Category Archives: Knitting

Hello and Brrr!

Hello from “Winter Wonder Land”. Winter weather in northern Illinois has finally caught up with the season we are currently living in. It is COLD and our landscape is covered in piles of frosty white. It’s taken this long for it to finally feel like winter, which is when I start dreaming of… yes, spring!

Last week was filled with lots of knitting and no finished projects to show you yet. However, I still managed to make a short YouTube video showing my work for the week.

This week I am working on embroidery for the two doll cardigans I was knitting last week. I have also just published a free pattern on Ravelry for one-piece knit hearts. The pattern is written for fingering weight yarn, but is easily adaptable for any weight yarn with appropriate needles. This handful of hearts was made with fingering, sport, DK, worsted, chunky, chunky/fingering, fingering/lace mohair. The width is easily changed too. It’s all in my video and pattern.

A few of these hearts were made years ago as sachets, but the lavender smell is long gone. I was thinking of stringing all of together them and turning the lot into a garland. What do you think? Do you have any ideas?

The pattern and be found here. And the accompanying YouTube video is below. Enjoy!

I hope you are having a great week! Hugs from here! 🤗 Take care my friends. ❤️

My Work the Past Week

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Hello, my friends! I hope you’ve had a cozy week. We’ve had some snow this week and temperatures that allow for wintery walks. All good! For me the week flew by as it usually does. I started two new projects, so I have two things in progress in my studio: a new ensemble for my Boneka 10″ Rose and a cardigan for Linda Macario’s new doll, Didi.

Thanks to all of you for voting for your favorite fabric either here, on my Facebook page, or on YouTube. Number one, a fabric by Brenda Riddle Designs got the most votes, so that is the one I used for Rose’s new dress. You can see all of the fabric contenders here. I actually like them all and really couldn’t decide!

I picked out a dainty white lace to peek out from the skirt’s hemline.

I still have the hand stitching of the bodice lining to do and the snaps to add, but all of the machine stitching is complete.

Next I started on Didi’s cardigan. Linda wanted a dark red or brown in a fingering weight and I didn’t have that color in my stash, so the first step was dyeing yarn. She sent me fabric swatches so that I could get a color that highlighted both fabrics. I mixed brown, warm red, and yellow to achieve this beautiful shade of warm brown. I think it works beautifully with these two fabrics.

I chose a single ply merino yarn for Didi’s sweater. I love the way this yarn feels. It’s so soft! It shouldn’t be long before I can start on the embroidery.

I also have a few new videos on YouTube in case you’d like to watch my week in progress. I separated in studio work from other life stuff, so two videos. You can pick one or both to watch. I also redid a little stop motion video I made years ago of the Little Darlings. I originally had it on Facebook without music. Now it has music added to it. Here is my YouTube channel page. I hope you enjoy.

Wishing you a great week ahead! I hope the new week is good to you. Sending hugs! 🤗❤️

What I Do When It’s Too Big and a Video

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Hello. I hope you are doing good. All is fine here in northern Illinois. After a solid week of rain and dreariness we are now into some beautiful weather again, thank goodness.

I wrote last time about how my knitting gauge has gotten looser and now my own knitting patterns are producing items that seem too large, or almost too large for the dolls they were designed for.

My last knitted garment, and the most noticeably too large, was the sweater coat for the Little Darlings. Here it is again in progress–and it wasn’t beyond fixing. It pays to try on the garment before weaving in ends and sewing up seams.

I added a lifeline in the row I wanted to rip back to, and then ripped away. I transferred the stitches from the lifeline on the knitting needle and knit the ribbed edging. For the body this meant right under the second to last buttonhole. The garter band of the sweater was tricky to see where to put the lifeline. If I didn’t get the right spot it was easy to fix while I was ripping out.

The sleeves needed 5 less rows, so the lifeline went in the 6th row beyond the ribbing. In addition, I decided to narrow the sleeves, so I knit backwards and added some decreases at the edges of the sleeves.

I am so happy with the finished result. I think it fits Alice perfectly now. The ensemble is still is progress, but almost completed. I knit her hat yesterday… at the beach–a Lake Michigan beach. It was pretty enjoyable! 😉

I love the sound of water, and if you do too, or if you’d like to see some of the water installations at the Chicago Botanic Gardens please have a look/listen. It’s pretty short (but took a while to make!!!). I am brand spanking new at this, and also at recording video–that’s why some of my footage is vertical. 😮 A warning though–it’s very amateurish, sorry.