First Lessons

Yesterday, while knitting my daughter's bolero, I felt a tug at the yarn. I turned around to this:

It turns out, my daughter had watched me wind (by hand) the yarn earlier that day and was practicing on her own. She did a pretty good job too!

On the other hand, my son's first experiment with yarn goes like this:

He acquired this yarn from my scraps and uses it to pull around his toy car, LOL. Yes another thing that interests him in my craft closet is my retractable tape with which he plays yoyo.

Tangled Yoke Cardigan Update and More

There seems to be so little knitting time nowadays. However I am making slow progress on my cardigan. I am taking it slow myself and like it this way i.e. without any pressure or deadline. I finished the first sleeve two days ago and am yet to cast on the second one. The color on the balls is uneven and ball change on the body is easily detectable. But I think I will live with it rather than frogging and redoing it, especially as there is no guarantee that the other balls would match better.

Today, I started a bolero for my daughter to wear with her Eid dress (remember the red one...). She will be wearing it on Eid-ul-Azha and then an upcoming wedding, inshaAllah.
I am also slowly working on the socks for my husband. I also plan to start a pair for myself inshaAllah.
In other blogging news, I was tagged by Riohnna and got this:

"Those that receive the Rock Star award stand out. They work hard and you love knowing them. They are unique and one of a kind bloggers!"
Thank you Rihonna, Now I have to list 8 interesting things about myself. Well the most interesting thing I can think of is my knitting WIPs and I have already shared those. I will have to think hard to come up with other stuff :)

DinoMitts

The mittens I promised my son are finally done. It took me about three days to finish the pair. My son wanted a T-rex. I tried my best with the first mitt but my son informs me that it is a spinosaurus.

For the second mitt, I decided on making a triceratops which is better recognizable.

I had thought of writing a pattern at first but then was unsure whether any one would be interested in one.

The great thing is that my son is very happy with his mitts (and so is my daughter with her pair of mouse mittens) and now that I have fullfilled my promise to the kids, I can carry on with my tangled yoke cardigan. I am at the first sleeve right now.
In keeping with the current theme, we plan to take the kids to the Museum of Natural History tomorrow, inshaAllah.

What Amma Likes to Do

A Couple of days back, I was doing some school work with my son. We studied the things around us in the house. I asked my son to name a few things in the house and looking around, he started:"Computer, TV, fridge, toys, yarn, needles......"
That does make Amma proud and Baba say,"Aha! I told you so".

Doll Fashion Recalled

Once upon a time, before Allah had blessed me with two human dolls to dress and play with (and feed and clean and carry everywhere ofcourse!), I used to make dresses for dolls. I had been thinking of them lately and finally dug them out from their storage place and did a fashion shoot.

First, all the knitted and crocheted dresses. As I remember, all were free patterns downloaded from the net, however I no longer have the links.

Lastly, a traditional wedding dress I sew for a fashion doll:

More Mittens

When I finished my Bronte's Mitts a few days ago, my son was rather taken with them. He took the pair to try on and I let him, thinking he will hand it over in a few minutes. He handed them back all right but those were all wet! It turned out, he was trying to block them, Lol. Well, I managed to dry them but he was still hovering around, so for the sake of my mitts' safety, I asked him if he would like a pair of his own. Affirmative. Now what goes for my son also has to go for his little sister and this brings me to this current FO.

I made these mitts for my daughter. This is a heavily modified version of Mouse Mittens. I left out the tail( lesser yarn for her to put in the mouth). I used yarn scrap for this project and it took one day to knit.
Next I have to make a pair of dinosaur mitts for my son. I will have to come up with a pattern of my own and I am thinking hard :) I have not shown my kids these ratty mitts yet as I want to finish the dino pair first and then give both the kids their mitts at the same time. Some time next week, inshallah!

Hands Warming

There are a few accessories I really love even if I don't get to use them as much as I would like, bags being one and gloves another. Now with the promise of winter in sight, I wanted to knit myself a pair of fingerless gloves. I also needed a break from my tangled yoke cardi.

The pattern is Bronte's Mitts and the yarn is Mystic Alpaca. No modifications in the pattern.
I can not wait to try out these gloves. These will go well with my winter scarf and abaya.

A Dyeing Adventure

Some months ago, I happened to find some discontinued undyed wool yarn at a local yarn shop. As wool is not available here any more, I got it with the idea of dyeing it myself.

I did just that last month. I used KoolAid to dye a full sweater worth. My first choice of color was a medium yellow but I did not have enough of that color sachets, so I chose red instead. I used all the red KoolAid and some blue and orange on top to get this shade. I tried some sprinkling for a little variegated effect.

I have already started with the sweater which is to be Tangled Yoke Cardigan. Again the color is hard to capture in indoor light but with the days being short, by the time I get around to shooting pics, its usually dark outside.

I ran into some trouble with the waist decreases but it was resolved, Alhamdollilah. However I have taken a couple of days break from this project to start a pair of fingerless gloves for mysef.

Garter Stripe Bag

I saw this pattern at ravelry and loved it. It is basically 22 squares in black and white garter stripes arranged and sewn in a particular shape. I used 4.00mm needles and cotton yarn. Although I love how this bag has turned out, but to be honest, it was very boring to knit. It was hard to keep motivated. Perhaps it was the garter st, cotton yarn or all the seaming which made it so hard to knit.

I lined it with a similarly striped fabric. I simply placed the knitted piece over the fabric and cut the fabric along the outline (with some seam allowance).

Then sewed it to match the seaming on the bag. I put in two pockets in coordinating fabrics, one with a zipper. And the bag itself has a magnetic closure.

Only modification I did was to use plastic purse handles rather than knitted straps. Also I crocheted along the top. I simply adore this bag and this will be my new daily use bag, inshaAllah.

A Hat For My Father

After making a sweater for my mother, I wanted to make something for my father as well. The one thing he regularly wears during the winters is a hat. He normally wears a traditional fabric hat common to our part of the world. I thought it would be a nice change for him to try a knitted hat. So with my hausband to help me pick a pattern, I searched Ravelry and we choose this pattern. The beret shape is quite similar to his current hat style and moss st give it a nice texture. The yarn I used is Red heart with wool in charcoal color. I made no modifications to the pattern.

I had DH model as my father does not like his picture taken. The dark color makes it hard to get the details in photos.