Dinosaur Delight

Inspiration comes in strange places and from strange things.  For me, it's mostly things I have weird obsessions with, like dinosaurs, bunnies, and trees.  And as luck would have it, my boyfriend lives a few mere minutes away from the Hadrosaurus Park in Haddonfield, NJ.  The site is where the first dinosaur bones were unearthed, and is now an undeveloped woodland park, where my boyfriend and I spent the afternoon taking photos, and excitedly discussing the fact we were trouncing around on the very place a dinosaur once walked.

Of course, despite the beauty of nature, I found myself less inspired by the trees, lake, leaves, and my boyfriend pretending he's a panda:

And more entertained by the idea of dinosaur prints and knitting animals and dresses and silly whimsical (yet classy) dino designs.

Dinosaur skeleton fabric by Bratpacksfabrics on Etsy.

Sadly, dino prints tend to be on the cutesy children's side, although I did find one or two gems I could see as skirts, dresses, and various accessories--my favorite being the one posted above.  (Which, hopefully, will be mine sooner rather than later.)

Of course, my day of searching for fun things to craft wasn't going to end in a dino dress, especially given my new-found love for knitting.

Dino the Dinosaur Pattern on Ravelry

Which was only exasperated by the fact my boyfriend would like me to make him the above t-rex.  Probably to go next to his collection of wooden dinosaur skeletons.

It's been a wonderful day all-around!  Rawr!

Handmade for the Holidays

As November comes to a close, the holiday season is fast approaching! What does this mean? Hundreds of projects to make! Well, maybe not hundreds, but I've certainly got my hands full. In fact, there's really only three or four projects right now, but two of them are knitting, and I'm new at this!  So, you know, give me a break here.  I'm still a slow knitter.

First up is a project of socks. Socks frightened me, I admit, for awhile. But then I tried to make one, and, hey: it's actually not so bad. Pretty fun, actually, although starting the cuff is a problem for me still.

I'm at the very beginning of this project, although I have been carefully planning it.  I've never done a multi-color design before, and while it is a fairly simple one I'm pretty nervous about it.  Also: because I'm a bit skittish about who might stumble over this blog, I'm refraining from posting what the design is, but here is my very fragile beginnings:

Eventually I'm going to post the full pattern, and the finished project.  This is one gift I'm pretty excited for, so I'm hoping all goes well.

My next knitting project is one for my friends:  Little octopodes for each of them!  We aren't much for exchanging gifts for the holidays, but I wanted the practice, and this little guys aren't very labor intensive.

Each color is for a different person, and Mr. Orange is almost done--just need to finish up a couple more arms.  I'm hoping to do something fun and quirky with button eyes for the little guy, as well.

The pattern for the octopus was completely self-developed.  Since learning crochet wasn't in the plans, I needed to figure out how to make a ball while knitting in the round.  After experimenting a bit, I'm pretty proud of the result.

Finally, my mother's birthday is in a little over a week.  What does this mean?  She's getting a fancy plush Dachshund for her new bedset.  So far as I have the pattern, and the fabric I'm using.  Hopefully this little guy will be done by Friday to show off here:

Taming the Beast: Versus the Knitting Needles

I am the type of person to whom sewing came easy. Within a month of sewing, I was drafting my own patterns, and looking for a higher-quality machine to work on a long scale. To this day sewing remains the one skill I have that I have the most confidence in. Despite being a general crafter, when people as me what I do, my response is always the same: “I sew.”

However, knowing how to knit is something that opens design doors, and would allow me to expand on the things I make. Unfortunately, where sewing, bookbinding, and various other crafts came easy, knitting is something I just don't grasp.

When I first picked up a basic knitting kit three or so years ago I thought it would be easy. Two needles, one thing of yarn, lets do this thing! Then I actually tried. My stitches were a mess, and forget about gauges and designs. Please! I was hopeless, and not to mention in pain.  (It took a better part of the past three years to realize I need to relax while knitting, and only use wooden needles.)

Since then, once a year, when the weather gets cold I break out the knitting needles and struggle through a week or month of Trying To Knit, before giving up completely.

And Trying To Knit was quite the ritual.  It generally came out with the snow, when other past-times like skating and hula-hooping outdoors got bothersome, and before I realize that Netflix just updated their entire Instant Watch catalog with some obscure television show that I will spend the next few months engrossed in with never-ending cups of hot chocolate.  It involved cursing, and ripping out stitches, and unraveling everything I had done only to redo it, unravel, redo, unravel in a never-ending series of frustration and a scarf only ten inches long before I QUIT.

This year, however, I've noticed something: for all my complaining, sore fingers, and confusion, I'm getting better.

Which is a good thing because this is also the year I opted to knit some Christmas gifts. Go figure, right? But what I've learned is this:  If I weren't knitting things for Christmas, I never would have learned.

For me, knitting was never a real challenge because I never had a reason to do it. Scarves are the traditional beginner's project, but I don't need no stinkin' scarves (no, really: I already own a number, most of which I use to tie back my hair, and my one knit scarf does the job just fine in winter). Socks, however? Adorable knit octopodes? These are the thing I need in my life. Or, rather: the lives of my friends who will be receiving them.

And, really: knitting is fun.

Who knew?