I'm back!!!

I know I've been MIA in the blogging department lately, and I apologize to all of you who faithfully follow me here.

I've been pretty busy with knitting, felting, crocheting, and all things yarn related - getting ready for my first indoor flea market on Saturday and Sunday, June 23 & 24 at the Funky Junk Northwest Indoor Flea Market in Bellevue (located at 13310 Bel-Red Road, Suite 103, Bellevue). I hope to see some of you there.

You can come by and check out some of my newest market bags:

Grrlfriend Market Bag designed by Laura Spradlin of Sugar Bunny Blvd. These versatile bags are great for carrying groceries, books, knitting projects, and all sorts of things you need to tote around with you. The bag starts with a square bottom knit from the center outward using double pointed needles. When the square gets big enough you switch to circular needles. It's an easy design and fast to knit. I knit these within two to three days just doing it while watching TV in the evenings. I've already started on another one in this really great turquoise color.

Let's see what else have I been working on...hmmm. Oh yeah, I've been trying my hand at felting and I can only say that once you start, it's hard to stop!

I call this one Too Funky to be Square, my version of
the All Square Bag  (on Ravelry) designed by Eva Wiechmann
from Pursenalities

I call this one my Ruby Red Sparkle Bag
a spin-off of the Vintage Bubble Bag (on Ravelry),
another design by Eva Wiechmann from
Pursenalities

This too is a version of another of Eva Wiechmann's
designs - the Lagoon (on Ravelry) that can be found in
Pursenality Plus

I've done a bit of crochet as well, I tried my hand at some other types of bags, such as this drawstring beach bag:

I call it my Beach Blanket Bingo Bag
my version of the Lace Tote by Ruth Sheppard (on Ravelry)
found in Enviro-Totes (on Ravelry)

My version of Ruth Sheppard's Bucket Tote (on Ravelry) also
can be found in Enviro-Totes (on Ravelry). This
is still a Work-In-Progress (WIP)

I've been trying out some new designs for slouchy berets as well, here are a few:

My version of the Gwen Slouch (on Ravelry)
designed by Lauren Nell

My version of the Because of Love (on Ravelry) 
designed by Janel Laidman

My version of the Spring Beret (on Ravelry) 
designed by Natalie Larson (on Ravelry)

As a very special gift for a friend's mother, I made this shawl called the Monarch Shawl designed by Denise @ Lost City Knits.

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So as you can see I've been a very busy knitter.  I hope you will continue to follow my blog, even if I am a bit of a slacker when it comes to blogging these days.  I'm hoping to get a new blog up soon with my new Knitter Mama logo and this blog will be moved, I will keep you all posted about it, but until then, Happy Knitting!

It has been a while...

I've been woefully neglectful of my blog these past few months, because this is the busiest time of the year for a knitter.  Gosh, I feel like Santa Claus saying that! But it's been great making and selling my items.

In November, I officially became a Washington State small business owner/operator; I applied for a Washington State Business License and a local city business license. I am now obligated to pay state sales tax to the State of Washington! I never intended for it to go this far, I had initially began the online shop as a hobby business just to earn a little extra cash, but it has turned into almost another full-time job and my sales have picked up considerably during the months of October, November, and December. Which is wonderful for my Christmas fund money, but man am I tired.

If I'm not at my day job, I'm at home knitting into the late hours, then going to bed to get up at 5:30 a.m. to get to my day job by 7:00 a.m., work until 5:00 p.m. and then go home cook dinner for my son, feed and take out the dog and by around 7:00 p.m. I'm sitting on my couch watching my DVR'ed shows while knitting away. Whew! That's an over full day.  But I'm loving it. I really enjoy making the products that I sell and I'm happy that others are enjoying my craft.

So, Handmade Knits by Knitter Mama is now on Facebook as well as Etsy (Knitter Mama). But my Etsy, online shop is on vacation until after the new year, but that doesn't mean I get to take a vacation from knitting. I will be knitting new items all next week to post to my shop and having a 25% off sale for selected items that are currently in my shop.

Over the past few months I've knitted quite a few orders, here are just a few of those items:

  

I haven't let the knitting get too much in the way of enjoying other aspects of my life.  High school basketball season started in December and I've been catching all my son's JV games!  I'm not a big sports fan, and I don't watch basketball on television, but I love watching my son play.  Here he is going up for a shot at a game on December 10th:

#34 (my son - Aiden) making a shot against Kentwood
High School - December 10, 2011
(picture courtesy of BG Photography & Editing)

Here he is again, during the same game:

I swear he's about 3 feet off the floor!
(picture courtesy of BG Photography & Editing)

It is so awesome to see him play. I'm always the loudest one cheering when he scores.

It will be nice to have some down time, I will try to get some relaxtion in during my vacation, but I will be knitting, but not at such a frantic rate as I did these last few months.

Well if I don't get a chance to post again before Christmas, I hope everyone has a safe and very Merry Christmas and a prosperous and Happy Knitting New Year!

What have I been working on?

I've been frantically knitting my fingers to the bone with hats...all shapes, sizes, and colors:

Univeristy of Colorado

University of Oregon - specifically designed for a friend

Univerity of Oregon

Purple & Gold stockinette & garter stitch beanie

Green Bay Packers

University of Arkansas



University of Washington

Third UW Ear Flap Hat

It's Crunch Time!

