COZY KEYS

A side note:
DON'T BE AN A-HOLE AND STEAL MY STUFF!
As in, don't make these and say you thought of it, or sell them in a street fair in a booth next to mine, or manufacture 10 million Cozy Keys in China and become a bajillionaire selling them at gas stations. This all would be wrong.

Cozy Keys
by Amy

Difficulty [Mellow]

So if you’re like me, you’ve gotten tired of doing the early-morning yoga position I call The One Legged Key Fumble. This is the knee-up, hunched-over position taken as you balance all your belongings and morning beverages against your body and confront your overlarge collection of keys. As you hold your breath for a count of ten, lean back, and shakily extend your hand towards the door; you pray for some deity to aid you in finding the correct key before you topple over.

Perhaps it was divine enlightenment that prompted me in how I could solve this problem AND use up leftover sock yarn cluttering my stash. They also make quick gifts and impress your boy/girlfriend’s mother. Perhaps the rest of you are more graceful than I am - but even knitters such as yourselves, gazelle-like in your poise and physical coordination, ought to appreciate a bit of color-coded cuteness before the caffeine kicks in.
Photo credit [Amy]

MATERIALS
[MC] Knitpicks Palette Fingering Weight [100% Peruvian Highland Wool; 231yd/211m per 50g skein]; colors: Mulberry, Whirlpool, Bark, Edamame, Orange

1 set US #0/2.00mm double-point needles

notions required [2 small cable needles, tapestry needle]

GAUGE
32 sts/48 rows = 4" in stockinette stitch

PATTERN
Pattern Item [main body]

CO 16 sts, distribute evenly on 3 DPNs, join and begin working in the round.

Rows 1-3: Knit

Row 4: K6, kfb, kfb

Row 5: Knit

Row 6: K8, kfb, kfb

Row 7: Knit

Row 8: K10, kfb, kfb

Row 9: 28 sts. K8, slip 6 to cable needle

Rows 10-14: k2, p2

Bind off.
Pattern Item [sleeves]

K 6 stitches along top of cable needle

Pick up 3 stitches underneath

Knit 9 sts in the round for 6 rows.

Bind off.

Don’t worry too much about which three bottom stitches are picked up, or your technique in working them. Just try to get relatively even spacing.

FINISHING

Pull the loose ends around the sleeves inside the sweater, and trim short. Weave the ends around the ‘neck’ and ‘hem’ up through the center of the work.

One Purse Down!

This is either going to Lain as a wedding pacification, or to Meg in order to soften her up for my imminent couch-landing. The other bag is currently under the needle, ETA: Tomorrow.


Here's the liner. It has three pockets, one of them with a zipper!

Ebay Seller: nwa1970

I got this yarn off of ebay for a pretty decent price. Should that be ringing any warning bells? I've found that the colors run horribly, and that when I try setting the colors they tend to get all muddled together.

I've considered contacting the seller to see if they have anything to say about this or tips they can pass on, but even so I'm not a fan of the overwhelming magenta color. I much prefer my rainbow bag.

Liner-pa-loozah!

Over the weekend I sewed liners for the three bags that have been sitting on my non-literal project table, AND read 750 pages of "Breaking Dawn" (which was predictably written, trite, and entirely too nauseatingly obsessed with gender roles and stereotypes - but that is ENTIRELY what I get for being roped into juvenile fiction in the first place...). So in short, I was uncharacteristically unlazy.

Yay me!

Now I have to sew all the separate pieces onto the yarn by hand. NOT my favorite part... and get this done in the next two weeks before my friend gets married and I take off to visit my other friend in Brazil. I really shouldn't have taken that nap this afternoon, huh?
Pictures will be forthcoming.

Despite Many Whinings...

I have been working on a few things. Generally I've been a one-project-at-a-time sort of girl, but things have been slowly piling up on the 'to sew' table and I've been ignoring them. This is what's currently going on...

More than a slump

I don't feel like knitting.
Yeah. It's weird, I know.
I'm feeling a bit unsettled about it.

I finished knitting an unbiased bag which I semi-ruined by boiling it in vinegar because the colors wouldn't stop bleeding. It's now stiff and a muddy purple color. It might look fine once lined. If I recall correctly I wasn't that excited about MY unbiased bag before it was lined either.

I started working on some alpaca Dashing gloves for my boyfriend for his birthday - which was in early May. It sat there forever, and then I broke a needle - so things are at a standstill on that front as well.

So my plans are to buy some new double-points (maybe order a set on knitpicks, maybe metal so they're harder to kill) and work on a new unbiased bag with what's left of my sari silk. Hopefully I can figure out a way to set the color without ruining the fiber this time...

But yeah, I miss making stuff. I'm praying the lazy wears off soon.

New Newsboy!

I actually pulled myself out of my internet addiction long enough to work on something! Because my other newsboy hat is super-itchy I made a liner for this one. It makes the hat a little tight, but not unflatteringly so. I actually like that the liner fills it out and makes it puffier.

Hopefully Erin doesn't have a huge head, and doesn't mind that she's never going to get that bag I never told her I was making her.
As a wedding present.
Which happened last August.