Hats and Mittens Garland

This is what I've been knitting lately. Tiny hats and mittens. They will have numbers embroidered on them and then be put together in a garland for a Christmas count-down! My sister-in-law found the pattern at www.tangleonline.com Just adorable! The little hats and mittens have been fun to make. I have a few mittens left to make before I start embroidering the numbers on them.

New Price for Teapot Hat Pattern

I decided that to improve sales of my teapot hat pattern, I would reduce the price to $5.00.

Teapot Hat Pattern Available

Good news! You can now purchase the teapot hat pattern! The pattern includes an adult sized hat and a 4-8 yr. child-sized hat. I accept only PayPal for payment ($5.00). My PayPal email is krndpx@yahoo.com. Once I get word from PayPal of your payment, I will email you a .pdf file of the pattern. If you want the pattern sent to a different email than the one connected with your PayPal account, make a note of the email you want it sent to in the notes section of the Pay Pal receipt.

Teapot Pattern Coming

Just a heads-up. I am working on a pattern for the teapot hat. I'm trying to include an adult and child size in one pattern. When I finish it, I will post it here for sale, so watch for it!

Teapot Hat

So often my inspiration comes as a challenge from a potential customer. So it was with this teapot hat. A customer had seen someone wearing one and, since she couldn't convince that person to sell it off her head, she asked if I could knit a teapot hat. I was sure I could, and when I had a few spare minutes, I gave it a go. Here is the result. I think it turned out great, particularly as it was my first attempt. I basically just winged it.





The hat prompted my son to sing the "I'm a Little Teapot" song, of course. Can't you just see a room full of pre-schoolers wearing hats like this and singing? They'd be cute in pastel colors....

Speed Knitting

I was looking at my new Knit Picks catalog that came in the mail today. On the back cover, it shows a picture of this woman from Holland, named Miriam Tegels, who holds the worlds' record for speed knitting. She can knit 118 stitches per minute. A YouTube of her knitting can be seen here This woman is wicked fast! Her technique is interesting. She carries the yarn in her left hand like I do (continental style), but when she's knitting on straight needles she anchors one long needle under her armpit as she knits.

Well, says I, I wonder how fast I knit? Fortunately, my husband was home and could time me. I tested myself 4 times using only the knit stitch. I was knitting in the round on a circular needle.

And, my home-tested knitting speed is....drum roll please....ta-da! 70 stitches per minute. I've got some practicing to do before I can break the worlds' record, but I'm still pretty fast!

Here's a video giving tips for fast knitting.

A Brand New Year

At the urging of a loyal blog follower, I have decided to post an update. During the winter, I spend so much time knitting up orders for cupcake hats, I feel guilty spending much time on the computer.

This year I got myself into trouble over orders. I tried to predict how quickly I could get the hats knitted and mailed, but when people started ordering 3-piece sets of scarves, hats and mittens, it slowed me way down. I had one customer cancel an order because I didn't have it ready before Christmas. I felt terrible! Next year, I will be more careful, and give myself plenty of time. After all, I do have a life outside of knitting--seven kids to raise, to begin with!



So, here is a picture of the hat/mitten/scarf set. I wish I had time to make one for my daughter in the photo. Her birthday is tomorrow.



This was my attempt to create an Elmo look-alike hat. I was told it doesn't look enough like Elmo. Hmm. I think it's pretty cute. Maybe the nose should be smaller....

I was at the oral surgeon's today with my 2nd son. He had his wisdom teeth out. While there, I worked on yet another cupcake hat. The receptionist asked about what I was making and I told her about my Etsy shop. Right then and there she logged onto my store on her computer! She admired my work, suggested a local boutique, and told me I'm not charging nearly enough. I am a bargain hunter, and I hate to charge people too much, but on the other hand, I really need for these hats to be worth my while, and they take 4 hours each to make! The scarves take all day to make.

I feel like I should make some kind of knitting New Year's Resolution. Okay. Here goes. I resolve to knit during spring and summer to stock up on hats so I don't have to spend all my time knitting during the holidays! I further resolve to continue to give my customers my best work, every time.

THE MAD HATTER

Cupcake hats are still very popular, and I make an awful lot of them. Sometimes I make matching cupcake mittens to go with them. I make so many of them, in fact, that it is nice to be able to knit something else occasionally. Recently I had an order for some fun hats, including these:

Love the dimples!




Ben is modeling a blue dog hat, which I designed from a picture of the popular children's cartoon dog, Blue.




Here is the first owl hat I designed, which looks quite a lot like the great barn owl my kids found a year or so ago, with the wide, staring eyes.






This hat I think is cuter. I made it a little smaller, made the eyes looking up, and put tassles instead of pompoms on the top.













This snowman set is a favorite of mine, because I haven't ever seen anything like it and it is a completely original design.

Honey, I Shrunk the Cupcakes!


Here is my latest variation on the cupcake theme--miniature cupcake pincushion magnets. Each one has a knitted and felted top, a magnet on the bottom, and a knitted sleeve for the cup portion. The inside is dense, felted wool.




The cupcakes measure about 1 3/4 inches by 1 3/4 inches. The sprinkles are actually pins.



These little cupcakes are sitting on an upside-down candy dish.

