First creation

... from new studio space.

I've been working on making little knitted patterns recently, the first one I completed since the new move is the little fox. I made the mushroom one a while ago. I don't mean to be so cutesy but what i've deemed as my Japanese Kindergardener side tends to come out in my knitting. I'm half way through my first run of my second animal pattern, a bunny. And God gave me this pretty cool idea of what to make a pattern of next that I'm really excited about. I'm gonna keep it on the down low till I have something to show for it. but I'll say that the idea makes me smile and reminds me of summer. 

Despite my lack of sleep lately due to my time punch job "retail" and my Gilmore Girls watch through, I'm happy with my productivity this past week. I made three variations of the little fox to work out the kinks. I found a 90's dress that I liked at goodwill that reminds me Wiksten's marguerite or Anna dress. I just love all of her stuff, she is so inspiring and diligent. I traced the outline of the dress and made a loose pattern of it. I'm still working out the kinks in that pattern. I wanted to fully line the bodice but in the end the light cotton fabric I used just didn't drape well, it was a little stiff. I'm gonna try just a yoke for the bodice for my second attempt. I made it out of an old floral sheet, very seventies-esk. 

Baby knitting for friend

Just finished this project last night. An original, geometric & native American inspired design. Knitted "Moccasin" baby booties with a purl triangle trim around cuff that wraps around ankle with two Chinese knot closures to secure in place with some knitted fringe. I originally (first time I made this bootie design) used tie closures where you tie bows but the Chinese knot seems more practical. Thanks God. The hat I made with a lined rim and matching triangle detail. I love how they turned out.

mushroom necklace

I've made a few of these. I alter it every time. This time i made two of the same size mushrooms. I'm thinking of selling these in different colors when i decide on which design(s) i like. thinking the same size mushrooms look a little off. Maybe more mushrooms all in a line & different sizes. We'll see, just wanted to share todays work.

Saartje's fleeglized booties

This is my favorite garter stitch booties pattern I've found so far. I've only made one so far and I still need to weave in the ends and make the button holes and add buttons. But I love it. It keeps it's form on it's own. I love that. I'm working a lot this week but hope to finish this pair of booties within the week with all of it's details done and post pictures.

knitted baby booties

Here are some baby booties creations I've come up with in the past 2 weeks. the left one is a lined overlapping cuff, the middle designed to look like a moccasin and the right a simple Mary Jane. All knit in the round in one piece. I really prefer to avoid sewn seams up. I like to keep my knitting and sewing separate. Some helpful details i used to make these were the Kitchener stitch & the button hole loop.

booties

I've been negative about even thinking about thinking when we might possibly have kids and what it would be like and how we would react to the info. We don't plan on it any time soon but I can't help but think about it since I know 6 expecting couples 2 of which already had their babies this month. 2 more in october and the other 2 I'm not sure. But two of the girls are my two good friends from the town i lived in before this one. And with their baby showers coming up and me about to head up on a road trip to visit them i've gotten a little excited for them in my baby shopping and making baby stuff for them. I've been knitting a blanket for one and didn't want the other one to feel left out because I meant to make them both blankets but it was taking so long i lost interest and started making jewelry for a while but I knitted some today. I started and finished a pair of booties today. I found the pattern on ravelry, free pdf "Baby Janes by Valerie Johnson". It is a good simple fast pattern. I'd like to find one though that requires no sewing up parts. The under part of the shoe needed sewing together.

neck warmers

neck-warmers, originally uploaded by lilah_ward.

baby blanket progress

baby_blanket_1, originally uploaded by lilah_ward.

