Beaded Socks

 

I made Hayden some beaded socks.  They would have looked a lot better if I'd used white thread but I had the ecru in the craft drawer and I wasn't sure how her parents would feel about the beads so I went with what I had.

We put the socks on her and she immediately noticed the beads.

She loves to kick her feet and if she is anything like her Aunt Sarah, she will love wearing them and hearing the beads rattle/click/make noise.  

I made socks like these for Sarah from the time she was two until she was seven or eight.  She wore them constantly and they went through the washing machine, with or without bleach, and the dryer with no problems.  Not a single pair ever lost a bead so I feel pretty safe making them for Hayden.

If you have a young lady you'd like to make some for, they are super easy.  I've used round beads, but the triangular ones look better I think.  The thread wraps in the dent of the triangle and isn't as noticeable as on the round ones.  Besides the beads and thin cotton crochet thread, you'll need socks that have fold-over cuffs and a crochet hook small enough to go through the bead.  I use a USA4 hook.

So get your sock, poke the needle through just a tiny bit under the edge of the cuff, grab the thread and pull a loop through the sock.  I hold the yarn double for a few stiches to anchor it and then chain 3 (or 5 for older, bigger girls,) put the hook through a bead and pull the thread through.  Chain one to attach the bead then chain 3 (or 5) and attach it to the sock with another chain stitch.  Then just keep doing that all the way around.  The closer together you attach to the sock (if that makes sense,) the more full, ruffley, and fluffy beads will be, if beads can be fluffy.  Hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say.  

For this pair, I used whatever colored bead I grabbed out of the box but you can make patterns or add a special charm type bead, or use holiday themed colored beads... 

Oh and as a word of warning, do NOT use jingle bells.  Jingle bell socks are only cute for about 30 seconds then they become VERY, VERY annoying.  They also don't wash well. Trust me on that.

Rescued!

A giant Thank You to all who responded to my stash issues/yarn diet post the other day.  I wanted to to reply to each of you individually but once again, life got in the way.  Our oil furnace went beserk, the house filled with noxious, throat burning fumes, we had to evacuate and the fire department had to come to our rescue.  We made it out safely, the furnace is our secondary heat source so we're still warm, the house didn't burn to the ground and everything is okay.  But it did set the tone for the day and in reality, it was sort of the highlight of the day.

Charles City Fire and Rescue

I'm just glad we were here because my MIL had no idea anything was wrong.  It could have been an unimaginably horrible situation.  The firemen were fantastic and we very much appreciated their help and friendliness even though Grandma failed at her attempt to get one of them to propose to my daughter.  Grandma has decided Sarah needs to find herself a man.

Thank you, Charles City Fire and Rescue!

Thankfully the day's events wore out Grandma, she went to bed early, and I was able to hide out in my attic yarn stash closet and finish the Newborn Vertebrae.

Finished Newborn Vertebrae Cardigan

I even blocked it!

My apologies if this entire post is blurry or the colors are off.  I'm sitting in a Dunkin Donuts using the internet and being blinded by the sun streaming in through the window.   

.... And I just realized I'm still wearing my sunglasses, not my reading glasses.  No wonder I'm having so much trouble.  

I swear!  Dementia is contagious! 

I'm so excited!

News Flash!

I'm about to become unbelievably obnoxious because....

I'm SO excited!

I've only known for a few days but people at work have already told me I'm starting to annoy them.

Can you guess why?

photo courtesy of barnesandnoble.com

A grandma!  I'm going to be a grandma!!  My precious baby boy is going to have his own baby!

photo courtesy of 123rf.com

I don't know how I can ever stand to wait until March to meet the little blueberry. (That's how big he/she is right now.)  While I plan to be the favorite, cool grandma, 

photo courtesy of 123rf.com

I know I will also be the knitting obsessed grandma.  I've already got three notebook pages filled with patterns I want to knit. 

photo courtesy of freep.com

But at the moment, I'm feeling like cranky, mean grandma.  They don't know the baby's sex yet and they want pastel baby stuff, not brights.  And "their girl baby won't wear blue and their boy baby won't be wearing pink."  Between the parent's rules and my dislike of and thus lack of pastels in my stash, I'm having a Very difficult time choosing what to knit first.  

photo courtesy of 123rf.com

But you can bet, a yarn order has been placed.

Meanwhile, I seem to have an abundance of brown baby weight yarn.  I guess I  can always add a pink flower to it if the little blueberry turns out to be a girl.


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Sunday Hats - 1 Hour Infant Cap

Today's hat pattern is one of my own creations and it's so quick and simple, I hesitate to call it a creation.  I should also warn you that if you decide to knit one yourself, the pattern has not yet been tested.  I literally came up with the idea, designed the hat, knit it and photographed it yesterday while watching an 87 minute movie on Netflix.  That alone should give you an idea of how quick & simple this hat is to knit.

