Simple Knitted Legwarmers pattern - still time to make before Christmas

Simple, knit legwarmers

The last few days have been FREEZING, and I mean negative numbers. The weather is tempting me to add another project to my already long Holiday project list.

Legwarmers!

I can bundle up all I want on top, but if all I have on the legs are jeans, I'm still going to be pretty dang cold. I could wear tights underneath my jeans, but who wants to do that?

So, I thought, I should just make really long legwarmers, like mid-thigh length legwarmers. Doesn't that sound wonderful! They'll be like blankets for the legs!

I made the legwarmers in the image above back in 2009 and am thinking I'll use the same, no-fuss pattern. To update them for the thigh length legwarmers, I'm going to use the same design and just keep stitching until they're the right length. I'll take the measurement around the largest part of my thigh instead of calf to start. That may be all I do. However, if the legwarmer seems too big once I get lower on the leg, I may start decreasing a stitch or two every now and then to make the bottoms slimmer. But who knows, it might be just right with the bottoms being big. I'll decide as I go, and let you know what happens.

Here is the pattern for the original legwarmers from the photo above.

Simple Legwarmers:

I used black, sport weight, blue sky alpaca yarn, but you can use whatever yarn you'd like. Update: use the needle size that's recommended for the yarn. I don't know what the original size of needle I used to make these back in 2009.

First you'll need to make a quick gauge: Cast on 10 stitches in stockinette stitch (knit a row, purl a row) for 10 rows total. Measure how many horizontal stitches in an inch. Then measure the number of inches around the largest part of you calf. Use those two numbers to figure out how many stitches you'll need to go around your calf.

Figure out the number of stitches it takes to go around your calf (instructions above) and cast on the closest multiple of 4 to that number. For my legwarmers I cast on 36 stitches.

work in the round

(k2, p2) around for 15 rows

k 50 rows (or to your desired length)

(k2, p2) around for 15 rows

bind off loosely.

There you go. Super easy, no frills, but still cute.

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Free Thankgiving Name Cards

Hi all! Thanksgiving is nearly here! The hubs and I did all of our shopping yesterday and are ready to make a feast fit for, well, 3 people (the hubs, his brother and me). We actually had our big family Thanksgiving meal 2 weeks ago because that's when all of my family could get together. It was super fun to see everyone and we all had a fantastic time and ate up all of Mom's amazing food. Here at Penguin & Fish, we made cute name cards for the occasion and we wanted to share them with you for free! We shared them in this week's newsletter viewable here. Click the link in the newsletter to download the PDF file to your desktop or downloads folder. Print, cut, fold and presto! you'll have cute new fall decor for the big feast! And make sure to click the subscribe button in the newsletter page to be in on future freebies.

Have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow!

iphone case in Mollie Makes magazine

Mollie Makes magazine recently did a little article about the Society6 website and featured my "Owl in Ferns" iphone case! Yay! I recently uploaded some more iphone cases, ipad skins, and art prints to Society6 and thought I'd share them with you. Check'm out here. By the way...Society6 is offering free shipping through Sunday!

Let's MEET and play with Safari SWEET!

Hi all. I have exciting news. My first fabric collection, Safari Sweet, IS NOW IN STORES! Yay! To celebrate, the lovely Nikol from Sewtropolis in Minneapolis, and I are having an embroidery get together on Saturday. We'll be stitching up little embroidered animal brooches like the one above. It's a super fun project and is especially good for kids or if you've never embroidered or sewn before. At Sewtropolis you'll also get to see a whole bunch of fun projects that you can make with Safari Sweet, like the giraffe quilt. I'll also be signing my children's book, No Monster Here. So come by on Saturday, it'll be SUPER FUN!

Saturday, October 1
1:00 - 3:00pm
Sewtropolis
5 West Diamond Lake Road
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55419

Pile'o'gators

Finished making some alligators out of Safari Sweet!

Hoop Up 2 swap

Hi all. I thought I'd share a project that I worked on during my hiatus from blog land over the holidays.

While scanning my Twitter last summer I found out that John (Quilt Dad) was going to have a "Hoop Up 2" embroidery swap. I thought the swap would be a fun way to make some new embroideries and meet some new peeps so I signed up. The way the swap worked was everyone would be placed into a group of about 5 people. Each person in the group comes up with their own theme for an embroidery. After everyone shares their theme, each person has to stitch an embroidery for every other swap partner in their group based on that partner's theme.

The theme that I chose was "Pretty Pets in Pretty Borders". I made a sample of my theme to share with the others in my group. You can see my process of the sample piece for my theme here and here. Above are pics of the embroideries I did based on my partner's themes. The "Owl in Laurel" is for John's (Quilt Dad) "whimsical woodland" theme. Lim's Cafe is for Amy's (badskirt) "retro or silly sign" theme. The Etch-a-Sketch is for Jill's (spinster sister) "Text + ?" theme, where Jill wanted us to have text plus something else in our embroideries. And the final piece is for Cara's (quiltnookgal) "Bluebirds with Tea" theme. I had such a good time stitching everyone's piece and it was a fun challenge to work within someone else's theme. Once I receive all my "Pretty Pets in Pretty Borders" from my group partners, I'll be sure to take some pics and share them. I'm so excited to see how they all turned out!

