the Slap Dash Fishing Game.

The Low down:
Fabric: odds and end of stuff I'm not crazy about
Other Materials: Poly-fil, weak magnets in the fish, high power magnets in the hooks, sticks from the yard, cotton string.

A game of patience.

   I did the fish freehand because my goal was to get it done as soon as possible. They about 6 inches long with a magnet in the mouth area and stuffed with poly-fil. I fashioned some "hooks"with scraps leftover from the fish and high powered magnets. I sewed this to a cotton string then tied it to a stick I had the boys pick out.

If I were to make this again I think I'd put the high powered magnet in the fish and the weak one in the hook. I think I'd also use a bit less stuffing so the fish were lighter.

Can you tell which are fish and which are leaves?

I imagine this will be an indoor game in the winter when we are stuck inside and dreaming of warmer weather.

 For now it's fun enjoying an Indian summer fishing in our yard.

I Love Cables!

I just now, this very second (well about 20 minutes ago) I finished my first snuggly fall project.

I have a long sweater I bought at Old Navy waay back in 2000 or something like that. It's polyester and kinda frumpy, but I wear it at home all the time. As soon as I saw the cover of the fall issue of Interweave Knits peeking out of my mailbox I knew the Cardiff Coat would be a perfect replacement for my junky sweater.

Cardiff Coat not the junky sweater of old.

I've set about this season to challenge myself more when it comes to knitting. This pattern fit the bill. It was top down (which I love) it would be my 2nd cable project (a challenge) and it has reversible cables too (another challenge)!

The pretty pretty back view...ooh I love cables!

The Low Down
Pattern: Cardiff Coat by Jennifer Wood
Yarn: Ushya by Mirasol Yarn
Modifications: I knit the sleeves a bit longer because I like um that way.

Ooh you lovely cables you! These are the reversible ones.

As a way to challenge myself I did all the cables without a needle. A skill I taught myself while knitting this very cardigan. It was so great to not have to fiddle around with an extra needle. It's a little like living on the knitting edge because you have to let your stitches dangle in mid air for a half a second.


 I'm going to let you in on a few mishaps that happened while knitting this coat, but before I do that I'm going to confess that I pretty much make a least one mistake in every project I make. I think mostly it's because I'm knitting while watching TV so I'm not always paying the closest attention. Usually I go back a fix it if need be.

With this coat I made a serious error in the cables in that I totally forgot to do them in one part, EEK!
This wouldn't really be a problem except that I didn't notice until well after dividing for the arms. What did I do? I just left it. Chalked it up to to late and kept knitting.

Candid photo shoot photo.

I also want to mention that I have yet to block this thing because  I really love the cable all puffy. I wish that I would have considered this when deciding on what size because I would have made it one size larger. I think when I work up the motivation to blocking it It will lengthen a bit and fit much better, but for now I'm wearing it as is.