I realized today I haven't posted anything in a while (ok, a whole month)... but I have a few good excuses.  First of all, it's almost Christmas and I've been hard at work on knitting some Christmas gifties.  Second, my laptop kicked the bucket sometime around Thanksgiving and I'm eagerly awaiting Santa's visit as I hear there will be a new one under the tree for me.  As such, I'm sans place to upload photos to as I'm on a borrowed laptop that I don't want to bombard with pictures of my knitting.

Well, okay... maybe just a few...

Why yes, that is a beckoning cat in the background...

My dear friend Audra is expecting her first baby in February, and her shower was on Black Friday.  Audie is expecting a little boy, which is super exciting for me as I've only been knitting for little girls.  :p

When I saw this tutti-frutti colored yarn (Bernat stretch) I absolutely had to turn it into something for baby.  This is the first time I've knit something entirely off the top of my head and not following a pattern.  I think it turned out pretty cute... and here's hoping it fits!

The inspiration for the whole project!

More importantly, a baby boy finally gives me a reason to use this!  Many many months ago I was in JoAnn's buying yarn, and found this adorable blanket binding on the clearance rack.  Seriously got the whole thing for something like three bucks.  It was awesome.  But I had nothing to do with it and so it has sat on a shelf waiting for Audra's happy news. :-)   

Since she's having a winter baby, I wanted to knit something super soft and snuggly to keep baby warm.  I wandered the yarn aisle, groping skeins, until I found the perfect textures in colors that coordinated with my blanket (Lions' Brand Quick and Cozy in Oatmeal and Velvetspun in Bluebell).

As with the hat, I didn't follow a pattern.  I knew I wanted stripes, and decided to alternate stripes of garter stitch and stockinette to play up the difference in textures.  For a blanket, this was a pretty quick knit, thanks to large needles and bulky weight yarn. :-)  However, when it came time to stitch on the binding, my sewing machine and bulky yarn were not making nice, and there were a lot of stops and restarts and frustrated grunts on my end.  I did not get the binding stitched on quite as I would have liked... but all in all happy with how it turned out.

Blanket without binding

Finished blankie with binding... and my newest DSW order waiting to be opened. :p

funky monkey

Then to go along with the blankie, I decided to use the left over yarn to knit up a stuffed toy monkey.  Once again, didn't work with a pattern, just knitted two balls, one a bit smaller than the other, then created arms/legs and hands/feet by knitting an I-cord then flaring it out at the ends to sort of make little balls at the end of each limb.  Once I got the ears/face done he sorta turned out a little more bear-ish than I intended... almost like the love child of a bear and a monkey... but still cute.