Fifty-Cent Slippers

Delilah was over today, and SINCE I always make her take her shoes off to get on the couch, and SINCE I just got a new tiny-people's slipper pattern, I decided to make her up a pair. So, I knitted while she played on the computer, watched cartoons, ate her lunch and played with some scrap yarn. I got the skein of yarn in the Target Dollar Spot quite some time ago, and I used about half the skein for the slippers- hence the title. They turned out really cute, and she wore them around after they were made until she had to leave. I think I will have to figure out how to adapt this pattern to my size.

Hi, my name is Rachael, and I'm a Yarn-a-holic...

OK, when I keep talking about my huge pile of yarn, this is what I mean. I have been knitting like crazy since about October, and still I have all this. It doesn't get used up as quickly as one might hope. I have made hats (about 18), slippers (2 pair), a shawl, a toddler sweater, an afghan (using 4 skeins and size 50's), and a couple dishcloths and various other things here and there. I've even knitted a few scarves on my fingers! And all that didn't even seem to make a dent in this pile! Ah well, I'll just keep on knitting......

And this- my first "buy the ugly sweater from the thrift store just for the yarn". As you can see it is a lovely hot pink. The yarn is a chenille type-nice and heavy. Not 100% sure what I'm going to do with this just yet, but I have been reading about "recycling" ugly sweaters lately and wanted to try. So far I've got the one sleeve off and started unraveling it- and found that it is actually 2 strands together, so that opens up some different possibilities for the resulting yarn. Hmmm.....

Finally, a Sweater!

Here is a picture of Little Delilah wearing "The sweater that Aunt Rachael sewed for me". And that's her mom with her in the picture. The little sweater turned out cute- a little stretchy, but maybe it'll be better once it gets washed. I made it using Bernat Softee Chunky and size 11 needles and followed a pattern for an infant sweater that called for worsted weight and size 10. The pattern was in the new book I got, One-Skein Wonders. Obviously, I used more than one skein, since I made it bigger and because I had both colors and wanted to use them up. I've been knitting other things too...some slippers, a stuffed piggy, working on yet another blanket. Anything to use up this huge pile of yarn!

Speed Stix

Yesterday, I finally went out and bought myself a pair of size 50 knitting needles. I thought it would help me use up this monstrous pile of yarn more quickly and I was right. I started this afghan about 3:30pm and finished it at about 12:30am, with a few small breaks (you know, dinner and stuff). The Lionbrand website's patterns for Speed Stix afghans were mostly just stockinette stitch, and started with casting on thirty-something stitches. Well, boring! But the number of stitches gave me an idea. I pulled out my "Dischcloths from the Heart" book and picked out a pattern. I chose the seed stitch heart- it might be kinda hard to see in the pic, but it turned out great. The only thing I changed was to add some rows on either end to make it rectangular instead of square. And it used up 4 skeins of yarn!! Hooray!