MONSTERSOCKEN

One of our S&B members turned me on to this site, Monstersocken which shows the latest craze in sock knitting.

From what I understand, you use all your odds and ends to knit up socks. The point is as varied and frenzied, and most important, as un-matching as possible for the pair of socks.

Here I thought I was being all wild and carefree by having mismatched toes on the socks.

Knitting Rap Song

It's a rap song about knitting - really! (It reminds me of Weird Al Yankovich.)

A friend's daughter found it online and passed it on to my friend. A hilarious MP3 that takes off on a rap song that was popular a few years back. Mike Bryant's Knitta Please - scroll down toward the bottom, look to your right, there are MP3 downloads (free). Click on "Knitta Please".

Sample of the lyrics:
My knitters in the back click-clack/we're gonna take the craft fair back... it's got me in stitches and purls/it's a knitter's world... hold your needles in the air/let me see your new mohair!

Wine & Knit VI - Hootenanny!

Ha! Fooled you, you thought we were at a hoe-down, didn't you? Far from it - we gathered at the Phoenician Cafe on West Locust (just past St. Ambrose) in Davenport. We were fortunate enough to sit under the tent:



The S&B chicks: Jeanne, myself, Claire, Linda, Ann, Seneca (my daughter), and Brenda (Karen was our photographer for the evening).




Linda showed us her most recent baby sweater for a friend:




Our hosts & chefs, Dani and Samar Halabi, couldn't have been more gracious and talented in the kitchen if they tried! I mean, look at what remained of our meal (served family style).






Our meal was an incredible mix of all things Lebanese. We had beef, lamb and chicken; cauliflower, broccoli and zucchini; falafel; pita with hummus and baba ghannouge. All fresh, hot and wonderfully seasoned and cooked! Some of us followed the meal with tea and Claire had the espresso type coffee. My daughter, Linda and I managed to taste the baklava (divine!).

Oh! But wait! It wasn't all about the knitting and eating at the Phoenician Cafe, oh no... There was dancing involved:











Yes, my daughter was swinging it whenever the opportunity arose to dance, and keeping Ann company the second time around.

Our lovely dancers and the bellydancer for the evening (who was so gracious, funny and encouraging).




And the group, after the event:





Many thanks to Linda (for making the reservations) and to Karen (for taking the photos) for your help during W&K VI!

Getting Felted

My new interest lies in felting and how I managed to ignore and dismiss such magical knitting projects is beyond my ken...

I finished one Lucy Bag (now fondly referred to as my LB Knitting Bag) and currently, I'm waiting to felt my second Lucy Bag (soon to be call my LB Book Bag).

I'm now on a search for felting projects and lucky you! You get the results of such a search:

Felted Cell Carrier

This has got to be the ugliest knitted/felted object I've seen outside of You Knit What??

* * *

Small Felted Purses by Cascade

Scroll down and look for the pattern in the second row. It's in PDF form. These are cute and look fairly easy to knit up. And it's in Cascade, my favorite yarn after Lamb's Pride.

Scroll down a bit further and look at the cool felted triangle bag.

(By the way, here's the page that shows the list of all the free patterns at Cascade.)

* * *

Mini Skull and Crossbones Tote

Fair Isle Skulls

Excellent for at least one of our group, yes?

* * *

Tiny Felted Tote/Gift Bag

And the little felted tote I wrote about back in December.

I Feel A Wee Bit Woozy.

Did y'all see the comment yet?

Do you *know* who Bonne Marie is? She's one of the first (and largest) knitting blogs out in the ether world & also a preeminent knitting designer.

And she left a comment on the blog about y'all knitting the headband.

This. Is. A. Big. Fat. Deal.

Linda? Barb? How does it feel to have the designer peeking at your work?

If you need more info on the lovely Bonne Marie Burns, here's a Knitty.com article that she authored.

Cables!

This is what 15 minutes free during lunch will get you. Trouble.

Cables, plaits and braids from Elizabeth Dimbleby. She has even more free stuff here.

And if you're wanting to combine sock knitting with Aran designs, John Anderson's Kilt Hose by Robert Jenkins.

A bit late to find it, here's a Christmas stocking with an Aran pattern. (Scroll down the page a bit to see it, when you go there.)

The almost end-all-be-all of Aran patterns is at Knitting Pattern Central. Type in "aran" (without the quotation marks) and it will pull up the patterns for you.

Finally, some history of the Aran sweater.

Happy Holidays (13 days and counting)...

Until Christmas and Hannukah - hope you're not wearing yourselves out with all the gift knitting!

And look who is in that shiny holiday type dress! Karen's finally put up her photos!

Patterns for Mini Knits

We were all just crazy about Jen's wee sweater and talked about free patterns on the web for mini knits.

Click here for mini knit mittens.


Click this one for mini knit Christmas stocking.


Click this one here for two more mini Christmas stockings.


Click this link for mini knit hat (scroll down the page when you get there).


Click this link right here for mini knit scarf pattern.


And here's one link for a mini sweater, but not the one Jen was knitting.


If you have any to suggest, drop us a comment!