A Reminder

If you remember a few weeks back I mentioned I would be teaching my half finger gloves on the blue KK in LoomClass over on Yahoo in February. If you haven't signed up yet, it isn't too late! Class is scheduled for February 10th. See you there!

Gloves on the KK

I finally did it! The Knifty Knitter version of my gloves with fingers pattern is finally written! Whew! The best part? If you have a small wrist, you can make this glove and it will fit you! The secret is the clever use of elastic sewing thread. I didn't even need to use the heaviest yarn you can buy (hee, hee)! You can purchase the pattern here.

Ok, ok, I hear you! I'll work on the pattern for the half finger gloves on the efg loom now :D!

Freebie Friday

Lion Face Dishcloth
By Karen Gielen

Materials:

Knitting Loom: Fine gauge loom or Dishcloth Rake with a minimum of 35 pegs.
Yarn: Approx. 200 yds 100% cotton medium/worsted weight yarn.
Notions: Yarn Needle, Scissors, Crochet hook
Gauge: 16sts and 16 rows=4"

Instructions:
Cast on 35 (clockwise on a round loom or left to right on a single sided rake)
Pattern Notes: To speed knit this cloth e-wrap and knit the knit stitches in the garter stitch on all sides and flat knit within the picture portion of the pattern. Beginning tail weaving tip: On round one, just before you reach the last three to four pegs, take the tail piece and e-wrap pegs clockwise. Continue to knit (counterclockwise) with working yarn to end of round knitting over top loop with the bottom and middle loop (cast on loop and loop from tail). Your tail piece is now automatically woven in!
1.  K35
2.  P35
3.  K35
4.  P35
5.  K35
6.  P35
7.  K35
8.  P4 K6 P1 K3 P1 K2 P1 K2 P1 K3 P1 K6 P4
9.  K35
10. P4 K5 P4 K2 P2 K1 P3 K1 P2 K2 P2 K5 P4
11. K35
12. P4 K5 P2 K1 P11 k1 P2 K5 P4
13. K35
14. P4 K2 P1 K2 P17 K2 P1 K2 P4
15. K35
16. P4 K2 P1 K1 P19 K1 P1 K2 P4
17. K35
18. P4 K1 P2 K1 P9 K1 P9 K1 P2 K1 P4
19. K35
20. P4 K1 P11 K3 P11 K1 P4
21. K35
22. P13 K9 P13
23. K35
24. P4 K1 P8 K9 P8 K1 P4
25. K35
26. P4 K1 P8 K2 P2 K1 P2 K2 P8 K1 P4
27. K35
28. P12 K2 P1 K2 P1 K2 P1 K2 P12
29. K35
30. P11 K2 P1 K3 P1 K3 P1 K2 P11
31. K35
32. P10 K6 P3 K6 P10
33. K35
34. P4 K1 P4 K6 P1 K3 P1 K6 P4 K1 P4
35. K35
36. P5 K1 P3 K6 P5 K6 P3 K1 P5
37. K35
38. P10 K6 P3 K6 P10
39. K35
40. P11 K6 P1 K6 P11
41. K35
42. P4 K 1 P6 K4 B1 K3 B1 K4 P6 K1 P4
43. K35
44. P5 K2 P4 K13 P4 K2 P5
45. K35
46. P12 K11 P12
47. K35
48. P4 K1 P8 K2 P2 K1 P2 K2 P8 K1 P4
49. K35
50. P4 K2 P7 K2 P5 K2 P7 K2 P4
51. K35
52. P4 K1 P1 K2 P19 K2 P1 K1 P4
53. K35
54. P4 K1 P25 K1 P4
55. K35
56. P4 K1 P12 K1 P12 K1 P4
57. K35
58. P4 K2 P7 K1 P2 K3 P2 K1 P7 K2 P4
59. K35
60. P4 K5 P3 K3 P1 K3 P1 K3 P3 K5 P4
61. K35
62. P35
63. K35
64. P35
65. K35
66. P35
67. K35
68. P35

Finishing:
Bind off loosely with the crochet method, using one to two chain stitches in between each loom loop. Weave in ends with tapestry needle.
Copyright 2008 Karen Gielen for personal, non-commercial use only. All rights reserved.

