Yeee Hawwww!

One of the projects I was working on at the same time as the custom sweater was a little holster set.  I have a three year old who is OBSESSED with pirates and now, cowboys.  We had bought him a little cowboy gun set that came with a plastic holster set.  It tore.  Shock.  So, instead of sewing on my poor, tired, in desperate need of a tune up, sewing machine, I decided to felt.

I've only felted a few times previously, so I wasn't necessarily sure how this was going to come out.  I used a fairly large needle size, as well as two strands of the Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool for this project... I had a TON left over from the previous felting endeavour.  I basically knit rectangles and a belt, felted them down, added some craft felt for the stars and blanket stitched the edges.  We then found a SWEET belt at a local thrift shop, took the buckle off, and attached it to the felted belt... it even had a cowboy on it.  Score.

End result:  a new, very stylish holster and belt that he won't take off!  The pattern is available for purchase on my Etsy site, here.

I'm Baaaaack!

Goodness.  It kind of feels nice to type!  I have been hard at work on multiple projects... a set of legwarmers for a friend, two baby beanies that came up unexpectedly (many thanks to the husband for letting me know one of his family friends since childhood was having twins...), a few little things here and there (some mommy and me socks for Etsy) but the one that took up the vast majority of my time was this custom order.

What on earth could take a month?  Well, when you want something done right, you take your time.  Finding the yarn for this project was challenging enough.  Ever tried to match reasonably priced yarn to an album cover?  Then, finding a pattern that would lend itself to alteration... then creating the alterations...

I digress.  I received an email in January from a prospective (and LOCAL!!) client wanting to commission a custom sweater.  Cool, right?  Little did I know how HUGE of a fan Michael is... fortunately, he is also patient.  Having two kids and popping in an extra project or three along the way gave me time to take breaks from this sweater and go back, make the necessary changes to have a successful product.

I used Berocco's Comfort yarn for this project so that it would be washable (although, I would still say handwash it!!!).  Working off of an image that Michael gave me, I took a pattern from Bernat design and added in stripes, as well as a design worked in intarsia into the front.  This is the first time that I have done extensive intarsia work, and I am rather pleased with how it came out.

Next up?  A quick sweater for me, then another custom order for some yoga socks!  Oh... and did I mention I finally taught myself the beginnings of crochet?  I even bought a book!  We'll see how this goes... :)