My adorable boy : The Multi-purpose Elf Hat

For Halloween my son, Caleb, wanted to be Link from "Legend of Zelda". I thought this was a great idea because it would cause me to improvise a costume, which in turn, I could make sure was warm enough for our often bitterly cold Newfoundland Halloween. I don't really sew, so I usually work with what I can find. His costume consisted of a belted green men's T-shirt with the sleeves cut off over a white turtle neck and light coloured pants and winter boots. I assure you, this is necessary because it's cold and wet and generally miserable here nearly every Halloween.

In my opinion, the one shining element of the costume was the green elf hat that I knit. I found a skein of green yarn that I liked in a clearance bin at Zellers, it didn't even have a label, so I have no idea what it is, just that it's some sort of acrylic. Mystery yarn! ooOOOoooOOooooooo.... The yarn is really bulky and I knit the hat using fairly small needles, so the fabric is sort of stiff, though the yarn is very soft. It can stand up straight if you want it to, or you can fold it over for a floppy looking elf hat.

Anyway, fast forward to this month, Caleb comes to me one morning before school and tells me that he needs a Santa hat for school that day (I love how much time he gives me to get things together.) I know that somewhere in this house I have a ton of Santa hats, but damn if I could find them. Instead I said "How about your elf hat? It's green..." To which he said "It needs a poofy ball on it!!!" So I dug out some red scrap yarn and made a quick pom-pom and attached it just before he ran out the door.

From Hyrulian Elf to North Pole Elf in a matter of minutes!

Now he's wearing his Elf hat just about everywhere, and it's pretty darn cute. It doesn't match his snowsuit whatsoever, but that pom-pom sure makes him easy to spot in a crowd... :D

Art for my room!

So last year when I painted my room I wanted to make art and stuff to put on the walls, but I never really got around to it. I managed to hang some tree branches on my wall decorated with beads, and a felted picture that Caleb made for me, (His school has a program called "Learning through the Arts" which is totally awesome, he gets to learn all kinds of craftwork) but I never did get around to making my art.

So last week when I was cleaning up I came across a bunch of old canvases that I had started painting, then gave up on. they were just backgrounds, painted blue and purple and stuff. I didn't want to shut them up in a cupboard, so I decided to paint them!

I wanted to have some art that was cool, with bright colours and not just boring girly stuff, cause I'm not into that. I wanted something kinda edgy, that fit with my style of art (I love bright colours and thick black lines) so i decided tattoo flash would be great! I Googled tattoo flash of things that I thought would be cool and found some great images. I drew them on the canvases in pencil, traced over them with Sharpie, colored them in with acrylic paint, then went over them once more with Sharpie. So here they are:

Skull and Roses 12x24 from this url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joe_13/498563273/ Check out this guy's other line drawings, they're awesome.

tattoo heart 5x7

Cherry Blossoms 12x24

Koi fish 18x24 This one didn't match my room (Which is a light purpl-y pink colour) or the other paintings, so i gave it to my brother, who really likes it. He said it was "Primo"...

Anyway, i'm really happy with how they turned out, and now my room matches me. :D

Toasty while you type: Momma's Xmas Present

My mom spends a lot of time at her computer, and she gets cold in the winter time. She asked me to make her a pair of fingerless gloves that she could wear while she types to keep her hands warm, and I wanted to make a cozy pair of slippers for her too.

I chose Patons Stretch Socks yarn because it's thin. this is so that the gloves wouldn't feel bulky on her hands, cause theres nothing worse than having a pair of gloves on that make your hands feel awkward. The stretch in the yarn also makes sure that the gloves fit snuggly. In the future i would choose a plain yarn, because this one sort of overwhelms the pattern.

The pattern I chose was Knitty's "Spirogyra" http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring08/KSPATTspirogyra.html It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, and I did my first yarn overs and slip slip knits. :D I think this pattern is really pretty, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make a really elegant looking pair of fingerless gloves.

I found this one skein of Blueberry Red Heart Light N' Lofty at Zellers and loved the colour so much that I had to buy it. It doesn't match the gloves, but it was such a nice colour (I'm a sucker for periwinkle).

I used the same pattern as I did for my cast sock, but I knitted the medium size and altered it a little to make sure the foot part would be more narrow, and added some pom-poms for decoration. Light N' Lofty is a big yarn, and really fluffy so it makes a nice pair of comfy slippers.

Now that all my Christmas knitting is done, I can't wait to give everyone their gifts! :D

Merry Christmas Emo kid!: The Sister's Christmas Present.

I wanted to make my sister a scarf and she asked for a slouchy sorta hat. The book "Pretty in Punk" has this super cool scarf called "The ska scarf" and it is pretty much the easiest scarf you could ever make. Just garter stitch, but knit horizontally instead of vertically. Jenna's favorite colours are purple and black, but she asked for a black hat. I couldn't give you an exact pattern of how I made the hat, I just knit a few rows of 2x2 rib at the beginning, then started increasing each row until I was satisfied, then started decreasing each row until I was done. Found a nice big ol' black button in my button tin to finish it off. It's probably the best beret-ish type hat I've made. Both items are made out of Bernat Softee Chunky.

I wanted to make Jenna a necklace too, and I had this great idea in my head. I saw something similar on Craftster one time, only made with shrinky-dinks. I made my little polymer clay cloud, spray painted him white, added a coat of sparkly varnish, and painted on his little happy face. The beads are hanging on wire and are a mix of random glass and plastic beads I had. The necklace is seed beads on fishing line and it has a bead and loop closure, because my sister has a pretty bad nickle allergy. There are a few small pieces of metal in the little cloud pendant, but I made sure they were well coated in super glue and varnish to make them hypo-allergenic.

I had these little wooden boxes that I found at Dollarama. I'm a sucker for boxes, I collect them cause, hey, you always need a box for something! Anyway, they're perfect little gift boxes for jewelery, and they were $1 for three. I spray painted this one back, added a coat of sparkles to the lid (iridescent sparkles make everything better!) and glued this little emo-kid drawing that I drew and coloured to the lid.

So, I thought I was done Jenna's Xmas gift, but she recently fell in love with the "Twilight" books (what teen girl hasn't?) and even more, I have recently fallen in love with the "Bella Mittens" pattern that has popped up on Craftster and Ravelry! They're SOOOO nice, and I'd realy like to try making them, (I'm becoming one of those "Ooooh! I need to make that!" people. And any excuse to buy more yarn...) so I'm thinking of making her a pair. I guess I'll see if time constraints allow.

Only 3 weeks to Christmas! aaagh!

OH! I joined Ravelry this week! I LOVE IT! my username is Kris-13. :D