knitted glasses case

This is my last post for a while now, I`m going on holiday tomorrow - yay!  And I thought I`d leave you with a farewell prezzie, to make my almost 3 week absence more bearable *pretends not to hear the sighs of relief*

The other day I decided to make a new case for my sunglasses, instead of the cheap plastic rubbish I got from somewhere as a freebie and which I hated with a passion - not only was it ugly but my shades always fell out of it too, so I might as well have chucked them into my handbag the way they were, the case was useless anyway.

I punched in `(sun)glasses case knitting pattern` into Google and to my great surprise, I was struggling to find anything useful. Being short on time, I decided to design one for myself - and here`s the result:

I used double knitting because I wanted a nice thickness to protect my shades, and I sewed the two double-knitted pieces together so as to show both colour combos. I don`t know how to make clever PDF, etc. attachments, but I thought I`d share the pattern in case there are others out there, looking for a simple glasses knit pattern - so here`s a photo of it:

As you can see, the design is 22 sts wide and 9 sts high - to this I added 4-4 sts on the sides (thus casting on 30 sts) and 4-4 rows above and below. Using standard DK yarn and size 7 needles (4.5 mm), my glasses case measures 17x9 cm (7"x3 1/2"). And, as I didn`t want my shades to slip out of this one too, I finished it with a short piece of I-cord, sewn into a loop, so you can pull the opening tight, like on a drawstring bag.

Hope all of you are having a fab summer holiday, see you again in August!  

Gloria

Well, do you remember this?
Alan Dart`s hippo, whom I named Gloria

I don`t blame you if you don`t, it`s been a while... Still, that doesn`t matter now, the main thing is that SHE IS HERE!!! Are you ready for a gorgeousness overload? (You might want to sit down first...?)

As you might have noticed, I substituted the grey yarn with light brown - this is more of a hippo-colour to me. Also, I have omitted the `finger and toe` nails because I hate sewing and the mouth + nostrils + eyes and generally making her up was more than enough for me. (May I just add here, on a personal note... not that my whole blog is not personal... anyway, probably the greatest factor in Gloria being finished today is the fact that this morning I spent about an hour and a half frogging a commission stitching, practically half of what I`d done so far, so I thought I`d better give cross stitch a break and get on with my knitting - but I`m not a masochist so I didn`t want to sew too much). You might also notice that I changed the eyes - the black pupil with white circle around it freaked me out a bit so I just used black yarn, and also stitched her a few eyelashes, for extra gorgeousness. Finally, I gave up on the sunglasses, and let this be a lesson for all of us, shades knitters of the future: if the pattern says spray it with hairspray, use that and don`t try your luck with spray-on starch - it won`t stiffen the yarn at all. And if you, like me, are crazy enough to switch on your iron in this heat, that`ll make things ten times worse: even on the coolest setting, it`ll make your already limp wool flat and shiny to boot. Thus, alas, there are no cool shades for Gloria but I think she looks stunning even without them - crazy summer heat or not, I might just go back for another cuddle... ;)

birthday birdies

Good job I `Liked` all the stitchy magazines` pages on Facebook - at least I get a wee reminder from time to time when one of my models appears, usually months after I stitched it, by which time I tend to forget about them. Thus I just spotted these little birthday birdies by Angela Poole in the latest issue of Cross Stitch Collection, out today:

Courtesy of The Making Spot, from Cross Stitch Collection 225

Oh, and the Kindle Fire cover I made on Sunday, so that the gadget would be safe when the Wee Man flies to Hungary in a couple of weeks` time? Well, he dropped the wretched thing last night and the glass broke to pieces. Now I can`t help feeling that I jinxed it somehow ;)

a weekend of Kindle covers

This, again, has been a busy week - maybe even more so than usual. Hubby and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on Thursday and two days later it was my birthday - and yes, both strengthened my belief that one cannot have too much chocolate. I also happened to finish all my magazine work for the now so this weekend I finally got round to sewing jobs I`d been putting of for ages. Hubby got some new tee shirts at work that doubled as miniskirts and I`ve been meaning to shorten them for weeks. Yesterday I finally got my sewing machine out and sorted them, then swiftly moved on to my Kindle Fire Cover Project. But first, the inspiration: my Mommy-in-law asked me a couple of weeks ago to make a cover for her Kindle  and the other day I started to knit one (I had this lovely lilac cotton yarn and I thought the colour would be perfect for her). I measured her Kindle the last time we visited her - I hope I got the size right!

I`m glad she mentioned the Kindle cover, by the way, because it got me thinking: we`re going on holiday soon - to Hungary, as usual, but this time in instalments. My Mum`s coming here this Thursday and in ten days` time she`s flying back with Gregory, thus giving us, run-down parents a little breather, plus spending some quality one-on-one time with her grandson. Then, to save her sanity, and because by that time I`ll be having withdrawal symptoms too, a week later I`m flying after my wee boy. Finally, after a few days, work-committed DH is arriving with the car, and in August we`re driving back to Scotland, just before school starts again.

Anyway, back to the Kindle cover. So I realised that if Son wants to take the Kindle Fire on the plane, he`ll need a cover for that, so I got my scrap fabrics out and he chose these two (a brownish flowery one and a red linen one with some embroidered flowers). I made the actual cover padded, in case he bumps or drops the thing, and I made an extra pocket for the charger. I finished both sides with wooden buttons I got as a free gift with a knitting magazine and hand-made button holes, which I tried for the first time and considering that, they turned out quite OK. All in all, I`m pretty chuffed with the result:

I almost forgot: I`m so used to not being able to share photos of my stitching any more, as they tend to be super-secret magazine projects, that I`ve just realised that the commission piece I`m working on just now is for a private person, so I can add WIP photos! Yay! It`s a funky little sampler by Riverdrift House, called Dream a Little Dream. I`m stitching it for an 83-year-old lady whose eyesight is not what it used to be but she`d like to give this as a wedding present to her granddaughter. I`ve only just started it but I know I`m going to have lots of fun with this jazzy sampler! :)