Knitting Holidays!

Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving holiday?  I certainly got a lot done on the break!

First, I wanted to show off this amazing yarn I bought from Twisted Fiber Art.  It's an Evolution yarn that starts off in one color, then it evolves into something else entirely:

When I got my happy skein in the mail, I couldn't decide what pattern would best showcase the colors.  I wound up turning it into a shawl:

The yarn was such a treat to work with!  Watching the colors change kept me from getting too bored, plus it looks so great wrapped up as a scarf around my neck.  I love the fall colors.  :)

I also finished two hats for friends of mine!  The first hat here is for my friend Tina whose birthday is in a few weeks.  I love this hat because the decreases make a star!  How cool is that?

And this hat (A hat For Eudora by Alex Tinsley) is for my friend Whitney.  Back in January I made a Facebook post claiming to make a handmade gift at somepoint in 2011 for the first five people who signed up.  This is the last of the Handmade in 2011 knits, just in time!

This pattern has a great hidden contrast hem that it kind of cool.  :)

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving full of food, family, and knitting!  

Happy knitting, everyone!

♥ ashley

Tutorial: Speckled Hexis

For those of you who want to add a little variety to your puffs, here's my mini-tutorial on how to make my speckled puffs:

So I'm going to try to do this without giving away the pattern!

CO and do your increase row as normal. 

On the first plain knit round, knit 1 in the MC, (k1 in CC, k3 in MC) repeat until 3 stitches remain, k1 CC, k2 MC. 

Do 3 rounds of the pattern in MC, then repeat speckled row.

It pretty much spaces itself out perfectly with the way the increases work.  I love how these speckled puffs just stand out:

These technique is nice for a little variety. I hope it makes sense!

♥ ashley

Free Pattern: Scoops!

I released this free pattern on Ravelry several months ago, but I figured it would be a nice addition to my new blog. 

This easy hat pattern was cooked up when I found four scrap balls of Malabrigo Worsted in my yarn trunk that looked strikingly like scoops of ice cream.  The scrap balls were too small to make any one item with, but too big to just throw away.  The hat is knit on large needles so the hat is loose and slouchy, and I added a giant pom-pom for some extra fun!

It's Time For a Blog

Hello, Internet!

I have wanted to do this whole knitting blog business for a really long time, but something about the gorgeous weather today and a particularly boring pharmacy management class gave me the energy to give it a go!  I'm going to use this blog to show-and-tell you about the projects I am currently working on, give the run down on some cool techniques I've run into, and maybe post a few patterns every now and then!  (I've only made one pattern so far, but it was crazy fun so I want to do much more of that from now on!)

So here we go!  Lately I've been stung by the Beekeeper's Quilt bee!

I have been what the cool kids are referring to as "puffing" in my idling hours since the end of July.  I've even convinced a few girls in my knitting group to pick up the puffs.  We've started a game called "Puff Puff Pass", where we knit puffs from each others skeins during our weekly meetings so we get a nice variety of colors in our quilts.  Now I have 166 "hexipuffs".  Of course I need, like, a thousand of these things to cover my bed.  A hundred and sixty-six feels like a drop in the bucket.

But every time I start feeling overwhelmed by the numbers game, I just pull out the patch of honeycomb goodness that I have already stitched together and imagine how awesome it is going to look once it is finished.

When I am not puffing, I am working on my Christmas knitting.  I am currently working on some Fishtail Wristwarmers out of some awesome Malabrigo Sock in Eggplant for a classmate of mine.

I'm more of a hat kind of gal, so making a pair of gloves feels like such a daunting task.  Hopefully I'll be able to finish this glove and the mate so that I can share happy fun pictures with you guys!


Lastly, I wanted to share pictures of my latest finished projects!  Both are patterns from the exceptionally talented Alex Tinsley who is one of my favorite knitting designers.  She makes lots of cool hat patterns and I make a lot of hats.  It works.  :)

This one is Rimple in Madelinetosh Vintage (Tern) and Malabrigo Sock (Ochre). 

This is Catacomb in Malabrigo Rios (Coco).

So that's it for now!  I have a free pattern I wrote up a few months back and released on Ravelry, but I am going to make a post here with the pattern in it for people who aren't on Ravelry (if you aren't, you totally should be!).  

I am super excited to be a part of the knitting blogging world and I hope to post more helpful content in the future!

♥ ashley