Wowsers - Almost seven months!

Hello again! I have been actively and mostly obsessively knitting. It's become pretty much the only thing I do for recreation.

Say hello to Poindexter

He's a chubby chirp from a pattern by Rebecca Danger.


http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/chubby-chirps

I started with the idea that I wanted to knit toys but I played it safe to start out with and knitted 3 scarfs: 1 for me, 1 for my wife, and one for my sister-in-law Mandy.

I knew that if I wanted to knit toys I'd need to learn how to knit in the round. I got a couple of tutorials and pillaged YouTube for knitting videos. I decided that I really like the circular needle approach as opposed to the 3-4 DPN approach. I'm certain that there are opinions on both sides of the argument but I'm enamored of circular needles.

I labored for a while and finally finished my first toy. The Chill Pill.

From a fellow blogspotter - Knitting Pony. Here's the pattern.

http://knittingpony.blogspot.com/2011/05/chill-pill-free-knitting-pattern.html

I did this with a strong sense of urgency because I discovered that a friend of mine had a 9 year old daughter with cancer. I thought that I could make her a little chill pill (I call it the Happy Pill) that she could take to chemotherapy and squeeze when she wasn't feeling good. It was really exciting and I discovered that when you are knitting for someone else it really creates a sense of purpose.

I knitted another one trying a different method for rounding the ends. I wasn't terribly satisfied with the results but it still looked good. I brought it to work along with my little purple monster chunk.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/monster-chunks

Which is super fun and easy and QUICK to knit. I ended up substituting a Kitchener type stitch to bind off the feet because I CAN'T FIGURE OUT THAT DOGGONE 3 NEEDLE BIND OFF TECHNIQUE!!!!!!! I will master it one day - Oh yes - I will.

Anyhoo, a friend of mine at work was marvelling at my toys. He said it was amazing and so unique. I asked him if he wanted to give one to his daughter. He has two daughters so I gave him the monster chunk and the happy pill. He was overjoyed.

The next day he told me his daughters went crazy for the toys. They were fighting over the happy pill. So, naturally, I decided to knit another one for his other daughter. I gave it to him today and he was super stoked.

I've adapted a circular technique involving a 6 stitch cast on that gradually expands (KFB, K1, KFB, K2, etc.) and it looks BEAUTIFUL.

Anyway - have lots of thoughts recently and don't want to spill them all here. Good to talk to you again.