Happy Halloween!

Halloween Buddy Bags!

Trick or treat

Smell my feet

Give me something good to knit!

With halloween at our doorstep, I couldn't resist knitting up a couple of spooky Buddy Bags for my little Jujube and Lolo to trick-or-treat with.   I used my original Buddy Bag pattern to knit up

 the drawstring backpacks.  

I knit Lolo's to spec, but made Julian's a little larger by casting on an extra 20 stitches and knitting for 10 inches before working the eyelet row.  I also made his I-cord a little longer so that it would fit well (and hold more candy of course)!

I came up with three new spooky pocket/buddy variations.  First there's the witch in her cauldron with optional logs and flames!

Then there's the glow-in-the dark one-eyed goblin in a jack-o-lantern.  If you haven't seen this glow in the dark yarn yet, head off to Michael's, Mary Maxim or Zellers right away!  It's the coolest thing ever.  Nasty to knit with to be sure but it really does glow quite brightly.  Julian's been sleeping with a ball of it waiting patiently for me to turn it into something funner.  It's made by Bernat and is simply too cool for school!

And then, perhaps spookiest of all is the ghost in a tombstone.  Boo-ooo-oo!  It doesn't have a face yet but I plan on getting some of that glossy fabric puff paint to 'paint it on'!  If it works, it will completely revolutionize my approach to eyes on knitted toys.   I'll let you know how it works out ;0)

As a special holiday treat (and thank you) to all my patrons, I'll be including the pattern for all 3 halloween variations with my Buddy Bag pattern at least until the end of the month. That's all 7 variations (4 original + 3 halloween) for the price of 1!  Ravelry downloads going forward will also include all 7 variations.

Already bought the pattern?  No problem.  Check your e-mail, it's on it's way to you too ;0)  I am sending the pdf pattern file with the halloween buddies to everyone who bought the original Buddy Bag pattern.  Due to quotas from my e-mail provider though, I can't send them all at once so you might need to be a little patient.  If you haven't received the new pattern by Sunday night, send me an e-mail at anny {at} jujubeandlolo {dot} com and I'll hook you up.

Happy {early} Halloween from Jujube & Lolo!

A L'illo for Lolo...

I think I cast on for L'illo the very day it was released on knitty.  It was one of those projects that just was meant to be.  I had just the yarn in the exact right quantity and just the boy to wear it too!  And so it was, a little L'illo...

...for my little Lolo ;0)

The sweater is super cute in a modern vintage kind of way:  the woven stitch and construction makes it feel vintage, but the assymetric ribbed placket and collar is cool modern.  Love it!  

Though I have to admit that the actual knitting on this one was less than pleasant.  I knit it from RYC Cashcotton which is deliciously soft and shows great crisp stitch definition but it's utter lack of give makes it really hard on the hands and wrists.  

So much so that knitting this sweater gave me my very first taste of carpel tunnel pain - loss of grip and strength in my right hand, sharp shooting pains to the elbow, cold hands and numbness in my thumb, ring finger and pinky.  Scary!

Thankfully, now that it's done, the pain is gone.  It's one of the many things I was thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend.  Of course I was also thankful for my family, grandma's turkey, a delightful walk in the woods (above), my sister's ham and fiber...naturally!  

Happy Thansgiving to you and yours!  Oh, and if you're Canadian, don't forget to vote on Tuesday, eh?

A is for Apples...

...and for Abigail!  I had such fun knitting for Ceilli last week that I just couldn't resist knitting for the daughter of another one of Stephen's office buddies, Abigail, this week.  And that's how these cute little piggies charmed their way onto my needles ;0)

The pattern is Spilly Jane's Piggy mittens and the yarn is Knit Picks Shine Worsted.  I was worried about running out of yarn (I only had one ball of each shade) so knit the rolled cuffs in a lighter shade of pink which turned out to be a good thing because by the time I finished the second snout, there were just a few yards of the darker yarn left!  I used it to knit a striped I-cord to make sure these little piglets don't loose each other and by the time I was done, there was no yarn left, just cute little mittens.  Oh how I would have loved these when I was a wee one.  I hope Abby loves them too and that they keep her little hands nice and toasty in the cooler days ahead...

The days sure are getting shorter and cooler around these parts.  The tempertatures are a-dropping, the leaves are a-falling and the apples are ripe for the a-picking!  So we made the most of the season by taking the boys to a local orchard last weekend for an afternoon of ladder-climbing, crisp-apple eating, tractor-riding, farm-animal-petting and of course, just plain running amuck in an orchard.  And what fun it was.  

And then to top it all off, there was homemade apple and sugar pie!  A perfect end to a perfect weekend.  

Martha would have been proud ;0)

Knitting for Ceilli

I love having two boys.  Love! Of course I would love to be putting bows in curly locks too, but when I see the beautiful relationship that is developing between my little guys and how much they enjoy playing together, I'm pretty happy it turned out the way it did ;0)

But every once in a while, I get an urge for cute girly knitting...you know, with lace and ruffles and flowers and eyelets and picot edges!  Ah, the stuff of dreams!  Luckily, there seems to be a little girly baby boom around us and a sweet little girl was born to friend of Stephen's a few weeks ago and I was more than happy to get knitting on a little frilly knitterly gift ;0)

It's the upside-down daisy hat from Susan B. Anderson's Itty Bitty Hats and the flower pacifier clip from Itty Bitty Nursery (though you can get the flower clip pattern for free here just like I did).  The yarn is stash Knit Picks Shine Worsted and both were knit with US 7 bamboo needles.

Both were quick to knit but long to seam.  I don't mind that because I actually really enjoy seaming and finishing.  I'm strange that way.  I ended up making a few mods to the pattern, some intentional, others quite by accident.  For the hat, I sewed on five of the petals instead of six.  I knit the newborn size and found that there was too much overlap with six petals...so much so that it looked like a circle up on top rather than a daisy.

For the flower clip, I found the instructions for the petals confusing and figured there had to be errata there.  I thought I fixed it by knitting one, moving the yarn to the front, slipping one, passing the yarn to the back and continuing this way across the row.  I continued this way and ended up with what I think is double knitting!  Quite by {happy} accident! 

I thought this is what the pattern meant but then the pattern says to turn it right side out with the purl bumps on the inside when finishing and mine didn't have any purl bumps, just nice stockinette that laid flat on both sides.  Tres cool!

For the pacifier clip, I sewed two pieces of velcro on the end instead of dismantling an actual store bought pacifier holder to harvest the hardware.  It just seemed wasteful to me.  I used the clip from an old name tag holder I got at some convention in another life when I had business functions!  Seems like ages ago.  It felt very fitting to be dismantling office supplies to turn them into pacifier holders ;0)

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out and hope that baby Ceilli will enjoy them for a while before outgrowing them.  I guess that's the nice thing about the binky holder, it will fit for a long while!

Now off to knit something blue...