Anyone for an eBook?

I love a good pattern collection, don’t you? So I’ve put my three $2.00 patterns all together in one place, at one low price! Come on over to Ravelry and get your $5.00 eBook now!

Introducing:

Less than a Latte: 3 sock patterns for the frugal knitter

 

This book is a really good deal – three sock patterns for less than what you might normally spend on one! They are all fun, easy patterns – maybe just the thing to knit on vacation over the summer? Grab a skein of sock yarn (don’t tell me you don’t have any you big fibber), download the eBook and you are ready for some fine beach knitting! Or hey, Sunday is Mother’s day, right? Does your mom knit? Voila, instant present! No, she won’t think you’re cheap, don’t be silly, it’s your mom, she’ll be proud that you made a smart purchasing decision and aren’t going into debt to buy her something goofy.  If you have a bit of extra cash, toss in a gift card for her favourite coffee shop and a skein of sock yarn. What knitter mom doesn’t want some quiet knitting time with a nice latte? It’ll help make up for that time in high school.  You know the one.

 

A new safety eye idea

I like to use safety eyes on my knitted toys. I think they look good (better than my embroidery heh), they’re easy to install, and not too hard to get hold of.  Eyes are the most important part of the toy – your knitting may be perfect, your colours inspired, your making up flawless, but if you put those eyes on crooked or in the wrong place that’s all anyone will notice. When I’m ready to put a toy’s eyes on I stuff the head first, then stick the eyes through the knitting and then assess. I move them around. I fuss with them.  When I finally have it right then I finally take the stuffing back out and attach the backs to the eyes.

Now, my toys either stay here – and Punky is old enough not to try to eat them – or go to yarn shops as displays. Also not a big worry that someone will try to yank the eyes out.  But I am always concerned about people with little kids – those of the everything-in-the-mouth age.  Safety eyes are so called because when you attach them to a piece of sturdy fabric (I’m talking commercial fabric here, not hand knitting) they are pretty difficult to get off. I’ve never had one come off a knitted toy either, but I really think that a determined enough toddler could do it, given enough time.  Hand knitting stretches, and if you yanked on that eye enough and stretched out the knitting, I could see how it might maybe one day come out. However, my test knitter for Ciel, the wonderful Val has come up with a very easy solution to this problem. Take a look:

 

Brilliant!  Just a little scrap of ribbon, with a couple of holes poked into it so the eye posts can go through. The grosgrain type of ribbon that Val used is nice and sturdy, and in a light enough colour not to show through the pink she used as for the head. Turn it right side out, add some stuffing and…

 

Cute! A lady bug kind of Ciel! Thanks Val for sharing!

Today’s knitting

Sock WIP

Originally uploaded by heatheratjoeyshouse

Meet Ciel!

Well, spring is supposed to be on the way, but right here, right now – not so much. There is still a lot of snow outside, it has in fact, been snowing most of the day. things are still grey and beige and blah. Also cold. Time maybe for a little colour boost?
Yes, I think so! Please let me introduce Ciel, the newest monster at Joey’s House!

Knit from a super-squishy (seriously – you want one of these!) Babycakes DK kit from RainCityKnits, she is sweet, colourful and very fun!

I couldn’t help but get into some colour work with all of the pretty colours I had available. Don’t fret, it isn’t too difficult. If you’re really not into it, maybe just some stripes?

The pattern is available on Ravelry, of course. I hope she brightens your day! If not maybe this will: use the code nomoresnow to get 20% off any of my patterns from now until Friday! Whee!

Coming soon!

Coming soon!

Originally uploaded by heatheratjoeyshouse

Are you ready to meet the newest member of Joey’s house?

From the market

An error in planning

Well. Now I’ve gone and done it.  I started a new project, a baby sweater, as a foil to my current project, which is a huge, never ending swath of mind numbing garter stitch that keeps promising to grow up to become a scarf one day. Look, isn’t it a nice blob?

I needed something more interesting to keep me from falling asleep over the scarf. Also to motivate me to actually work on the scarf (just two more rows and you can have a wee taste of baby sweater! Come on, you know you want to!).

So.  Baby sweater starts out charming and sweet as many baby sweaters do.  Cast on that teeny number of stitches (did I mention that the scarf gets bigger with each row? yeah.) make some increases, oh look, little sleeves forming, so cute! Oh yay, time to separate the sleeves from the body, which is still not a very large number of stitches right?

Now all I have to do is knit a number of inches down to the hem. In plain stockinette. With just a bit of garter at the edges. How exciting… DAMN!  Now I have TWO boring projects on the needles!  I don’t think I planned this very well.

Well, I guess the only thing for it is to keep knitting, get them finished up.

Oh, well, hello, where did that come from?