Gift Knitting

noreply@blogspirit.com (kt) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 05:25:04 -0400

my sister-in-law celebrated her birthday on Mexican Independance day, and i've made her a little sumpthin': she and my brother have started to go mad for the wine drinking (and really, can you blame them?!?!?!) so i thought a wine cozy/coaster/trivety-thing set was in order. plus, it gave me another chance to work with the DELICIOUS Malbrigio (this is the Purple Mystery colorway). lordy, i love this stuff. i would love a big ol' sloppy sweater out of it, were it not for the fact that it would look like utter shite in 2 seconds because of the pilling. *le sigh* but really, would it matter if i just wore it about the house, using it like a wearable secruity blankie? i would like to add that this entire set took only about 3 hours to knit. seems that, after knitting the skully vest--i do colorwork with the yarn in both hands--continental knitting finally "stuck." which is awsome, since i've been attempting it off and on for, oh, a damned long time now.

between knitting this gift, the slew of impending birthdays, fast approaching yule time, and a post over at Craftster, i got to thinking about gift knitting. i guess it was really the Craftster post that started it all--i'll give you the gist of it. a craftster was questioning making gifts for someone that you don't necessarily *like*. my opinion? you just don't do that. to me, creating anything for a person, be it a meal, an intricate shawl, or a simple felted coaster, should be done with love in your heart. i won't knit on a gift project (or cook, for that matter) if i am feeling down or unhappy about anything let alone the intended giftee. i'm afraid that the negative energy will transfer to the recipiant in some way. i dunno, do any of you have thought on the subject?

felted leaves and skull vests

noreply@blogspirit.com (kt) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:51:14 -0400

i knit up a little basket with a mobius handle with the beautiful autumnal Malabrigo yarn. this is the floppy before felting picture--doesn't look like much, eh? but after, oh the delicious results that felting brought on. man, this yarn was made for felting. i made a felted bag with Cascade 220, and hand felted it in the sink....it took close to two hours to felt. the malabrigo took all of ten minutes. i adore how the finished product looks, and i'm definetly going to do more felting with the malabrigo. i've got ideas for a lightly felted sweater coat thing floating around in my head. i need to do some swatching and sketching and try to get it out of my head and into actual practice, so we'll see.

i swatched up the Merino style i got yesterday from knitpicks. i had an idea for incorporating some skulls into the argyle pattern of Eunny's Deep V-neck Vest for a friend of mine's birthday. she's a little retarded for skulls on things. anywho, after about 2 days of charting different skulls and seeing how they interacted with the argyle pattern, i ended up with a swatch. the skull is a mismash of different ones that i found with a google search. i love how the skull is a subtle design that almost meshes with the argyle, making it a little more tasteful and less gaudy (imho). i use 3.25mm needles, and (cross your fingers) i think that i may have actually gotten gauge. we'll see when it dries!

fly in my soup - felting

Gift Knitting

felted leaves and skull vests