March 2022

It's been a busy month for some odd reason. I've been knitting this for the last 6 months and just finished putting it together. It can be used as a ruana (shawl) or a lap robe.

When I finished the ruana, I started on some hats. Two 100 gram skeins of each color resulted in two hats.

I was organizing my fabric stash and found a boat load of Laurel Burch fabric. So I made quilts for my great-nieces who are 7, 9 and 14.

Every 7 year old girl likes mermaids, it seems.

 

A 14 year old has a little more refined tastes.

 And purple for the 9 year old.

A recent finish

So I've been knitting from my stash. A lot. In fact, after this pair of socks, I only have enough yarn for three more pairs and I have already cast on another pair.

This doesn't mean that I have no other yarn. Oh no. I have lots of yarn for shawls and sweaters of which I am glad because, frankly, I am getting a bit burned out knitting socks. There, I've said it.

And so, once I have used up the sock yarn, I am moving on to items that take more quantity of yarn. :)

Knitty Goodness in the warm weather

It is strange to knit with wool in the warmer months, but socks don't seem to bother me. Thank goodness I got the two sweaters finished before it got too hot. I think I'd have to wait until fall, if we hadn't had a streak of coolish temps.

I finished this Cuff-to-Cuff sweater.

Pattern: Cuff-to-Cuff from Red Heart
Yarn: Lion Brand Amazing

And this pattern that I have had for 16 years.

Pattern: Cocoon Jacket
Yarn: Lion Brand Amazing

Here's a picture of the pattern. Don't you just love the 80's hair style?

And socks!

Pattern: Simply Splendid Socks by Lucy Neatby
Yarn Sock by Shubui Knits

Pattern: Simply Splendid Socks by Lucy Neatby
Yarn Sock by Shubui Knits

 

And, of course, there are more socks on the needles. I am on a mission to use up my sock yarn. If I can do that, then I will have emptied one whole bin! I'll let you know how it goes.

Hi There

My heart hasn't been into blogging for a while; have I lost my muse? But I thought I really should try to write a decent post.

I am currently on a hiatus from knitting so I can let the arthritic fingers get back to 'normal'. Here are the last things I knitted this year. Just in time for warm weather. :) They are with the rest of the woolens, awaiting cooler weather.

I have been sewing however. I cut kits for myself and some have been in the sewing room for a while. A long while. I have been steadily stitching them together. I now have eleven tops on the hangers in the guestroom closet and another on the design wall is just about ready to hang out here with it's siblings.

Spring has arrived here in my part of the world and I have already gone out and removed last year's dead growth from several of the flower beds. The asparagus is producing wonderfully and has been appearing on the dinner plates regularly for over a week. The rhubarb started to bolt so I cut the flowers off and gave it lots of water, in hopes of making it a bit stronger. It is only the first year for it, but I hope to get enough from it this year for a least one rhubarb crisp. I need to go into the furthest garden bed to see if the horseradish is starting to pop up. How is your garden growing?

The whole yarden is being redesigned so there will be a lot of hardscaping going on around here: removing stuff, spreading stuff, adding concrete. Whew, I'm tired just reading that and I'm the one who is going to do some of the work (and work it will be).

On The Needles 3/20/2015

Hi, there. The computer has a new power supply so I can actually blog now. I've been keeping busy knitting hats before warm weather gets here and I probably have one more that I can finish up. After that, it is gardening time since I have asparagus that I can pick so I know the ground is warm enough to dig in.

Here are the completed hats.

Can you tell that I was using up yarn? Love everything about the slouch hats. The slouch hats are actually a pattern called Goblin Hat. The original was in black & gray with a loop and button at the back but I modified it a bit.

I'm linking up to JudyL at Patchwork times for On The Needles Friday.

How about...

some knitting for baby!

That little grand baby of mine is keeping me busy!

On the needles, February 21, 2014

I started a new project. This is just something springing out of my head. It is a knitted version of a Happi Coat. I am using some hand dyed yarn that has been in the stash for several years from Cherry Tree Hill called Potluck. There are 6 skeins in a potluck and only those six skeins will go with each other.

There is a lot of dye on this yarn. It is crocking (rubbing off) onto my hands and the knitting needles. I will have to deal with that when I am finished.

Speaking of finishes, I have some. I can't show them right now since I do not have photos. I will try to do a knitwear photo shoot. Soon.

Blocking

Do you block the knits that you make? I am a firm believer in blocking. This is my version of Cheryl Oberle's Chinese Red Vest (what make it different? the color). Cheryl can be found on Ravelry if you want to look her up. This pattern can be found in her book, Folk Vests. I have two of her three books: Folk Vests and Folk Shawls. 

Any hoo, back to blocking. This is being wet blocked. I soaked the vest in warm water and then squeezed the excess water out with my hands. I then rolled it in a beach towel and stood on it to remove more water. 

This is a horrible photo as I was holding my iPad mini flat, or trying to anyway, and it looks like I did not do a good job. See the blocking wires? I wanted straight edges except at the neckline and armhole and to achieve that I used wires. I use T-pins pushed into the mattress to not only hold the wires in place but to shape the armholes and neckline.

I have the perfect place to block knitted items, in my humble opinion. There is a ceiling fan in my guest bedroom and I block things on the guest bed, turn the fan on low and leave it.

OTN and Gauge

There are quite a few hats hanging out at Casa del Quilter and they comprise the off the needle items. Charity hats are the best thing to knit when using up acrylic yarn. They are also a good way to practice techniques or stitch patterns. #9 in the mosaic (lower right corner) would be a very good hat for someone with dreadlocks, don't you think?