So I started it about a month ago. I work on it at bus stops and walking around the park while my hubby plays disc golf, on my work 15 minute brakes and lunch breaks, while I'm lounging at home and not on the computer. It is probably half the length I want it to be, I'm shooting for a square. It made up entirely of silky wool yarn by elsebeth lavold which is my current favorite. A blend of silk and wool but feels like cotton and it is a pretty thin yarn which is what I lean to more now, not lace weight, a little thicker than sock yarn, just a smidgen. I'm really liking it so far. The different colors are different stitches all themed geometric, not entirely but mainly triangles. The colors so far are pretty cool. I'm kind of choosing the yarn colors as i go. One of two that I need to make and then maybe an etsy item.

knitting book idea

I have a goal now that for a few years now I’ve been contemplating but never actually started the process. The interest and idea and inspiration have always been there but just since I quit working for a moment which was only made possible by my loving husband fully inspired by the way God created marriage to mirror Jesus love for us. Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”. Well I have the inspiration to make a knitting pattern book. Still in the coming up with knitting patterns faze. I don’t know if it will ever be published or how to go about that, but for now I’m just enjoying the process of making new patterns. How God the creator of all things gave us the joy of creating still blows me away. All I really know is I want it to glorify God as our attempt in everything we do should be. So, if it ever gets published either by a publishing company or by me making hand bound books God has inspired me to give the proceeds to a Christian organization. So far I’m thinking either my church which is doing a lot of work in Austin, Austin Ridge Bible Church or supporting individual missionaries or maybe to foot the bill of me making homemade baked goods and buying needed supplies and Bibles for the giant homeless population in Austin who I feel a calling towards. So this is one of my dreams / prayer requests. All of the patterns I've made so far are under the Lilah Shepherd's Designs at the top right of the page, newest patterns at the top. Thanks for reading.

ezra

God is amazing how he inspires me to create, the creator himself. I hadn't really designed anything since the spring and all of the sudden here's one of my new designs. All of the praise goes to Him. I wasn't sure how it would turn out at first, but it came out awesome. Inspired by a vintage 30's sweater where the entire body of the sweater was a diagonal stitch. It took me 5 trys to get the opposite diagonal for the right arm. I made a variation of the herringbone rib stitch found in the vogue knitting stitchionary volume one for the right diagonal stitch that makes up the body of the arm warmer. Worked from arm up to fingers. First worked flat and joined to work in round after buttons. The thumb gusset has yarn overs at the beg. and end of the gusset area that makes eyelets around the thumb. The way the thumb is made leaves no holes which i find annoying in other patterns. Up the side of the left side (or the outside of the left arm) is a triangle pattern made up of diagonals from a series of knit, purl, knit, purl sts that are 2 stitch cables. The tip of the hand has cables with a row of 2 bobbles between each 2 cables. The lack of increases for the arm make the warmer fitted which I really like. I love the color and the yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool Color: 15. brick yellow. Unfortunately the color was recently discontinued. But i love the yarn texture and how it knits so much the dog sweater I'm knitting for my new puppy Lola is the same yarn in Color: 064 fire red.

How to knit a ruffle

Ruffles are usually something you want to add to something. It tends to look better that way. Rather than just going into a ruffle pattern instead of Binding Off and then picking up the stitches and making the ruffle pattern.

There are some different ways to pick up and knit stitches. One way is to tie the yarn you are going to make the ruffle with to the tail yarn that is the left over from the Casting On at the beginning. And using a crochet hook, I tend to use a size 5/H, pick up the yarn (you are using for the ruffle) with the hook and pull through last loop of every row along that edge. You want to pull the loops through so that they come out on the top. You can then slip the loops off of the crochet hook and onto your knitting needle.

1. pick up the number of stitches divisible by 4.


2. Purl


3. Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 3, [Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 2] 4 times, Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 3


4. knit the knit stitches, purl the purl stitches and the new stitches (make 1).


5. Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 4, [Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 3] 4 times, Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 4


6. repeat row 3


7. Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 5, [Purl2, Make 1, Knit 4] 4 times, Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 5


8. repeat row 3


9. Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 6, [Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 5] 4 times, Purl 2, Make 1, Knit 6 [You can continue to make the ruffle wider just increase one after every purl stitch on the right side and repeat row 3 for every wrong side]


10. Bind off stitches in the pattern (meaning bind off knit stitches as knit stitches and purl stitches as purl stitches. (ruffle instructions from "boutique knits")

Make 1(M1) can be interchanges with Yarn overs (Yo) instead either way it makes a ruffle.

