Tweets, a toy for cats, is here!

The poll has closed and "Tweets" won with 17 votes. Monty (the dead parrot) finished with 11 votes and Fly Boys with 6. I've emailed copies of the finished two-page pattern to the winner and the 2 runners up. Enjoy!

These toys are a fast knit and should take less than 30 minutes to make. The little birds are about 3.5" high. I've included 3 different beak/bills (curved, long, short) and how to make it with or without wings. It only takes a few yards of worsted weight scrap yarn to make a Tweet.

The body is knit flat in garter stitch. The beak and wings are knit in as you go. The legs are added at the end. You fold the bird body along the front edge and seam down the back of the head, tail and bottom. Since it's worked in garter stitch, seaming is easy. Just weave the yarn back and forth pulling the purl bumps on each side together.

The two-page pattern can be found in my Ravelry pattern store.

All money from sales of this pattern will be donated to Pet Refuge.

For more information, visit my Ravelry pattern store to see all my available designs, current pricing information, and purchase pattern downloads.

Ice and freezing rain predicted

Our weather forecast for the next 2 or 3 days does not look good. Starting after midnight tonight, we could get significant freezing rain and ice. Once this crazy front moves in it is supposed to stall out for several days. Which, of course, means an even greater chance of ice. A local weather forecaster is predicting 1/3" of ice tomorrow.

It only takes 1/2" of ice to break trees and bring down power lines. This has me worried.

I still remember several years ago when we had an ice storm in January. Everything was encased in ice. All day we heard nothing but crack, slide, and thud as the trees near us broke under the weight of the ice. Yes, the heaviest branches hitting the ground made out house shake. Thank God we didn't have any trees over our home!

We were lucky in that storm to only lose our electricity for about 4 hours. Others in the area were out for days. Not what you want when the temperatures are below the freezing point. :-(

We'll hunker down and hope for the best.

And the winner is...

Well, actually there are three--Tanya, Sue, and Chris. Their submissions were so good that I couldn't choose between them. So I've decided that all three will receive a free copy of the bird toy pattern once I have a name to put on it.

My three favorites are: Tweets, Monty (the dead parrot), and Fly Boys.

To help me choose the best name, I've created a poll on the right hand side of my blog.

Please vote once for what you think is the most appropriate name for the pattern.
(Please play fair and don't ask all your friends to vote for the name you submitted. Thanks!)

The poll closes on Monday at Noon (EST).

Stole progress report

Here's a peek at the new lace pattern I have in the works. This picture is a rough pin block so you can get an idea of the design. I've completed 4 repeats of the chart. I'm knitting it with some merino handspun from my stash. I'll keep knitting until I have just enough to do the final edging. I'm very pleased with how the design is turning out.

I'm calling it Promenade for the motifs that stroll along the length of the stole as well as the meandering zigzags formed between them. (Though I could just as easily call it Meandering Paths.)

After combing through every book I have for lace edging patterns (and everything I could find on the web), I ended up designing my own from scratch. It's a nice wide border that will only be on the ends of the stole. The edging repeats the heart that appears inside each motif and adds a fern leaf point. It's all in garter stitch and knits up quickly.

The stole starts by knitting the edging and then picking up the body stitches in the slipped stitches on the edging. The body is knit in stockinette, purling the WS rows . Knit the body as long as you like (or as long as my yarn allows LOL!). Then cast on for the edging and bind off (cast off) 1 body stitch with every other row of edging you knit.

This pattern I'll rate as intermediate because of the edging and the fact that some of the wrong side body rows have pattern stitches to knit. They're not all straight purling. It's those extra stitches that give the motifs those elongated points.

I got the idea for this stole from the Janus stitch pattern in the Barbara Walker books. I deconstructed it and played with the resulting motifs.

I'm considering offering this as a charted only design. I don't knit lace from line-by-line instructions and it's not easy to write them up. Alternately, I may offer two versions with the charted one costing less than the one with both charted and line-by-line directions.

I'd be curious to know what you think of this idea. Reactions? Comments?

Coming soon...and a blog contest

I have a new cat toy pattern! It's a little bird.

The birds are about 3.5" high x 3.5" long. There are options to make it with or without wings and with a curved or a straight beak.

It is knit flat on straight needles. You fold the completed bird along the front edge and seam down the back of the head, tail and bottom. Since it's worked in garter stitch, seaming is easy. You just weave the yarn back and forth pulling the purl bumps on each side together.

While it's being test knitted by Marti, I've decided to have a blog contest to give it a name. Send me your suggestions and I'll pick my favorite.

The winner will receive a free copy of the pattern.

The contest is open until Noon (EST) on Thursday. You may enter as many times as you like. Email your name suggestions to junkyarn AT yahoo DOT com with a subject line of Bird Contest.

Fingerless computer mitts

I recently stumbled upon the project I made with my first spindle spun yarn. It's a pair of fingerless mitts I wear when I use the computer during cold weather. (Today is one of those days. Brr!) If you take a close look at the picture, you'll see that one of the mitts biased when I knit it. (This is something that an unbalanced single ply of handspun would do.) Yup, I made a mistake plying the yarn. I couldn't remember which direction to spin when I plied it. LOL! I don't remember what kind of wool I used either. Regardless, the yarn knitted up fine, the mitts are warm and that's really all that matters.

Here's the pattern I designed for them. They are simple, fast, and easy to knit. The second picture is of one of the pairs I've made and gifted to friends and family. I made it with Paton's Look at Me yarn. The scrap yarn was from a baby sweater I had made. (I know, I know, just call me frugal and the scrap yarn queen. LOL!)

These mitts will just cover your knuckles and leave your fingers and your thumb free. You can try them on as you go to see if they will fit the way you want them to. Feel free to make them longer or larger or add your favorite stitch pattern to make them yours.

FINGERLESS COMPUTER MITTS

Free pattern is now available through my Ravelry pattern store.

Whew, bazaar items delivered!

All the items I made for the Pet Refuge bazaar have been tagged, bagged, and delivered this morning. Here's a run down of what I finished. A lot of the patterns I used are my own and are available in my Ravelry store. The few online ones I used I've added links. Krysten and Silja were kind enough to give me permission to use their patterns to make items for the bazaar. Thanks so much!

9 Scarves (curly, eyelash, braided, and garter stitch)
16 Bracelet or hairband
6 Cotton baby bibs - Simple Baby Bib
1 Tote bag
1 Heart coaster (set of 3) Silja's Christmas Hearts
6 Kids crown
1 Round coasters (set of 3)
8 Bunny with fillable egg
11 Soap sacks with soap
9 Dish scrubbie sponge - Krysten's Cotton Dish sponges
3 Dino keychain
1 Round dish scrubbie - There are several patterns online for these. I loved the idea of these but found them to be a pain to make.

I asked Pet Refuge to let me know what sells well. I plan to make items throughout the year and put them aside for next year's bazaar. I still have a lot more ideas for small things I could make. I've run out of time for now. There are a lot of other things I need to get busy making.

I goofed up on my stole pattern so I ripped it back and started again. Since I'll be taking picture of it for the pattern, I want it to be correct. I hadn't chosen an edging pattern when I started knitting it before. So this time I knit the edging and picked up the stitches for the body of the stole. It looks great! It's slow progress though as lately I haven't had the free time and/or concentration to work on lace. I do have a friend busy test knitting it as well.

The stole will be called Promenade. After looking through every lace edging pattern in all the books I have plus everything online I could find, I ended up designing my own edging from scratch.