From Alien to Charity (and maybe to Elf)!

This project started out as an Alien Hat for Halloween. As you can see, it turned out pretty well. I scared a lot of students at work (I teach at Purdue) on October 31. At least, they looked frightened while I was lecturing in this hat. I planned on making two of these as presents, but only got one done, so I kept it. (I really did covet it anyway). The pattern is a free one from the polarknit.com website. I substituted 2 strands of encore for the polar fleece it calls for and it worked great.

The project is so quick that I decided it would make a great hat for our charity knitting at River Knits. I have a hard time getting things done quickly enough for Holiday giving. I made a smaller one using the 2 strands of Encore again, and didn't put the spots or the eyeball stalks on it. I thought it might not look so great for a christmas present to have eyes coming out the top. (I might have been wrong with that though). I put a chain edging of a contrasting color around the earflaps and braided ties on the flaps using both colors. This version looks a lot like ones I see on campus. They are very popular now. And the whole hat takes about 2.5 to 3 hours to make on 10 or 10.5 US size needles. Cute and quick!

So, the next version may be an elf hat. The pattern is a little different and on the same website - polarknit.com (see picture below from the website). They even have ears! They would also be great for charity knitting for the holidays.

Happy knitting over the Holiday Turkey Weekend. Knitting helps calm me when relatives are around. Nordically yours, Sheryl (the Eyeball Alien)

Have camera, will blog!

I have a camera again!! Yeah! I've missed being able to post pictures of my knitting and life in general. Last summer I enjoyed a wonderful canoeing trip on the Wabash. This was the last picture I enjoyed taking with my old camera.

Apparently the camera got wet after that and thus I have been incommunicado in the blogosphere. But now I am back!

Even though I don't approve of Christmas trees in November, I was delighted to see how Milissa set up the River Knits tree for the Holiday Open House! It is full of knitterly goodies that would delight even Scrooge on Christmas day!

Best are the wooly socks hung on the wall with our names on them. But if you want to see them, stop by soon. After Thanksgiving they'll be heading across the globe to warm over the feet of over 500 kids and teens living in orphanages in 2 cities in Kazakhstan. They are all part of the sock drive we've been contributing to all summer for Mittens for Akkol. If you'd like to contribute, ask me how! Meanwhile we're knitting up some slippers for the girls at Cary Home. Ladies size medium is what is needed, as well as warm hats & warm scarves and mittens.

So what's on my needles? Well I just finished a pair of Fetching mitts for my daughter. She is in her "black phase" now, so I chose a mostly black colorway of Karaoke and she is quite pleased. They go with her black coat. And black eyeliner. And black fingernails... You get the idea.