A Wee Giveaway!

Here it is! My first giveaway!

Fits a standard sized, 12 fluid oz. bottle

You could win one of these cute, hand-knit beverage sweaters!!

1. Blue cable

2. Blue & green stripes

3. Grass green cable

4. More stripes

I love these beverage sweaters! From the knitting standpoint, they are quick and easy to knit up, and a wonderful space to play with color and texture. And from the drinking standpoint, I use them all the time. In the summertime, they absorb beer sweat and I like to think they keep the beer chilled longer. I use them in the winter too, because the bottle is cold!

Beverage sweaters are knit with 100% wool and must be hand washed.

Two ways to enter! 
ETA: You can double your chances of winning, by entering TWICE! Here's how: 

1. Leave a comment on this blog entry, answering the question What is your favorite summer beverage? Make sure to leave your name and an email address I can reach you at if you win.


2. Visit my Facebook knitting page, Oocha Knits and follow the directions to enter there.

I will use the Random Number Generator and choose four winners, two from this blog and two from my Facebook page. Winners will be announced Wednesday, April 11th. 

Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

<3

(I couldn't resist. A little Hunger Games obsessed here).

It must be giveaway season!

I think everyone is a little more hopeful when spring comes along. I know I look forward to the lengthening days and daffodils blooming. It's hard to be grumpy when the sun is shining, which is probably why there are so many giveaways happening! I just wanted to share a few that I know about:

*Andi from My Sister's Knitter has a great yarny package giveaway to celebrate her blog's two year anniversary!
*Tanis Fiber Arts has a yarn palette giveaway with some very pretty colors!

And I want to share an iPhone app from Gina House that is free to download, called Sleepy Eyes. It is awesome! It's clear that a lot of time and love went into its creation, and it's super easy to navigate. There are many original and free patterns (by Gina) that are downloadable through the app. I've had Gina's Amanda Hat in my Ravelry favorites for awhile and since it's one of the patterns you can download in the app, it will make knitting on the go so much easier. Gina had a giveaway for her app a little while back, and I was one of the winners!

My package arrived the other day and it totally made my day!

Yarn close up!

Thank you Gina! I am so excited to use this yarn! I just have to find the perfect project for it.

That's it from me today, I am putting the finishing touches on my own giveaway! Now I have to clean the spare bedroom and look for my good scissors :)

Happy Crafterday!

Psst!

I am very excited to be planning my first giveaway! I have been wanting to do this for some time now and finally have my ducks in a row :) Details will be available soon, but for now, a sneak peek of what you could win:

Baldwin III

Remember my friend who asked for this monster for her nephew:

She wants two more for her boyfriend's nieces! They are two and six years old, and they each picked out color yarns they like the best. And of course, they both picked Red Heart.

Normally I have nothing against Red Heart or acrylic yarn. In fact, it's what I've primarily use to crochet my afghans. It's so durable, there are plenty of colors, and it's what my grandma used. But acrylic on wood needles? Blech. I had knit my friend's first Baldwin (with Red Heart) on my Knit Picks Harmony's, and it was tortuous. It squeaked, it stuck, and I swore never again.

And so I cried a little when my friend came over with two skeins of Red Heart. But since it's for the children, I went out and bought some double pointed aluminum needles. They worked great until I had to join feet with legs...and I caved and switched to the circular. But it's the same thing, sticking and squeaking, and I'm throwing in the towel.

I just put my Knit Picks order in for a set of US 6 nickel plated tips. Gosh, I hope they arrive soon!

Round Ripple

I started this afghan sometime late last year, and stuffed it away in order to finish Christmas knitting. This weekend I felt like crocheting and pulled it out. The pattern is Lyn's Round Ripple and here is where I'm at now:

There are a few reasons why I love this pattern (this is my third time crocheting it!). Since you begin in the middle and work your way out in rounds, you only need to chain a few stitches to get going. One thing that really deters me from crocheting a rectangular afghan is chaining all those stitches!

This is also a great stash buster. I think I will only need three one-pound skeins of yarn, and they're all from my stash. Two are the Caron One Pounds and the variegated is JoAnn's Sensations, the Rainbow type. I think it's a neat way to play with colors.

And one of the last reasons why this pattern rocks is you can stop whenever! It could easily be a nice lap blanket or a huge queen sized afghan.

Hope you all have a relaxing Sunday afternoon :)

Baldwin take two!

A little while ago a friend requested a Baldwin monster for her one year old nephew.

Since he is so young, I opted to embroider the eyes rather than use plastics safety eyes, just to be safe. I also used some stash acrylic, which is good for wash ability and durability, but really stinky on the needles!

This is it:

Updates!

I have so many things to update on! Hopefully, I will slowly catch pack up on blogging.

First thing, I finished and sent the hats off!

 

Second thing, I have been trying my hand at two-at-a-time toe up socks! I love to learn new techniques and there are so many benefits to knitting socks this way. What appeals the most is always knowing you will have enough yarn to finish the socks (unless they are knee highs).

The first toe up socks I tried were the sample socks from Melissa Morgan-Oakes Toe up book:

Little toe cups are my favorite!!

which turned into....

These should fit a toddler, according to the book.

And then I cast on a pair for me from Regia 4-ply Silk - yarn I received last Christmas.

And this is more or less where I am at now:

I'm probably about two or three inches up the leg. They feel fine! Nice and silky on my feet, and I can't wait to wear them.

