Viking Power

My little nephew turned one yesterday. I wanted to celebrate our Norwegian heritage by making him a viking doll. I love how it turned out - now the husband wants one :)

A few preliminary sketches and the large sketch I made the pattern from:

trying to decide on blonde or red beard

curly red beard and halfway done

And what viking doesn't have a battle axe?

Little E with his new viking! Love how it's almost as big as my nephew.

Movie Posters

A couple of posters I made of one of my favorite movies - Lost In Translation

convertible cowl

I've been eyeing some beautiful cowls on ravelry this year. I knit up a couple, but they just didn't look right on me. They were way too chunky, and I don't always like that much bulk under jackets. So I thought why not make a scarf with buttons that I can convert into a cowl. I used a horizontal herringbone pattern for the scarf and I love how it turned out. You can find the pattern and a video here.

I used Loops & Threads Cozy Wool (super bulky yarn if you want to substitute) yarn color - Thunder and US 17 (12.75mm) needles. I started out with US 13 needles like the yarn recommends but this stitch seems to knit tight so I upped my needle size. Here's some instructions for making your own:
cast on 14 sts
follow horizontal herringbone stitch until desired scarf length (mine was about 5' 9")
add two buttonholes to a right side row
work a couple more rows in pattern
bind off in wrong side row
sew buttons to other end of scarf
weave in ends
To make a buttonhole you can either yarn over where you want the hole then on the next row drop the yarn over stitch, or you can bind off a stitch where you want the buttonhole then cast it on again in the next row.