So my best friend from high school just had a daughter with his wife a few weeks ago. My camera wasn't working at the time, so they just sent me some cute pics!  I knitted Mary jane Booties from this free pattern online:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/free-baby-bootie-knitting-patterns2.htm
they turned out pretty cool, and didn't take all that long. And, to be honest, i just bought the simple acrylic pink baby soft yarn at the local craft store. so here are the pics:




every time i knit something that i would surprise my friends by, i get excited!!!
anyway, gladly they loved them!  i was relieved. you know the feeling. Emily Ann Martinez.....isn't she so darn cute?!

So here is my second project i ever did after i started knitting. i did this over the christmas holiday last year. (the first project i ever did was a simple 2 color scarf that looked horrible the first half, and then panned out to perfection the second half!! sound familiar?)

so, for this project, i decided to knit the felted "DJ Bag" in Son of Stitch n' Bitch on page 176. I chose the Patons 100% Wool Merino in Black to do this project.  i stayed with the US13 gauge needles, but with the help of my wonderful girlfriend, found an image of Sanrio's Batz Maru online and charted it out for the intarsia on the flap. the reason i did this was i had almost bought a Batz Maru Messenger Bag about 8-9 years ago, and when i went back the next week to buy it, they had discontinued it and i never saw it ever again.      

so wow, was this project fun!!! knitting with 2 strands at the same time, made for a very durable bag. here's how it turned out:


the most fun was felting it....i was actually a little bit scared, because i didnt know how it would turn out.  i probably could have felted it a little more, for it is just a little on the flimsy side.  but i didnt want it to shrink too small. once i committed to the felting amount, i sewed the lining in. it came from a pair of extra large sized black denim jeans i found in a thrift store on the discount rack.  i cut what sections i needed, sewed the peices together, and fashioned one of the back pockets in a spot that i thought would be suitable to put accessories into, and presto!

the liner actually took a bit of time, as the bag didn't felt exactly perpendicular. it is slightly oblong. anyway, now it is my knitting project bag, and it's a nice conversation piece too! my advice is that if you like a project you see, and you're thinking of a more personal idea for the intarsia, by all means go to the trouble of finding another picture or image to intarsia. doing an intarsia takes a bit of time anyway, so why not take a fraction of that time and chart something out.  it's sooo rewarding!


there are a few intarsia graphing sites online if you look a bit, and it makes an already pretty cool project so much more personal. i was so happy when stephanie gourley, the creator of this pattern,  left a flattering comment for me about my bag (on another person's DJ Bag question i commented on a few days back). that's pretty shocking.......than ks stephanie!!

My girlfriend was coming to see me and i took all of the scraps of yarn that i had that would go with the color purple, and bought a few more to match, and quickly put together a scarf to surprise her with.  By the way, she LOVED it!!! i think it was the 3rd project i ever did. this was back in ohhhhh, july i think? So, anyway, she went off on a tour with her band, and took the scarf with her and left it at home, because it was not cold yet.......but i forgot to take a picture of it! so, she was unfortunately gone on tour for many many months until recently, when she finally took a picture for me and sent the attachment. So, here it is, the sloppy, quick, cute scarf i made for her!! Now that i started a pair of the Spiral Knee Socks (that i found on Crafster, btw), the scarf seems so simple to me! But it was so much fun!
Check it out:

I think i knitted it with size 9US needles, and the yarn was a mix of a bunch of Red Heart Super Saver and Caron Simply Soft, all 100%Acrylics.  Cheap, fast and as far as my girlfried says, cute!!!

You can see little snags in it!!!  My girlfriend takes cute pictures, doesn't she???!!!!!

You can see how rough the edges were, i have to get my switching yarns technique down better. She wears it all the time.  I can't wait until i finish her Spiral Knee Socks for when i see her in november!  She lives in Toronto, and I in L.A., so I always try to make her something for everytime i see her.
XO

Anyone have any suggestions?  My sweater vest is coming along nicely, except for the stripe right under the v-neck ribbing. it is pointing up and bending upwards towards the v-neck. this only happened after i did the ribbed collar. should i let it back out and add a small row into the bottom of the V?   or should i pick up tighter when i get to the V? any suggestions would be appreciated!




Thanks!

So, i am new to this knitting internet world. I just started posting my projects online, and i had a real good time knitting this skirt for my girlfriend, so i thought i would boast about it!

Me and my girlfriend are both in the music profession and a few months ago when we were both traveling for extended lengths of time i thought i would knit her this skirt i discovered.  I found it in a book that i had eyed a few times in the book store called "Pretty in Punk".  As i was on tour, i had to find the book, so that took a few weeks.  Then, i had to find the yarn and needles as i traveled the US. That took about another week or 2.......it's hard to find exactly what you need when you don't have much time, or can't just get in your car and go because you're stuck at a venue. I ended up using a simple Lion Brand Wool. So, i started knitting my masterpiece. I had to ask her if she liked it, and got her to tell me which colors she wanted.  The only thing i didn't tell her was that i was going to send it to her at one of the clubs she would end up being at.  So, it took a few weeks of sitting around on the bus with some of my peers watching me as i knitted away, as they were drinking beers and yucking it up.  After i finished it, i had also collected a few things for her that i knew she would appreciate, like: a weird al yankovic poster for a show he was playing in baltimore that i took off of the wall at the venue, a "Dethlok" concert t-shirt (i went to see them play down the street in minneapolis), and a couple picture booth photos i took in a bar in Chicago after the show. needless to say, after guessing on the size and how much tension to give the elastic as i sewed it in, she got the package and it fit perfectly!!! and she loved all of the other gifts.  the package was handed to her when she arrived to the club in Nashville. i'm so glad that my plan worked out.  more to come!!!