Restless needles

I have to have a project on my knitting needles at all times. If I don't, I feel at loose ends. I like the security of knowing I can be knitting on something if I'm watching television or riding in the car.

Here are a few of my March-April projects.

The owl, a rather odd-looking specimen, I admit, is from Purl Bee. I chose the pattern because I like the criss-cross design in the owl's body.

On Christmas Eve we were at our friends' home, and a very pregnant guest mentioned that her baby's room would be decorated with owls. My ears perked up. I love an excuse to knit baby things, so I made a mental note to  knit an owl for the baby's room.

Here's the completed cardigan for little Phoebe. It's a size 3-4. I wrote about my problems with this pattern in an earlier post. The finished cardigan came out OK. I still need to find just the right button for it. I'm thinking something large and bling-y is in order. The pattern is Sirdar's #1401; the yarn is Sirdar Snuggly DK.

My eight-year-old great niece, Violet, mentioned in February that she desperately needed a pair of fingerless gloves. I almost weakened and gave her a rather fancy pair I'd made for someone else. Then I decided to make her a pair of plain ones using leftover sock yarn. It's not that I think Violet isn't worthy of a pair of fancy fingerless gloves, but she's eight. Eight-year-olds lose things. I'd share the pattern if I could find it. It's no doubt from Ravelry, where I find tons of excellent, mostly free, patterns. I noticed Violet was wearing her new gloves as she left our home on Easter Sunday.

Violet's mother Rachel and I are going to have a craft fair at a strawberry festival at the end of June. I've been making several strawberry-themed  things for the fair, the next two items among them.

At left is a knitted and felted purse. It sports a strawberry design on the front and a lining of strawberry-strewn cotton.

The strawberry hat is knitted in garter stitch with strawberry leaves and stem attached.

It'll be interesting to see if any of our craft items actually sell. I learned long ago that pricing handmade items is tricky. Either the buyer is insulted by the price, or the seller is. Most buyers don't place much value on handmade items, so it's ridiculous to put an accurate price on, say, the handbag above. If I followed the rule of thumb of pricing for  the handbag, I'd charge twice the price of the yarn plus the value of my time. Let's say the yarn was $8, so that times two is $16. Let's say I spent four hours knitting the handbag, another hour machine-felting it, an hour adding the lining, two hours knitting and felting the embellishments….that's 8 hours of my time. Let's say I feel $10 per hour is fair pay. That's $80 for my time, $16 for my materials….$96. Absolutely no one attending the strawberry festival will be willing to pay $96 for a hand knitted, felted, and embellished (AND lined) strawberry handbag. I can almost guarantee you that. I'll probably put a price of $30 on it, and I'll probably be bringing it back home with me at the end of the craft fair!

I like to keep a sock project on my needles at all times. That way, when I finish a bigger project and am in that between-projects zone, I can always pick up the socks and work on them. My one and only sock pattern is by Yankee Knitter. It's a great sock pattern, very well written. I love Yankee Knitter knitting patterns.

I started these socks last August and worked on them here and there over the next several months. In fact, I got sick and tired of them. But now they're done. DONE, I tell you. They'll make a nice addition to my drawer of wool socks, and wool socks are my sock of choice in the winter. They are so much warmer than cotton socks!

So that's what my needles and I have been up to.