I woke up sick and miserable on Saturday, so that was pretty much an inactive non-day for me. Sunday I felt better in the morning, but I had to make up for not getting much done lately for being sick in general. (There’s been lots of coughing and snot in the family the past week.)

I had some miniature box bag orders I really needed to finish. Illness and other issues seemed to keep cropping up that kept me from working on them, including literally sanding the tip of my finger until it bled while working on them one day. (I didn’t even feel it. I just saw funny streaks on the sandpaper and wondered where they came from. THEN I saw my finger, and of course, then it hurt.) I finished those up late last night, and I’m really pleased with the end results. They still need to be photographed, but once those pictures are online, I’ll be set to invoice the customers and send them on their ways.

I did take a break from working on the bags to play some Team Fortress 2. I haven’t played regularly in months due to burn out and morning sickness, and I’ve really been missing the game. Well, I didn’t actually play any rounds yesterday. Some folks from my preferred server were messing around working on getting the medic achievements so that’s what we did. It was chaotic and funny at times, but I’m looking forward to playing real matches again.

Dale also talked me into seeing Iron Man at the Alamo Drafthouse, our favorite cinema (chain). I had to alter my usual order (thanks to the gestational diabetes) so no fries for me. I did get the potato skins and shared them with Dale, plus a house salad, then I realized three skins wasn’t going to meet my carb requirement so I made it up with a slice of pecan pie, hah. I ended up missing about 10 plot-turning minutes when I had to check my blood sugar an hour later but Dale quickly and quietly got me caught up. Iron Man is hands down the best movie I’ve seen in a while. I had been so-so about going to see it, figuring we would some time, and at first I said no when Dale asked. I’m so glad that we went. I’d happily see the movie in a theater again, and I am looking forward to the DVD release loaded with extras.

The nice topper to my evening was feeling the baby move for the first time. I’m pretty sure I felt some movement during the movie, and I’m positive I felt it a few times after we got home. That was one of my favorite parts of being pregnant with Olivia, actually getting to feel her move. Feeling movement sure beats morning sickness as a way for baby to say, “hey, I’m still here! Don’t forget about me!”

Overall, I had a very good day, something I haven’t gotten to say much lately.

Every once in a while, I take a look at my referrer logs. It’s not nearly as interesting as it once was due to the sheer amount of spam referrers (I am mighty sick of seeing Texas Hold’em links in my logs) I haven’t yet figured out how to block. Anyway, I hadn’t looked in a while, so I started with June’s logs and worked my way up to September. June through August was typical. September had a big surprise.

September has a week to go, but traffic had already passed the previous month. When I looked at the referrers, the top one was Ana Voog’s Livejournal account. I thought that had to be some referrer weirdness until I looked and saw that she’d linked to my knit Katamari hat post. Her post already accounts for over 15% of the traffic to my site this month.

The next two referrers were surprises as well, including a mention by Whip Up, a communal artist/crafter site.

But the real shocker was finding a link to my hat on Craft: magazine’s blog. Craft: is from the makers of Make: magazine. Both are cool, informative, interesting, and full of nifty projects, so it blows my mind to find my silly hat getting a mention by them. The text accompanying the photo is below:

More Katamari fun! Easily Amused made her sister a Katamari Damacy hat. Scroll down the page for the full tutorial, complete with some tips. I’ve gotten pretty addicted to the game in the last few months and if I made and wore this hat, I’d probably roll myself into any object. (– Natalie Zee)

Granted, not everyone is impressed with the hat. Some of the comments on the Whip Up post include, “…but I can’t be the only one who thinks it looks like a hat of giant boils. Yuck.” and “Amen to that! It’s quite hideous. Do people actually wear these?”

I’ve heard the comparison to boils (or severed tentacles) before and hadn’t thought about that until it was pointed out. Ah well. one person’s hat is another person’s mutilated squid.

Most importantly, though, the intended recipient of the hat, my sister, loves it and enjoys it, and I had fun making it.

