Food KAL

In the past few weeks I was busy picking up fruits and vegetables from our garden and preserve them for the winter. Even though our plum trees produced only two plums, we are having some yellow raspberries and alpine strawberries to snack on and we still are having an abundance of cucumbers. I have been pickling them at least twice a week.
Our friends and family might be receiving homemade pickles as their Christmas presents.

Dog approves

I cannot really share the recipe for my pickling liquid as it seems to be every time slightly different. I am following the recipe my mom gave me when we started to do our own pickling.
She said: "I use water, vinegar, pickling salt, a bit of sugar, spices (All Spice, Black Peppercorn, Bay Leaves, Cinnamon, Clove), try how it tastes and add what you think is needed. In the jar put some mustard seeds, fresh dill, sliced onions, garlic, peppers, carrots and cucumbers. Fill the jars with liquid close the top and boil in a pot with a kitchen towel on the bottom for about twenty minutes."
We have been using her recipe for some time, experimenting with variety of flavors, adding hot peppers to some jars, etc. Each batch that I make tastes slightly different, and that is what I enjoy about it - the unpredictability of what it will taste like when we open a new jar of our pickles.

Apples

I was also thinking about the next KAL for my group on Ravelry. I decided that we should knit anything that is food related. Aprons, dishcloths, knitted food, knitted parts of a food chain...…
The Food related KAL will run from now until the end of October, when I will pick the grand prize winner and some more winners to win other things as well.

To start the KAL I am offering  a 25% discount on many of my food related knitting patterns. The coupon code is valid until September 25th midnight EST.

Bowls

Use the coupon code Food to receive the discount.

Joint the fun and a chance to win my group Stana's critters etc on Ravelry.

photo by Knitpicks

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Knitting Pattern for Apple Dishloth

photo by Knitpicks

Another of my dishcloth pattern was published by Knitpicks.

The pattern is free, and you can get the pattern on Knitpicks website, here is the link to the pattern:

Apple Dishcloth


I was working on this pattern last fall. Sometimes it takes a while from the time I work on a pattern before it is finally published.  Here is the sample I knitted while I was working on the pattern.

Apple dishcloth

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Knitting Pattern for Deadline Morning Eyeball Coaster or Dishcloth

We all have those mornings, when we wake up and know that we didn't get enough sleep the night before. The reasons may vary from person to person, even from day to day....

• Late night drinking and having too much fun with friends
• Brand new baby in the house
• Procrastination and leaving to do the homework at the last minute
• Deadline at work and not enough time to finish during the workday
• Life

 For the last few weeks I had few of those days myself. Deadline knitting for a third party. A homework for my class to finish. Then one day I decided to address the issue and instead of stressing out about everything I just started to knit for fun and created the red eye/ normal eye coaster. It did not help with my deadline knitting or with finishing my homework, but I had fun knitting the coaster. And now I can pick the side that suits me and have a funky coaster to put down my first, or second, or third cup of coffee and try to deal with whatever needs to be done first.

Deadline Morning Eyeball Coaster

Eyeball Dishcloth and Coaster

Deadline Morning Eyeball 

The pattern is now available in my Ravelry store or you can purchase it by clicking on this button:

And if you wish to knit some of the eyeballs in the jar, my pattern is free on Knitpicks website, link to the pattern is here:

Knitted Eyeballs

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Work in Progress III.

My last few posts were all about knitting patterns that were published.
This post should be about the projects that are still work in progress...

Najin

Najin, the toy mystery KAL started with clue 1 last week. Today I have released second clue, there are two more clues waiting to be released in the next two weeks before the final pattern will be available.
The pattern is available in my Ravelry store.
If you would like to join the fun, it's happening right now in my Ravelry group Stana's critters etc.

Eyeball Coaster

In the past few weeks I have been super busy with work that will be published by a third party. It's fun and exciting, but in a  way it's also stressful with all those deadlines that comes from third party publishing. Yesterday, I just needed a break from it all, and started to knit something just for fun. I finished today and wrote up the pattern. It's being test knitted at the moment and will be available at the beginning of next month, just in time for others to knit before Halloween.

Voyager Sweater

It seems appropriate to finish this blog post with a note about my project named Voyager Sweater. I had to set it aside due to all of the contracted work, but I am slowly getting some work done on the pattern and grading, and hope to have it ready for test knit pretty soon. During my visit at home I have found an old image of me in my first ever finished knitted project - a sweater that I knitted when I was I think 14 years old.  Ever since I finished that first sweater (it was knit, with three colors intarsia, and I have made up the pattern and calculated the entire project by myself) I couldn't stop knitting sweaters. I made so many of them it's impossible to count, and then one day I just stopped. During those years I  have knitted many other projects, even few baby sweaters for my friend's babies, but I have not made a single sweater for myself. Last year when I went to Rhinebeck I think I found my long lost passion for knitting sweaters. I have decided to knit and also write up the pattern. The knitting part, including photography is done, now it's just the less fun part, sitting in front of the computer and write up the pattern in seven different sizes. It's rather tedious work, but it will be eventually done. 

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Knitting Pattern for Watermelon Coasters and Dishcloth

Watermelon

The pattern for Watermelon coasters and dishcloth is available to purchase in my Ravelry Store or by clicking on this button:



I have posted a picture tutorial for attaching the fabric to the back of the knitted piece.

link to tutorial

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Watermelon Coasters - attaching the fabric tutorial

Step 1

Step 1. Lay the knitted piece on top of fabric with wrong side facing each other, and right side being opposite.

Step 2

Step 2. Pin together the two layers with pins or safety pins.

Step 3

Step 3. Cut out the fabric approximately 1.5" (4 cm) larger than the knitted piece.

Step 3 - detail

Step 4

Step 4. Using a thread, sew the two layers together along the edge, folding the extra fabric inside.

Step 4 - detail

Step 4 - both sides view

Step 5. Sew the two layers together using sewing machine or by hand.

Step 5 - finished coaster.

Work in progress II

Cabled Cowl 

Since last week, I managed to finish the cabled cowl in Malabrigo Rastita yarn. I am very happy with the cowl how it turned out.
This is the pattern I have used:
Gradient Cable Cowl

My next project to work on is a hat named Neva. I picked the yarn and then we had few days of summer heat.

Neva Hat - WIP

So instead on working on the hat, I got distracted and made these - a watermelon coaster and dishcloth.
I still have one more size to finish, and I would like to add fabric layer to the large coaster and the small glass coaster.

Watermelon Coaster and Dishcloth

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