Not only is Dame Helen Mirren a talented Oscar-winning actress and always looks beautiful for the big night, but she’s at least a bit crafty, in addition.

To quote Mirren Sunday evening, “He [the Oscar statue] [is] not naked in my house. I have knitted him a little scarf.”

I wish I could see that scarf! Instead, here’s a picture of Helen from this year’s Oscar’s red carpet. *To honor her (my fave) look of the night, I’m kicking off both my dogwear designing and our first annual Oscar’s Dog Gown with hers!

A sketch to come. I’ve planned it out and am ordering supplies very soon! No knitting, in order to speed things up a bit (OK a lot). Stay tuned!

No, Kool-Aid doesn’t just result in bright, obvious colorways. It can be as subtle and sophisticated as with any dye. Seeing this project picture from Knitterly Things just makes me feel even more that I can’t wait to dye and paint yarn!

MamaMay is still trying to come up with a name for this yarn, so please visit and help her out!

It’s just one of the standard methods of casting on, but isn’t talked about nearly as much as say the long tail cast-on. My long tail cast ons were too loose, and I’ve often found myself starting over projects, with one of the reasons being my cast-on, only to struggle with just the beginning–again.

Now that I’ve switched to knitting on, everything’s relatively smooth, and I’m a much faster worker. Tutorial video below (it’s not me).

A couple tips:

Your cast ons may get too tight to work with, or even a bit loose. You need to focus on pushing the stitches to the fullest part of the needle, but then pulling the top stitch close to the end when inserting your left needle into the right hand stitch. It takes some practice, and you may not always get it for a while.

Advanced tip: You don’t need to pull the right needle out of the lefthand loop at all, but just move it to the back! Things move much quicker this way.

Good luck! Feel free to link to your results in the comments!

My BFF and I always exchange presents around New Years, because I’m far away from him on Christmas. This year it was even later because I had presents arriving even later. Well, he always outdoes himself, and this year, he wood-burned a (OOAK) knitting butterfly on a plaque with a little (outgoing mail) shelf and key/umbrella hooks. Ahh!

And here it is in my new apartment!! I needed something like this.

Note the darling bug is knitting upside down. From now on that is how butterflies would knit! I find it adorable, because that’s how my BFF looks mimicking me. Ha ha! Oh those macho males, not understading the fiber crafts!

First of all, Happy New Year, crafters and indie lovers!

Now down to business. I’ve seen in other blogs’ knitting resolutions, and I think it’s a great idea for me especially to make a few. I’m a lazy knitter. I also already had a goal to make finish more, many more, projects and work on the business more. Not only am I almost all unpacked, but it is a new year! Time for resolutions, and while some others list projects they want to finish, I need to be more aggressive and think long term (it is a whole year). Of course, one still needs to keep it do-able.

Resolutions:

1. To craft some every day, or at least 5 days a week. To work half on one large project and work on - and hopefully finish - one small project on these days.

2. To focus on projects I need to get done / can get done quickly to sell, and start fewer new ideas before they are.

3. Think about timeliness of products; holidays, seasons, and think at least a month ahead for selling.

4. To set a 3rd of my crafting time, after the shop’s fleshed out once more, to creating pet items for my new shop.

5. To work toward finishing 3 purses a month. Perhaps a large, medium, and small. This will be a long-term effort to succeed.

6. And finally, dilly-dally less, and focus at least equally on blogging (other sites) because those sites are the actual moneymakers.

Now I challenge you to make at least one crafting resolution that will make you a better, more skilled, or more productive creator! Please blog, or post on a forum, and leave a comment!

Knitting a tube, or of course a rectangle, is easy - right? Yes! Even with a decorative stitch inside those bounds. So making your own pattern to cover a round object, like say a cozy for a cup, should be very easy — except you need to know how long to make the width. Improvising patterns on straight things is easy with the Knit-On cast on method (visit www.knittinghelp.com to see cast on videos) and lining your needle up with the to-be-cozied objects. And cozying cups, etc. can be just as easy, just use circular needles, at least for your cast-on (in the same size), whether you will knit in the round, or sew up the seams.