Phaedra’s Katamari hat

Originally uploaded by monkeyjunkie.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done any knitting. I have a half-done katamari-related project, but it got set aside months ago, and the closest I’ve come to knitting is trying to organize all my craft stuff and get my yarn into one place. But, a month or so ago, Phaedra asked me if I could knit her some arm warmers, because it’s very cold in her office. Well, Phaedra is at a new job now and isn’t so cold at work, but I decided to go ahead and make her some armwarmers. I sent her a ton of links to armwarmer patterns and the one she liked best was the Supple rib knit arm warmers because of their minimal bulk around the hands. (She works at a computer all day.)

I recently learned about a yarn shop that opened less than two miles from my house, so this project was also a good excuse to check out Yarntopia. I got to meet one of the owners, Sheryl, and she was very friendly and helpful. She showed me a wonderful selection of yarns I could substitute for the Knitpicks Shine and Twist, but I ended up getting a skein of some gorgeous Handmaiden Sea Silk in Yarntopia’s signature colors of brown, burgundy, and blue. The Sea Silk is absolutely incredible! It’s got a beautiful shine, a supple drape, and it simply feels wonderful in your hands, as a hank and knit up. I played with the swatch at the store for several minutes. I’ll have to make some adjustments to the arm warmer pattern because the Sea Silk is closer to a fingering weight than sport weight, but the pattern’s simple enough that I just need to cast on more stitches (in a multiple of three).

I started on the project late last night, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly and just guessed at how many more stitches I should cast one, and only two rows into it, I could see I’d cast on too many. But two rows also showed that this colorway is going to look great knitted up. I’ll have to frog and restart the armwarmers tonight, but I’m looking forward to it. I think I’m going to enjoy working with this yarn.

Last week I did some Googling to try and find a good, stiff, lightweight interfacing. Multiple sites had good comments about Timtex, so I turned my search in that direction. While I found several online retailers who sold it, the manufacturer seemed to offer the best price. Early Friday morning I placed an order at The Timtex Store for 10 yards of their 22″ wide “LowCarb Timtex Interfacing.” By that afternoon, I’d received email confirmation that my order had been shipped. My Timtex just arrived! I was pleasantly surprised by the quick shipping and even sent them a thank-you email.

Now, I have to get back to work on my second mini-messenger bag and see if this Timtex lives up to the hype.

While working on Halcyon’s Guardian Demon messenger bag, I decided to make a scaled-down version for Olivia, using another one of Halcyon’s drawings on the flap.

I made new pattern templates in smaller dimensions out of cardboard, settling on final dimensions of 8″h x 10″w x 3″d. I omitted the smaller patch pocket that’s attached to the inside zipper pocket, and I used a toddler-friendly magnetic snap instead of a buckle closure. Other than that, this version was constructed the same way as the original bag. I used some natural cotton twill that’s been in my stash for years for the exterior, but I used the same hot pink fabric for the lining, and the zipper pocket was made using the metallic star fabric from the original’s patch pocket.

An aside - I only bought 1/8th of a yard of the star fabric originally, but I ended up liking it so much, I went back to get more. After searching for half an hour, I was thinking that someone must have bought the rest, but I finally found it tucked in amongst some other bolts. I ended up buying the rest of the fabric, which was just under a yard. While making these bags, I learned the hard way that I can’t use a hot iron on the fabric. The heat fades the colors of the stars, and too much can even melt them off the material.

I constructed this Guardian Demon similarly to the first one, but I didn’t back it with felt this time. I overlaid bright white cotton with tulle for a bit of texture for the horns and used this fabric combo to back the entire demon. His heart was cut from one of Olivia’s baby washcloths after I backed it with some stabilizer, it was then glued in place on the demon, which was glued to the bag flap, then I used a loose stem stitch and size 5 cotton floss to embroider all the lines. After the stitching was done, I ran extra threads through the stitches to bulk them up some more. Hi eyes are just simple French knots.

