Thoughts on Christmas 2011

Hello all!

I have been planning on writing a post about this Christmas for about a month now. However, as you can see my month has gotten away with me and it is almost midnight on Christmas. However, the Christmas season continues into January, so I feel it is fine to still write about Christmas even now.

This year is the first year I am spending Christmas in Pulaski. My new apartment has been decorated for the season since just after Thanksgiving:



It is interesting how Christmas tree decorations tend to give you a glimpse into a persons interests. The tree I have, I received as a Christmas present in high school. You can probably imagine that my Christmas tree is decked with purple garland and all sorts of musical ornaments. I love all the jingle bell music notes and musical themed ornaments that cover my tree.



Christmas in Pulaski was much different than our 'typical' Christmas, but nice nonetheless. We had homemade macaroni and cheese with hot dogs, salad, and broccoli. Much different than our normal fancy Italian dinners we normally make. It was nice to have my parents come to my apartment and go to church here in Pulaski.

On Tuesday, we will head to Illinois to see my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. I always look forward to time I can spend with them and we will be celebrating with my uncle, aunt, and two cousins this year. We rarely find time to celebrate with them during the month of December so this will be a nice change. The only thing missing is seeing my sister, but unfortunately I will have to wait for a while before I see her again.

Merry Christmas!
Brittany

Crocheted Hat Fever

I know I should be working on more 60 Quick Knits for Em and my blog. However, I have suddenly gotten an itch to crochet some hats. Ever since the trip to Stitches Midwest this August I have found my passion for crocheting yet again. I cannot explain it, but suddenly my eyes were opened to all the wonderful patterns you can crochet. Now don't get me wrong I still love knitting, but crocheting was one of my first crafting loves and I am happy to be back to it.



When I went to Stitches I saw this woman, Pam, at the Halos for Hope booth wearing a GORGEOUS hat (pictured above). When I saw it I knew I had to have it. I talked to her about it and she told me it was a crochet pattern that you could find in Annie's Attic - Chemo Caps and Wraps. She did not have any copies at that time, but by the end of the weekend I had purchased a copy that was signed by her! It was very exciting.

My friend Em wanted to crochet the hat as well so I had to try it out a few times to make sure it came out alright. (I tend to teach better when I have completed the project myself, especially because I can kind of freehand different stitches and fix mistakes as I go.) After making one hat, which has received many compliments from both my students and friends.



The pattern is rather simple but works up like a cabled knit pattern. It especially looks beautiful in a variegated yarn. Since I made the first one I made another and am about half way finished with a third hat. Last night I sat down and helped my friend Em through the process of crocheting the hat. She is not particularly comfortable with her crocheting skills, but I helped her successfully crochet the hat in just a few hours. (She only has a little single crocheting for the brim to do.) If she can make it through this pattern so can YOU! The only tricky thing is first learning the DC foundation (from back to front) followed by the Twisted DC Foundation. I looked up a YouTube video to help me get through the stitch a couple times and then it became second nature. Before you know it you have a beautiful hat.



Happy Crocheting!

Crocheted and Knitted Dishcloths

Hello readers!

I know it has been a while since I posted in this blog. In case you do not know already, my friend Em and I are currently writing a blog about knitting all the patterns from 60 Quick Knits. You can read and check out our blog here.

Though I have stayed busy knitting all the beautiful patterns from Cascade Yarns: 60 Quick Knits. I still have taken a few breaks in the last few months to express my creativity in different ways. Some of these include, decorating my music classroom with bulletin boards, scrapbooking, and a few knitting and crocheting projects not from the book. I would like to catch you all up in the next few weeks with my many projects.

Today, I am going to share the dishcloths I made a few months ago. In May, I had a friend from high school get married. For a bridal shower gift, I decided to make something rather practical that I know anyone can use. I decided to knit and crochet several dishcloths.



The ones pictured above are knit out of soft cotton. The colors were so vibrant and my friend, Rachel, said they were so pretty she was almost afraid to wash dishes with them. You can find the pattern for these dishcloths here. The blue dishcloth is the basketweave pattern. The green dishcloth is the bramble pattern, and the pink dishcloth is a creation of my own.



When you take a closer look at the dishcloths you will notice I added the letters different ways. I experimented with chain stitching and back-stitching. Personally, I prefer to just knit the letters in. If I were to redo these that is what I would do.

Along with the knitted dishcloths, I also took the time to make three crocheted dishcloths:






All three of these patterns are free patterns that you can check out too! Pattern #1 - Simple Dishcloth, Pattern #2 - Basketweave Dishcloth, and Pattern #3 - Granny Square Dishcloth. For these I used left over Sugar and Cream yarn.

Altogether, I was VERY happy with the results. I hope you enjoy them too. If you have any questions about the patterns just let me know! :) You can also check out more pictures of this project and others at my Flickr Account.

Happy Knitting and Crocheting,
Brittany

Cascade Yarn and 60 Quick Knits

Well, I have not been working on any projects that are not in the 60 Quick Knits book since Em and I are trying to finish all the projects. As of yesterday we had 17 projects completed. If you would like to see more about how that adventure is going check out our blog 60 Projects from 60 Quick Knits.

Anyways, what I would like to blog about today is how much I am LOVING making all these patterns with Cascade 220 yarns. I had almost finished with project #22 - Cables and Bobbles Cap, when I found that I had run out of yarn.



Normally, I would have been worried as I bought this yarn at a LYS that closed this summer. Luckily I knew the exact color and could buy the yarn online. I went to Yarn Country and ordered LOTS of Cascade yarn to use for more 60 Quick Knits. Below you can see a picture of all the yarn that I received in the mail.



