There's a bear driving that car!!

Its very odd that my eye tends to gravitate towards car/tractor stuff since my 8yo son is totally into cars/tractors. And my husband is totally a major enabler since he's into the same stuff.

Naa, not so odd, is it? 

Seriously, my husband bought this boy a real Allis Chalmers "C" before he was born! And was on a tractor with daddy a few days after he came home. Not to mention, now, has a whole fleet of toy tractors of many different makes and models. (Heres a few)This year for Christmas, my son received a subscription to "Hot Rod" magazine! And has just about every "Hot Wheel" car made.  Conversation at the supper table/evening time with daddy, is to say the least, interesting. Listening to the two of them talking, is like hearing a conversation between two men down at the co-op. I thought I still had a few years to go before these sort of conversations happen. But I guess my son is an early bloomer.

But I digress, hes a boy, and Im outnumbered cuz both my daughters have grown up and flown the coop. So, if I wanna get any points with my son, I have to take the "If you cant beat em, join em" attitude.

So, when I see stuff like this.....

...I hop on it like a freight train. Yea, its a major bombardment of sugar, but thats ok every once in a while. And he's still a boy, and therefore loves this sort of stuff.....still. Not sure what Im gonna do to get points when he gets older, but for now, I got him.

Anyway...

I found the recipe to make these awesome, car loving, blasts of sugar, over on Pintrest and couldnt wait to try it!

(BTW: if you're on Pintrest, come follow me. If you're not, and wanna be, let me know that in the comments and leave your email and I'll send you an invite.) 

Its Tiny Teddy cars recipe, from KidSpot, and heres the stuff ya need.....

The "fun size" chocolate bars~ I found a six pack of milky ways and Snickers for a dollar at Wal-Mart. So thats what we are using. And he found a snickers bar in the candy dish. 

Teddy Grahams~ cut at the belly button

Smarties~ separated by color, (if that matters to ya) and in piles of 4 for the tires and 1 cut in half for the steering wheel. 

Semi-Sweet Bakers Chocolate(or whatever you got)~glue

At least one child and a willingness to get your kitchen dirty and have a blast.

Then you put them all together.......

Wheel Assembly

Steering Wheel/Driver Assembly

Let the "glue" cool, and you have a parade of cars, driven by teddy bears.

That one in the center there with a big glob of chocolate in front of the wheel? That big glob of chocolate is a "turbo charger" my son insisted this car have. So, by default of course, its the "lead car". 

Admittedly not as clean as the ones in the recipe pic, but my son and I had a blast making them, so they are absolutely gorgeous to me.....and Joe just earned an hour of art class. YAY. 

TTFN

German/Jo Jo/Yo Yo/Double Stitch toe/heel explored

As I mentioned in this post, I found a new way to do my short row heels!

It's called the "German/Jo Jo/Yo Yo/Double Stitch", I like it for it's somewhat stealth abilities, and its only a k2tog/p2tog thicker than the rest of the sock. which means I must perfect this method because I have a couple repeat customers with diabetic feet.
Diabetic feet + little to no seams in the sock= happy feet!

Being my anal crafty self, I like my toes and heels to match. So this method had to be modified for the toes. It's designed to work with heels because you have to put a straight row in between the action to separate them, which makes it look like a bent row of knitting. So you use your instep stitches for that.

This presented a problem when I modified it to work with my toes. I dont have instep stitches to use. So after all was said and done, the "middle" got 2 rows instead of one. Which makes things not so "stealthy" because the two rows on the outside of these middle ones are double thickness, which kinda sorta caves in the two middle rows.

I tried doing this method without any middle rows. It produces kind of points all along the seam where the two sides meet, like you would normally see in a short row, but its not gonna match the heel. Im still exploring that way tho, I may try doing it that way with both toes and heels.
(If any of you are soo kind and wanna go experiment, please come back and let me know your findings! Check out this post for links to TessKnits's tut and a couple videos on this method.)

But then again, I like the way this one just looks like a curved row of knitting. And if anyone knows me....I like stealthy knitting.

Im still working on it, but for this sock. I think it looks good.

Here it is on the toe of a sock.(sorry for the crappy pic. Hyper dog wants pet much more than letting me take a pic+freezing temps=this is the best your gonna get..lol)

Check out the "seam". Its about as invisible as im gonna get it..lol 

Here it is on the heel.

Im not totally thrilled with this....Not on this sock, but Im gonna try this method without the center row of stitches.
Come back for updates! And please dont be shy on the comments!
TTFN

Short Row Heels Japanese/German/Jo Jo/Yo Yo/Double Stitch

When a knitter utters the words "Short Row", some other knitters might shudder. But Im here to put a blankie on you because these short rows are easy!!

First is the Japanese Short Row.

The Easiest Way to do a Short Row Heel as explained by Kaity over at Kaity Knits... A Lot

Back when I started knitting socks and after I discovered I didn't want all that bulk on my toes and heels, this is the way I did all my short row toes and heels. 

But then I got an order for some knee high socks just recently, and went to do my toe and it looked horrible! Holes everywhere and just all around sloppy! After 3 attempts it still looked horrible...not at all what it used to look like on my previous socks. 

Weird. It worked very well up till now.....

So I went with the "maybe it just doesnt work for me anymore" and the "Its got to be the yarn" excuses and went to look for another way to short row. 

I found the German/Jo Jo/Yo Yo/Double stitch(man that has a lot of names, dont it??) way of doing it. You get somewhat the same results as the Japanese short row, but its even less bulky than the non-bulky  Japanese short row, and actually easier! 

Heres a quick pic of the test on worsted yarn.

Here it is on the toe of my sock.

But heres the link to TessKnits.com tut on The Double-Stitch Short Row Heel – aka the “yo-yo” or “jo-jo” heel, plus a little dissection of the short row heel for ya! Good read! 

And here's 2 videos explaining what Tess said...

Part 1 of 2 DoubleStitch Short Row Heel.flv

Part 2 of 2, Double Stitch Short Row Heel.flv

However she's working so far from the camera, you can only get the general idea.

If anyone wants me to do a video on this method..please leave a comment. 

So here is all the links to stuff concerning the short rows that I do...in case I forget them again. lol I hope yall get some use out of them too! 

TTFN

ETA: I wrote another blog post on the heel pictured here

After Christmas, there's a birthday.

Yea, I dont get a break after I get all the Christmas stuff done cuz I have a birthday girl to knit for.


Heres a couple presents I have already done.

Traveller's Hat by Sue Jackson
On a side note: I also sell these in whatever color you want. Stripes or solids. See the listing in my Etsy store.

And...French Press Felted Slippers by Melynda Bernardi

I totally didnt realize I put the buttons on the wrong way till I took this pic. Oh well...right?

And for the last thing...I was supposed to have this done for her for Christmas. Yea, that didnt happen. So shes getting it for her birthday. 

Carmen Shawlette by Anniken Allis

I have pics of the progress in this post and this one. I had to put it down for quite a while to get Christmas orders and presents done. Today I went to get it back out and couldnt find the charts for it...UGG. I originally bought the pattern through Patternfish and they only give you one shot to get the pattern, so I had to buy it again. This time I bought it thro Ravelry so now its stored in my PDF library there...YAY for Casey!! What a brilliant man! 

So I will review my notes and get back going on this shawl. I have till the 17th to get it knit and blocked...who thinks I can do it??

TTFN

eta: After closer inspection of the completed work...I found that moths have eaten thro some of it....GGRRRRR...into the freezer went the yarn and Im back at square one.
Maybe I wont get it done by the 17th.