Tag: knitting

Another year…

On By Michel McDonaldIn Blog, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Well, another year has passed. I can’t believe time seems to be moving a bit faster every year for me. It seems like 2024 would still have another 6 months left, but no, it’s almost finished. 1 more day.

What have I accomplished in a year? Well, my Etsy shop was very busy this year, busier every month this year since I started. Mainly due to a single item though. A simple friendship bracelet.

I added a listing for lesbian friendship bracelets with the same designs I have for my rainbow friendship bracelets, but I used the lesbian pride flag colors. I also did the bear flag colors and that wasn’t as popular as the lesbian. So this is the bracelet that someone wanted. They sent me a message asking me if I could make this bracelet and they took a screenshot from the Disney+ show Agatha All Along. I said let me see if I can do it and I opened up my friendship bracelet designer program on my computer and figured it out. Of course I did have to Google the design and I found it right away. I just had to change the colors to these specific colors which are the lesbian pride flag colors.

After I sent this bracelet off to this person, I decided to add it to my lesbian pride flag friendship bracelet listing and wouldn’t you know it? Some other people did a search for Agatha all along friendship bracelet and they found it and they bought it and so many people wanted this bracelet. I added three sizes so that it could accommodate small, medium and large.

Two people from Germany bought one (each) and someone in Norway bought one and someone in Ireland wanted to buy it, but they couldn’t afford the shipping from the United States. I got sales on this bracelet in many states and after making it so many times, sometimes everyday, I had to remove the item from my listing because I was in agony. These bracelets take time to make and they take a toll on my hands and my back.

I will eventually make up a whole bunch of bracelets for that listing and I’ll make a whole bunch of the Agatha bracelet as well because I know people will want it again. And I’ve already bought the string for it and have cut it and it’s all ready to go, I just have to start working on them. But I need a break because I’ve been working my fingers to the bone on crafts this whole year, and my hands are about ready to fall off. Not really, but you know, jokingly.

So other things that I’ve been working on are Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas box cards as well as a Christmas Advent calendar and also I’ve been knitting Christmas stockings.

The Advent calendar went to my cousin for his son and of course the whole family could enjoy it because I filled it with so much candy LOL. The Advent calendar is from SVGcuts and the fireplace box card that you see on the left side is actually from simply crafty svgs. And then there are two Christmas friendship bracelets in the front that come from an Etsy shop called The One Eyed Artist.

The Norwegian Christmas stockings are from Arne and Carlos. I posted about the stockings a couple of months ago when I made them. I’m making more because I bought so much yarn that I don’t know what else I’m going to do with it other than make a ton more stockings LOL. I’ll probably be working on these until it gets too hot to work with wool yarn.

I’ve also been reading a lot more. I made it a mission to read everyday no matter what. Even if I just read one or two chapters a day, at least I’m reading. I did the Goodreads challenge this year and challenged myself to read 30 books and I exceeded that by reading 48 books. I’m still reading a book and was hoping to finish it to make my Goodreads challenge 49 books, but I don’t think I’m going to make it.

There is one book that I have that I would like to read. That is the entire Wizard of Oz story, but it’s all one book which means there are 15 books that will count as one book unless I decide to add the books individually on Goodreads as I read them. It will most likely take me forever to read it because this one collection in one book is over 2,000 pages and I think I’m going to need to read it in stages lol. So I will add each individual book to Goodreads as I read them.

I have a lot of other books in my Kindle library to read, so I have no shortage of books to keep myself busy with. I also have a lot of books in my Nook that I can read as well.

I’m not doing the New Year’s resolution thing because I think that’s stupid. Especially when a lot of times people never follow through with it. They always say I’m going to start losing weight and I’m going to go to the gym and then they never do and they end up gaining weight. I’d rather just do it if I’m going to do it. I did lose 75 lb in 2023 with ozempic, and then it stopped on Thanksgiving Day and 15lbs have come back on gradually, but I’m still doing ozempic and I’m still trying and I’m doing my best despite the constant junk food being put in my face and constantly being asked if I want to go to fast food places. I have the ability to say no, but I don’t seem to be doing that very well. So that’s something I have to work on.

I am having heart issues because apparently my pulse is too slow. It was 41 the other day at the doctor’s office and they’re sending me to a cardiologist. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I checked my Fitbit watch and my pulse seems to be around 100, but then I checked my pulse on my blood pressure machine and it’s around 40 something to 50 something.  So, I guess my fitbit is not really telling me my true pulse rate. I’ll see what happens.

Well, Happy New Year and let’s hope that this year is a good year.

More Norwegian Christmas Stockings

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House and Julefugler Christmas stockings from Arne and Carlos.

I have made another Norwegian Christmas stocking from Arne and Carlos. I don’t know why the second one with the birds is bigger because I used the same exact knitting needles and the same yarn and I did the toe the exact same way and both of the stockings have the same number of stitches, so I don’t know why that one is bigger than the other, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.