You will need worsted weight yarn and a needles that give you a gauge of 4 stitches to the inch & 6 rows to an inch.  (I used a US 7 needle, but I knit very loosely.)

Using the long-tail method, cast on 30 stitches and slipping the first stitch of each row,

Row 1:  Knit
Row 2:  Purl
Row 3 -5: Knit
Row 6: Purl
Repeat rows 3 - 6 seven times.  You should then have almost 5 inches of fabric.
Knit 2 more rows
Split the stitches in half so that you have 15 stitches on two needles, fold the fabric in half and using a third needle, Knit a 3 needle bind-off.  Break yarn.

Using a crochet hook (I used a G/6,) and additional yarn, chain 25 stitches, attach chain to the bottom of the face edge and single crochet around face opening.  Chain an additional 25 stitches, break yarn & tie off.

Weave in the loose ends and presto, magic!  You have an infant hat in less than an hour.

And of course, you could use i-cord instead of the crocheted chain, fancy up the tassels any way you want and/or use a contrasting color for the ties and around the face.

The Missing Month

Wow.  I have missed a whole month of blogging.  Good grief!  I had to get a post in today though, if for no other reason than to have it show up as 10-11-12.  Yes, I'm easily amused.

A lot has happened over the last month.  First, I became a Great Aunt.

Allison Danielle.  She's perfectly adorable & seems to sleep & eat when she's supposed to.  Can't ask more of a newborn than that!

As for the knitting, I've finished numerous projects and branched out to non-knitting.

It's a Scattered Leaves table runner.  I absolutely love it!  I looks like a pile of leaves scattered down the table.  I'm keeping this one for myself but I've also listed it as a Made to Order item in the Etsy shop.

And remember this shawl?  I loved it so much I decided to make another in shades of green, blue & purple.

Wow.  Is that showing up as being very washed out on your screen?  It's not looking anything like the actual colors on mine.

Have you ever wondered if a Lands End canvas tote bag is really worth the money?  I'm here to tell you, Yes!  I have two of them in different sizes and I absolutely LOVE them!  The handles on one have started to fray a bit but I've been carrying it around with me since I was 14 years old.  I'm 50 now!    That's 36 years of use and the bag itself is still going strong.  My other one is only 5 or 6 years old and it still looks great.  Well, it's a bit dirty - I don't think I've ever washed it, but other than dirt, it's showing no signs of wear at all.  But, my local craft store had bags that looked exactly like Lands End bags for about a fourth of the cost.  I bought one.  I washed it.  And look what happened -

The color ran.  Now, the white part has green splotches all over it and the green part has faded, almost white splotches all over it.  And if you look in the photo up above, you can also see that the cheap bag's seams are not finished.  You definitely get what you pay for with these bags.

Now, I must go knit some more on the cocoon baby sack for Allison.  She likes to be bundled, but she also likes to kick & keeps kicking off her blanket.

What a week!

First we had the earthquake and now a hurricane.  Hurricane Irene is baring down on us here on the East Coast.  At the moment, here in Virginia, we are experiencing the calm before the storm but I imagine things will change drastically over the next several hours.  But that's fine.  We have food & water, I have library books and Kindle books, I have three storm related DVD's to watch (love to scare my self silly!) plus the three Twilight movies if I get desperate.  And knitting.  I have plenty of knitting.

Actually, I have a little too much knitting.  I thought I'd learned my lesson a few years ago and had learned to have only two projects going on at a time, an At Home/Needs Concentration project and a On The Go/Social project.  But lately, I've reverted back to my old ways.  Since opening my Etsy shop, I've been thinking more about design ideas and what others may want, not just knitting for me.  Unfortunately, I keep coming up with more and more fun ideas and I can't control myself - I immediately go off on a tangent & start working on them.  I've also been busy knitting for our local visitor's center because they asked to put some of my hand knit items in their gift shop.   More projects on the needles!  I seem to be knitting one row a day on 80 different projects.  I'm feeling torn and guilty for ignoring the things I don't get to.  Knitting projects hate to be ignored!

The solution?  I plan to spend this hurricane knitting.  First, I'll watch my storm related DVD's (while the power is still on) and knit like a mad woman.  Later tonight, when the worst of the storm is here and we most likely won't have power, I'll knit by the light of the Kindle while I listen to it read to me.  Or maybe I'll just use the light and listen to the power of the storm.  But I imagine that by midnight, when the worst of the storm is due to arrive, I'll be pretty sick of hearing the wind blow.   Then after the storm, when we have to spend a few days without electricity, I plan to continue to knit.  After all, I won't be able to do laundry, run the dishwasher or vacuum.  May as well knit, right?  Of course, someone will need to clean up the downed trees and what ever damage we sustain, put all the furniture & plants back out on the deck, put gas in the generator, move the generator from the refrigerator to the air conditioner to the septic pump and back to the refrigerator again, but isn't that why I have a husband and kids?  Let them do it.  I have knitting to do!

Happy storm survival fellow East Coasters!