Archives for April 2014

(Apologies to the late great Mark Bolan)

What’s with the T-Rex song title? Because I finished my own little T-Rex!

He is knit from Rebecca Danger’s Terrence the Tap Dancing T-Rex pattern. I used a skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock in the “Lucky” colorway, on a U.S. size 2 needle.

Just a couple of mods — I elected not to knit the striped chest piece because the yarn I used has a bit of a striping pattern in it.

After the body was half done, I knit the tail, rather than wait until after the body was complete and stuffed. I also knit the arms and legs at this point. Once the tail was done, I stuffed it and attached the legs to the body, and started stuffing the body. Once the body was complete, I sewed on the arms before finishing stuffing the body. Then, on to the head, stuffing the head, and embroidering on the face. That’s it!

This is intended as a baby gift for a baby boy due any time now.

And now I am knitting a bunny for the baby’s big sister. This one. It should be complete by my next blog post.

Loki Sez

“I like bunnies.”

First things first, the winner of a copy of  Happy Feet by Cathy Carron is Jamie, who has been emailed. Thanks to everyone who left a comment to enter the contest and of course to the always-generous Sixth and Spring Books for supplying the books for review and giveaway.

It escaped my notice last week that my blog had a birthday. At the beginning of this month, my blog turned 12 years old. My original blog was part of my wendyjohnson.net domain and the very oldest entries are still over there. Here is my first week of blogging.

Gripping reading, is it not? I do think I’ve come a long way since then. 😉

I am not doing anything in particular to celebrate 12 years of blogging. Later this month there will be a big Loki Birthday Extravaganza (more on that later) — that plus a blog birthday celebration is too much excitement for me.

Speaking of coming a long way . . .

The Nordic Scarf is done.

I thought it would be fun to make an i-cord fringe, so that’s what I did. The scarf is knit in the round and then laid flat, so I picked up a couple of stitches from the front and back for each i-cord. It’s fun and I like how it looks, so it is All Good!

The pattern will be coming soon. Now I will need to put the scarf away until next winter. For most of last week the weather has been more or less seasonable. No snow!

Speaking of spring, I notice that Loki is starting to blow his coat. He still has plenty of floof on board, but I am getting considerably more loose fur out of him each day when I groom him.  I learned pretty quickly that he needs to be groomed every day. I could get away with grooming Lucy once a week, but Loki’s fur is far thicker and longer than hers ever was. Because of that, I have found, unfortunately, that it does mat, so I am ever vigilant. I would much prefer to comb out any mats but Loki, as much as he loves his Momma and enjoys the grooming sessions, is after all a wiggly little boy, and I have resorted to cutting out a couple of mats. I don’t want to hurt him by pulling on tangles and therefore make grooming sessions unpleasant, but on the other hand I hate the idea of cutting chunks of fur out of his coat. I shouldn’t worry, I guess, because he has so much floof any mat-cutting I’ve done is pretty un-noticable.

T-Rex!

There were several questions in the comments about my stated necessity for knitting a T-Rex. Hey, sometimes a T-Rex is necessary!

This T-Rex will be a baby gift for a soon-to-be-born baby boy. I’ve not made great progress on it because I’ve been using it for lunchtime knitting only. I generally get interrupted with work-related stuff during lunch every day, so I do not have a lot of knitting time there. But now that the Nordic Scarf is all but done, I can turn my attention full-time to the T-Rex so will hopefully complete it pretty quickly.

Here is the body in progress. I’ve knitted the tail before completing the body as I though it would be easier than knitting it on the completed stuffed animal, as directed in the pattern.

And I’ve started on a leg. I’ll knit the arms and legs next, then complete the body.

After T-Rex completion I think I will work on a series of small projects for a while. I’ve done a few honking big projects in a row, so some quickie knits will be a fun change.

Loki is dreaming about what a “big Loki Birthday Extravaganza” entails!

In the Spring a knitter’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of small projects. (With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson for butchering one of his lines.) Small projects, you say? How about footwear?

I was sent this new book for review:

This is Happy Feet by Cathy Carron, which has a publication date of April 1, 2014 — yesterday.

This is not just a book of sock patterns. Well, sock patterns it has, but it has all sorts of knitted items for your feet.

How about some legwarmers?

Or “yoga socks?”

Or slippers?

There are also plenty of socks in this book. They range from plain:

To crazy:

To amazing!

You can check out all 33 fun patterns on the book’s Ravelry page, here.

There is also a lot of great information on sock construction and step by step illustrated directions for techniques you need for some of the projects in the book. All in all a great book, with a little something for everyone.

The publisher, Sixth & Spring Books, has generously offered me a second copy to give away in a blog contest. Who’d like it?

To be entered in the drawing, leave a comment on this blog post by 11:00 am eastern time on Sunday, April 6, 2014. We will select a winner via the Random Number Generator at that time.

Loki Sez

“Mo-o-o-o-o-o-om . . . aren’t you finished on the computer yet?