In my previous post about the house stocking, I was saying that I did not like the toe nor did I like the heel, but it is growing on me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do the same toe but it is in the instructions and I don’t want to veer away from that. So I just did the same thing with the birds and I’m working on their latest stocking which is a mystery stocking that they’re doing every day for November, from November 1st until November 25th, 2024. They’re giving you six rows a day, and when the stocking is finished, they will add the full pattern to their blog for free, and then in December it will go into their shop and you will have to pay for it. Most of their stocking patterns are $7, so I assume it will also be $7.

You can find them at http://arnecarlos.com and also you can find their YouTube channel with lots of knitting instructions.

I did buy a bunch of stockings on their website when they were on sale for $2.80, so I bought pretty much every stocking pattern that they have. There was one stocking that I did not buy because it had cars on it and I just don’t see myself making that for anyone.

There is enough yarn from one skein of each color to make these two stockings, and there’s still enough that I’m working on making a third stocking. So these stockings are actually a lot cheaper than I thought they would be to make. I like the green color that I’ve chosen as opposed to a darker green because I just feel like this lighter green gives it more of a vintage look.

The yarn was $5 each skein, and so far I have enough for three stockings, so that’s about $5 a stocking. The first stocking took me I believe 3 days to make and the second stocking took me a little longer because I had other things that I had to take care of. The stocking that I’m making now is going to take longer because they’re only releasing six rows at a time every day this month, but otherwise I’m sure it would have only taken me a couple days to make.

Because of this project that I’ve chosen to do at this very moment in time, I decided that I was going to also resume knitting my socks. I started making this pair of socks, I don’t even know how many years ago, and I didn’t finish it because the other two pairs of socks that I had made had holes in the bottoms and I started thinking what a waste of time that was making socks for them just to get holes in them. I told my aunt that and she said you know you can fix those and they are really easy to fix, so I thought well if I can fix them then I guess it’s not a waste of time. So I decided to continue making the socks. And since I finished making this pair, I started making the next design which I’ve already started and you can see in the left side of the image.

The sock yarn is called Premier sock yarn. It is really thin and they have so many different designs and I bought 8 different designs, and so far have made 3 pairs of socks. The top left, middle left and bottom middle are the ones I’ve made. Now I am making the top middle.

I decided that I will make the socks, but I won’t wear them unless it is a special occasion. This sock yarn cost me $8 a pair to make. They are $3.99 for just 1 skein which only makes 1 sock. That is a very good reason to only wear them on special occasions, because they are so expensive.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with the stockings, but I’m sure I will figure it out. I think it would be nice to just hang them by the fireplace this Christmas just as decoration.

Norwegian Christmas Stockings

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HJEM TIL JUL
Christmas Stocking 2021

I learned how to knit when I turned 18 years old and it didn’t really go that far because I just couldn’t get the hang of it, but I never gave up on it. Several years ago I started watching knitting YouTube tutorials and I found these guys named Arne and Carlos and they are in Norway. They had a video tutorial to make a Christmas stocking and at the time the stocking pattern was free on their website and I downloaded the image which is a graph and I watched the video instructions for the toe and the heel and how to do everything else. I loved the pattern so much and the next year I decided I wanted to make another stocking and they put them on their website for sale. I ended up buying the one that they had which is a 2019 stocking.

NISSE Christmas Stocking
TOMTE Christmas Stocking

That first stocking, their instructions for the toe were different and I don’t think that I was able to understand it. So for some reason I did that one and that one was clearly the wrong choice because it looks terrible LOL. I also used knitting needles that were too big and the stocking was humongous. A newborn baby could have probably fit inside there. The second stocking was the 2019 stocking and I made the correct toe on this one.

So I was thinking I wanted to make another stocking and I went to their website and they had a bunch more stockings, and so I bought the one that I posted the image of above and it only took me a couple of days to make. I had a little trouble with the heel because it was an afterthought heel and I apparently did not know about lifelines using floss and I completely messed up trying to put the knitting needles in there, but now I know for the next time.

I paid $7 for this pattern a few days ago and then I went to get some yarn and that was another $15. After I finished this stocking tonight, I went back to their website to see if I wanted any of their other patterns because I finished this one so fast. I thought I might as well make another one and they’re on sale for $2.80 right now. So I bought all of the rest of the patterns that they have except for the one that has pictures of cars on it. I now have 10 stocking patterns from them.

Their website is https://www.arnecarlos.com/home/. They have a YouTube channel @arnecarlos with lots of knitting tutorials.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that they have some really good patterns that you can buy and they’re really not that hard to make. And like I said, I made this stocking in like 2 or 3 days. I barely used any of the green and I still have enough yarn to make maybe two or three more stockings. I think this is a really good buy. I’m going to start making another stocking using the same colors since I still have so much yarn left over.

How to knit socks from start to finish

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Have you ever wanted to knit a cool pair of socks, but don’t know how because you’ve never knitted, or perhaps you do know how to knit, but have never learned to make socks? Well, I learned from watching many videos on YouTube. I’ve shown this image above to all my socials and it seems like several people say they wish they knew how to knit socks, so I decided I would make a video teaching how to do all the steps from start to finish. It’s an intermediate pattern, but I show you as a beginner.

