ohmygoodknits! » knitting

Past Valentine’s Day Projects

Lisa — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:37:01 +0000

My husband has been in Las Vegas 4 out of the past 5 Valentine’s Days. He works for an apparel company and so he’s there for the men’s fashion convention, MAGIC (ha). The first few years it really bummed me out, but now I’m used to it. These days, I consider it more of a kid’s holiday. We get to play with pinks! Reds! Whites! Hearts! Cupcakes! It’s a crafty holiday and so I really dig it. How about you?

Do you like Valentine’s Day or do you ditch it? Is it more of a romantic or fun holiday for you?

I’ll be back soon with a super simple under-five-minutes crochet heart pattern.

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Handmade for the Holidays

Lisa — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:30:29 +0000

Because I have been filling custom orders (THANK YOU!), I haven’t really had all that much time to devote to Christmas crafting. I found some time between orders to create for my loved ones and I have a pretty decent pile I’ll be distributing this weekend. It’s impressive when you realize I’ve made these during the past 2-3 weeks. Needless to say, my hands have been busy.

In the photo you see:
1 Willow
1 Dory
2 Turn a Square hats
1 Last Minute Open Rib hat

“Last Minute Open Rib,” you ask? Why, yes. I knit this hat quite a bit, last year, and finally got around to composing a proper pattern for it. I can knit one up in an evening (late night watching old episodes of Sons of Anarchy)!

If you feel so inclined to make one yourself, please do check out the pattern page, HERE. Happy knitting!

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Did you make any sweet gifts for your loved ones for Christmas? Please share!

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Shop note: I’ll be closing up shop tomorrow morning for a week. I still have a few ready-to-ship hats, shawlettes, and one doily blanket. Everything except Lace Love ships Priority Mail in the U.S. All orders placed tonight will ship tomorrow! They aren’t guaranteed to arrive by Christmas, but they’ll be sent. I’ll open back up on the 27th. Thank you so much for all of your support!

Day 06: A book I’m reading

Lisa — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:16:22 +0000

Welp, I’m knitting another Ganomy and so I am referencing my Almanac. I’m making a few size adjustments and want to make sure I have my numbers correct.

I also started a crochet version and it is a little more difficult to adapt that I thought it would be. I made a few of them, years ago, but they always had a weird bump and I’m trying to change that and…well, my brain went “argh.” Back to the drawing board. I’ll share my breakthough when/if I reach it.

THAT BOOK, though…well, it’s a constant source of inspiration and encouragement. For less than $8, you gotta get one for yourself.

Knit: Colorwork Recipe

Lisa — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:05:54 +0000

There was some interest in a beginners color work pattern. This is it!

2 styles
x 4 charts
———————
8 different patterns

My favorite is the scallops, seen above. Which will you knit? Read more on the Colorwork Recipe Page.

The Woollies have landed!

Lisa — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:11:31 +0000

Check out the new additions to the GOODKNITS shop! I finally got around to putting some hats up, yesterday. They’re all woolly and just soso yummy. These were all made during my little obsession with fair isle, a few weeks back. My sons each have one and I have put the others up in the shop. I wrote a pattern for the hats in the bottom row and top center. If anyone is interested in a beginners fair isle pattern, let me know and I’ll get started on a post about it.

Enter coupon code WOOLLOVE to receive 20% off your entire order! That includes all the hats, doily blankets, and even my new photographic prints.

It’s a doily! It’s a blanket! It’s a doily blanket!

Lisa — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:10:01 +0000

And now you can own one. I listed a few doily blankets in the shop, today! Could you believe I’ve crocheted 2 others that aren’t listed? The pattern has reached TV-crochet stage, so I can look up every few seconds and I don’t mess up catastrophically! HOORAY! Now, if only I could make my hands hook those stitches faster. I need robot hands. And maybe a robot brain.