So far I have almost three pairs of hand knit socks for myself !!! It's so rewarding to look in my sock drawer and see the pairs I knitted. But then I get to thinking about Scott, and how he only has one pair of hand knit socks... so of course I wanted to knit more for him.

We went to Loopy Knit and Crochet in Missoula and he picked this yarn:

It's lovely stuff! The colors are beautiful and the little alpaca hairs are nice.

The other night I was knitting the toe cups and finishing the Hunger Games trilogy! I haven't read a book so fast in awhile! And there's a great deal on Amazon to purchase the trilogy on the Kindle for $18.99, so I did :)

And right now, I'm relaxing on my day off. I picked up an afghan I started sometime last year but never finished. I really had only started it before I stopped crocheting on it, because it's less than two feet wide (it's the Round Ripple afghan I'm so fond of).

Happy Crafternoon :)

Hats!

I just finished a three-hat order! I can't wait to share the photos but I'm going to wait until the recipient receives them. Wow, I am so excited about this order! Mainly because he is so excited about them - it's really fun to knit for someone when he/she is just as excited as you! I'm excited because this is my second custom hat order! More on this later...

I'm also working on a project for a friend, for her nephew. Almost finished knitting that too, it just needs arms ;)

I started a Facebook page for my hats and have been thinking about having a hat giveaway. Details will follow as soon as I have a hat to give away.

That's it for now. I just purchased a few knitting books - two are knit/crochet flowers, bugs, leaves! and one is toe-up socks! I can't wait to try my hand at some butterflies and a new sock technique!

Happy Thursday :)

Succulents

We added three new succulents to our windowsill garden. One is a living stone, one is an echeveria, and I can't remember the other :) The echeveria has a few flowers so I am going to try and propagate them! I haven't tried this before, but I found a few websites with great instructions.

Succulents are the one plant that I haven't killed yet. Or, almost killed and revived, because I have done that a lot too. They are very easy to grow!

I thought having a cell phone with internet capabilities would mean I could blog more often... the problem is I can't figure out how to format the text and the pictures to my liking. As it is, whenever I add photos to my (phone) entry, they always appear at the end of the text. And no matter what I do, I can never put text below the photo. This is alright if I only have a photo and a quick sentence to share. But sometimes I just have more to share.

This past week, Loopy Knit and Crochet had an awesome sale, which I only made to once (sad, I know). But truthfully, I get way too overwhelmed in nice yarn stores to think straight. I end up walking circles around the store, touching every yarn at least three times, and buy stitch markers. But this time I knew I wanted some no rinse wash and DK weight yarn for two different pairs of fingerless mittens.

This is what I came home with:

I am not completely positive that these aren't actually sport and worsted weight yarns, because when I looked them up in Ravelry's yarn database, they were not listed as DK. But on Loopy's tag they are listed as that! So I am unsure. The blue hank, which is Blue Sky Alpaca's Melange, is so incredibly soft! Last night I cast on the Cafe au Lait Mitts with it, but this morning I changed my mind. I frogged what little start I had made, and printed the pattern for Later, Gator! I'd much rather feel the alpaca against my face!

Yesterday I also used the Eucalan no rinse soak. It has Eucalyptus oil in it and smells divine!

I soaked mine and Scott's socks, his Howler Monkey hat, and a Fair Isle hat that I've never worn. I used one teaspoon for one gallon of tepid water. I'm not really sure if it's better to have more room between clothing or if it's alright to jam pack it. After they had soaked for fifteen minutes, I squeezed the water out by hand, and then by rolling each piece in a towel. I was a little disappointed that I could still smell the Patons wool even after the soak. If you have ever gotten Patons Classic Wool wet, you know what I'm talking about. Hopefully with a couple more washes, that smell will go away.

Happy Monday!

Denise&apos;s hat

I finished my first commissioned project! It was a very exciting process and I can't wait to have another order!

The yarn is Patons Classic Wool in Gray mix and Black.

Love Luck Leap Swap!

I forgot to post pictures from the swap!

Even though I finished the monster for my partner awhile ago, I didn't want to post pictures here until she had received her package.

This is Baldwin:

(the pink one was for Penny) I decided to make a Gryffindor scarf for Baldwin because both my partner and I are Harry Potter fans!

And this is the sweet package I received from my partner:

She made me a Harriet! And she used blue eyes rather than the standard child safe black ones, and I think they look so neat! She also included heart shaped post it notes, heart shaped stitch markers, a box of tea, licorice, Jelly Bellys, and knitting note cards!!

It was such a fun swap to participate in and I definitely want to join another one!

Growth

Half of the succulent that was repotted yesterday:

GTD!

Today was a day of productivity:

Early morning trip to Costco to beat the rush, and it was a really good idea.

Helped Scott finish putting together shelves in the garage. Now all the recycling and odd ends are off the ground and organized! It looks so much better in there.

We took cardboard and glass to the recycling center, and that always clears up a lot of space :)

Repotted some succulents :) I have no idea what kind they are, but one started growing a baby succulent.

I've been reorganizing the kitchen for the last week. We're limited on counter space and cabinets so I'm really trying to optimize what we have. I think I made some good rearrangements today, as long as I remember where I moved things :)

And at the moment, I'm finishing a Valentine's monster for a friend. Pictures soon.

This is a shot of the screws and washers for the shelves: