Kaylin's Christening Gown

The cashmere is PERFECT for this gown. I took this photo a few days ago, so it has gotten longer since then. The pattern is my own and I'm pretty much winging it as I go....

Stay tuned for more updates!

Kaylin

This is me with my Goddaughter, Kaylin, born on Friday, August 13. I can now begin work on her Christening set! YAY! Isn't she beautiful?

On Friday, I made her a hat and on Saturday, I made a sweater in the car on our way to NY.

Erin in her DRESS!

As requested, here are pictures of my lovely little girl in her dress!

Erin's Dress

This is the dress that I designed for my dearest 3 year old daughter. She begged me for a dress and it HAD to be pink... so on Monday, August 9, 2010, I pulled out my pink cotton and a size k crochet hook and started to randomly crochet. This was the result and I LOVE it... I'm making another for Ava, my younger daughter! It's simple and sweet with a circle skirt that will make every aspiring ballerina proud. She loves it and wants to wear it EVERYWHERE. I'll take a picture of her in it tomorrow and post for you all.

This design IS going into the pattern book I hope to publish in the not so far future.

My Recycled Yarn

The adventure continues with Recycling Yarn. I ripped out a blanket made for my nephew that I never finished and reclaimed some camouflage yarn. I then used my niddy noddy (see earlier posts) to skein it out. I washed the yarn in lukewarm water and hung to dry using a hanger and a clothes line with a can of soup as a weight.

The first skein was hung after squeezing the water out by hand... It dripped for 2 days. The remaining skeins were placed in a spin cycle on my washer.

Here are my results! 2 lovely skeins of camouflage. Sure, it's acrylic cheapo yarn. Did you think my first attempt would be with good stuff? (See the cool wrapper on the yarn? Personalized. Yeah... I like that.)


Look at the colors! Now, if I could only figure out what to make with it.....


A trip to the thrift store brought me a very ugly redish pinkish sweater. The colors were so pretty I could see myself using them for something for my lovely little daughters. I ripped the sweater apart, washed and WOW! The water turned BLACK. The yarn turned out beautifully. I found that using the drier spin cycle cuts the dripping out and reduced dry time to about 24 hours. I got 6 skeins of the red/pink cotton.

Look at it up close... LOOK... LOOK!!! Pretty.... I enjoy petting this one.

Cashmere....

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................. cashmere.............

On August 1, I ordered cashmere yarn, lace weight, from Colourmart. Today, August 6, it arrived... from the UK to Pennsylvania. Folks, that's great service. The yarn is delicious. It's soft, beautiful, and everything I had hoped it would be. I WILL order from them again and I encourage you to do the same.

Here you can see the two spools of yum...

The thickness ...

A knitted swatch with a double strand and size 6 needles...

A crocheted swatch with a double strand and D hook...

I had intended from the start to use a double strand because I want to give the Christening outfit a little more strength. I think this yarn will give the extra something I was looking for with the project.

Stay tuned for more on CASHMERE!

My First Niddy Noddy!

In my new hobby, recycling yarn, I found that I have a serious need for a niddy noddy. I read about them on the web, priced them out on websites, and found several blogs about making your own. Now.... Let me tell you that the notion of making one of these very handy devices out of PVC pipe intrigued me.

Since my wonderful husband works for a large name hardware store (use your imagination, you'll figure it out!) I figured I could just ask him to pick up the supplies on his way home from work.... a week ago.... So last night on my way home from work, I stopped and picked up the pieces I would need for the adventure.

Step one: Figure out how a 5 foot tall woman is going to reach the 1/2 inch PVC pipe that is located 8 feet off the ground at the home improvement store. I grabbed a short length of fat PVC pipe and began waving it over my head trying to knock down a piece of pipe. That's when a kind gentleman in an orange apron came and told me that I was going to hurt myself and possibly others that way. He got the pipe for me. =)

1/2 inch PVC pipe comes in 10 foot long pieces. Keep that in mind if you plan on doing this because it DOESN'T FIT IN YOUR CAR!!!! Ugh. I ended up bending the crap out of it, winding it around the passenger's seat, two children's car seats and eventually had about 2 feet hanging out a back window. Yeah... scared the crap out of me. There was so much tension on that piece of pipe that I was afraid it would sproing back and kill me as I drove home. It didn't.

I read a lot of different blogs about how to make the Niddy Noddy. One said to make the center pipe 15 inches and each arm 4.5 inches to produce a 2 yard hank. Ok... That's 33 inches. I have 10 FEET! I can make more than one! I also bought a coping saw to cut through the pipe.

ADVICE: If you are going to do this... Get a friend to help. Round pipe ROLLS all over the place when you try to cut it with a saw. You need 4 hands ... minimum. I did not have 4 hands. Just me. So... let's just say that I'm glad I have more pipe!

Ok. Pieces cut. Now, I used "T" joints to put it together. Taa daa! It isn't pretty, but it sure LOOKS like a niddy noddy!

I took some of my reclaimed cheap acrylic camouflage yarn and started to play with my new toy. I started with cheap yarn because I didn't want to screw up on the good stuff. Guess what!!!! The hank was exactly 2 yards around!!! Bless that blogger whose name I cannot remember!

I wound and washed two hanks of yarn and hung them to dry last night. I promise to post more pictures as they come. I feel so empowered that I'm actually contemplating dying yarn!! Ok.. we'll save that for another day!

The Stash!

So.... A recent topic of discussion on Ravelry challenged us all to admit to our problem by posting a photo of our stash. Here is mine. I can stop any time I want. HONEST! I just don't want to!