Knitting Books

With less time to knit, but more time with books, I've borrowed another stack of knitting books to look at each evening. Here are a few of the one's I've glanced at recently:

Closely Knit (Fettig) - beautiful, thoughtful knitted gifts for loved ones
Fitted Knits (Japel) - very good notes on how to get garments to fit properly
Inspired to Knit (Orne)
The Best of Interweave Knits (Allen & Budd) - beautiful, stunning projects
Knitted Socks (Tillman) - great knits for kids and fun loving adults
The Knitting Workshop (Zimmerman) - a true piece of knitting history
Knitting Without Tears (Zimmerman) - ditto
Sensational Knitted Socks (Schurch) - beautiful socks with awesome stitch pattern guides

Some others that I'm waiting for are:
New Pathways for Sock Knitters (Bordhi)
Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn (Sulkoski)
Knit so Fine (Myers)
Mother-Daughter Knits (Melville)
2-at-a-time Socks (Morgan-Oakes)

One that is not available yet, but will be this year:
Sock Innovation (Cookie A)

And one other that I should add to my personal library:
The Opinionated Knitter (Zimmerman)

Totally, and completely, justified

Well, that's what I told myself since I've been spending so much time in front of the computer lately. I had my 50% coupon for JoAnn's to get some of this, so essentially for $2 I got myself a new mouse pad. Dan had lots of cork underlayment left over from a remodeling job at our old home - sometimes being a pack rat really pays off! I already had this amazing fabric in my stash. Thanks (again) to Sew, Mama, Sew! for the great tutorial.

If I were to make another one I'd probably use an exacto knife, or something more sharp, to cut the cork. I just used regular scissors and while it worked, the edges are bit jagged for my taste. The project also only took me about 15 minutes from start to finish - gotta love that!

My quilts on Sew, Mama, Sew!

Here they are! I was contacted a couple days ago about using photos of my doll quilts for an upcoming post on the Doll Quilt Sew-Along. I was so excited to be asked. The awesome tutorial was put together by Alissa. I highly recommend giving a doll quilt a try - even if you don't consider yourself a sewer. I am more of a knitter than a sewer myself; and if I can do it with squirmy three year-olds on my lap anyone can do it.

I also have to highlight my other favorite Sew, Mama, Sew! project - the Classic Tote (and related tutorial) by Irene. I've made a zillion of them and each one has been put to good use. You can see most of the ones I've made here and here.

Hello to all you visitors from Sew, Mama, Sew! Leave comment below and say "hiya" if you feel like it. And for those of you that came here looking for sewing stuff - maybe not knitting stuff - here's a link to the doll quilt post and my other sewing adventures.

By the way, I'm currently flattening some cork board under heavy books in hopes of making one or two of these this weekend. Fat Quarter Month rocked, don't you think?

Two FO's

I have a couple of FO's (finished objects) to share! First, let me present my new mittens:

And here are my new socks:















I have been doing a lot of writing lately, and not too much knitting. I have gotten the green light from my advisor to set a proposal defense date (pending one last revision) so I will be pretty focused on school for the next few weeks. It feels great to be making some progress on my dissertation! I know that I will have to set the knitting aside for a bit - or rather not spend quite so many evenings knitting as I would like - to jump this next hurdle, but I'm on my way. Yeah!

Details for both projects are on ravelry. The mittens are Bird in Hand by Kate Gilbert, and the socks are Spring Forward by Linda Welch.