I’m currently pattern-drafting again. I got doily blanket pattern #2 typed up and now I’m developing a different sort of doily-inspired project. Hello, evasive description! I promise to share when I get it just right. I think I want to combine all three of these patterns with a few smaller ones and create a little e-book. Doily Love. How does THAT sound?

I’ve got doilies on the brain so much I spelled the word “doily” TWICE in a single game of Words With Friends, the other day. Gah.

Let’s celebrate the entrance of the doily blankets to the world and the beginning of Fall with a special offer. Enter coupon code FALLTASTIC at checkout for 15% off your entire order! There’s some new hats in the shop, as well. I’ll be adding more in the coming days.:)

Wool & Wood & Want

Lisa — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:26:42 +0000

While I wanted to start blogging with gusto in September, I am finding myself straying. Not far, don’t worry. I am just busy crocheting & knitting and preparing stock for GOODKNITS 2011. I thought I’d share a little peek with you.

These hats are my favorite. Made of soft wool in a few different lovely colors. They are slouchy, but still ultra warm.

I’ve also knit up some hats for the MEN. Shocker, I know. I became quite smitten with stranded knitting, though! I had to jot down a few designs for the boys. I’ve come up with a few different colorwork designs and am on the fence on whether I’ll be writing up patterns. I love sharing with my fellow knitters, but it takes quite a bit of time and effort to turn my notes into real instructions. We’ll see!

Do you like my hat rack? A yarn wrapped branch pinned onto my wall. The branch had just the right curvature to make a lovely rack for the hats.

The August Break 22 (winter sneak peek)

Lisa — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:51:00 +0000

Photo taken with my Lensbaby

Last week, I learned color work knitting and I got a smidge obsessed. I started drafting new designs immediately and knit up test hats. There were a lot of lonely late nights, last week. The husband was preparing for his business trip, so after the boys went down it was just me, my yarn, and Season 1 of Angel. Learning to knit English style has made these super quick to whip up, so a word to the wise: LEARN BOTH METHODS OF KNITTING!

And if you’re already knitting English style, learn Continental and you’re half way to learning crochet. :)

The August Break 16 (knitting!)

Lisa — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:58:55 +0000

I got Second Sock Syndrome (BUT if I hadn’t messed up the first time, I’d have a complete pair. boo), so I took a break and knit a hat. I FINALLY learned English knitting, so the colorwork was actually enjoyable! I am going to be carrying my graph paper notebook to jot down ideas for more hats. This one matches Nathan’s school uniform, so it’s his. He likes it.

I used the color pattern practice hat instructions from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Workshop. I messed up a bit on the last color repeat, but it’s hardly noticeable. It was a super easy knit. I realized Zimmermann’s books read like blogs. There are diagrams to help you out and asides on how to make things bigger or other ways to knit it. Love.

Kiddos’ socks

Lisa — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:29:45 +0000

I KNOW Winter will be here, eventually. I decided I should get a head start on some knits for my boys and have started with socks. Their hats from last year (and years past) will likely still fit, so those aren’t too much of a priority. I haven’t knit a pair of socks in a very long while, so I’m going with an easy plain knit pattern.

Unfortunately, I got past the heel on this first sock and realized they’re way too big! I guess tomorrow is a frogging and re-starting day. I’m at the point in my knitting where the idea of frogging bums me out initially, but I realize that getting the perfect fit is worth it, so I can frog without tears. It still kind of sucks, though.

What’s on your needles? Give me some inspiration to pull me out of the bummer that is frog-city.

Knitting: vintage craft (pattern!)

Lisa — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 23:50:31 +0000

Hello, lovely folks! It has been a few weeks since I shared a vintage craft. I have a good one, today, though!

I wrote up a guest post for the amazing Kim of Art Equals Happy talking about how fun it is to tackle vintage craft patterns and how satisfying it is to be able to mix them up and create something new. You may have seen this hat on my Flickr, a few weeks ago. You can read my guest post here!

You can find the direct link to the pattern on my patterns page, but I would love if you checked out my post on art equals happy! It would make a lovely Christmas gift, no? :)

Knitting: the fifth Ganomy (& happy 400!)

