Designing

So this past week I've been working on some new design ideas for my knitting. In the pipeline is a knit bookmark with the Eclipse book cover art. Or my best rendition of it. Start my first mock up and that didn't work so well. Had to scrap it after days of working and ripping and reworking. Finally decided on double knitting it and went out and got some crochet thread to try. The sport yarn I was working with was just to thick for size 0 needles. Hoping attempt #2 turns out better.

So that is on hold for the moment since I got fed up enough to cut and toss my prototype. Now mind you this is the only time I have given up and started completely over. Usually I just back up and give it another try or learn to live with the tiny errors. I want this to be perfect. I want it to look as close to the actually cover art as possible which is a little tricky for knitting.

Needing a reprieve from knitting and the difficulties of it I thought "Why not try some crochet? I mean it goes so much faster." After perusing my new Encyclopedia of Crochet I came across some beautiful motifs, in particular the flowers. Simply amazing what can be done which a hook, or a pair of needles for that matter. So I'm in the process of conceptualizing my new project - a daisy and sunflower crocheted scarf. The biggest issue will be connecting the individual flowers all together once they are completed. Seeing as I have no experience with this (really I'm a knitter who just occasionally crochets)I am hoping I can find some info on it either online or in one of my books.

Tomorrow I am really going to buckle down and try and make some headway into one or both of my projects. Been kind of a fruitless week so far somehow. Well plenty coffee and rainy skies should make Friday the perfect atmosphere for knitting the day away.

My Etsy

So I finally started selling my hand-knit accessories! Knitting is a huge thing in my life these days. Ever since I started about 2 years ago I haven't been able to get enough of it. I am almost always working on a project. So I decided to share some of my favorite items I had knit with my Facebook friends and two of them actually wanted to pay me to make them items. You have no idea how excited I was when that happened!

So I knit a lovely lace tank top for my friend Chrissy which was a definitely learning experience. Articles of clothing are challenging when the person lives in another state. You can't compare your work in progress to them to make sure it's just right. Turned out just fine though after much correspondence between us and she loves it! Here she is wearing it. Does she look happy or what?

And here it is without the straps. I just love that lace pattern!




My other friend Maryann wanted these cute baby booties for her niece.




After my recent successful commissions I decided to open an store on the web that anyone could buy from. I went with etsy.com which is a site solely for handmade items. Took a few days to get everything up and running but I am hoping to do well. I've working the networking sites or trying to anyway. Which by the way you can find me on Twitter @meinemaria and on Facebook as Anna Quayle Harvey.

Well without further ado here it is! Meine Maria Knits