It is so fun to buy yarn online because you get the package in the mail and then get the excitement of opening the box to see what is inside. It can be a little risky because you do not know the exact color, but it is still really fun to receive it in the mail. It is obvious that I received large quantities of yarn, but do not fear I have projects in mind for all of the yarn. You can see what I'm expecting to use the yarn on by looking at my pictures below:

Project #1 - Chain-Link Scarf


Project #10 -Diagonal Stripes Hat


Project #15 - Striped & Bobbled Hat


Project #24 - Mitered Scarf


Project #42 - Ribbed Pillbox


If any of these projects catch your eye keep checking our blog for updates!
Brittany

Taylor's Strawberry Hat

Back in November my sister-in-law asked me to make my niece a new hat. I made her a cute purple ear flap hat last year for her first birthday. My sister-in-law said it was starting to get kind of small and Taylor (my niece) now has a hot pink coat. After rummaging through all my knitting and crocheting books my sister-in-law loved the idea of a cute hot pink strawberry hat. At first we were both thinking having a stem on the top of the hat, but then she mentioned liking the ear flaps to keep Taylor's ears warm. That is when I decided to make the strawberry upside down. That way the bottom of the hat could be the leaves of the strawberry and two rather large leaves could be the ear flaps.

I debated for a few days and drew some sketches and thought about how to do certain things. I finally started crocheting the hat in late December. By January 5 the project was complete.

Please take a look at the pictures and let me know what you think:

Side View


Back View


Front View

Thanks for looking!

60 Quick Knits Duel Blog

Em and I decided that it would be easiest to keep everyone up to date with our New Years Resolution by creating a joint blog. I will still probably write a bit about some of my progress or put links from this blog to that blog to remind you to read my posts. However, it did make a lot of sense to make something that I did not have to constantly update. This way Em can put more information on the projects she completes and I can do the same. If you are interested in learning more about our Adventures, please go to our blog and follow us. Also, if you enjoy the 60 Quick Knits book as much as Em and I do, feel free to join the Ravelry group for 60 Quick Knits. There are all sorts of people that can help with your own projects.

Superbowl Sunday 2011

I have lived in Green Bay the majority of my life. It is a great place to live, but the city's dependance on the Packers can sometimes be extremely annoying. However, these two weeks leading up to the Superbowl remind me why I DO enjoy living in Green Bay. There are parades, there are parties, there are pep rallies. I still remember many parts of the Superbowl XXXI and XXXII. I remember what we ate and different events leading up to the Superbowl. I remember the radio playing about 3 hour or 4 hours straight of Packer music. As a child my sister and I recorded a lot of the music and would play it over and over again cheering on our favorite team. I have now grown older and lost a lot of interest in football (and sports, in general). My love and devotion to music and religion definitely surpass most things in my life. However, you cannot help but catch Packer Fever in a town like Green Bay. My mom has planned all sorts of delicious foods to celebrate the day and spent time debating what to wear to bring the most luck. This year, unlike Superbowl XXXI and XXXII I will not be spending it at home. Instead I will be heading over to a friends house for some knitting. It will be great to spend time with my friends and get some knitting done during the Superbowl. By the end of the game I will hopefully have gotten even closer to completing my wave scarf while watching a Packer win! All I know is if the Packers win I can look forward to a weeks worth of happy faces on many of my students' faces.

Keep watching for updates to the 60 Quick Knits post as Knitterqueen and myself continue to knit like crazy.

Enjoy the Superbowl (or the commercials) and/or Glee afterwards!

Completed 60-Quick Knits

As of February 7, 2011 all updates will be talked about on our specific blog for our 60 Quick Knits projects.
--->Here<---
Thanks for your continued interest.


60 Quick Knits by EMBellished Knits and Britter's Little Critters

This post will be edited over the course of the year to show EMBellished Knits and Britter's Little Critters progress on their New Years Resolution. Next to each one it will say in progress, complete, or waiting. Purple font stands for Britter's Little Critters and green font stands for EMBellished Knits. When the project is completed I will also have a link on the completed so you can see what it looks like.

13/60 Projects - Completed
10/60 Projects - In Progess
37/60 Projects - Waiting to be Started

60-Quick Knits

My good friend Em and I have made a knitting New Years Resolution. That is to knit EVERY pattern in the 60-Quick Knits book by the end of the year. Between the two of us we have already almost completed half the patterns in the book. I can't say why we are so addicted to it, but I think it has a lot to do with the simplicity yet the detail of each pattern. When you look at some of the projects highlighted in this book they seem to be so difficult or intricate, but as soon as you start them you realize the simplicity. They aren't simple to a point where you get bored, but also not so difficult that you get confused and have to take your project apart over and over again. When we do complete all of the projects we will probably make a post with all the pictures, but for now you will have to wait.

Anyways, currently I am working on three different projects from the 60-Quick Knits book. I am working on the #11 Wave Scarf, #17 Plaid Mittens, and the other is the #23 Smocked Fingerless Mittens. I started the Smocked Fingerless Mittens (pattern #23) on Friday after buying a beautiful purple heather cascade 220 from someone on ravelry. As soon as I saw the color I knew they needed to be something beautiful and I had my eye on the Smocked Fingerless Mittens for quite sometime now. Since Friday I have finished the left hand one (other than the buttons) and I have started on the right one. I am really happy with the first one and just had to show them off.


And yes, I am wearing a Green Bay Packer's jersey. I am currently watching the game and hoping that the 14 Packers - 0 Bears will lead to a Packers win!!! Packers in Superbowl 2011? I hope so!

EDIT 1/23/11 - 6:42 PM - THE PACKERS WON WE ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!