Free Pattern: Cactaur!

All Final Fantasy fans are well familiar with this bouncy, lightening fast, prickly pal!  And now you can knit one of your own.  Except he won’t be so bouncy, fast, or prickly...  But he will be cute and snuggly!  Maybe you can knit this little guy so he can keep you company on your next battle!

Pattern: Dude Hat

Okay, so it doesn’t have to be a dude hat. Obviously ladies can rock this hat too, but we all know there is a lack of guy hats out there, so I thought why not throw my go-to dude hat into the mix?
This is a super simple hat that knits up pretty quickly. I finished mine in one day! If you’ve got a dude-ish guy on your Knit List, why not give this one a shot?

December-Due Knitting

December is here!  Like many other knitters, I am scrambling to wrap up my December-due knitting.  Not only do I have a few more Christmas knits to finish, but I had a fair number of friends with December birthdays and one Handmade in 2011 task to finish before the year is up.  With finals right around the corner (this week, actually), I have been stress-knitting away!

I showed pictures of this hat for Whitney in my last post, but I thought I would show just how cute it looks on her!  I gave it to her last night at our weekly Knit Night.  When I asked her to model the hat for me, I told her to "make a sexy pose!"  This is what I got:

She immediately put it on with the welts in the back.  I never would have thought of that, but it looks so super cute on her!

I also finished a hat for my friend Pinky whose birthday is December 20th.  It's made from Alex Tinsley's Maelstrom Beret out of Malabrigo Rios in the colorway Primavera.  The colors are just so fun!

This hat is for my friend Aaron who is in a band called Queens of the Galaxy.  I ordered a slew of Malabrigo Rios, and when I got the Zarzamora colorway in the mail, his band name jumped into my mind.  

I made up this pattern myself.  It's super simple.  I'm sure it's been done before, but I was quite pleased with how my decreases came out as a neat little star so I decided to write up the pattern.  (Of course Jonathan put the hat on crooked so the center of the star/hat seems off place, but whatever.)  Anyway, I'll have the pattern posted later tonight!

I am currently working on a pattern for a toy of a popular video game series.  Can you guess what it is before I finish it?  Hint:  He's definitely not a hugger!

Happy knitting, everyone!  I hope everyone can get this December-due knitting done without too much carpal tunnel!

♥ ashley

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