I started having some trouble with my sewing machine while making this bag and had to finish the strap stitching by hand. And, after nearly finishing it, I decided to completely redo the lining because I wasn’t happy with my zipper insertion. While I was working on the second lining, I realized I’d made a mistake in my body template and the dimensions were coming out wrong, so I wound up cutting and sewing a new bag shell too. I also decided to make the flap longer, so I recut that fabric as well.

I was getting really frustrated with myself for making stupid mistakes (like sewing the bottom of the bag shut before adding the side straps), but I toughed it out and corrected the problems when I found them, so the final bag came out nearly perfect. (Except that I cut the lining two inches too long and didn’t realize it until everything was done. Some day, I may go back and correct that, if it can be done without disassembling the entire bag.) And I really learned the importance of using new, sharp needles in my sewing machine.

I did save all the miscut pieces and will be making a second mini messenger bag from them since they’re already proportioned to go together, which will be a gift for Olivia’s cousin, Allison. I’m just trying to come up with a butterfly or flower theme for the flap.

I don’t have a picture of Olivia with the bag yet, because she’s not very interested in playing with it, though she does wave and say ‘hi’ to it, and she’s even given the demon kisses. The strap I made is too long for her, so I’ll probably make a short, fixed-length strap to use on it until she’s older.

I have gone on a crafty binge the last couple of weeks, which has been nice. And I’ve even completed two projects, instead of getting partially through then setting them aside indefinitely, which has been really nice!

After receiving a wonderful drawing by Halcyon, I had to come up with something really good to send him in return. I finally decided to make him a messenger bag with another one of his drawings appliquéd onto the flap.

I found the pink strapping first, which was the perfect shade of pink, then I had to find fabric to go with it. I spent a few hours going through my stash of fabrics looking for material to use, but I didn’t find any I liked for this project, so I ended up buying more. I found a pretty cool black on black polka-dotted fabric for the exterior, then I had the hardest time finding a pink that matched the strap for the interior that wasn’t a floral or girly print. I visited three stores (ok, one was closed for renovation) before I found the Barbie Pink (the actual color name) chintz I used. I found the star-printed fabric and thought it would go nicely with the pink to add a bit of interest to the interior.

For the bag pattern, I used Simplicity #4391, View B (turquoise messenger bag in the bottom left square). I omitted the strap that runs down the center of the flap and instead of doing the velcro closure (gah!), I added an adjustable strap and buckle. Overall, the pattern is good and the bag was fairly easy to construct, but it turned out to be deeper than I liked (front to back). Next time I make one of these, I’ll take an inch or two off the sides and bottom. It was also a pain in the ass to get the heavy interfacing into place.

To make the Guardian Demon, I printed out Halcyon’s drawing at the size I wanted. (In hindsight, I really should have made him about an inch or two smaller.) I cut out the demon, traced him onto pale pink fleece that I’d back with iron-on stabilizer, and cut that out. I marked and traced the interior lines on the fleece, then I used size 5 cotton embroidery floss to do the interior lines with a chain stitch. I cut the horns from stiffened white felt and glued them to the back of the head. It wasn’t until I finished the bag that I realized I’d put the horns on backwards. *sigh* I actually backed the entire demon with the stiffened white felt after realizing the black of the bag was affecting the color of the demon.

I attached the demon to the flap with fabric glue, then I couched a double-line of the embroidery floss around the outside of the Demon (minus the horns) using a loose whip stitch. Since the demon appliqué wound up a bit thick, I ran about four more strands of the floss through the whip stitches to build up the border. Since the original drawing shows the horns with a slightly thinner outline, I used ordinary black sewing thread to couch a couple of strands of the floss. I also used more floss to weave through my chain stitching to fill out and thicken those lines too.

While there are a few little things that I wish I’d done differently, I am quite proud of the final result. More importantly, Halcyon loves the bag!

2 ply bombay dreams on the Goko swift

Originally uploaded by little hedgehog.

I am now the happy happy owner of this gorgeous yarn handspun by Noelle. It’s destined to become a sweater for Olivia once I find the perfect pattern to show off the colors. I love it!

