Tag Archives: knitting

Autism Awareness Puzzle Knit Hat

14 Feb

This hat was requested by a friend of mine. I honestly wasn’t sure if I could do it, but I was certainly up to the challenge. I have knit scarves and blankets, but not a hat. Plus, this hat pattern uses a technique I was not familiar with before, intarsia, where you use a separate bobbin of yarn for each color in a row. I watched a couple of videos on YouTube, practiced on some scrap yarn, and was ready to give it a go.

Now, I did do a little crossing in mine, just because I was getting tangled up enough with all the bobbins of yarn already, but these pictures give you an idea of what that involves. At times, yarn was everywhere!

Start of the Autism Awareness Puzzle Hat One set of puzzle pieces done

It took me about a week to really sit down and get it done, and I am very pleased with how it came out. I love the colors, and I really like the Vanna’s Choice yarn. It’s the same yarn I used for the green in the Ninja Turtle crochet hats. It was tricky to get the ribbing (K1, P1) and the color changes done at the start of the hat, but I made it work. I have plans to make another one, and I may do the ribbed band at the bottom in the navy color, and then start the puzzle piece pattern.

Finished Autism Awareness Puzzle Hat Finished Autism Awareness Puzzle Hat Finished Autism Awareness Puzzle Hat

Here is a link to the pattern: Autism Awareness Puzzle Hat Knitting Pattern. It was easy to follow, and the charts for the puzzle pieces were amazing.

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Lovey Blankets

5 Dec

With a few new babies born to our family members and friends, I wanted to make something little for each of them. My older daughter helped me pick out yarn, and we found this really soft, fuzzy yarn, Bernat Pipsqueak. It comes in both solids and multi-colors, so we picked out some of each. It’s very different to work with, so I chose to knit. Very important to keep good count if you are doing a pattern. I get bored with just straight knit stitch, so I did do some ribbing on these. It’s just hard to tell! The pattern is something like this:

Cast on 45.
Knit across about 5 rows.

Then,
K5, K5, P5, K5, P5, K5, P5, K5, K5
K5, P5, K5, P5, K5, P5, K5, P5, K5

Repeat until blanket is almost a square.

Knit across about 5 rows to finish.

I used 14″, Size 10 1/2, knitting needles.

One ball of this yarn, which is 100g, 109 meters / 120 yards, makes 1 blanket approximately 13″ x 13″. It’s not a huge blanket, but I was going more to cuddle and take with, so it’s not as bulky to carry around.

Here are the 2 that I have finished. The green and purple one got pulled at little tight as I was finishing it up, which is killing my perfectionist mind, but it’s still really cute. I am working on 2 more in solid colors, 1 in Chocolate and 1 in Lime.

Lovey Blanket in Bernat Pipsqueak Pixie Pow

Lovey Blanket in Bernat Pipsqueak Pixie Pow

Lovey Blanket in Bernat Pipsqueak Funny Bunny

Lovey Blanket in Bernat Pipsqueak Funny Bunny

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My New Hobby – Knitting and Crocheting

3 Dec

When I was a kid, I did a LOT of cross-stitch. I think one year my sister and I cranked out Christmas ornaments for a huge list of people. I had always thought about learning to knit or crochet, but the time or opportunity just ever presented itself. Last year, my daughter joined a knitting club at school, and I decided it was time to time to try to learn. I used the sheets she was given and watched some videos on YouTube, and learned how to cast on, the knit stitch, the purl stitch, and the stockinette stitch. I started with scarves. I figured those were easy enough! I played around with the different stitches to get different looks and had fun doing it.

My first scarves Close up of my first scarves

Then, my daughter lost interest, and life got busy with other things, so I didn’t work on anything for about a year. We recently had some new babies born in our family and circle of friends, so I got the urge to start working on some new projects to give as gifts. I had to watch the videos again, but was able to pick it back up. Then, my mom came to visit, and she was working on crocheting granny squares for Christmas stockings. Again, I watched a few videos and watched her work, and learned how to do chain, slip, single, double, half-double, and treble stitches. Then, after posting a few projects on Facebook, a friend from college let me know about a forum called, Ravelry.com, which is free to join, and has a TON of free and paid patterns for both knitting and crocheting. It was a whole new world opened up for me, and I have been busy creating since.

I’m hoping to be able to keep it up, and over the next few weeks, I will share my finished projects. As I work on more, I will share those too. I’m starting my younger daughter on knitting, and my older daughter has been knitting again and wants to learn to crochet as well. I’m excited at the opportunity to work with them on this as well!

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