I thought it could be interesting to add a new feature to the blog, wherein I talk about what I have on the needles, or things I've recently completed! I don't often get to work on things that I can actually share on the blog, as a lot of what I do is super-top-secret contract work, but lately I've been pulling back from contract work a bit and taking more time to knit for myself and others.
One group of people I absolutely love to knit for is the Dr's family. Unlike my family members, these guys all live in cold-weather states and see the value in hand knits. They're constantly asking me for specific items, which I am only too happy to oblige them with.
A handknit gift, all wrapped up. Scroll down for a peek at what's inside!
A few years ago for Christmas, my brother-in-law, Ben, asked if I could make him a hat that was "like a beanie, but that would cover my neck in the back". I figured if I did some searching I was sure to find an existing pattern that fit the description, and sure enough, after a bit of digging I found Julee Reeves' crocheted Quick and EZ Helmet Pattern. My first version was a big hit and (so I'm told) a camping favorite. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law didn't know that Ben had stuffed it in his camping jacket, and it had a trip through the wash and got felted. Ooops.
Here's V2.0, freshly off the crochet hook the middle of last month (lucky for me, I can whip one of these out in a couple of hours):
Ben sheepishly asked for another, which I was delighted to provide. This one's in superwash, though!
Ben's wife, Amy, is quite partial to hand knitted socks. The pair go hiking quite a bit, and have even been known to scale a few mountains, and she has a huge stash of heavy woollen socks already. When she discovered that I could produce socks that were pink and girly, she was hooked. I like letting her dig through my sock stash to pick out a yarn she likes, and she gets a kick out of it, too. For her birthday this year, she chose a pink-and-brown selection from PamelaMC34 which had been in my stash for years and I was convinced I would never knit with. I knew this highly variegated yarn needed a simple, allover pattern to go with it, so I settled on knitting a pair of my own Jekyll & Hydes. I just finished them last week, and I love how they turned out!
My first complete pair of Jekyll & Hydes, and I just couldn't leave the pattern alone.
These were modified for toe-up!
Most recently on the needles is half a BFF cowl that I'm sharing with Stacey Trock. When this pattern came out, I knew I wanted to start collecting cowl halves from all my knitty friends! I see more of these in my future. Maybe I'll link all the halves together for one giant cowl? What fun! I love the idea of this cowl - how hadn't anyone thought of this before? Props to Ysolda and Stephanie for making this happen.
Now I just need to decide on what goodies go with it before I pop it in the mail for Stacey!
As always, I have about twelve dozen things about to go on the needles, and I'll be back with a sneak peek very soon!
My BFF has just learned to crochet. I'm trying to get her to learn how to knit so we can make the BFF cowl. I like your idea of linking them together!
ReplyDeleteI haven't crafted anything for my in laws (though my MIL asked if I could fix her beaver fur hat. I told her that was absolutely beyond my skills.) but I've got an idea. They're trying to downsize and become full time RV-ers. I purchased a pattern to crochet tangrams (remember those?) that fit into an altoids tin. MIL is very mathematical so I think it would be perfect for her logic brain *and* small enough to fit into their new lifestyle.