Project 5: Masculine Basketweave Scarf Teaser Post

Hello readers! I'm still playing catch up, but this should be my last late post (for now!) Another co-worker requested a commission, and this time it was for a scarf. Boy to my male friends go CRAZY for the Lion Suede yarns I had remaining from my yarn stash! It's one of the few discontinued yarns I own and every time without fail I show it to someone they fall in love with it! So this scarf was to use up the last 2/3 of a skein of the Lion Brand Lion Suede yarn in Olive. I had to order 2 more skeins on Ebay (since it is discontinued) so I could make a scarf out of it. In order to prevent adding (or rather maintaining) a fraction of a skein in my yarn stash that I started this blog to try to eliminate, I decided to keep use ALL of the last ball of yarn against my better judgement. Granted, the friend DID ask for "a LONG masculine scarf made out of the suede yarn only that I can wrap around several times and keep me very warm!"

After trying a far more complicated pattern, I decided on a simple basketweave for the sake of keeping knitting relaxing and also because it's simple and very gender neutral. My friend seemed very wary of cables although the first pattern I was attempting had mock cables, but I he seemed very happy when he saw the subtle checker pattern start to emerge! I can't recall the start date of this scarf, but it was right before Christmas if I remember correctly (ironically, I made a red scarf right before Christmas only to follow it with a green scarf!)

Although I only work on the scarf on work breaks and occasionally at home while watching Netflix, I had no idea how long knitting the scarf would actually take me. Turns out each row takes me 2 minutes. There are 10 rows in each square. And there are 50 squares (and counting!) That makes it 16 hours and 40 minutes worth of work so far! So as I near the end of this project, the question I pose to you dear readers (besides the implied "hello, is anyone even reading this?" haha) is: How much should I charge for this particular scarf? Definitely want to include the cost of the materials (approx $21 dollars for 3 skeins of suede yarn.) Other than that, no idea what to charge! Never sold a scarf before, so input would be very helpful. And now I must leave you with my teaser pic, the status of the scarf about 2 or 3 weeks ago when it was only a baby at around 4.5 ft long. Don't worry, more detailed pics with final project post coming VERY soon!

Project 4: All Done!

I was pressed for time, but I think I was able to crank this out in about 5 days or so. Glad I was able to finish it in time for Christmas! I just hate how the edge always curls! >_< I hope after it's washed the first time it won't do that anymore. Sold this one for more than first first one, but only because the buyer gave me a tip/Christmas bonus! :D Now I'm only one project behind, but at least I haven't finished that one, so really I'm just 2 blog posts behind! After that, not sure what I'm making but a couple other coworkers inquired about hats so I'll see if any of them are still interested. If not, time to look for some neat patterns for myself! Or maybe make some more of my own. <3

Project 4: Work in Progress

This was a simple pattern so the hardest thing about this beanie was getting the G right! I looked online and couldn't find any good knitting chart patterns for the G, so I had to come up with my own. I made about 3 different charts before I felt confident enough to try it out and I think I got it pretty good for my first attempt at charting a letter! The rest of the beanie was all knit stitch on circular needles, so it was a breeze. :) Here's a progress pic showing the G that I'm so proud of! Since I was knitting in the round, each row I got to the G again I used a new piece of white yarn and carried the green yarn on the back throughout the logo only, so the back of the G is VERY crazy looking! lol But I sure learned my lesson, because the last time I tried to do this type of color changing in the round I thought it was OK to carry the yarn around the whole hat! Please note: this prevents the hat from being able to stretch at ALL, so don't make this mistake like I did a year ago! ;)

Project 4: Green Bay Beanie

Ok, so still playing catch up! Gomen! Another Christmas present project, but this one was for my coworker's grandson who is a Packers fan like my boyfriend. So I had no qualms making this beanie! Again, didn't use a pattern for this one. Made my own pattern for the G design, but I'll get to that in a different post. This is what my coworkers asked for: "A Packers beanie that is long enough to roll up, and unroll to cover his ears if he wants to."

Here are the yarns I used: Red Heart Super Saver acrylic worsted yarn in Gold, White, and Hunter Green. Originally I was going to use the Lion Brand Hometown Green Bay Green yarn, but alas I couldn't find it anywhere! But I prefer the darker green anyhow.

Project 3: Triple Yarn Garter Scarf

Ok, so I'm still playing catch up here so please forgive me! I'm going to combine this scarf project into 1 post in an attempt to catch up to my current project (project #5!) I made this scarf for my boyfriend's mother for Christmas, so I was kind of pressed for time. It took about 5 or 6 days to knit since I just did a simple garter stitch, but spiced it up by using 3 different yarns and size 13 needles. The yarns I chose were Lion Brand Homespun in Candy Apple, Yarn Bee Icelandic Jewels in Ruby, and Gala 100% Acrylic Yarn (that doesn't have a name for the color according to this Big Lots label that leaves much to the imagination...such at the appropriate needle size and yardage etc, but I'd say it's a crimson/purple twist.)  The Icelandic Jewels yarn is one of the first skeins of yarn I ever got, and I only own one skein of it and it has since been discontinued. I was never very fond of it since my mom picked it out for me, but I really liked it in this scarf. The little flecks ("jewels") of color make it more interesting, and same with the hint of purple in the twist acrylic yarn.

Like I said, for the pattern I just knit simple garter switch and since I ran out of the twist yarn before the other two, I had to end it a few inches earlier than I had planned. I made tassels to compensate for that and with the tassels it seems to be a fairly decent scarf length (forgot to measure it, but I'd say it ended up being between 4.5 and 5 feet long. It feels really nice, and has a lot more color depth then if I had only used one yarn (not to mention it was like 3 times faster to knit!) Sorry I forgot to take a progress pic till the last second on this one (and also combined all three posts into one condensed one) but for the sake of catching up to the project I'm on right now, I figured it had to be done.

Project 2: Complete!

Ok, so I've got some good news and bad news for you.
Good news: I haven't stopped knitting!
Bad news: I've been to busy/lazy to update my knitting blog! (which you probably noticed by now) What with buying a house and moving and all, I think I can say I had a lot on my plate the past few months! I finished this hat back on October 21st, so it's been more than 2 months late! D: But here it is!

Drum role please!...Here are a few pics of the commissioned beanie I sold to my coworker for $20. This is the first thing I've made that I sold, since I usually give them away as gifts (I've been getting better, so I decided to start selling things.) :D I've very happy with how it turned out, and it fit him just right! Sorry all my photos are probably going to be with me modeling my knitted things, it's just more convenient to take pictures of myself then with the people they are actually intended for.

Project 2: Work In Progress

So I'm still knitting the beanie for my coworker. I've been trying to keep it hidden from him at work so it'll be a surprise, but he might have already seen the colors I chose, I'm not sure. I'm 2/3 of the way finished, so I decided it was time to share a picture of it so far! I really like it, and the pattern is super easy. No problems thus far, though I did restart it once after he measured his head and let me know he'd need the smaller of the two sizes. :) You can see I'm still on the circular needle portion and haven

't started to reduce the number of stitches yet. Although I own double-pointed needles, I haven't learned how to use them properly yet, so when I get down to only a few stitches I have quite a difficult time knitting them on the circular needle! lol But I'll manage, I've found a way to make it work for all the other hats I've knitted so far. Hopefully I'll finish this hat later this week! I need to get a new book from the library soon, but until then I'll be motivated to keep knitting on my breaks at work. :)