More Graduation Gifts

Having knitted a gift last year for daughter of friends', husband asked me to make something this year for the daughter of other friends who graduated high school. She will be going to Cal Berkely so I didn't have to worry about warmth just something that looked nice in the right colours. Cal's colours are dark blue and gold. Neither of which I had in stash; gold didn't particularly thrill me anyway. At Common Threads I purchased some RYC Cashcroft DK to make fingerless mitts. Then followed the search on Ravelry for the right pattern. I finally settled on Cupcake Mittlets. I used size 3.25mm needles which is smaller then the size recommended for the yarn but I liked the look and feel of the fabric.



Having graduated from University last year, her older sister is off to law school in New Hampshire - definitely needs a hat. Her school colours are white and blue so a skein of white(ish) Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Grande was purchased. This is the same yarn I used for my friend's hat. It is so soft and squishy and ideal for garter stitch. No problems choosing a pattern for this hat. I chose Qunicy, the fourth time I have made this pattern - I must love it!

This is the first one I made; and this is the third one.

The baby alpaca is thicker than the yarn recommended for the pattern so I cast on less stitches and knitted until it fit around my head. After picking up stitches I worked a round to adjust the total stitches then I worked the top pattern with five swirls instead of six.

Finished Baby Blanket

I finally finished and delivered a baby blanket.

Allegedly, this took me six and a half months to make but three of those months were procrastination in sewing the thing together.

The pattern is Learn to Knit a Log Cabin Blanket by Staci Perry and thanks to the joys of Ravelry I saw a project I liked which had changed the traditional log cabin format from a different colour on every strip to the same colour for each “round”. I chose white for the centre squares and three shades of blue for the other sides. I worked six white squares first then the next colour on three of them and then the next colour; and repeated this for the remaining three white squares.

When these were finished I decided that the remaining shade of blue, a navy, did not work well, so I had to try out different colours. (I did this by purchasing different colours and placing them next to the squares, not by actually knitting onto the squares.) I settled on red. In hind sight if I had wanted to have all shades of blue I should have used the navy for the centre squares and white for the joining strips. But that’s not important because I like the final result.

Why the procrastination in sewing the squares together? Because I knew the finished blanket wasn’t going to be perfect. Silly I know but there are certain parts on the blanket that I would do differently next time. And there is always a chance of there being a next time because I like this design but there are so many patterns available why knit one twice? (She says just having finished a hat pattern for the fourth time.)

The mother of the baby loved it which is the main thing.



The yarn is Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice and I used 5.5mm needles.

The other good thing about showing this finished blanket is that balls of yarn out now exceed balls of yarn in; which makes me happy. Now I just need the metres knitted/crocheted to exceed the amount in.