1. BUN Hat, 2. Fake Isle Hat, 3. Fair Isle Hat, 4. Cathi's Coaster Cap, 5. Lucky 7 Hat, 6. Breakfast Waffles Hat, 7. Horizontal Caterpillars Hat, 8. Striped Textured Hat, 9. Etta Hat, 10. Broken Ribbing Cap


Now. Onward to the On The Needle item. A new sweater is in the planning stages. This blue yarn was purchased at a local thrift store: all 2300 yards of it. A 5 ply sport yarn in a beautiful color, but there is no ball band or label.

And here is a prime example of why one should do a gauge swatch. Since I had no idea what size needle to use with this yarn and a yet to be determined sweater, I grabbed a US#4 29" circular needle and cast on 45 stitches. I knit several rows of garter stitch and then commenced doing a stockinette stitch with 5 stitches at each side in garter for selvages to keep the swatch from rolling. After about 3" I switched to several more rows of garter and also switched to a size US#5 needle. And then a #6 and then a #7. I now know how many stitches and rows to the inch I will get using THIS unknown yarn and different needles.

Now to figure out what sweater to knit. Anyone have a favorite sweater pattern to recommend?
Visit Judy L for more OTN Friday.

Friday Knits

Some progress has been made on the sweater. No photo because it is still a pile of purplish yarny goodness. But it is probably about one-third completed.

Remember the little red fleece hat from the last post? I decided that it needed ties so it would stay on that wiggly person's head.

If you are not familiar with this item it is called a Knitting Knobby. This is one I have had since a teenager. It is good for making laces and ties. Since this photo was taken, the ties have been added to the earflaps of the little hat. It is so darling I can't stand it.

Another pair of socks are blocking on the sock blockers. These are pink, aren't they?

Yarn: S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes 4 Ply with Aloe Vera
Needles: US #2

More On The Needles can be found here.

Keeping Track

You know I knit, right?

A long time ago I figured out a way to keep track on a written pattern that works very well for me. I use a paper bookmark, a binder clip and a highlighter. I highlight the size and it's corresponding numbers when I am knitting a sweater or other large garment. Then I clip the bookmark to the side and just move it when I get to a different row.

Enter the electronic age. I have a mini iPad and I downloaded an app called JKnitHDLite. You can see it there in the photo. I drop the pattern PDF into my Dropbox account and then when I go the the PDF within my Dropbox account I just choose 'open with' JKnit. Bam! it opens up to what you see there. The yellow bar is like my bookmark and can slide down to the next row.

On the sweater you see there (Vitamin D Sweater by Heidi Kirrmaier - link goes to Ravelry) I started out using the iPad. But look at the lower right corner of the pattern there. I had to jump from a row that is off the screen at the top down to that matrix, every 6 rows. I was getting hopelessly lost and the beautiful eyelets that radiate out from the neckline were everything but straight. So I went back to my old way of working a pattern. You can see on the paper pattern that I've also written down row numbers to check off as I finish that row. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back to the iPad when I am finished with all the increases at the neck and yoke.

Whatever works. Right?

I am linking to On The Needles.

Diddle diddle dumpling

Here it is Friday again. This week has been filled with knitting and I believe it is because the weather is cooling a bit. Shall I start with a FO (Finished Object)?

This is my Boneyard Shawl.It's a super simple pattern that is a free download on Ravelry. I had 3 skeins of Araucania Milodon and each skein was a different color, but they were close enough to work together. This is a smallish shawl, more of a shawlette and could be used as a triangular scarf. The yarn that I used was soft enough to break, which is what I did when it was time to change colors. I broke the yarn and then did a spit splice to add in the next color. If you use the phrase 'spit splice' in a search engine you will come up with various hits.

I believe I have shown you before how these squares look while they are blocking. I usually do a wet block on these. Isn't it cool how the striped yarn forms concentric squares? And when the square is dry, it stays in the size it was blocked to, that is until it gets wet again.

The blue one in the upper right of the photo is now being blocked. For some reason, it seems to be fuller than others and I will probably end up steam blocking it. To steam block, I take my steam iron that makes just tons of steam, and I hold it about one-half inch to one inch above the item. Never, ever place the hot iron on the item.

I am now caught up on these squares. Ha! famous last words.

Socks. What can I say? Socks are my traveling knitting. One sock on the needles and one sock off. And that phrase is what prompted the title of this post. Do you remember?

Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John. 
Went to bed with one shoe on. 
One shoe off and one shoe on. 
Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John.

When these socks are finished, I will wind the remainder of the yarn into a ball and start another little stockpile of sock yarn for more knitted squares.

And because I just really needed another project, I am doing a gauge swatch for a sweater. This will be a Christmas present so I really don't want to say too much about it, but here is a link to the pattern (ravelry link) and here is a link to the yarn. If you follow the link to the yarn, the skein in the middle of the pile is Lady Slipper which is what I am using. For the life of me, I couldn't get true color on the photo this morning. Must be because of the gray, cloudy, drizzly day.

Visit JudyL at Patchwork Times for more On The Needles.

Design Wall or Not

Here is my coffee table since my actual design wall is a big blank expanse of white batting. I finished my sister's quilt which is actually a comforter since there is no batting in it and I backed it with Minkee. It is lightweight and warm, as requested.

I have 2 projects pictured on the hand carved chest that serves as a coffee table. The project in pink is the first sock in a pair. The other project is an on-going one that entails the leftover sock yarn being knit into squares. The squares will eventually sewn together into a blanket. I believe I have mentioned this before.

There is also a stack of sketch books (2), flyers, papers, topped with a book on knitted vests.

And the wooden chest, in case you are wondering, is a piece that my father gave to my mother many, many years ago when he was stationed overseas. All sides are hand carved and there is a sandlewood tray inside that makes everything smell so wonderful.

Visit Judy L for more DWM. Happy Monday to you!