Posted on 9 Comments

Where have I been?

New puppetTwo posts from me on New Year’s Eve and then nothing.  It’s three days into the new year, and where have I been?  Well, see, the beautiful thing about having a husband who works in education is that he generally gets a Christmas break just like the kids do.  This translates into long, cozy days in our pj’s, hanging out together in the family room by the light of the Christmas tree.

We’ve periodically left the nest for family gatherings, or the occasional trip to O Bagel and the local yarn shop.  But mostly?  We’ve been holed up together in one room.  Playing Wii and knitting.  Well, they haven’t been knitting.  I have.  And I haven’t been playing as much Wii as they have, but I’ve gotten in my fair share: an hour of Fit and Sports every day, and the occasional jukebox play-along with a totally insane bunny band.

Puppet waiting to be packed

As far as the knitting goes, I feel so lucky to have developed this skill over the past few months.  It’s really the only craft I do that’s portable; that allows me to be where everyone else is, watching them play, and participating in the family pj party.  For the most part, it’s a mindless craft.  At least, the things I’m making are that way.  I’m sure it would be different if I were doing something fancy like a sweater.  But striped sock puppets?  They only require concentration in a few places.  And wrist warmers?  if you leave out the thumb hole, they don’t require anything of you except to stop when you’ve made them long enough.

Puppet in a gift bag

Today Eamonn has a birthday party to attend for a classmate, and he asked me to make a puppet for his friend.  He chose the colors and the buttons himself.  It’s somewhat brighter than the other puppets I’ve made, but I like it.  I’m thinking of making a few more to keep around for future birthday parties.

While Eamonn is at the party, I will probably get back to work on the project I abandoned last night when I was pressed into puppet-making service: Toast.  These wrist-warmers were posted by Leslie of A Friend to Knit With, and were one of the things that inspired me to try my own a while back.  The ones I made evolved into something chunkier and shorter than hers, which I like just fine, but I’ve since been re-inspired to try and make the “real thing.”

Toast in progress

Last month, I got this great little adjustable knitting loom from Decor Accents, but I hadn’t had a chance to use it for anything yet.  It’s an extra small gauge, which means the size of the stitches it produces is similar to that of the needles Leslie used for her pattern.  I’ve been craving a finer-gauge project, so I got to work on these yesterday.  I have to admit, I find the loom a little hard to work with, mainly because of my preference for the round shape.  I have a hard time getting comfortable holding rectangle looms for some reason.  Still, it was a relatively easy process to knit up 11 inches of stockinette in the round with this lovely worsted weight Malabrigo wool in “mariposa,” and my hope is that I’ll be able to finish wrist warmer #2 today.

I was originally going to make the Toasty version of the pattern (with the thumb holes) but even after seeing an example online of how to translate the thumb-making process from needle to loom, I was still confused enough that I didn’t want to risk screwing up the 7.5 inches I’d already knit.  So I skipped it.  Another challenge for another day!

I hope you all have had a lovely start to the new year, like I have, with plenty of time to indulge your creative whims!  I’m thinking I’ll need to get back to the clay table soon, if for no other reason than to make more “noses” for future puppets, LOL!

LET’S KEEP IN TOUCH!

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Posted on 9 Comments

9 thoughts on “Where have I been?

  1. he he… we end up playing a lot of nutty rabbit games too. My bf got the RRR 2 last holiday and #3 this holiday.

    Absolutely dumb fun 😀

    See what Elaine has been blogging about: Swirl Your Lentil

    1. I love the music games, where you have to keep the beat. Those are fun. The rest, I generally just watch. “dumb fun” is a great way to put it!

  2. you have to figure out how to skip a few stitches while making the long piece. then after leaving the hole you go back and work in a circle around the hole you left to make a long piece for your thumb to be in. get it? ok. good. 🙂 oh, i love the yarn!!

    See what becky has been blogging about: New Year Preperations

    1. Hm, I thought I understood the bit about the waste yarn, but I used it in place of the real yarn to make four stitches. Should I have instead just threaded it through four stitches and not knit them at all? That might make more sense, maybe…

  3. I love how you made the photo card and gift tag to go with the puppet! Looks great.

    See what lsaspacey has been blogging about: My New Year’s Resolutions…

    1. Yeah, I’m a nerd that way, LOL!

  4. that sound right. When i made mine (crochet) i made a bridge with single stitches to jump the space and then used that to connect the 2 sides and then stitched up from there for the thumb wrapping.
    when you take it off the hoop and have a hole in the one side for your thumb you might have to learn how to do some simple stitches to make that thumb wrap. 🙁 i would even think you could crochet single stitches around in the circle if you know that allready. I am not sure how you would get the tiny hole on the loop to get that wrap done.
    does that help? make any kind of sence?

    See what becky has been blogging about: New Year Preperations

    1. Not really, but I’ll bet I could find a YouTube video to make it clearer. I tend to need to see things 🙂 Best not to tempt myself with that right now, though. Got to get back into a businessey frame of mind this week!

      Thanks for the link to the button swap. It’s tempting…

  5. http://phatsheeptextiles.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-swap-timesign-up-here-for-phatsheep.html

    i just saw this and thought i would spread it to you–button maker. oh, it’s a button swap.

    See what becky has been blogging about: New Year Preperations

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