Tag Archive | handmadeMO

A Choir Concert, with Pink Yarn

Last night was a pretty neat evening. The girl is in the honor women’s choir at school, and last night was the spring concert. It’s their only fundraiser of the year, so they held it at a gorgeous church downtown and charged a small admission, and it was one of the best choir concerts I’ve ever been to. The acoustics were AMAZING, and the choir director chose the perfect pieces for the room. I have no idea how to post video on here, but if you find me on Instagram (I’m bonnyknits there too) you can see a snippet of their last song. All the choirs were upstairs, lining the balconies around the entire sanctuary, and their voices filled the room, and it was just…breathtaking. All the choirs sang beautifully, truly. I’m so glad my girl is involved in music, and I’m so glad we’re in a school district that values fine arts and has the resources to support them.

There’s the pretty girl (and the pretty mother too, even wearing her new turquoise scarf!). She’s moving into the concert choir next year (the mixed choir) and there’s a trip opportunity if we can get our fundraising gears going. It’s experiences like these that help me feel like we did the right thing in moving last year, even if it has been hard for the kids at times. Most of the time, I think they agree.

I had my knitting with me last night, too. I wanted a bit of easy selfish knitting so I grabbed my skein of Dream in Color Classy with Cashmere (Yep, it’s exactly as squishy and soft as you imagine) in Charged Cherry and cast on the Half Moon Scarf. So far, I’m loving it, and I’m loving knitting with this yarn, but I’m a little concerned my scarf won’t be quite long enough. We’ll see. Today the kids have auditions for an honor band, and then we have a family birthday party, so this will come along. But if it comes out too short, I think this is one instance where I wouldn’t mind frogging, if only so I can knit with this yarn again. At $30/skein, I’m not likely to get more of it anytime soon!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend; mine promises to be quite full and hectic!

Wonder Woman Bags

May6

Yesterday, my brother sent me a link about some cosmetic bags Walgreens was selling. Not just any bags: these were WONDER WOMAN bags! I’ve loved her since I was a kid, and I’m a nerd at heart so now that I’m a grown up, I love to have all kinds of Wonder Woman stuff. You guys have seen some of it. So I followed the link and then almost immediately drove to my local store. Nope, they didn’t have them. Didn’t know anything about them. Shoot. I came home, searched some more, and thought the closest store that had any was 30 minutes away. But no! My brother discovered a closer store that said it had one of the bags. I figured one was better than none and set off again. And GUESS WHAT?? They had all three bags I wanted! So yes, I bought myself an early Mother’s Day gift because how could I not? The big one will be a project bag, and I’m not sure about the two medium sizes. That littlest one came with a set of makeup brushes, and they’re cute and all, but whatever. This is a notions pouch, am I right? And that clear one in the back? It has a cape!I am more than pleased with my new bags. I think they’re delightful.

Somehow I also ended up with some new yarn yesterday. I don’t know how it happened. But it was all half off, so that’s something. This is Cascade 220 Superwash Aran, so squishy and soft! Love this stuff.

This is Berroco Lustra. You can’t see it very well, but it has a lovely subtle shimmer. I think it will make a gorgeous lacy cowl.

Now I really need to focus and get back to work. This author’s book isn’t going to proofread itself!

Yarn De-Stash

Apr29

After my recent yarn purchases, I spent a bit of time sorting through my stash. It was getting rather over-crowded again and I needed to make some room. I pulled out a few yarns I decided I’d probably never use, and figured I’d post them here in case any of them called to my knit/crochet readers. I’ll attach a contact form at the end of this post, or you can email me at bonny(at)bonnyknits(dot)com. If you’re willing to pay the shipping, I’ll ship anywhere you want me to! Payment through PayPal.

Araucania Ruca Solid color 109. 100% sugar cane. 4 unused skeins. DK weight, 263 yards per skein. $25 for the lot, plus s&h. (Retails at $14/skein)

Classic Elite Yarns Imagine 53/47 cotton/rayon blend. DK weight, 93 yards each. There’s a lovely shimmer that was really hard to catch in the photos. $6 plus s&h.

