FO: Pile-able Pups

The pups are done!  I like them way better now that they’re finished.  The cuteness factor grows exponentially in the final minutes of knitting.I used the tutorials on the Mochimochi Land website to sew on the arms and legs at an angle.  Look how perky those tails are: I bought two 50 gram balls of each color yarn, and I needed both – but not much of the second ball.  I got the entire body plus 2 legs out of the first ball.  So if you have more than one but less than two balls, you might have enough.

By the way, this is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Avocado, Papaya Heather, and Chestnut. 

I’ll incorporate the leftovers in my Fabulous Fair Isle Felted Fun Bag, which has grown a bit since this last photo.  I’ll share it again soon!

Puppies, Tree

Long time no post.  I’ve been dutifully cranking out puppy parts.  Here are the bodies (in the back) plus piles of feet (not quite finished):

These stockinette projects can be a little tricky.  I don’t like how the fabric rolls so dramatically.  I tried to block the bodies so they would be easier to seam, but it didn’t work so well.

Right now I’m at the point where the knitting is done, but the finishing looms.  The dogs’ faces are on and the bodies have been seamed and stuffed: Now I have to sew on legs, ears, and tails.

I’m getting a little tired of these dogs.  I’m remembering why I don’t knit toys very often.  They are Fiddly with a capital F.  I’m not afraid of seaming, but I don’t love the way these look stuffed with polyfill.  They are awfully lumpy.  I think if I had to do them again, I would buy big rectangular sponges and design the dog body to fit the sponge.  Then it would be firm and rectangular.

You may have noticed that behind the puppies is a Christmas tree!  We went to our favorite tree farm yesterday and selected a lovely Turkish fir.  We also got the StandStrait tree stand and I’m told it’s worth every penny of the $29.99 charged.  Easy breezy.Doesn’t Boy 2 look like Elmer Fudd in this hat?  I love it.

Boy, knitting toys really makes me want to knit a sweater.  Soon, my Cerisara, soon….

Progress report

I haven’t posted lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been knitting.  Home life is a little hectic due to kitchen renovations and the impending holiday, but knitting always goes on.

I finished a super basic, plain vanilla pair of socks for Boy 1.  These were done mostly at work out of a Regia self-patterning yarn that has been in my stash FOREVER.  He loves them!  He’s been wearing them to bed every night since they were completed, and today he wore them all day.  Mama can’t argue with that. When I last bemoaned the state of my Tangled Garden socks (the pink and green ones for Pam), I mused about possible skill-building projects to do before returning to those socks.  I started one: a stranded colorwork felted bag made from leftover scrap/stash yarn.  I was inspired by this bag: This is an OLD issue of Spin-Off from before I was a subscriber – it came my way from someone whose husband brought it home from an auction (with some other stuff, I think).  This bag is cast on at the bottom (168 stitches) and worked up in the round as a straight tube until the handles are shaped.  Then stitches are picked up again at the cast-on edge and worked inward to create the bottom.  I decided that 168 was a great number, being divisible by 12, 8, 6, and 4, so I cast on 168.  I gathered all my feltable stash yarn in one place… …grabbed my copy of Color by Kristin (which has a colorwork dictionary in the back with patterns organized by number of stitches/repeat), and went for it: My two-handed knitting IS improving, and these color patterns are kind of fun.  I like how quickly they move on a 10.5 needle (of course, I’m knitting loosely because this will be felted).  I like using stash yarn.  I like how unplanned this is.  It works for me right now.

I also decided to knit those adorable Pile-able Pups that I saw at Cloverhill Yarn Shop a few weeks ago.  These will be a Christmas gift for my niece Allie, who is three-and-a-half.  I ordered some WotA (Wool of the Andes) from Knit Picks and have started the first pup.  It hasn’t escaped me that I will be able to use any puppy leftovers in the stashy bag!

I have another pair of plain vanilla socks on the needles for office knitting, but I don’t even have a photo of them right now.  Another day.