I just have to share this little hat. Someone sent me a picture of a hat like this and asked if I could create one. I love a challenge! This was the result. I think it looks a lot like Strawberry Shortcake's poofy hat. One of these days I'll have to play with other color combinations.

Teacup Pincushions! I saw these on a website and just had to try making them. I think they turned out great! They're fun to make. Not hard, but a little time consuming. They're made of felted wool from recycled sweaters. The part that takes the longest is making the I-cords for the handles and saucer rim. The instructions say to use a little knitting machine. Well, I don't have one of those, so I make mine on two double-pointed needles.

Yellow, springy skirt, slippers, hat and bolero set. This is a special order that i knit for a photographer named Sue. The skirt was pretty easy. I found a gathered lace edging from Nicky Epstein's Knitting on the Edge book for the bottom ruffle. Then, based on the hip measurements of the model, I simply knit a tube. Eyelet holes around the waistband allowed me to thread in a knit cord for keeping it snug. White crocheted edging and embroidered daisies completes the look. I added embroidered daisies to the ends of the sweater sleeves as well, after taking the picture. I think it turned out really cute. I hope it fits well!


A closer view of the bolero. I didn't have a pattern for this, so I used a regular cardigan sweater pattern and figured out how to make the bottom rounded. I crocheted around the edges in white, to match the skirt. The sleeves are supposed to be 3/4 sleeves. I knit I-cords for the frogs, and formed them into the twists you see them in, then stitched them onto the sweater. I learned how to do that from Nicky Epstein's book, Knitted Embellishments. I love that book! Again, I added some embroidery to the sleeves, which is not in the photo.

This hat is another one that she ordered. It was actually designed by another customer for her daughter. I like the combined ear flaps and funky tasseled top.

More knitted cupcakes! I spent most of today packaging these little gems to be sold at a store in Florida, called Cupcakes-a-Go-Go, a cupcake specialty shop that is taking them on consignment. I think these appliques look really cute in their packages. It's a little hard to see them, due to the glare, but they are backed by patterned paper.




Here's another view of them. They are knit out of cotton yarn, and would look just adorable on a sweater, hat, bib, coat, apron, mittens, etc.



And, of course, they look very sweet on hair bows too!



this is one of my knitted cupcake hats. Instead of sprinkles and a cherry on top, I made a rosette for the top. I noticed that the cupcake shop makes them like this.



I found this great yarn for the roses, which makes them multi-colored.

Everything's Coming up Cupcakes!
I've been knitting cupcake hats, cupcake mittens, even a cupcake scarf! It's pretty much all I've knitted for a month or so. Here are some pictures of my work.


I love this color combination. The cream base really offsets the pink. The mitten pattern I made up. I just followed a regular mitten pattern and added the cupcake top!



This little teal hat turned out cute.


This was a special order for a customer. She ordered cupcake hats for her girls, and then wanted something equally cute for her boys. I invented this little snowman hat. I think it turned out pretty well!


This little yellow cupcake hat almost looks good enough to eat!


Kids aren't the only ones who like cupcakes. This set was made for an adult. She wanted convertible mittens, so I had to invent this pattern for convertible cupcake mittens!



This is one of my customer's daughter wearing my cupcake hat.


And this is my daughter modeling the cupcake scarf I made. The color choice was one a customer special ordered. I think it would look really cute in alternating pastel colors.


Here are two cupcake hats I knit. I use acrylic yarn to give the items wash-ability and to make them hypoallergenic. I myself am very sensitive to animal fibers. They make me itch like crazy.

This is a project I've been working on for several months. It is a red cabled sweater for my oldest daughter, who is going to college in a cold place. I'm quite proud of this sweater because I designed it myself. It turned out pretty well. It was shorter than she wanted it, so I added ribbing to both the sleeves and the bottom of the sweater. I even put thumb holes in the sleeves so she could use them like fingerless mitts-which she loves!


This is supposed to show the detail of the cables I did. There is an hourglass shaped motif in the center, with snaky cables on either side of it. On the sleeves are double rows of snaky cables.

Hey, I just wanted to give you all a heads-up. I've been making how to knitting videos on ehow.com. I'm going to be adding to these pretty often, so check back frequently. The videos are under hobbies and games-crafts-knitting. My userid at ehow.com is krndpx. I hope you find them helpful!

We participate in a local Farmers Market, selling our honey and I also sell knitted items and lotion that I make. Anyway, one of the other vendors approached me one day, asking if I could knit a sweater and matching hat in fall colors for a 3-year-old nephew of hers. I agreed to do it, and this is the result. I am not naturally attracted to oranges and greens, so it was a good stretching experience for me. I really like how it turned out, but I must admit to having to knit a few pink and blue small things once in awhile as I did this project just to take a break from the color theme!

The hat

The sweater--knit in the round up to the sleeve openings. Then I knit the front and back separately. It was a little tricky making sure the stripes ended up the same in the front and the back!

I've just recently started a little store at Etsy.com, where I'm selling some things I make. My user name is Kreative Karen Designs. The link is www.kreativekarendesigns.etsy.com Take a look!

I finished these little booties today and had to share the picture! Aren't they just too cute?! They're pretty little, probably a US size 1. I have to try making more of these. They knit up pretty quickly.



The pattern for these adorable little booties can be found here