KnitPicks Brava Worsted, color Caution. Was just too bright for what I wanted. 3 skeins, all unused. $5 plus s&h.

KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Superwash color Camel Heather. No idea why I bought this, since it’s not really my color. $2 plus s&h.

KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Bulky Superwash. Wound but unused. One dark, one light purple. Love the colors, they just weren’t as soft as I like. $5 plus s&h.

Wool Pak Yarns NZ 100% New Zealand wool. Label not marked with ply or shade. Label states 250 grams per skein, these three weigh in at 245 grams. I bought it like this, no idea why it was split into three. $5 plus s&h.

I also have a ton of cheaper acrylic to re-home, too much to list individually. If you like Red Heart Super Saver, Caron One Pound, Homespun, or things like that, give me a holler and I can give you an idea of what I’ve got!

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KC Royals Knitwear

Apr15

If you remember, I recently received a request for some KC Royals-themed knitwear. The mitts were finished first, and yesterday I whipped through the four ear warmers. I have to say, they drove me bonkers at first. I’d made one for my friend as a gift, just improvised, and I needed to replicate hers. Well, I hadn’t taken any notes, and all I had was this photo.

I assumed it was 2×2 rib so that’s what I did, but for one thing, it came out WAY too big and the ribbing didn’t look like it matched. I set the first one aside and started over with fewer stitches and 4×2 rib. Still didn’t match, still too big. Frog, start over with fewer stitches. Finally, I found a recipe that pleased me: I cast on 65 stitches on size 9 needles and knit 3×2 rib with the yarn held double for a nice warm fabric. Six rows blue, two rows white, six rows blue. For the first one, I used Jeny’s stretchy bind off but that made it way too stretchy, so for the rest I just did a normal bind off and that worked just fine. After that, it was smooth sailing. For the last one, I did frog the first sad too-big attempt to reuse the yarn. Waste not, want not! I think they’re pretty cute! I’ve got about a skein and a half of the blue left, so I’m going to make some more fingerless gloves for my inventory. We’ll need them when the Royals get back to October baseball!

Happy Friday!

Matching Mitts

Apr13

I finished the second pair of fingerless gloves yesterday; got all the ends woven in and everything. And the best part is: I have two pairs of matching mitts! I’m the worst at making two things the same size. I lose count of rows, or I go by measurement and maybe one ends up a row shorter or longer. Even with these, the two pairs don’t match. One pair is longer than the other. No idea how that happened; I really did think they’d all come out the same. BUT, at least each person will have two gloves that match.The 5″ DPNs were marvelous, too. Much more comfortable than the metal, and I was able to put the stitches on 4 needles instead of 3, which seemed to help a lot with laddering. And the thumbs! I can’t imagine trying to do thumbs on the 7″ needles. I’m definitely glad I got the shorter needles. But this is one more reason I shy away from socks: I’d end up with non-matching socks!

How do you guys make sure your pairs come out the exact same size?

Hitchhiker Done

Apr7

I did it! I finished the fingering weight Hitchhiker! I only made it to 36 teeth, instead of 42, but it’s definitely a wearable length. Toward the end, I checked my yarn at the end of each row, but I used as much yarn as possible with maybe one yard left over. This is a gift for a good friend (she provided the yarn, I provided the labor) and I hope she enjoys wearing it! And honestly, once I got back into the groove, I enjoyed knitting it again. It really is a brilliant pattern.

Details: Pattern is the classic Hitchhiker by Martina Behm. One of these days I’ll get around to knitting on of her other awesome patterns. Yarn is Araucania Huasco, 450 yards of fingering weight merino. It’s lovely to knit with, and the muted rainbow is gorgeous. I used 24″ size 3 circs.

Happy Thursday, friends! Tune in tomorrow to see what’s next on my needles!