No, I didn’t make it, JolieAni did using my rough pattern, in a nice blue color scheme. She has some more photos in her Flickr gallery.

Lynn was my Secret Pal (6) and she likes frogs, knitting, and blue, so for one of her surprises, I made her a set of stitch markers.

They’re made from Pewter frog and yarn pendants, some gorgeous blue and green glass beads, wire, and earring findings.

This little guy is the Robot pattern from Jess Hutchison’s Unusual Toys for You to Knit and Enjoy. He’s knit using Cascade 220 in burgundy (control panel, some embroidery, antenna), white (chest panel), and red/orange/pink multi (hands and feet, tip of antenna), Knitpicks Wool of the Andes dyed with black cherry Kool-Aid (body), and LB Fishermen’s wool dyed with orange and Tamarindo Kool-Aid (arms, legs, head).

He was a very fun little project. The pattern is well-written and I didn’t have any problems even though this was my first time using some of the techniques, including backwards cast-on, intarsia, mattress stitch, and fake grafting. I did extra embroidery on the control panel because I thought it was a bit plain. I also embroidered the eyes because I didn’t feel like waiting until mail-order eyes could arrive.

Seaming him was a pain and my least favorite part. I think I did well with the mattress stitch, but I’m unhappy with the fake grafting. I think I messed up tensioning on this and pulled the edges together too tightly. You can see how the top edge of his head is rather wonky.

I had a hard time parting with him, but I ended up giving him to my sister’s fiancé for Christmas. He was well-recieved and I know he went to a good home where he’ll be appreciated.

Overall, this was a great pattern and a fun project. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who likes making toys. I’m looking forward to trying some of the other patterns too.

when I began knitting, I polled a few of my friends and asked if I were to ever knit them anything, what would they want. Genevieve asked for a super long scarf. I knew it had to be deep purple because she’s obsessed with that color. I figured Gen would want this scarf more as an accessory than cold weather wear since she lives in central Texas where winter is only two weeks in late January, so I used some purple Caron Simply Soft, huge bamboo needles, and a simple yarn-over knit two together pattern.

This scarf whipped up quite fast on the large needles. I did manage to mess up my pattern a few times, which was quite a pain and forced me to learn how to pick up stitches that included yarn-overs.

This was my first real blocking job. I blocked it in sections on top of my ironing board, blasting it with steam from my iron. I’d heard of blocking wires but didn’t have any, so I used bamboo skewers and T-pins. It worked, but I did have to pick some bamboo flecks out of the scarf. (oops). Pre-blocking, the scarf was a loopy mess only a few inches wide but rather long. Post-blocking, the pattern opened up into a geometric pattern of triangles and grew another foot and a half.

It was presented at Christmas rolled up and tucked into a black satin make-up bag that had purple velvet ribbon trim. Gen now owes me some pictures of her modeling this scarf.

Olivia’s room tends to be cold, so I wanted a light long-sleeved cover we could put on her instead of having to change her into her pajamas at nap time. I decided to make this simple shrug. I simply measured the length of her arms and back then knit a rectangle. The shrug was knit flat from one 2×2 ribbed cuff to the other, then I sewed the sleeves shut. (If I make another, I’ll do one sleeve in the round, then the back flat, then the other sleeve in the round.) At the point where the sleeve ended and the back began, I did some increases and put a small garter stitch edging to combat rolling. It didn’t work too well and the edging tends to fold to the inside of the shrug, but it still serves its purpose quite well. Olivia’s even worn it out on the few cool days we had this autumn.

I made it a little large so she’d be able to wear it for a while. I made it early last autumn and she hasn’t outgrown it yet. (Yay.)

a.k.a the mini hat (for the knit Katamari Damacy hat)

Cast on 6 stitches using waste yarn, evenly dividing them amongst 3 DPNs (or use the Magic Loop technique if you prefer). Knit one row. Join MC yarn, leaving several inches of tail, and knit one row. This is your first row.

