Lion Brand Animals

My latest craze has been knitting toy animals - mainly for my kids and all these little babies who I know who are being born this year (seriously, I have a TON of friends that are pregnant right now - so exciting!) Here's a catch-up post with several of my favorites from Lion Brand's website. You do have to be a member to view the patterns though.

City mouse toy

Frida the fish

Wise old owl

Cowl scarf

My 3 year old son called this a "weird scarf," which I guess is technically true since he's used to the long rectangular variety. But I love it. We had an unexpectedly cool weekend, so I got a chance to wear it to church yesterday. Likely it will remain in my closet until the fall - but it's nice to know it'll be there once the cool weather comes back. I got some good practice with the kitchener stitch of closing up the gap - it was amazing what a smooth seam the kitchener stitch produced.

Here is the pattern and here is the yarn I used (fern rainbow was the color).

I'm back

After more than a year of hiatus, I plan to come back to posting projects here. I think my Facebook friends don't necessarily all want to see my projects, but if I have something I'd like a specific friend to see, I'll direct them here. The Internet provides a way to share the projects we do inside our homes without ever leaving our homes. The power of positive reinforcement and sharing of ideas is important for all people - but maybe especially those of us who are home more than others (speaking as a stay-at-home mom).

Ready for Easter...

... and I'm only 11 months early. (Or you could think of this as one month late, since Easter was a few weeks ago.) I prefer the cup-is-half-full theory though.


I found this pattern at Purl Bee's website (here) but was working on other projects before Easter, so I didn't get a chance to try it until this week. I plan to make some more Easter eggs before next year. A good project to use up leftover scraps of yarn.

Wash cloth from Cotton Chenille

This is my eldest son's new wash cloth (he got to choose the colors he wanted) - we will test it out tonight in the bath. I'll report back on how well it works - but at least it's pretty! Here's the pattern. I knit it last night is less than 2 hours - and I am not a fast knitter. Quick and easy.

Latest scarf

This is my new favorite scarf pattern. This is my 3rd scarf following that pattern, but this time I used 2 balls of Panda Silk from Straw into Gold so it'd be longer. I wish I had done the same for the previous 2 scarfs. Maybe if you have a loose gauge, you could get by with one ball, but I seem to have a tight gauge so two balls is definitely better for me. I look a picture of myself wearing the scarf but it made me look demented and really scary so I decided not to include it! :)

Cable stitch scarf finished

We had a big ice storm last week and I finished this scarf just in time to use it inside when we had no power for 2 1/2 days. Since it's 100% wool, it kept me nice and warm.