Finished Items

At last I have something to show. The last post with a completed knitted item was in April. And it’s not as if I’ve been piling up objects to show you. By the middle of last year I had completed 16 items. Admittedly many of those were hats and baby items, but even so half-way through this year I am at 5 items. It has made a difference starting the year with nothing on the needles (except what I started at the end of December) so there were no nearly finished projects to boost the stats and there was the nearly finished project that I completely frogged. Add to that I have been making larger items with more than one skein of yarn.

Here are the two hats that I mentioned in my last post. Both crocheted and will be sent to Operation Gratitude towards the end of the year.



The pattern for the top hat is Dream Weaver Beanie, free pattern available on Ravelry. The grey and dark green yarns are Bernat Softee Chunky and the other two colours are Charisma by Loops and Threads. They are all yarns left over from hats I made in previous years. With the small amount of yarn left over I started another hat with the same pattern. I have to go through my stash to see what I have left over that will finish that hat.

The bottom hat is the one I started and finished in the car. It is a simple Granny stitch type pattern that is free on Ravelry but I was given on the San Diego Yarn Crawl. The purple yarn is Vanna’s Choice and I used that for just the increase section then I changed to Red Heart Soft. I worked until I liked the length and then worked the final round which is in single crochet. I’m sure everyone heard my whoop of delight as I finished that round as I had just enough yarn to darn in the end. Another skein out of my stash.

The final finished project to show you is the mystery shawl knit along started on 27 April. There was no official deadline for this KAL and no prizes but I did finish it within a couple of weeks of the last clue being released. This KAL was different from others in which I have participated as the designer was not a presence on the discussion boards and had not appointed any moderators to take on that role. Although this did not cause any problems there was one aspect where it felt like the designer abandoned the knitters. The pattern was free during the KAL and stated that it would become a paid for pattern when the KAL ended. They also gave two to three days notice before the pattern became a paid for pattern. I had no problem with this as I had kept up and downloaded all the clues but many participants did not and expected the updates in their library to work at any time. But they found that once the pattern became paid the updates didn’t work. But the designer has disappeared from Ravelry and has not answered any questions about this. To make matters worse they referenced stupid people on the edit page.

Anyway now I’ve had my little moan about the designer, here’s the details on my project. The pattern called for two full skeins of sock yarn and two half or 50g skeins. (OK another moan. The pattern stated weight required and not yardage although this could be found if you searched the Ravelry group. Many people ran out of one of the colours even if they had started with the correct amount. The designer did not answer any questions about this.) I used two skeins I had purchased at Vista Fiber Fiesta last year, some yarn I had been given after a small amount had been used and some left over yarn.



But I did not use up any of the four, so no skeins out.