I am getting down to the wire with the upcoming Pre-Black Friday Holiday Bazaar that I'm participating in again this year. I found out last weekend that they have extended the event to two days! Oh, I'm so not ready.  I've been working hard on orders from my Etsy Shop, that I haven't had any time to work on product for the craft bazaar!

I will be knitting every night until the day of the bazaar. Which by the way, will be held, November 19th and 20th, at the Kent Station Shopping Center in Kent. We will be located in the shop next door to Kay Jewelers. I'm very excited to be a part of this event again. I did fairly well last year with orders. Last year, due to our location we were hard to find, but this year we are in a better venue with a lot more exposure. The Kent Station Shopping Center has a lot of foot traffic and with the holidays coming there will be even more!

We are in a bigger space as well so there will be even more vendors this year!  Some of those vendors include: Andre Art (African-American artwork), Pearl Blossom (hair accessories), Handmade Jewelry by Amber Miller, Addie's Gifts (home decor), Scentsy (candles), Thirty-One (purses), Soap Society (handmade soaps & lotions), Miche Bags (purses), Mary Kay (make-up & skin care), Tupperware (cooking supplies, food storage, etc.), Dancing Light (crochet items), Pure Romance (adult items, lotions, creams, etc), Four Footed Fiber (hand-spun yarn and hand knitted items), Stella & Dot (jewelry), Cookie Lee (jewelry), Discovery Toys (educational toys, books, & games), Taylor Made Pantry (cake pops), Soul Boutique (vintage items: purses, jewelry, scraves, etc.), Hair Designs by Tracey (hair accessories), Dinner Pies by Carol (dinner pies), Usborne Books (children's books), Skarlet's Intimates (women's lingerie), and much more!

I hope I will see some of you there!  And now I need to get back to my knitting otherwise my booth will be very empty!  Happy knitting!

P.S. Anyone who places an order from my Etsy Shop between now and November 18th will receive FREE SHIPPING (to domestic destination only), use the following coupon code when placing your order: KMFREESHIP.  Thank you!

The Countdown Begins...Only 11 Weeks Until Christmas

OMG, I cannot believe we are already in October.  I was in Big Lots two weeks ago and the Christmas decorations are already out! There wasn't a lot, but the fact that they were out in September blew my mind!

My goodness I'm so behind on my holiday knitting. I got started on these colorwork team spirit hats just to try my hand at designing and knitting in more than one color and I've gotten so many friends asking me if I could make them a hat.

What am I going to do? I love that my knitting has improved to the point that I'm actually getting requests to create or design knitted items, but I always do this to myself every year, I get bogged down with special request items that I fall behind on my gift giving projects because well there are a lot of people who want to give handmade knitted gifts to their friends and family too and either don't have the skill or just don't have the time to make it themselves.

Also, I've been trying to get items done so that I can post them to my Etsy Shop for purchase and everytime I complete a new project, I get a request to make one for a friend and I end up not getting it into my shop. Which is wonderful and exciting but my online shop really suffers because it isn't getting the exposure I'd like to get because I'm not posting new product at least weekly. But on the other-hand I'm not complaining because with the requests from my friends and co-workers comes more orders from their friends.

I'm hoping at some point, probably after the holidays, I will have some time to write down the pattern for the ear flap hat that am using to create my custom team/school spirit hats so others can make it too!

Happy holiday knitting to you all, and I hope you have gotten started on your gift knitting or if you haven't you are planning to soon - Christmas will be here before you know it!

Just in time for Christmas

I've been having so much fun designing the team hats and showing them off through Twitter and Facebook that I have been getting custom requests. So now you can place an order for your favorite team or school custom colorwork designed earflap or beanie style hat at my Etsy Shop!

Here are a few of the requests I've gotten so far:

University of Colorado Buffaloes

NY Jets

 I have modified the earflap hat so that it is more like the style of the old football helmets worn in the early 1900's. The brim is 1x1 ribbing, the earflaps are knitted double-stranded for additional warmth over the ears, the i-cord ties are double-stranded as well and the hat is embellished in an accent color using the reverse single crochet stitch, below is an example using the University of Oregon school colors, that I finished a few days ago:

Baby Apple Bottom Pants

Last night I finished a pair of my own version of apple-bottom pants. These were made for my good friend, Jodi who wanted something special for her friend who had a baby girl over the summer.

I made a little yellow dress back in August and set it aside wanting to think about what to make to go along with it. Since Jodi didn't need the gift until October, I figured I had plenty of time to think up something.

Well I on Friday, I thought that a pair of pants would be great to go with the dress, since the weather is getting cooler. Since the dress had apple buttons, I thought I could make apple-bottom pants! And I've been doing a lot of colorwork these past few weeks and I've been wanting to learn how to add color to small areas without having to do Intarsia or stranded knitting - a friend from my Wednesday Knit-night mentioned the duplicate stitch.

I looked it up on Youtube and found a really great video on how to use this technique and below you can see what I learned.

The really great part about the dress I chose is that it can be worn first as a dress, then as a tunic, and then eventually as a shirt. It's made out of cotton and will stretch as baby grows.

Little Sisters's Dress (Rav link)
by Tora Froseth Design (Rav link)

Added apple buttons on the side closure

Baby Bell Bottoms (Rav link) by Alison Hansel (Rav link)

Used duplicate stitch (Youtube tutorial) to add little
apples to the bottom of the pants - my version
of the apple-bottom pants for baby.