Misc. Saturday update

I went to two yarn shops this weekend and didn't buy any yarn. If I would have seen Panda Cotton or Wick I would have scooped it up in a heartbeat, but I didn't.

I did see this though:
It's blue (of course, that got my attention right away), it's fabric, it's in a yarn shop...
It organizes my double-pointed sock knitting needles perfectly!! Just the right number of needle pouches. (That is until I buy MORE dpns but I'll worry about that when the time comes. And it even has a little zippered pouch on the side to hold my cable needles, darning needles, scissors and other misc. stuff I always need when I'm knitting.

I bought it at Purl One, Sit Too in Strasburg, PA. It is made by Lantern Moon.

Also, I wanted to post a picture of the progress on my Branching Out scarf:
Wow, not a very great picture, but you can see I have been working on it! I promise to take a more "in focus" picture once it is done.

And last, but not least, (well, maybe it should be least) remember the yellow "beginner's bear" that I mentioned in my first bears post? Yes, my sad, pathetic first attempt at a knit bear with yellow and white dishcloth cotton. Well, here it is:
Notice the yellow yarn hanging down from his one arm. I really didn't follow the directions when attaching his arms. So sad...

I've come a long way. I'll leave you with a picture of one of my better knit bears, "Sleepy Sam", also from Sandra Polley's The Knitted Teddy Bear:

Knit Bears

I thought I'd start by blogging about some of my past projects. I'll begin by sharing some pictures of the teddy bears I have knit. I had just taught myself to knit, back in 2004, and went to Borders one day at lunch to look at knitting books. I saw "The Knitted Teddy Bear" by Sandra Polley and just loved all the cute bear patterns in the book! I didn't buy the book that day because I just barely knew how to cast on and the knit and purl stitch. I didn't really think I was ready to tackle knit bears on tiny needles! But, I couldn't stop thinking about the book and ended up going back and buying it within a week.

My first attempt at a bear was the Beginner's Bear which basically consisted of knitting 5 squares of garter stitch (I could handle that!) and then forming them into a bear. I used yellow and white dishcloth cotton! The squares were easy to knit, but then it was time to turn squares into bears. That didn't go so well. I don't have a picture of it, but my mom still has the bear, so I will try to post a picture at some point. I didn't really follow the directions correctly to sew the arms and legs on and my attempt at embroidering a face onto it gave it a Billy Idol sneer. It was not a pretty site. But I couldn't get rid of it since it was my first attempt!

Well, I thought, maybe if I try following one of the "real" patterns I'd have better luck. So, I decided to try the "Oliver" pattern because I thought he was the cutest bear in the book and he was small, and I like small projects! But, again I started knitting with cotton yarn, some kind of almost braided cotton yarn that I found on sale at Wal-mart. It was thinner than dishcloth cotton, but had NO stretch. And here I am trying to do increases and decreases on US 2 needles with cotton yarn. Also, this is my FIRST time learning increases and decreases as I'm knitting on tiny needles with non-stretchy cotton yarn. I don't know how many times the stitches popped right off my needles and I would pull it all out and cast on again because I did not know how to pick up stitches. It was definitely a learning experience! So, I plodded along and eventually knit all the little pieces of Oliver and was ready to assemble. I hate assembling. So, I spend hours (probably) sewing together little Oliver knit pieces and end up with this:

Looks more like a rat, than a bear, eh? I think I took up too many stitches when I sewed his little head together and also didn't stuff it enough. Who knows!

Anyway, I later went to a real yarn shop, got some merino wool and tried the pattern again and came up with a much better looking Oliver:


[This was also after I had knit several other bear patterns from the book and figured out the best way to sew them up.] This Oliver looks like the picture in the book, a cute little bear. Alas, I was having camera troubles then, so the picture isn't very sharp, but at least you can tell it's a bear!

But, the first knit bear to actually come out looking like it was supposed to was the "Christopher & Rosie" pattern. I will post about that another time!