Will Knit For Pugs

Heylo...I am stealing a few moments to write and share photos this evening.

WOW, it's been a crazy 5 months here.
Celebrating 15 years of marriage, remodeling, organizing after 10 years being in our house...summer, kid's birthdays...kids, kids, kids.......

This summer had some family fun, sleep overs, and one great trip to Oregon to see our amazing cousins. Our 11 year old also went on his first camp for 5 days. That was a growing time for me as a mommy for sure. He had the time of his life!

Now, fall is here...sigh. My favorite season of all...a time to retreat.

In puppy related news...
Earlier this summer I was looking for a pug breeder who had the brindle colored pugs. Fortunately, I found my puppy sooner rather than later. All the sudden I needed a good handful of money to get her home. All of the sudden doesn't work too well with a one income family.
I did a lot of ebaying/Craigslisting/Facebooking to procure the funds.
I knew I wouldn't be able to sell crafts for her total purchase price.
I thought it would be cool though to sell one item to go towards her purchase.


I finished a pug amigurumi that had been in my basket for some time. I wasn't totally into the bright colors but I thought I would push my palette a little and add some bright colors in with my usual love and staple, gray.

Phoebe Pug Amigurumi was finished promptly and listed. She sold just 8 days after I listed her in my etsy shop. I was so happy.



All my amigurumi have heart...


A month after contacting the pug breeder I was able to take Phoebe home. We love our little gal and Li-jo is a serious pug fanatic.


Phoebe is quite attached to me...she fell asleep on my feet while I was cooking soup one day.
Doesn't her natural dog slop and cottage cheese look delicious, ew! She is well fed for sure.



There is a photo in The Opinionated Knitter by Elizabeth Zimmerman of Elizabeth by a car that she bought completely with money from knitting. That was so inspiring to me. One of my main goals is to pay for the rest of my arm tattoo with knitting money. I am already paying for half a yarn crawl called Yarn Train that I CANNNNNOT wait for in January. January will be here before we know it...12+ hrs of Portland Yarn and city goodness.

The tattoo will happen. Hopefully before my kids are grown.

knit shan knit!!!

Fortunately, this isn't the end...stay tuned...

Baby Amigurumi For Bella Bonita...

I am not quite sure how I am finishing ANYTHING these days, but I did finish my sweet niece's dolly, Dolly Lama 2 (named by my darling brother, Ron) Dolly Lama 1 is already at their house and was blogged about a loooooooong time ago.

Dolly turned out really sweet and snuggly, 15 inches tall...Dolly Lama 1 is about 8 inches tall...

This pic of Dolly's heart is washed out because I persist in trying to use my iPhone camera for all my pictures. I do have an actual camera, BUT, there is a part of me that thinks that my iPhone can do it all ALL the time. This isn't the case. I did manage to get my real camera back from our sons...they are youtube film makers. HILARIOUS!
Here's the little lady...I think she looks like the old fisher price little people I use to play with. I wasn't trying to infringe on their brand, it just emerged :o)
Dolly is soy/wool for her head, hands, and feet/legs and an alpaca/acrylic blend for her body. She is stuffed with shredded organic cotton batting (a pain in the rear to make) I am buying a couple new fleeces for stuffing soon...until I get a different source for non-plastic fill for my toys. I dosed my jumbo pug amigurumi with lavender essential oil and I hope that keeps the moths away.
Here she is again, ready to be wrapped! I think she looks friendly and hug-able.
I loooooooove making amigurumi....I love making toys for people.
My amis get lots of smiles and I sort of miss the ones I've made...like adopting out critters :o)
And alas here is my sweet niece Bella Bonita opening up her Dolly.
She loved it and my bro and sis in law were touched.
sort of anti-climatic, my bowl of organic cotton shreds.

Look Mom!!! Lookie What I Did!

So, here as promised, the jumbo pug amigurumi pix

My dreams have come true,
Bigger IS better
You CAN have it all...........in amigurumi land.

Mr. Pug is amazing and was lovingly received at my friend's 3rd birthday. He was the perfect gift. I dosed him up with lavender essential oil and a bit of patchouli. He was gift wrapped in a handy basket with my fave yellow tissue paper.


We liked hanging out with Mr. Humungous Pug after I finished him. My menfolk thought he was cool and wanted to keep him.



My pug amigurumi design came from my love of the breed. I am in love with pugs. I think pug owners have to be so well acquainted with all of your dog's nooks and crannies it made for good model making. I could make the nose wrinkle a little deeper under the nose for old time's sake. My pug dolls are available for custom order, I make three sizes. Please email me if you would like more information. knitshanknit at comcast dot net

So here is pug kicking it on the photo op couch.......he's loving life!!!

He has a humongous heart!!!



This is a great pic to show you Mr. Pug's girth, a whopping 20 inches tall....don't even get me started on the circumferences of limbs and head! Actually if you would like all of the measurements I can get those to you.

