A little present from me to you

I've been designing finger puppets recently, to be more precise Gruffalo finger puppets.
I hope to be able to offer them for sale soon, proceeds will go to our son's memorial fund, which supports epilepsy research
.

Anyhoo I am offering the snake and the acorn for free. so pop along to http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/susie-snake-with-acorn and grab yourself a copy of it.

Football!

     So recently I was honored by the wonderful blog mistress, Aly, to join her list of guest bloggers on this wonderful site and I have been going crazy trying to think of something to blog about. THANK YOU, ALY!!!  I have been knitting for a number of years, on straights, until recently when I taught myself (through Youtube) how to use DPN's. My first project on DPN's was a pair of Spiral Tube socks but I wanted to do more! Enter football season!

Finished football

     I am a HUGE football fan....I will not name my favorite team since other football fans are opinionated (JUST LIKE ME!) and I would not want to offend anyone while I am a guest blogger (I bleed green and gold, however!) Football season opened this year on 9/8/2011 which happened to coincide with the birth of my great-nephew! My team, which happens to be his mothers team as well, played and WON the game! So I decided my next project would be a knit football! It has double meaning: a gift for my great-nephew AND he is my football good luck charm!

On the needles

     I searched all over Ravelry.com for a pattern I could use on straights to make the football. Then I remembered: I know how to use DPN's!!! As soon as I realized this (after smacking my forehead loudly!) I found the perfect pattern! "Plush Football" by Ali Tong! http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/plush-football 

     As this is the first toy I have ever done on DPN's I think I should share what I learned:

          1. Stitch markers, marking the first round, really are IMPORTANT! Especially if you set the knit    down (like I do) to walk the dog, eat dinner, drive (really why can't I learn how to drive and knit at the same time?) or because you have a million WIP's and want to work on them all at once!

          2. When changing colors, (I have never done this before so it is something new for me!) do not do it on the increase or decrease rounds because then it will look...well....wonky.

          3. Make sure you knit it in the right direction! I know...I know! This is a no-brainer but when you have never used DPN's before sometimes you get confused and do it backwards! I had to re-do a row because of this!

          4. And finally....as cute as the football is....it is a GIFT! I cannot keep the football!

Inside shot

Side view

   I really loved making this football and cannot wait to see my handsome great-nephew with the little ball in his hands (ummm....ok...next to him because he is a baby and cannot hold it himself). And I already have several other family members asking for a football in their team colors!

     Thank you, Aly for allowing me to guest blog! If anyone wants to see anymore of my projects feel free to pop over to my blog...http://mad4marvin.blogspot.com/

With laces showing!

Angry Birds!

So, I don't know about you, but W (my boyfriend) is OBSESSED with playing Angry Birds on his iPhone.  I looked for a pattern to make some Angry-Birds-inspired dolls, but could only find crochet! Story of my life, really.  I told myself that "I'll just have to figure something out myself." And, of course, they haven't been made yet.

But, OMG. I looked on Ravelry and the amazing Shirley knitterbees has designed and written the pattern for both the red bird and the green piggie! For those 2% of people not familiar with the game, don't worry, I have photographic evidence!

The Red Bird:

Image © Shirley knitterbees

Green Pig:

Image © Shirley knitterbees

Even if you don't know someone that's obsessed with the game, they're still REALLY cute! Truthfully, I think these knit versions look way better than any of the crochet ones, but I'm biased. Seriously, why don't these amazing patterns have more fav's, queues, and projects on Ravelry!? It's a mystery!

Now I know these are crochet

but you have to agree they are sweet



Make your own sweet teddy, all ready for bed in his pj's.
http://allaboutami.tumblr.com/post/9376917122/p-j-teddypattern

Or how about a sweet spring bunny.




http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2011/04/craft_pattern_spring_bunny.html

Hi and thank you to Alyoops

First I'd like to thank Aly for inviting me to be a guest contributor.
Like her, I love knitting toys, amis,softies call them what you will. I have designed a couple of toys and hope to design more. Pictures of a couple of favorites below.
Trouble is I make them, but forget to write down what I did, meaning that most of mine are definitely one of a kind!!

More about me.. (If you're still reading of course lol,) I have a website where I sell my creations, all in the hope of raising funds and awareness of epilepsy. (I'll check with Aly, if I'm allowed to advertise it here lol)
Checked: http://www.nimbleneedles.moonfruit.com & Rich's memorial site is:
http://sunflower.tributefunds.com/fund/Richard++Meese




Anyhoo look forward to finding you links to lots of free knitting patterns, if there's anything in particular you need, give us a shout.

An Announcement and a Call.

There are a TON of reasons why I haven't been posting here.  Last year, I separated my personal interests with this blog, and since then I've felt particularly confused about where this one of the twins is going.  I figure I should give myself a chance to explain.

The original intent of this blog was to post up links to free knit toys on the internet.  When I started it four years ago, there was no Ravelry (where you can now look up any toy pattern that you want).  There wasn't really much interest in knit toy patterns, either! Most importantly, there definitely wasn't this huge interest in designing knit patterns for toys. 

Today, so much has changed that I really don't see this blog worth the effort that I once put into it. It seems like the original function of this space can now be accomplished using Ravelry, and I'm not sure if I'm even interested in posting here anymore.

So, in the next two months a few things are going to happen.

1.  I'm going to be attempting to move all my personal posts over to my other blog, Alyoops! - I don't actually know if I CAN move them, I may just be re-publishing them.  The pages on this blog will still exist, they'll just point to the posts over there (re-directing is against Blogger's TOS).

2.  I would like to continue making posts, but I can't do it alone.  If you're interested in co-hosting this blog, just send me an e-mail at aly oops @ y mail. com - no spaces.  I think that we can still do some good here - there's a ton of people still following this blog even though I haven't posted in months, so that's obviously a testament as to how popular it was.

Even if you're interested but not sure you can commit to posting regularly, send me an e-mail or leave a comment anyway and we can chat about it!

New Free Pattern From Rebecca Danger: Chubby Chirps!

Photo © 2011 Rebecca Danger

I think these little birds are too cute, and a great way to use up some stash yarn!  From Rebecca Danger's blog - definitely worth a follow.  Also, check out her book and to-buy patterns on Etsy!

Note:  To download, please click on the sidebar of Rebecca's blog.  Or, download it from the Ravelry page by clicking the bar below.