Lisa — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:15:58 +0000

This is my 400th post. WHAT! Not a question, just an exclamation. I’ve been blabbering on about my knitting for 400 posts? Well, dang. I hope I haven’t bored too many of the folks who stop by. Thank you to those who return! Many thanks. It’s only appropriate that my 400th post be actual knitting content. I have another hat pattern that will debut later this month, so for now, here’s one of my old favorites–Ganomy!

I really need to get you a photo of my copy of Knitter’s Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmermann. It is positively beat. I haven’t made every pattern in it, but I have read it all the way though at least twice. It’s just one of those knitting books. Where the content is more about HOW the pattern came to be than the actual pattern itself. I like that.

Ganomy is my favorite. I think it’s safe to say it’s my favorite hat pattern to knit. It’s so easy and the design is so simple, but it looks so cool. This is my fifth. To be honest, it could be my sixth, but I only found four others, so I’m going with fifth.

You can find directions online to alter the pattern to be less gnomish, but I went ahead and knit the pattern straight through–ping pong ball, and all!

Pattern: ‘Ganomy’
Source: Knitter’s Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Yarn: Manos Wool Classica in Citric
Needle: 5mm (US8) 16″ circular and DPNs

Knitting: Terzetto Tuesday

Lisa — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:08:55 +0000

Good day, folks! I come to you today with a knitting pattern! It’s a beanie pattern and you can find all sorts of cool information about it by clicking on the photo below. :)

Let me know what you think on that page!

Knitting: triangles beanie

Lisa — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:43:02 +0000

I said I would put this up last week, but I got so sidetracked by the holiday and other stuff.

The shape of the week for my toddler and I (almost 2 weeks ago, now) was triangles. I couldn’t get them out of my head! And now Andrew can point them out, pretty much without hesitation. Huzzah!

Anyway, I recently bought a little moleskine from the one and only Punk Rawk Purl filled with grid paper. What started as a doodle one bored evening turned into me scribbling little knitting notes. Before long, I had a rough pattern!

I started knitting it and figured out the crown shaping and really…well, I fell in love with it! I finished it during my garage sale and made the boy wear it for a bit. It fits like a snug beanie on him, but it really fit my little boys’ noggins perfectly!

The glorious thing is that the pattern is pretty easily enlarged (or shrunken) by adding (or subtracting) pattern repeats. Yeah! I already knit it again with slightly heavier yarn and it came out just a smidge larger, so no tweaking was really necessary. I love when that happens!

I’ve been knitting for ummm 4ish years and this is my very first knitting pattern. It’s super simple and I haven’t really searched Ravelry for anything similar, so if YOU know of a pattern that looks like this, do let me know! If you’re interested in knitting one of your own, leave a comment or shoot me an email! I’ll send you the pattern and you can tell me what you think/if it makes any sense and I’ll see if I can get it blog-ready.

knitting: the pickle pillow

Lisa — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 02:15:09 +0000

I made this enormous bolster pillow and the kids immediately started calling it “the pickle pillow.” It doesn’t really fit on the love seat (I needs a couch, yo), so the boys use it as a head rest when they’re laying in front of the tube watching episodes of Inspector Gadget. It’s their new favorite TV show. It’s 22 minutes, so they get to watch one episode unless they’re sick and quarantined to the living room.

Details:
TWO strands of Lion Brand Wool-ease Thick & Quick in lemongrass (which was ON CLEARANCE at my local Michael’s last week for $3.99/ball)
Size US19 needles.
35 (or 36? something like that) stitches and approximately 22 garter ridges (44 knit rows).
Seam the BO to the CO, then cinch one end shut.
Fold a towel in half (short end to short end), then roll it up and wrap it with a few layers of quilt batting.
I made an inside case with some green fabric so the guts wouldn’t be so obvious through the stretched stitches.

Stuff it! Close the other end.

I LOVE garter stitch. It’s so easy and textural and……yeah! it’s awesome. <3