The tail end :o)



Mr Pug watching over the neighborhood...

knitshanknit at comcast dot net

Hmmm....I wonder what this is !?!?!?

my first thru 4th attempts...

email me your guesses knitshanknit @ comcast dot net

Wee Bebe Kimono

This is one of my favorite sweaters to knit. It is knit in one piece then folded and sewn. So easy and adorable. I made this one from brown fishermen's wool for my sweet friend's baby. He's due any day.
I am learning to make my own buttons...so for now I am making crochet or braided ties. Safe for little ones, no choking hazard. The almost spring sunshine made lovely natural light for my photo shoot.

knit for peace...

My new friend Katie has a knitting for peace group. I finally got to join them, after my husband's work schedule changed. I actually couldn't believe I was at last driving to an evening knitting get-to-gether...

A few months ago Katie gave me some of her personal handspun yarn (click here for Katie's etsy shop) I decided I would knit two adult or youth hats for Take the Next Step Ministry.

When I got to the group, Katie had two big bins of yarn she offered up for charity knitting projects. She had received a grant and had spent it wisely!!! I found an alpaca blend and a red superwash merino for a couple projects. The project I decided I would start that night was a hat for a chinese orphan. It had to have a little acrylic in it to make it easily washable. I passed up a ton of sweet fibers. This particular orphanage has requested little sweaters for the babies. If you would like to knit along with us lemme know... Katie and her husband are taking the knit goods to the orphanage when they go there to pick up their new daughter in May!!!

The finished alpaca blend hat...cabled and tassled...oh and baby YaYa's orange ball...

Very soft and warm!

It's Been A Little While...Working on Mount Cardigan and Setting Up Shop...

Something I am knitting to felt up, stay tuned!!! Nice sparkly darning needle in this photo :o)

I haven't posted in awhile, I have been Facebooking and Tweeting a lot. You can find me on both those networking sites as follows, for my custom knitting business called knit shan knit or follow my personal stitches as I log them........I am also offering knitting classes in 2010 and new knitter kits filled with goodies from Knit Picks and etsy.

knitshanknit on Twitter
knit shan knit on Facebook
knitshanknit on etsy

I know it's really original!!!

So lately I have been trying to get my head around knitting more, taking time for designing projects (not fun because no actual knitting happens) and working in creative time whilst taking care of all my awesome menfolk. There is time to be found and I do find it, but it takes a lot of caffeine and organization.

Tonight if the baby allows it, I will start working on a lace pattern out of the second Mason Dixon book. I am going to use huge needles and bulky yarn. Stay tuned for that. It's the shawl that is doubled over and worked in two colors of mohair. Do you know the one I mean?

Soon, if a certain online shop would get my order to me. I won't mention names because I'm not like that and they are a cottage industry like me. I may give them another chance just to make sure it wasn't just an off day or someone over there. But, soon, I will be starting my long lost cousin's snow hiking hat. I am going for glorious. Her request, chic not hippy, so I think I know where I need to go. I am making sure I am using really beautiful wool and researching the cable sequences I'll use. I can't not put cables in this hat. I am pretty sure it's going to be complicated. I don't care!!! This is my sweet cousin T that lives in Connecticut. She blissfully paints away her Saturdays, carries around her Boston Terrier Bernie Mac and has two great daughters. We have always lived on opposite sides of the states, but thanks to Facebook we are getting to know each other. I am supposed to knit for her little pup soon........I love knitting for dogs. Especially dogs I love or know I am gonna love when I meet 'em.

So tonight I have a sick baby...he is either attached to me or to Blue's Clues this fine evening. I am letting him watch his video a little late due to his feeling bad. I think I am going to steal a few stitches while he's finding some clues with Blue.


I will end on this note...I started reading a really sweet book about fine gauge knitting called: Knit So Fine, Designs with Skinny Yarn. This book is going to act as a support group for my cardigan project I started earlier this year. I bought a huge amount of alpaca yarn from Pancake and LuLu on etsy.......started a top down raglan sweater. It is 7 stitches per inch. It's beautiful. I have 7+ inches knit on the raglan. I have a sanity marker to show how many rows I have completed. It is hundreds of stitches at this point because the body and sleeves are being worked at the same time. Here is what it looks like right now. It is gorgeous and will be worth it in the end.


One thing the fine gauge knitting books says is to blog about your progress, so you may get to join in my cardigan support group. I am a half inch or so away from putting the sleeves on their holders, then this blob will start to look like something. By the way, the roll on the outside edge is 3 inches of fabric rolled up, it will lay flat once I block it, etc, get the sleeves on the holders...........I am getting so close. I had to knit an 8 inch raglan and it has an almost boat neckline. I took the Magic Raglan pattern that you can google and changed it to my tastes....wide neckline with 3/4 length sleeves and cropped. I decided cropped is totally back in so why waste time knitting a whole darn sweater at 7 stitches per inch gauge.

Alright, thanks for being patient if you stop by often and I haven't posted since August like a lame-o. Go join my page on Facebook so you can stay in my loop and see what's up with my etsy shop.

shan
Will Knit For Tattoos!
http://www.knitshanknit.etsy.com