Jar Lid Cover Turned Doily

 Now that the life is busy and bigger projects take ages to get done, I find myself drawn to smaller projects. Also crochet had been calling me for sometime now so I decided to hook up a small doily last week. I took the pattern out of a crochet magazine and as I wanted to use it as a jar lid cover, I added a dangling edging to it. And a drawstring.
   Next up is a baby project and possibly a free pattern.

It's Hero Time!

 

Ben 10 is my son's favorite TV cartoon show and an ongoing obsession. So when he asked me to make him a jacket like the one hero wears in the cartoon, I hurriedly complied (he was moving on to the various alien costumes). Ben 10 seems to be quite a favorite with the boys this age, as I discovered many similar projects at ravelry. One reveler even shared her intrasia chart which saved me much time and grief.

   For the actual sweater, I did not follow any pattern. I did ran into trouble with the set in sleeves, it took a few attempts to get them right. The yarn is our local acrylic worsted weight.

  I don't have to tell that this sweater is a resounding success. My son would like to wear it all the time. He also went off to show it to his grandparents, who had no idea what or who Ben 10 is. Even his little sister has been trying it on. As for my hope that it will be the only piece of knitting based on Ben 10, that seems to be futile thinking as I am already receiving requests for one more. Maybe next year, just maybe.

Divan Cover

While I struggle with the sleeves of my son's cartoon hero jacket, here is a quick picture of a divan cover I sewed for the in-laws a while back. It replaced a somewhat similar cover I made several years ago that had seen a lot of use and now needed replacing. This is made out a standard king-sized bed sheet with coordinating pillow covers.

Still Here

The reason I have ignored the blog for the last few weeks is twofold...firstly, we decided to take a little impromptu vacation and went to Lahore for a few days. We had a great time there but I could not get much knitting done. Secondly, I feel I have burned myself out with the vacation, housework, and taking care of the baby. So even when I find a quiet moment, which is ever so rare these days, I don't feel like doing anything. Knitting, blogging, net-browsing, all feel like a lot of work.
 Hopefully, this phase will pass soon and I will be back to blog about my hobbies regularly, inshaAllah. For now, I will leave you with a picture of my current WIP. It is going to be a zippered jacket for my son. This is on his special request and is something his favorite cartoon superhero wears.

Red Hat and Eid Mubarak

Here is a hat to go with the red coat I recently completed for my daughter. It was a breeze to knit though I procrastinated with the photo shoot. The design is my own quick version of a beret with an two-buttoned overlapping band to match the coat.
   We have Eid al-Adha today. It will start with Eid prayers, folliwed by sacrifice and distribution of meat and three days of celebration. Eid Mubarak!

Red Coat

 

 The contiguous experiment went very well and I now have a quite nice-looking finished garment. I made this for my six year old, with room to grow. The design is my own, though I used the contiguous method by SusieM for top down set-in sleeves. The yarn is our local acrylic worsted weight on 4 mm needles.

 My daughter is very happy with the coat and wants a hat to match, so I guess that is going to be my next project. I have to say I love all these buttons, make me think of a ladybird.

 

Contiguous Adventure

For my next project, I decided to try a new technique....contiguous method for doing top-down set-in sleeves and shoulder seams by SusieM (ravelry group here.). It did seem a bit daunting initially but is actually a quite simple concept. You start at the neckline, do the shoulder shaping and the add stitches for sleeves and do the set in sleeves at the same time as the front and back of the garment.There are a lot of things going on at once but the end result is  quite pretty and seamless.

My first attempt went very well, I think. I had a flash of inspiration and knit the sleeves first. Now that I am past all that shaping, all I have to knit is the rest of the body on this red coat for my older daughter. Nothing  challenging, just acres of plain stockinette stitch.