Pleasee don't limit this pattern to just dishcloths! This pattern is one of several I am designing with a zoo animal or jungle theme. This pattern will also work well as blocks for a baby blanket. With both the Monkey Face Dishcloth pattern in my free patterns section over in the right hand column, and with this pattern, you could easily use two different yarn colors. For example, in the Lion Face pattern, use two different gold colors, one light and one dark. Where the pattern indicates a purl stitch, use the darker gold color and where the pattern says to knit, use the lighter gold. This would work well for the Monkey Face cloth as well. Use two different browns, for instance.

As I did with the Monkey Face dishcloth pattern, this pattern will also be added to my free patterns section very soon. Have fun!

Reveling in Ravelry...a big old mess...and a great story

As you may know, I am now in Ravelry! Boy, what a place. I feel like I am sitting at a table set for a Queen and I have a feast of foods picked out just for me! I started entering my stash of yarn. It will take me months to complete my stash. What a neat concept. It's a great way to connect with someone if you are making a project and "oops" didn't get enough yarn for the project. You can log onto Ravelry and see if someone else has some in their stash and see if they would be willing to sell and/or trade.

 

My little two year old made quite the mess for me today! I had my EFG version of the half finger gloves and my Plushy House Socks project currently occupying my Blue Knifty Knitter sitting by the couch in the living room while I showered this morning. When I came out to the livingroom to work on my projects, here she had unraveled all of the yarn and wound it around the living room coffee table!!!!!! Arrrrrrrrrrgh! What a mess! I just spent the past hour trying to untangle and rewind up the skeins into some sort of ball. At least the projects on the looms are still intact! Whew! It's quite amazing how she spent merely minutes messing with my projects and it took me so long to correct what she did!

 

A good friend of mine, who happens to be a very spiritual person sent me an email this morning with the best story! It is a great testament to God's work in our everyday lives. I just wanted to share this story with you:

 

"Oh, I need to tell you a great story.  Last Saturday evening David went to deliver pizzas about 5:30 and called me about 5:45 which I thought was unusual.  He usually calls me when he is ready to come home (after 9:00 or even up to almost 11:00).  Well the reason he was calling was that they had five delivery drivers standing there, the phones were NOT ringing, NO ONE was coming in the door, and they had NO orders (on a Saturday evening of all days).  So he asked me to pray as they were going to send everyone home otherwise without any work.  I guess his manager heard him telling me that and gave him a funny look.  Anyway, I told him I would get right on it and hung up.  I immediately asked the Lord to open up the floodgates for pizzas and to make sure David let them know it was from prayer and God was providing, and then I thanked God for what He was going to do.  Then I actually fell asleep.  David didn't get home until around 9:30 or so, and he said five minutes after I called the phones were ringing off the hook.  I guess during the day they had 15 pizzas, and before they finished that night they had over 200 more.  He said about 8:00 the manager turned to him and said I think you can tell her to stop praying now.  I just laughed and praised Him for the opportunity for them to see His hand at work.  If only people would realize He can do things like that in their own lives.  The manager who was on that night is pretty rough, so it was a very good example for him.  Isn't that a great story!!!!!!!"

The Next Best Thing To Heaven...