How to tell how many stitches to cast on for a round cozy?

Number of stitches to cast on for round cozy

(This folded/seamed Starbleep’s sleeve makes it a little bit tough to do
[and photograph] but hopefully you see, it’s still easy!)

Just push your stitches around to the “cable” portion of the needle set and wrap it around a cup, can, or even a coffee shop sleeve you’ve saved! You’ll know when to lengthen or shorten. Since knitting stretches, approximate is fine. Good luck!

And if this article helped you out, consider visiting my shop or saving this site’s link for later!

Loads of Cashmerino is just one of the two collections I added a couple of days ago (before I had to get off the computer and get packing, then travel home from my vacation!) to the available stash for requesting custom alterations to my items. (The 2nd is a collection of flecked wintry yarns for hot drink cozies or bags.)

You can shop here and Etsy, or just enjoy the yarn candy photos!

Although I haven’t crafted much since the move, I’ve been increasingly itching to do more and more. Now that I’m back *home* for Christmas, I really wish I had things like my sewing machine and more supplies. This really stinks! What does a crafter do? I wish I could whip up (no such thing for me but oh well) presents, and I need to hem new pants (went down a size - woohoo). I went to A.C. Moore and purchased a butt-load of supplies and yarn, including a few things I already own that are waiting (perhaps somewhere still in boxes) for me in my new home. Sigh!

I thought of a way to make this great purse for my grandmother that she wanted last year, and my mom requested a scarf, and I wanted to at least get started. I also plan to whip up some coffee/cocoa cup sleeves for *everyone* in the fams, so I’ll be working a large portion of the day on those.

In addition to gifts, I have all these aspirations to make more new items to put up for sale, but the gifts will help show my “portfolio” as it were, so I can make things to order. It all helps.

I’ll post later the story of my craft store adventure, with yummy yarn-candy photos!

Found on the web at The Fashion Police, a quite expensive knit beanie hat (65 euros!) that’s very cute, with a built-in client (the blogger wants it, and would love it knitted for her), plus = this hat isn’t hard to knit!

Well, as far as hats go. I’m up for this challenge, although the pattern will be altered, because I just don’t have the attention to properly knit the rib stitch.

The cap, by Sonia Rykiel, is sold out, but I know it came in green and bright purple. I myself see it in red. I’d love to try salmon, black, creme, a soft pine green, and of course (close to) the green from the original and a subtle violet. I’d buy a cashmere blend yarn supply for this (and the proper-toned green in 100% wool), but I can get started sooner with the blend yarn (it’s soft!) in red discarded from my defunkt Halloween costume. (I couldn’t work it out, alas, not this year.) I also have white and red in that yarn from household projects.

*Note: the yarns in the photo may not be used. I’ve already selected new colors.*

Another change: I’d like to do a stripe of shiny ribbon yarn in the centre of the ribbon piece. I’m going to make the ribbon part extend onto the base of the hat, therefore I will knit the bottom separately. This will allow for the feature of an un-tiable ribbon so one can have small bow/long ribbon or the opposite!

By the way, the $95.97 designer version doesn’t even have cashmere in it. And I hope to sell mine for around $30. You might be able to snag a different color if you preorder a hat soon!

I’m late in posting this to the blog, but I will be blogging a lot more now. I want this to once again be a content site!

ENDS TONIGHT: AFTER Black Friday Sale! (*Receive 1 free surprise “mousebuster”)
Dec 7 - 13: Finish Shopping EARLY Sale! (Super-early shopping gets free gift)
Dec 14 - 29: CLOSED FOR HOLIDAY (I just can’t bring enough craft supplies, nor my stocked items, when I travel.)
Dec 31 - Last day for NO TAX IN FLA.
Dec 31 - Jan 7: New Year Sale *free gift*

Shop: millyandnans.etsy.com 

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