Row 2: kfb every stitch, (12 stitches)
Row 3: knit every stitch
Row 4: *kfb, k1* to end of round (18 stitches)
Row 5: knit every stitch
Row 6: *kfb, k2* to end of round (24 stitches)
Row 7: Join CC1, knit every stitch
Row 8: *kfb, k3* to end of round (30 stitches)
Row 9: knit every stitch
Row 10: *kfb, k4* to end of round (36 stitches)
Row 11: knit every stitch
Row 12: *kfb, k5* to end of round (42 stitches)
Row 13: Join CC2, knit every stitch
Rows 14-18: knit every stitch

Bind off. Using the tail from your cast on and a tapestry needle, pick up your first row of ‘real’ stitches. Once you have them, carefully cut away the waste yarn. Pull the tail tight to close the hole. Weave in ends.

Katamari Damacy hat

Last spring I decided to learn how to crochet. When my sister heard about that, she asked if I could make her a Katamari Damacy hat like the ones sold at Mad Teaparty. I said sure, once I felt more comfortable with crochet. Before that happened, I taught myself how to knit and discovered I enjoyed it much more than crochet. As Christmas drew near, I remembered Phaedra’s request for a Katamari hat and decided to try knitting one. I used Cascade 220 in burgundy on size 7 circular needles for the main hat. The bumps were Cascade 220 (white stripe), Knitpicks Wool of the Andes dyed with pink lemonade Kool-Aid (pink stripe), and Knitpicks Wool of the Andes dyed with black cherry Kool-Aid (red stripe). I also had some multicolored Cascade 220 (a blend of pink, orange, and red) and LB Fishermen’s Wool dyed with orange and Tamarindo Kool-aid, but I ended up not using those colors.

the base hat

I found a great top-down earflap hat pattern/tutorial at The Knitting Fiend that I used for the basis of the hat. I failed to take any in-progress photos of the hat construction, but I did get photos of the completed-but-bumpless hat. I also learned some new tips and techniques, including a waste-yarn cast on, knitting with two circular needles, yarn over short rows for the earflaps which I frogged and reknit using Japanese short rows, and how to do an attached i-cord edging. (For part of the hat, I even practiced knitting Continental.) I did have to switch to larger sized DPNs for the i-cord because the cord knit with the size 7s was too tight and caused the earflaps to curve into a distinct cup shape. Even after I used size 9 DPNs and knitting the i-cord fairly loosely, the earflaps cupped a bit.

The finished lining

Edge of the lining

Barely visible

The finished hat came out a little large, and the elasticity of the wool let it stretch even more. My husband, Dale, is modeling the base hat, which fit him comfortably, and he has a huge head. I figured adding a lining would make it a little more snug. Plus it would give the hat more stability, and it would make the hat warm enough for Phaedra to wear in New York during the winter. I couldn’t find a fleece I liked that was in the same color scheme as the hat, so I just picked a fun pattern. An obnoxious blue floral pattern. Making the lining was simple. I figured Phaedra’s head was about the same size as mine, so I wrapped the fleece around my head then cut it where it overlapped. I then folded it right side in and stitched up the long side. (Note: fleece is hard to machine-stitch!) I turned the knit hat inside out, set it on a styrofoam head, then slipped the fleece tube over it, sliding it down until the bottom edge of the tube met the bottom edge of the earflaps. Then I pinched and pinned the fleece at the top, creating four curved darts. I machine-sewed the darts, refitted the lining over the hat to make sure it fit, then cut away the extra fabric. Once I had the lining shaped, I pulled the tail from the center of the hat (that I’d left loose for this purpose) through the small hole left in the center top of the lining. This allowed me to make sure the centers were aligned. I then smoothed the lining and hat together, pinning at intervals. Next I carefully trimmed the lining using the inside edge of the i-cord as my guide. I didn’t have to hem the lining since the fleece wouldn’t fray. I used regular sewing thread to hand-sew the edge of the lining just about the i-cord. I pulled the i-cord slightly away from the hat so that when it was released, it naturally rolled back over the edge of the lining, hiding the stitches nicely. I was a little worried that the lining would show through the hat, but it doesn’t. The roll of the i-cord hides the stitching on the outside too. I should note that I only sewed the lining to the front edge of the hat at first. This was so I could reach the inside of the knit part when the time came to sew on the bumps.

a perfect bump!