...The long awaited invitation came today! I've read and heard so much about this new knitting, crochet, and loom knitting circle. Being left out waiting in the cold for so long (a two whole weeks of agony) made me feel like, well, like a sorority wannabe. Not that I couldn't sign up to be on the waiting list ages ago (they are adding people pretty quickly now, I hear). I heard about it first in my needle knitting group and was just too busy to care. Then, the "fire" jumped over to the loom knitting communities I belong to and I started hearing about it AGAIN. I once again was too busy to care. Then, I started to see so many of the gals with their Ravelry IDs proudly displayed at the bottom of their posts and email messages, I started to feel like I was leaving myself out of something and just had to find out what that "something" really was. I looks to me like "the next best thing to heaven" a gal could get with a passion for anything fiber arts related..."the next best thing to heaven" a designer/future designer could hope for to get exposure to their patterns. Well, yeah, "the next best thing to heaven" a spinner could get if they want to showcase their handspun yarns! Ohhhhhhhhh, yeah. Heaven indeed! Don't delay, get on the bandwagon today! See ya there!

The pattern for the Knifty Knitter version of my half finger gloves is now complete!

Yeah!!!!!!!!!!

It isn't nearly as nice as the extra fine gauge loom, but I really wanted to give those without an extra fine gauge loom the opportunity to make a pair too :D!

Pattern writing is sure a lot of work! It took me close to a week and half to write the simple version of my half finger gloves pattern. Granted, it is only the second pattern I've written of this magnitude. I've written lots of dishcloth patterns but they are a walk in the park compared to my last two patterns. It sure makes me appreciate all of the other pattern designers and writers out there! I have visions of writing a book of patterns someday. I sure hope it gets a little easier.

Now onto the more difficult pattern for the EFG sock loom. SIGH.

An idea...

Mmmmmmm, yeah, I think it could work!

~cre8tivkj

Silly Sunday

Meet my daughter Amanda. This little girl is making it very difficult to get my work done lately. She turned two in December and let me tell you, she is totally going through the terrible twos! Plus she is potty training. Great news there, but, she wants to spend the vast majority of the day on the potty. She is obsessed. Trouble is, I can't leave her in the room by herself because she gets into lots of trouble in there by herself.

It's very cold here in Minnesota right now. Makes me realize just why I designed a pair of gloves for the knitting loom and those half finger gloves everyone is so patiently waiting for. To tide you over until I get the more difficult pattern done for the Extra Fine Gauge loom, why don't you hop on over to LoomClass on yahoo. I am on the calendar for mid February to teach the half finger gloves on the Blue Knifty Knitter by Provo Craft. Since it is done on a large gauge loom, it makes it a lot easier for beginners to understand and it doesn't take nearly as long to knit up a pair. Hope to see you there!

~cre8tivkj

Thankful Thursday...

Today I would like to send out a great big thank you to all of my readers that have given me such positive feedback and have helped me to plan for some wonderful things yet to come on my little blog. Thank you everyone!

Some things I plan on adding soon:
* A tutorial on making pegs using polymer clay
* More minu movies
* More free dishcloth patterns in PDF format

I sincerely hope that when my visitors drop by that they are not dissapointed and they can end there visit with me on a creative note, taking with them lots of ideas and some fun stuff to do too!

I would like you to meet my beautiful daughter Paige. She's a blonde, but the blonde roots don't go so deep. Yesterday I had a parent teacher conference for her Preschool. She is only four and this little girl is one smart coookie! Let me tell you, she counts to well over 100, she is adding and subtracting, and she not only knows all of her alphabet by site, but she is starting to put the sounds of each of these together and is starting to read! According to her teacher, she knows most of what she needs to by the time she is out of Kindergarten! Way to go Paige!

I am busy writing up my half finger gloves pattern. Since so many people requested the gloves be adapted to the Knifty Knitter by Provo Craft, I am doing just that. I know when I started looming, fine gauge looms scared the living daylights out of me and I had a dickens of a time with them. I did lots of practice on the larger gauge looms to help me understand a process before trying it out on a fine gauge loom. I even made a sock with sock weight yarn on my Blue Knifty Knitter using just a single strand (yes, you heard me, a single strand) and then being the interprising person I am, I threw it in the washing machine and shrunk that baby down so the stitches came together. When that sock came out of the wash, it looked like I had knit it on a fine gauge loom! Here is the sock I made on my Knifty Knitter:



Felting isn't anything new, I know. I just wanted to let you know that you can experiment a little with yarn weights on your Knifty Knitters and try out some of those neat projects that call for those wonderful fine gauge looms without having to struggle and/or without having to go out and buy a fine gauge loom. Try it out using sport weight or fingering weight yarn. Explore the idea with your red or green Knifty Knitters too. Make a sock using any loom knit sock pattern just make sure to knit that baby really big! Stuff it with some tube socks (or anything else cotton) so the sides don't get too stuck together. When it comes out of the washing machine you'll need to work with it immediately before it dries to shape. You may need to do some pulling apart and stretching a little. Beware the sock will end up more like a slouch sock, but hey, it's a sock you look like you made on a fine gauge loom! Hee, hee.

Have a great day!
~cre8tivkj

Teaser Tuesday...

My readers spoke...I listened. Here is a sample of what I am up to:



Thanks for your imput!
~cre8tivkj

Why all the questions?

You may have noticed I have two polls over in the right hand column going on right now. So, why all the questions, you ask? Well, here goes... Over the past year I've been loom knitting I have sometimes struggled to learn by reading and even sometimes by looking at pictures. Everyone is well aware of the wonderful video's Isela has all over the internet. I've watched them many times myself. They are a wonderful resource. I have the Loom Knitting Primer book and have gleened much from this book, but videos are where it is at for me. I have been able to follow patterns but sometimes it is a great struggle even with lots of pictures, especially if I am at an emerging stage of learning a new skill or technique. I knit a pair of half finger gloves on DPNS just like the ones you see on your right with lots of help and demonstrations from a friend of mine. I also was able to successfully knit a pair of socks using DPNS with the help of a great video I purchased from knittinghelp.com. I know I am not alone. I am not looking to make a killing off of this video (or the pattern for that matter), it's yarn stash money at best, I just want to be able to create something for the looming community interested in making these gloves because I know I am not the only one in this entire world that learns lightning fast with a video you can pause and rewind and play over and over again until it sinks in. Thanks for all of your input!

View from my kitchen window...

I took this picture about a week ago at the crack of dawn. I had forgotten about it until I took the cd out of my camera (I have a digital camera that burns pics direct to cd) and placed it into my computer. Voila, up popped this picture and it took my breath away again...



Have a wonderful day!

Freebie Friday

Here is a freebie for my loom knitting friends:



Legend
x = purl
blank squares = knit
b= bobble (visit here for directions on doing a bobble)

Instructions:
Cast on 36 (clockwise on a round loom or left to right on a single sided rake) with the crochet cast on method.
Pattern Notes: To speed knit this cloth e-wrap and knit the knit stitches in the garter stitch on all sides and flat knit within the picture portion of the pattern. Beginning tail weaving tip: On round one, just before you reach the last three to four pegs, take the tail piece and e-wrap pegs clockwise. Continue to knit (counterclockwise) with working yarn to end of round knitting over top loop with the bottom and middle loop (cast on loop and loop from tail). Your tail piece is now automatically woven in!
1. K36
2. P36
3. K36
4. P36
5. K36
6. P36
7. K36
All even rows beginning with row 8: P4, follow graph, P4
All odd rows: K36
61: K36
62: P36
63: K36
64: P36
65: K36
66: P36

Finishing:
Crochet bind off with a single crochet in between each loop join. Weave in end tail piece.

Thanks for stopping by!
~cre8tivkj~

Fun, but not 100% accurate...

I am a Camel – Consistent and inflexible
“Camel has very little elasticity, and it doesn’t felt easily. The fiber also doesn’t bleach easily, so you’ll normally find it used in yarns whose color either masks or enhances the natural tan shade of the camel fiber.” –The Knitter’s Book of Yarn

Camels are frank and straightforward in their manner. You know what you want and, while you are extremely polite and tactful, you have no difficulty being firm and definite. You are not very flexible or adaptable; you like things to be a certain way.

