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Featured!

My Etsy Blogger friend, Patch, featured my Little Sister Dress on her Crochet & Knit Blog. You'll also find some other cute ideas for knit and crochet there. In Patch's Etsy shop, she sells Wedding and other jewelry. Please check out this multi-talented Etsy Blogger.




I am also in this Etsy blogger's Exposed Treasury, how fun to see the pictures of so many of the team members:

Little Sister Dress

Free Pattern: Little Sister Dress
Needle Size: 3
Yarn: Sockotta sock yarn by Plymouth, 40% superwsh wool, 45% cotton, 15% nylon
Size: 18 or 24 months (by the time I finished this project, I had forgotten which size I started, that's a hazard of poor record keeping on my part but I think it was a size 24 months)
This is an easy, fun knit. It is knit from the top down using only knit and purl stitches. The bind off is the sewn bind off which you can find a link to in a previous post on my blog.

A New Crop

I have a new crop of neck warmers in my Etsy shop, here are a few of them:


Also, I do have both knitting patterns (rib and cable) available in my shop as well.

New Cast Off Technique-Sewn Cast Off

I'm finishing up the Little Sister's dress I started back in August. The photo above is from the free pattern which you will find on the Knittingalot blog. The pattern calls for using Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn cast off which I had never done. I found these easy instructions.

Here's a Knitty post that gives you multiple options for binding off including the sewn cast off which is particularly good when you need a stretchy, flexible edge, like on the bottom of this little dress.

And here's a You-tube video showing the technique:



Watch soon for a picture of my finished Little Sister Dress.

Wordless Wednesday

The Fab Miss B

Lovely cross stitch....you can find this and more in the shops of this month's featured Etsy Blogger, the Fab Miss B, also known as Becky Kazana in one of her Etsy shops.
Her shops on Etsy are here and here.

Lucky Becky, she lives on the Big Island in Hawaii and this is a view of her kitchen:

What's Your Favorite Holiday Movie?

The holiday season will soon be here - what's your favorite holiday movie or special? Why?

Based on the number of times I have watched them, I would have to say my top three are:

1) The Christmas Story--because it really makes me laugh

2) It's a Wondeful Life--because it makes me feel good

3) A Christmas Carol--because it makes me think

What's yours?

My Treat

I figured I deserved a treat today. Besides the luscious homemade chocolate cake my friend brought me, I went out and bought this for myself. I'm so excited to check out all the great projects. If you aren't a follower of Betz White, you should check out her blog. I was thrilled some months ago when she featured my cabled neck warmer on her blog.

I'm featured in this lovely treasury today on Etsy. The title makes me wonder what era the creator of the Treasury grew up in. I grew up in the era of rock and roll, American Bandstand and the Beatles, graduating from high school in 1967. I also grew up during the cold war and the Vietnam War. I remember air raid practice drills and real fear about war with the Russians. I remember practicing getting under our desks at school when the air raid siren went off. One day, during the Cuban Missile crisis, we had a "drill" and everyone thought it was for real. I was in band class and our room wasn't connected to the PA system so we thought there was a real emergency; everyone panicked. I arrived home from school that day to find my mother and sister not at home and had a very real sense of panic and doom as I watched President Kennedy on TV talk about the crisis.

Today is my birthday, so I have this song running through my head:



I'm 60 today, but I don't feel like I could be 60...wasn't it just yesterday that I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan show?

Return from Chicagoland

I spent almost a week in Chicago, returning last night. I was there for work, so I didn't have time to play much (I didn't get to find/go in ONE yarn store), however I did see a few of the sights, like the remarkable mirrored sculpture above that locals call "the Bean" at Millennium Park. In the last photo of the series, my hotel is the highest building.

Here are a few other photos of Chicago:






This morning, I got an email from a fellow Esty seller who makes glass and silver jewelry, that one of my patterns was featured on her blog.

AWWWW..so cute

Wordless Wednesday

New knitting obsession

Just what I needed a new crafting obsession. I thought I learned my lesson when I finally completed the 365 craft a day challenge on Flickr and then when Flickr unilaterally deleted all my photos, I was devastated.

At least with my new obsession, the sock yarn blanket, I should have a product at the end that will be all mine and can't be deleted from cyberspace. It may be a pillow rather than a blanket, we'll see how quickly it progresses. I went to my LYS last night and got the pattern and a start. I made three "practice" squares which were smaller than the pattern calls for, then came home and started to knit the actual blocks. I completed five! This is a fun knit, you make one mitered square, then another, then a third which joins them, by picking up along the side of the other two. Another customer donated a couple of huge bags of sock yarn to the LYS which is a good thing because I have only one measly skein of sock yarn in my stash. I'm just not a sock knitter. It's a knitting obsession I've avoided thus far. And if I had to buy all the yarn for this project, it would cost a fortune. It's enough that it is going to take me forever to knit it.

Here is the blog, The Heathen Housewife, which got the sock yarn blanket started in case you want to take a look and start one for yourself. She figures it took 368 hours of her life just to knit the squares. Did I mention that you knit it on teeny needles, like 2's? So like I said, I may be lucky to end up with a pillow. If you check Ravelry, you will find no less than 923 projects for this pattern.

I'm in a Treasury

It seems like it's been a long time since I've been in a treasury, check out all these great items from Etsy Bloggers put together by LacyTCrochet.

My best Central Park Hoodie

Believe it or not, I've knit this sweater four times. Once for my sister, once for my daughter, and once for myself. This fourth sweater is for my daughter in law. I like it so much, I may just have to make another sometime.

Pattern: Central Park Hoodie
Yarn: Cascade 220 super wash
Knit in size 36, but with size 7 rather than 8 needles to make it about a size 33