Wow! What a busy summer it has been! Between knitting, beekeeping, a community play, Farmers Market, and keeping up with 7 kids, I haven't had time to update my blog in awhile. So, I have tons of pictures to share! They're not in any particular order.
Here's a picture of some of our beehives. These are in the back yard, right beside my big vegetable garden. The bees seem pretty happy here. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to move them before spring. I got stung last week and, instead of the usual local swelling and itching, I got a full-body allergic reaction this time. I broke out in horrible hives. So, I'm retiring from beekeeping. I think my husband will continue to keep the bees, with the help of the kids. I'll take care of the honey!
I was thrilled to discover this yarn at my local WalMart. It's called Stratta. It's a Red Heart acrylic yarn. I like acrylic yarn because animal fibers make me itch. The reason I was so excited to find this yarn is that it stripes like sock yarn, but it's worsted weight! I've hoped for yarn like this for a long time! It makes really fun hats and scarves. It seems a bit stiff when you first knit it up, but after washing, it softens quite a bit.
I found a pattern I like for hats with ear flaps. I've been on a hat knitting jag ever since. I really like this pattern. It's fun to try in different kinds of yarn.
I've been making these little pumpkin hats for the fall. They're so cute!
Here's another ear flap hat. This one is knitted in Red Heart Symphony yarn. It's fuzzy and oh, so soft.
Here's one of my Mini Madame bags. The pattern is for sale at the Knitting Vault. I'll be embellishing this little purse with some knitted flowers. It's for my niece for Christmas.
Here's another of the ear flap hats. This one is knitted in Encore, a wool and acrylic blend yarn.
This little sweater is from a book with patterns for babies and dogs called The Gift Knitter. I thought this little sweater turned out cute. It will go to a baby in my church.
Yet another ear flap hat. This one is knitted in Red Heart acrylic camoflage yarn.
This hat and scarf set just lacks gloves, which I have purchased the yarn for, and will start soon.
This ear flap hat is knitted in Encore. The small bits of color lined up in an interesting pattern. I crochetted around the edge of this hat, as I did with some of the other hats from this pattern.
These felted flowers are from Nicky Epstein's Knitted Embellishments book. I love that book!! I love the fat little roses. I think these flowers will be just the thing to embellish some of the bags I've got in the works.
I made this ear flap hat in our local high school colors, purple and white.
This is another sweater from The Gift Knitter. It's made with chunky yarn and knitted up quite quickly. I've made two sweaters from this pattern. I knitted it during rehearsals for "Oklahoma," the musical I was in this summer. I gave it to a new mom in our church.
I hope thse scarves don't go out of style soon. I've had someone ask me to make some to sell in her store on consignment. Hope it works out. I think they're really fun.
I knitted this little hat out of some pretty yarn from my local yarn store. The store underwent an ownership change, so all the yarn was at a great discount for awhile! I liked this yarn so well, I went back for more, but it was all gone. I made another hat out of the same yarn, but in pink. I sold that hat at Farmers Market yesterday. And, they're out of the pink yarn too. Bummer. Let this be a lesson to you. Always buy more yarn than you think you'll actually need. :)
This is the hat I started and finished just today. It's a little hard to see the color. It is a light sage with pink flowers and edging. It's from the must recent issue of "Knit It" magazine. It's project number 29 in the magazine. I mistakingly thought from the picture in the mag that the picot trim was done in a contrasting color. I relized before I started that it wasn't, but I thought it would look cute, so I went ahead and did mine in a contrasting yarn. I like the result.
