Chess Patterned Fingerless Mitts

These mitts were designed to accompany the Chess Patterned Hat. They are nice to wear during the chilly days of the fall and spring and also in chilly offices or homes to keep your hands warm while typing. Best of all, they knit up quickly and make great gifts!

The pattern for these mitts can be found here on Ravelry or here on Craftsy.

Chess Patterned Knit Hat

Meet Matt, the inspiration for my most recent hat. Matt is a very talented photographer and has captured some great pictures of me and my creations for this blog. As a thank you for taking great pictures of me and humoring my modeling attempts and always making me and my knit hats and accessories look fantastic, I decided to make him a hat.

Matt has played chess ever since he was a little kid and is very good at it! He now passes on his love of the game to local youth by teaching at the chess club. To honor his love of chess, I designed this hat that depicts chess pieces around the brim. I really hope he likes it!

As designed, it fits a medium adult head and will stretch to fit larger heads as well. I made it black with white chess pieces but it could also be made in white with black chess pieces. The pattern for this hat can be found here on Ravelry or here on Craftsy. 

Photos by Matt Menietti

Ke$ha Outfit Tutorial - Halloween 2013

The party don't start 'til I walk in! This year for Halloween I decided to dress up as Ke$ha. 

Here is how I did the outfit on a budget. 

Supplies needed:

• men's large T-shirt ($12 for 4 shirts)
• gold glitter fabric paint
• eye makeup and glitter makeup
• patterned tights ($7 at Target)
• I couldn't find gold shimmering tights, so I bought patterned tights as a second choice.
• Black boots

How to make the shirt:

Begin with a large black T-shirt. Cut off the sleeves and collar as shown. Cut the front of the shirt in a U-shape. Add some slits to the top of the shirt as shown in #4. Cut some slits in the back of the shirt if desired as shown in #5. Use gold glitter puffy paint to paint the dollar sign on the shirt.

How to make armbands from the shirt sleeves:

Cut the seam off the sleeve. Cut the sleeve into a one inch band as shown in 2 and 3. Stretch the band out by pulling the material tight. Make several and wrap them around your wrist as shown for inexpensive bangle style bracelets.

Using blue and black eyeliner or costume makeup, I tried to replicate Ke$ha's eye makeup. I also used some glitter makeup and put some shimmer makeup on my collar bones.

The outfit from the back.

Bulky Cabled Hat with Earflaps

I knit this hat for my friend Elizabeth. I used Lion Brand Hometown USA yarn in Portland Wine (which is one of my favorite yarns, if you couldn't tell by these mittens, these slippers, or this headband). This yarn is super bulky and knits up fast. I used a little more than one skein for this hat (I used one entire skein for the hat, and then used up all of my leftover yarn - probably about one-eighth of a skein - for the braids and the pom pom).

Click here to see the pattern for this warm knit hat on Ravelry and here to see it on Craftsy.

Eliz requested earflaps for the hat, so I designed some to match the cabling design. I also made Eliz mittens with flaps using the tutorial I posted last February.

I hope she likes them! I don't work with cables much and I was pleasantly surprised to see how well this hat turned out. Keep scrolling for more pics from our photo session. :)

And a mirror selfie.