Funny, I raise camelids (alpacas) so I suppose it is fitting that I came out resembling a camel. I don't agree with the fiber not felting well, total hogwash! I tried washing my first batch and barely agitated it and it came out as a big unsightly mass. It felted too well! LOL. I would say I am straightforward and such, but would not agree with the inflexible part, I also adapt really well to change.

What Fiber are you? Take the quize and find out: Click here.

I finally got around to making myself a blog banner. I had fun drawing it up. It is suppose to be me. Here is a picture of me:



What do you think?


Have a great day!

A homemade Christmas, baby cakes and our family portait day...

Our youngest daughter turned two this past December on the 15th. She is just crazy about babies so I decided to make her a baby cake. The feet were a little large, but overall I think it turned out pretty cute!


Amanda May's 2nd Birthday Cake


The birthday girl blowing out her candles.


Birthday girl with gifts.

This year was more of a homemade Christmas. With the worry for toys not being safe with all of the lead scares in the news, it seemed like the best thing to do. Both my sister and I gave gifts we made. She is more of a needle knitter than I (I prefer my looms). Even her husband knit up some darling headbands for the kids.


Lexi models the hat and mittens my sister made for her.


Paige models her headband from uncle Gary.


My mom shows off her new pair of loom knit gloves.


My brother-in-law Gary, admiring his beer cozy I loom knit for him.


My stepdaughter Lexi is always wanting to borrow my looms, so I got her a set of her own.

We had our family portrait taken this year by a friend of ours. He is a professional wedding photographer (www.bellaphotographyusa.com), but agreed he'd do our family portrait (no easy task, believe me, we had 15 people to get in the photo). We are all waiting on pins and needles to see the proofs. I took this photo while my sister and her husband were getting some individual shots taken:


My hubby getting his tie ironed quick before we got our portraits taken. I guess he should have thought of that before he put it on, huh?


Half of our crew modeling for my camera before the photographer showed up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Are you looming without obligation?

I read a post on one of my yahoo groups the other day about a lady that felt so inadequate because, although she had been looming for awhile, she still plotted along fairly slowly and felt as though she wasn't keeping up with the rest of her looming community. She would get one project done in a week and she kept hearing how so and so got 5 hats, 10 scarves, and 5 pairs of mittens done in one week... Then I read the most hilarious post from another gal saying she felt the same way..so and so made 1,000 sweaters, 50,000 hats, blah, blah, blah. I had to laugh. It was an exaggeration of course, but it was funny none the less! I felt that way too once upon a time. I still do occasionally. Especially since I am working on being a loom knitting pattern designer. I read all these ladies (and some gentlemen's) blogs that are designing and they have accomplished so much and in so little time. I need to give myself a break. I do have six kids after all! It isn't like I don't have anything else to do afterall. But still, if you feel the same way, feel free to snag my Looming without Obligation graphic (or make your own) and then just do what you can. Looming is suppose to be a hobby after all! If it takes you a year to complete your first project (I am exaggerating again, hee, hee, hee), so be it! If you loom like a mad person and get 1,000 sweaters done, 50,000 hats and scarves, so be it! Whatever you are able to do. Don't feel ashamed you loom too much. Don't be ashamed you aren't able to loom as much as the next person. Just loom without obligation because:

- Your loom is not a treadmill
- Your not a machine (hee, hee)
- You are a machine (Isela, anyone???)
- Sometimes less is more
- If you loom when you are inspired, it benifits the whole looming community (Yeah!)
- Your yarn stash is getting too low
- You feel the need to lower your yarnstash quick before someone finds out how truly addicted to yarn you REALLY are!
- You have a busy life besides your hobbies
- Your life IS your hobby (LOL)
- You only loom for a cause
- You only loom for your loved ones
- You only loom for yourself
- Well, just because!

Thanks for stopping by!