Another exciting thing about the swap was that it allowed me to develop my iron-on transfer Puppy embroidery patterns. I love when work and play collide!

Progress

Thought I'd share a detail from my current project. Still not feeling super productive yet this year. Boo. Slowly but surely I'm getting things accomplished, but would really like to speed things up a bit. Ah well. Posting this little guy is making me feel productive so that's good. Hope all is well with everyone. Have a great rest of the week!

Making art again

Hi peeps. Long time no see! Yeah, I know it's 100% my fault. Over the holiday season I worked and worked and worked, then went on a 15 day vaca to visit the family, then came home and promptly got sick. I had tons to catch up on and was feeling stressed about the year that was ahead of me. Well I'm over the sickness and am finally starting to feel excited about this year. Yay! I'm ready to start the year (only 19 days late). To celebrate I played around in photoshop a bit today, just to practice and start making things again. Not sure if anything will come of this little pattern experiment, but I'm happy to be creating again.
-Happy New Year all! best -alyssa

WINNER!!!!

Hey folks, we have a winner! My lovely intern Sarah picked KerryKaheCakesb43 as the winner of my new printed patterns. Woo hoo! Congrats Kerry! And thanks to everyone who commented. I really appreciate all your kind words and support. -alyssa

Giveaway!!!!! My new patterns

Hi peeps! Man, this has been my busiest holiday season ever, which is awesome, but exhausting. Don't worry I'll be posting more regularly soon. The No Coast Craft-o-Rama went great this weekend. It was super fun hanging out with my crafty friends. I still have to clean up everything still (and from Quilt Market too) but I'll get there.

Thanks to everyone who's stuck with the bloggy blog during my lack of posting. I'm going to do a little giveaway for all y'all! I'll be giving away my 4 new printed patterns to one lucky reader. All of you who guessed alligator here were right, my first sewing pattern is the little alligator in the first two pics. He comes with a fold out template and a booklet of easy to follow instructions. The other 3 patterns are my new puppy embroidery patterns, Boston, Golden and Maltese. Each puppy is sitting in a pretty border. The best part is that the patterns include an iron on transfer, woo hoo!

To enter the giveaway just leave a comment below. I'll pick a name randomly on Monday. Then you'll still get the patterns before Christmas! All the patterns are available as printed patterns and as pdf downloads in my etsy shop. Thanks all! -alyssa

Dog embroidery in progress

Hi all. Just got back from a Cali trip to visit the in laws. It was super relaxing and I got to just sit. I did however start a new embroidery there. Here are some progress pics. It was a bit difficult for me making a kind of monotone background/border since my colors are usually all over the place. But I thought it'd be a good challenge. I'll share more (and better) pics when I finish.

Artist: Jeanette of UmeCrafts and Lit'l Brown Bird

Gah, I'm loving all this felt food. That cotton candy is amazing! The best part about all of these is that they're patterns so you can make them all yourself. How fun! I think I might have to get that County Fair set. The patterns were created by Jeanette of UmeCrafts. Check out more in her etsy store, flickr and also her other store Lit'l Brown Bird.

Artist: Judy Kaufmann

I'm loving these super fun illustrations by Judy Kaufmann. The house illustration is great with all their little slanted chimneys. I also really like the circus tamer. To see more of Judy's work check out her website and etsy store.

One more progress pic

Just another quick progress pic of my alphabet quilt made from all my embroidery patterns and new fabric. I sent all my finished patterns to my mom and she's been busy turning them into a quilt. I'll get to see it finished this weekend and I'll be sure to take some nice photos soon. I can't wait!

Artist: Kristin of Doodle Bird Design

My friend Kristin just opened an Etsy store for her company Doodle Bird Designs, yay! Now you can purchase her awesome patterns as digital downloads that you can use for card making or scrapbooking. How fun! Check out Kristin's website here and also be sure to check out her etsy store.

New fabric patterns sneak peak

Hi all. So I've decided to design a fabric collection based on my embroidery pattern characters. Here is a sneak peak of the first design in three colorways. I'll be hunkering down this week to finish all the rest of the patterns in the collection, so check back the end of this week to see the rest (or at least my progress). Let me know what you think, or if you have any ideas for supporting patterns!

Artist: Moonika of Kuutydruk

I think these linen bags and cases are just so cool. Most of them are based on traditional Estonian folklore patterns. I especially like the last pic of the linen bag with the simple pattern on it. All of these lovely works are by Moonika from Kuutydruk. See more of her work and process on her blog, flickr and Etsy shop.