8 finished bumps

Once the hat base was knit and lined, it was time to work on the bumps. I kinda winged the bumps and it shows in my first few attempts. First, I tried a three increment increase. This led to an extremely pointy bump. I moved up to four. This made for a neat looking knit pyramid, but it was still way too angular and pointy. So, I tried a six increment increase. This worked beautifully, but I ran into another problem. The knit into the front and back (kfb) increase I was using leaves a horizontal bar. That didn’t bother me, but the way the increases coincided with my color changes resulted in very visible bars. I solved that issue by changing the number of rows for each stripe so that the increases landed solidly within a stripe. Now that I had the proper bump pattern and I was happy with the color scheme, I made seven more bumps.

blocking the bumps

I decided to block the bumps before attaching them. I bought a six pack of styrofoam balls that were the perfect size. I then tied the balls inside lenghts of old pantyhose to keep the yarn from snagging and breaking off little bits of foam. Then I dampened the bumps, shaped them over the balls, pinned them, then let them dry. I only had six styrofoam balls and eight bumps. I found a rubber ball that was the same size as the foam balls so one bump blocked on it, but the eighth bump had to wait until the others were dry before it was blocked.

placing bumps

sewing on a bump

a finished bump

After the bumps were blocked, I put a generous pinch of polyester fiberfill into each of them. Then I held them against the hat and used T-pins to tack them in place. I tweaked their positions until I was happy. I had left fairly long tails on most bumps, so I was able to thread the tails onto a tapestry needle and use them to sew the bumps to the hat, making sure to tuck in the fiberfill as I went. I left the hat on the styrofoam head while I sewed on the bumps, removing the T-pins as I came to them. This worked well to keep the loose bumps in place and out of my way while I worked. Since the inside of the hat was going to be hidden by the lining, I cheated and knotted the yarn on the inside before weaving in the ends. The seams between the bumps and the hats blend pretty well since the colors are so similar. I’m glad I only partially attached the lining before sewing on the bumps. Once all the bumps were in place, I finished sewing in the lining, then I was done!

Phaedra and her hat

Phaedra was quite thrilled with her hat and spent most of the rest of her vacation wearing it. I’m quite pleased with it too. I had a lot of fun making this hat, learned some new things, and even wrote my first pattern (for the admittedly simple bumps). I’d like to make another of these some day, using more stripes in the bumps and a different color palette. I just don’t know who I’d give it to.

A couple of months ago, I decided to knit Olivia and her cousin, Allison, some matching hats. The yarn is Bernat Cottontots in Very Berry. I used the Lil’ Devil Baby Hat as the pattern base, but I omitted the horns. I also altered the ear flaps. I followed the pattern originally, but they came out so small, and they were centered on either side of the hat which put them forward of the ears instead of over them. After ripping them back completely about four times, I finally got a size and placement I liked. I also replaced the I-cord ties with simple braided yarn. Allison’s hat was finished first, but I don’t get pictures of her modeling it yet, so Dale took some pictures of Olivia wearing it. Allison’s about 14 months older than Olivia, so the hat’s too big on my baby, but you get the idea.

I finished the base cap for Olivia’s hat, but it fits her pretty snugly already which means it will probably be too small this winter. I’m going to reknit her cap from the beginning. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the one that’s too small.

I also didn’t use a provisional cast on as instructed, instead going with the long-tail cast on that’s the only method I knew. At the time, I didn’t know that this meant you would start knitting on the ‘wrong side,’ so after finishing the garter stitch border, I thought the ‘inside’ edge of the hat looked better, so I ended up purling the entire stockinette portion of the hat in order to get the neat edge on the outside (because I was knitting in the round). Thankfully, I’ve never found purling to be more difficult than the basic knit stitch, just a tad bit more time-consuming.