Ribby Hats

I made these cute hats for Christmas using Elena Nodel's Fancy Ribby Hat pattern and modifying it to be large enough for my girls. They turned out great!

My Jogging Headband

I've been trying to run outside, but it's cold!! So, I finally made myself a Morning Walk Headband, by Tif Matthews. More projects to come soon. I've been knitting again. Yea!

Quick, easy, and great for running in!

Hats For My New Nieces

My husband's sisters are both having baby girls this week, so I made them matching hats from Tonya Wagner's Little Boy Blue Ribbed Baby Hat pattern. I added some Slinky Crochet Flowers for fun. I like to glue my flowers on hair clips so they can be easily removed and used as a hair accessory when baby outgrows the knitted item.

Here is a picture of the back side of a flower so you can see the hair clip.
I just hot glue it right on and it easily clips onto knitting.

Knotty But Nice

I've had my eye on Natalie Larson's "Knotty But Nice" pattern for a long time now. So I was excited when my husband choose this pattern for his next hat. He picked out some yarn in December and I finally got around to finishing it... just in time for the hottest day of the year! Oh well, winter will come again, right? I've been in a major knitting funk. Our baby has some health issues that we've been trying to figure out. It has meant a lot of time visiting doctors, having tests run and stress. In the past, knitting has been a great stress reliever for me, but lately I've felt like my mind has been too foggy to knit. It felt good to finish this hat, so hopefully I'm coming out of my funk.

Headband

I've made a few of these Morning Walk Headbands Ear-warmers, by Tif Matthews. They're darling and work up really quickly. I'm pretty much all about the turbo fast projects these days. I love to play around with different flowers and buttons to change them up. I keep meaning to make one for myself... soon.

Winter/Spring Baby Gift Combo

My two baby girl "go-to" gifts...

A Cabled Baby Hat, by Julie Hentz

And a "Spring" Baby Headband

These are both so very quick and easy and always receive rave reviews from the recipients. I love to give them together for a winter baby. The Cabled Baby Hat for when they are first born and it's cold outside. And the "Spring" Headband for when the weather warms up. I've also started gluing my flowers to hair clips so they can just clip on. That way they are removable and can still be used when the baby outgrows the hat/headband. I like gifts to be usable for as long as possible.

And...


For the winter baby boy... you could try a Baby Pixy Hat, by Jessica Gutoski. Here's my heavily modified version. I cast on the number of stitches called for and used a 3/1 rib because I love it for hats. But from there I did my own thing. Since this hat was for a preemie, I started decreasing earlier. For that matter, I completely changed the decreases and added a little pom-pom for good measure.

Apples and Oranges

I'm currently homeless.

Well, that isn't exactly true. We still own our house, but we're renting it out while our new home is being built... and in the meantime, I'm living with my in-laws. So in a way, I nearly have three places, but none of them are "Home". Not saying my in-laws place is bad, because really, I can't complain. But there is something to be said for having your own place/space.

I decided it would be best to keep our two older kids in their schools since our new home will be in the same neighborhood/school boundaries. But their schools have different start and end times and the in-laws live 30 minutes away, so I'm spending a lot of time behind the wheel and nearly of all the rest of my time and energy are spent keeping my 2 year old from destroying my in-law's non-childproof-home. Whew!

What does any of this have to do with knitting? Not much. But if you ask me how much knitting I've been able to do because of all of this, I'd give you the same answer.

I have been able to eke out a few small projects:

I made me some Bella's Mittens (by Marielle Henault) I had no idea these mittens had anything to do with Twilight when I started them. (sorry, not a fan) I just thought they were really cute.
I gotta say... I. Love. These. Mittens.

AND

I made a few Silly Apple Cozies (by: Casey Newman) for my girls to give their teachers for Christmas. I didn't have the right size apple to model the cozies, so I used oranges.
I think it's kind of cute that way, with Christmas Oranges being a tradition as well as the whole apple/teacher thing.