M1 (Make 1): Lift the yarn lying between the stitch just worked and the next stitch and place it on the left hand needle, then knit (from learn2knit.co.uk )

YO (Yarn Over): When working on the knit side of Stockinette Stitch hold the yarn at the back of the work. Pull the yarn forward between he two needles and over the right needle to the back of the work. Knit the next stitch. (from knit 911. com )

Sylvi by Mari Muinonen

I bought my first PDF knitted pattern today. I think it is beautiful. It is called Sylvi by Mari Muinonen located on the website twist collective. It is $7 but I thought it was worth it, since I like it so much. I was thinking of making it in purple, yellow, or blue.

TMNT Masks

(finished knitting)

(after crochet eyes)

(before crochet eyes)

I know some boys who love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and after being on a knitting frenzy lately. I came up with this.

Knit in stockinet with the eye section knit open like a rectangle to go back crochet around the eye opening to make it two holes & with the ends of the mask decreased to make an angle to mimic the rolling up of a bandana like the TMNT use for their eye masks.

Knit with Lion Brand Wool Yarn in colors Pumpkin & Purple
Needle Size US6(purple) and US8(orange)

Here is the free pattern:
row 1-7 (bottom half), 8-12 (left side of eyes), 13-17 (right side of eyes), 18-24 (top half)

1. CO 162
2. P
3. K1, K2tog, knit to last 3 stitches, ssk, K1
4. p
5. K1, K2tog, knit to last 3 stitches, ssk, K1
6. P
7. K1, K2tog, K 63, BO 27, K 63, ssk, K1
8. (left side of eyes (BO stitches) on mask) P till BO
9. K to last 3 stitches, ssk, K1
10. P till BO
11. K to last 3 stitches, ssk, K1
12. P till BO, CO 27, cut yarn leaving a 6 inch tail
13. (right side of eyes (BO stitches) on mask) P
14. K1, K2tog, K till BO
15. P till end
16. K1, K2tog, K till BO
17. P till end
18. K1, K2tog, K to last 3 stitches, ssk, K1
19. P
20. K1, K2tog, K to last 3 stitches, ssk, K1
21. P
22. K1, K2tog, K to last 3 stitches, ssk, K1
23. P
24. (Bind Off Row)K1, K2tog, psso, continue to BO till last 3 stitches, ssk, psso, K1, psso, cut yarn, tie off

Weave in ends. Go back and crochet around eye hole & in the middle crochet two stitches on the bottom to two stitches on the top to make the eye opening two eye holes. Also crochet across CO edging because that seems to have come out more loose than the BO edging and will lay more flat on the face if you reinforce it with crocheting. The Lion Brand wool yarn says it is good for felting on the tag. I haven't felted one yet, so I'll post about how felting one turns out when I do so because the pattern wants to roll. I'm also making one with a seed stitch to stop the rolling.

posted on craftster.org

if you make a mask please post a picture of it :)

How to cable knit stitch

Ok, to make the most basic “simple cable” stitch. You will need an extra knitting needle (what I use is an extra knitting needle in the same size of knitting needles that I’m knitting with (small double pointed needles work well for this) or there are cable stitch holders (that when you slip the stitches you put aside in cable stitching onto these and then put back onto your left hand needle (I believe only when right handed) to stitch).

here are some examples of cable stitch holders:

“simple cable” stitch is worked over 6 stitches (which means wherever you want to place the “simple cable” stitch it is going to takes 6 stitches in a row to make) & explained here knitted flat on straight knitting needles (meaning you knit a row moving stitches from the left hand needle to the right hand needle (where the tip of the right hand needle is pointed to the left) and when you are finished knitting the row and all of your stitches are now on the right hand needle you turn the right hand needle like a weathervane now to point to the right and becomes the needle that is now in your left hand ready to be purled)

Row 1: knit 6 stitches
Row 2: purl 6 stitches
Row 3: knit 6 stitches
Row 4: purl 6 stitches
Row 5: slip first 3 stitches on to an extra needle and pull this needle in front of your work so that the 3 stitches on the extra needle are resting in front of your knitting. Then knit next 3 stitches. Now slip the 3 stitches you slipped off onto the extra needle back onto your left hand needle and knit them.
Row 6: Purl 6 stitches

To continue in cable stitch repeat rows 1-6 over and over.

Here are a couple of links if you still need some help with visualizing this process:

dummies.com

videojug.com

for Mia