I like to use Premier wool free sock yarn that I bought from the Michaels website. I’ve bought sock yarn from Michaels and they are wool which means they get hot fast and those are meant to keep your feet warm when you are in the snow or perhaps just when you are sitting at home and your feet get too cold, or if it’s just winter and your feet get cold easily. Well, Premier wool free sock yarn is great for wearing with shoes.

However, for this video I just used regular yarn. The tools I use for the Premier socks are a 9 inch 2.75mm or US 2 circular knitting needles. Preferably ChiaoGoo with the red cable. 5 double pointed knitting needles of the same size (the set usually comes with 5) a size 2.0mm crochet hook for fixing dropped stitches, stitch markers and a needle for sewing the Kitchener stitch. The circular knitting needle I used in this video was a 12 inch 5mm US 8 circular knitting needle with matching double pointed needles and a size G crochet hook and of course stitch markers and yarn needle for sewing the Kitchener stitch.

The pattern is available on the Premier website, but in the video I tell you how many stitches you will need for your sock depending on the circumference of your foot. I will show you how to do the loose long tail cast on, rib stitch for the cuff is 1 1/2 inches, then 6 inches total including the cuff before you start the short row heel. then you knit the foot and measure from the back of the heel for your foot size, but make sure you are measuring minus 2 inches because the toe is 1 1/2 inches and you want there to be a stretch, hence the last 1/2 inch. Finally the last thing to do is the Kitchener stitch to sew the toe up and then weave the tail of the yarn into the perl bars.

So here’s the video. Enjoy and let me know how it works out.

I’m knitting socks!

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This isn’t the first time I’ve knitted a sock. The first sock I ever knitted was the one in the image above, and I never made the matching sock because my hand was in so much pain from making this one because of my carpal tunnel, that I just ended up putting the second one off, and then I guess I just never made it because I forgot, and then I lost the sock yarn lol.

So this time I am actually making a pair, but I’m working with regular yarn because it gets so cold here in the winter because we don’t have heat, so rather than wearing 2 pairs of socks all winter, I thought I would knit socks with yarn so they are like feet sweaters lol. I should clarify, we used to have central heating, but then the heater stopped working and now we have space heaters. The one in my bedroom is a portable radiator and it puts off so much heat that I have to turn it down because it feels like summer in my bedroom. The living room space heater is bigger, but since it blows heat like a fan, it only blows enough for a tiny space, so even if you are sitting next to it, your feet are still frozen if you’re not wearing socks.

I made 2 different socks and I messed both of them up, so those didn’t end up making the cut. My life partner didn’t like them anyway because he wanted dark, and I had this green yarn, so that’s the color he chose. I did mess up on the heel because I didn’t do a even 3 way split when doing the heel, I kept going one too many rows, so that’s why it’s so pointy, and believe me, it’s not comfortable lol. Since I made that first one that pointy, I have to make the matching one exactly the same. I do plan on making more and doing it right lol.

I made this first one going cuff down to toe, and I did it using the magic loop method, and I switched to DPN’s (double pointed needles) for the toe. I am still working on the matching sock because my hand has been in so much agony from all the failed socks, then this sock and now the sock I’m working on. It’s taking longer because I have to keep resting my hand. For the 2nd sock I decided to start making it using the DPN’s, but then I decided I wanted to buy some sock sized circular needles. I also bought actual sock yarn, so for the sock yarn I bought a 9 inch long 2.75mm US 2 size circular knitting needles, so I figured I would also buy 9 inch long 5mm US 8 size circular knitting needles for the yarn socks, but that turned out to be a mistake because 9 inches is not long enough. You can see in the regular sock yarn there is a stretch while it is on the circular knitting needles, but the regular yarn is bunched up too much and it just made it more difficult to knit, so I bought a 12 inch long 5mm US 8 size circular knitting needles, and as you can see from the pictures, it made a huge difference.

So after I finish with this green sock, I really want to go buy some more variegated yarn. My favorite is called Painted Desert. I think that will look awesome as a foot sweater lol. The regular sock yarn is Premier wool free sock yarn in the following styles. I saved the screenshots from the website of the finished sock so you can see and then took a screenshot of all 3 of them together.

I honestly don’t know why I bought the Petunia or the Vegas Lights. These were the only 3 available in the listing on the Michael’s website. Of course after I bought these 3 colors, they added more colors to the same listing that are more masculine that I really would rather have, but such is life I guess. Perhaps I will make those 2 pairs to give away. I found them on Amazon for the same exact price and free shipping with Prime, so maybe I will get them there since it’s faster shipping, that is if my hand is still alive when I finish making these.

Anyway, I like making things that are actually useful, and I can’t wait to see the Painted Desert yarn as a sock. Maybe one day I will find the sock yarn for the first sock I ever made so I can make the matching sock.