Mosaic Socks-Samarkand

These are my first finished pair of socks for this year. I guess I am kind of off my game! The pattern is called Samarkand. I found it as a free download on Ravelry. Two yarns are used in this slip stitch pattern, one is navy blue and the other is a self-striping yarn. Following the chart was not difficult and it was fun to watch the pattern develop. I would like to make the pattern again, using the solid as the background and the multi-colored as the pattern, which is actually the way the pattern was written.

Zebra Baby Hat

I have been knitting quite a few baby items lately. It seems like my friends' kids and my kids' friends are all having babies!

I had a custom order for a baby sweater with a giraffe and a giraffe hat with turned out so cute, but I forgot to take pictures. When my daughter saw it she asked if I could make a zebra hat for a baby shower she was invited to. The girl has a zebra theme. I found a chart for a zebra design and adapted it for this hat. Since the baby will be a girl, I decided to make the border pink. I started the hat with straight stitch to make a rolled edge, followed the ribbing. The hat decreases at the top to a 4-stitch I-cord for the tail.

Quilt for the Dogs

It's been quite awhile since I have posted anything to the blog. Life just got a little too complicated to take the time to update here. But, in spite of the total craziness of life in the past several months, there were some projects that I completed. Actually, keeping something on the knitting needles helped me keep some amount of sanity so there were several small projects completed.

This is not a very good picture, but I wanted to show how I made a simple and fun little quilt. I am not a quilter, but I like to do a little quilting occasionally. I just wanted to make a simple quilt to put on the couch for the dogs to sleep on. Of course, they avoid sleeping on it and find the spots not covered by the quilt. I had some scraps on hand in black, red, and white. I purchased other fabrics that had dog motifs on it to use with them. I then cut them into random size strips and sewed them together. The strips were cut into blocks and sewn together as shown. The backing is the red with tan dogs that some of the strips are made of and the quilt is bound in black.

Fairy

The holiday issue of KnitSimple magazine has patterns for some cute little fairies. I made this one with single wings and a little cap. Also included, is a pattern for one with double wings and braided hair and a petal bag to put them in. The total length of this little fairy is about 5 inches. They are knit with sock weight yarn on size 1 needles.

This issue also includes some tiny mitten and tiny sweater ornaments, baby layettes, and a Christmas bird garland that are on my list to make.

Cotton Harvesting Time

Having been away from home for a couple of weeks, I didn't realize that the pods on the cotton were almost ready to start picking. There are still a lot of blossoms on the plants which I hope will still form pods and produce more cotton, but there are many pods drying now and starting to pop open. Aside from the obvious usefulness of being able to spin my own cotton, I really enjoy watching these plants as they go from seed to seedling to full grown plants with their delicate pale yellow to pink flowers and then the pods and cotton itself.

Too Much Going On

No blogging lately, only one small knitted pillow complete, but no pictures. No weaving, no knitting, no spinning. Lots of family health stuff that I don't feel comfortable talking about here. Hopefully, things will settle down and I can get back to creating, because I really need it, especially now for my own mental health therapy. But, right now life is just too crazy. Please check back and if you are the type that believes in it, send positive thoughts this way. It couldn't hurt!

More figgy goodness!

In my ongoing quest to use figs in every way, shape and form, I found a recipe for Italian sausage with figs. This recipe calls for a couple of pounds each of pork and beef and some dried figs to be ground and then mixed with herbs and spices. I've taken the ground mixture and made patties to freeze for future use. I did take a bit and cook it up to taste. Tastes like a slightly sweet Italian sausage.The recipe can be found on the Fig Advisory website.