2015 in 2016

In my round up of 2015 I mentioned three projects still on the needles at the start of the year. Two cardigans and a shawl. As I am determined to finish them this year I thought I'd show them a little love on my blog. Let's do this in order of starting.

In April I started a cardigan by Iris Schreier, the same designer as the pink shawl in this post. Ms. Schreier has her own line of yarns and I bought a set which included Merino Cloud and Silk Mohair. I sold the mohair and used the money from that to buy Beaded Silk and Sequins so I could make the Diamond Dewdrops Cardi. I started this at the beginning of April and I can't remember why it was sidelined although there is a note on my Ravelry page that in October I changed needles so until then the knitting experience was probably not too enjoyable. It is worked from the top down and at the beginning of the year I tried it on as I was concerned about fit. I was right and it is too small; it was also an opportunity to ask DH what he thought as if he didn't like it I was going to completely pull it out. But he liked it so I just have to pull it back to the armholes and work to the next size. I haven't done this yet as I thought it would be better to concentrate on the other cardigan on my needles.



In May, my friend and I met for lunch and decided to have a little trip to the yarn store first. I had no plans other than looking but ended up buying yarn and a pattern. Definitely one of those cases where the pattern made me look at the yarn. The pattern is Morning Glory Cardigan and the yarn is Findley by Juniper Moon Farm. This is a lace weight yarn knit at a slightly larger gauge which I love. I started it at the end of June and at various times other projects took precedence. But I went back to this with a flourish in the middle of February and it is nearing completion.



The third project I wanted to finish was a shawl I started in the middle of November. It was an easy pattern but I had stopped working on it when I came to the point of working out how many extra rows to work before starting the border. I want to use as much yarn as possible but the border is added sideways so calculations had to made. I was getting pretty excited as I neared the end of the border and it looked like I would have enough yarn - I had been weighing it at certain points - when I noticed that I had worked the border on the wrong side. When I added in the extra rows I had added an odd number so I started the border on the wrong side. The shawl has a right and wrong side and so does the border. DH said he couldn't notice it was wrong but I definitely could so the whole border and one row had to be pulled out. Luckily, I had put in a lifeline before starting the border so with a smaller needle I picked up the row below the lifeline, pulled out all the border as far as the lifeline, noticed that in nearly 400 stitches I had missed just one, put this on the needle, then pulled out the lifeline and the row it was holding. This was actually quite quick but I decided to have a little break before starting it again.

Socks in 2016

With all the sock yarn I have, I should be completing a sock yarn project every month. But it's just not working out that way. In fact here we are, nearly in the middle of March, and I have shown 2 knitted hats and one sewn bag for 2016. How much happier I would feel if I could say I had been lax in posting about my finished items but all that is waiting to be shown is one knitted hat, a sewn bag a quilt and the socks I will show today. By this time in 2015 I had nine finished yarn items, and for the same time period in 2014, I had 14 finished yarn items.

So why only four items in 2016? I don't feel as if I am knitting any less; maybe the items I am knitting are larger. On the needles, amongst other things, are a cardigan and a shawl. (Which should have been finished by now if not for a major error.)

At least today I can show a finished pair of socks, plus I started another pair and have plans to cast on another to take on a trip.

These socks were cast on at the beginning of February, for the SKA challenge Literary Theme. The pattern is Maudie and is named after the character Miss Maud Silver created by Patricia Wentworth. The pattern is actually quite an easy cable pattern with an interesting heel and toe. The yarn I used is Seella by All For Love of Yarn, which is no longer dying. My friend Elizabeth had got this in a yarn club and it really wasn't her colour so she swapped for a skein of sock yarn that I had bought to make fair isle gloves and then changed my mind.

When I first got this yarn I really thought it was destined to be a shawlette but it actually turned out quite well as socks.

I Wear My Handknits

I don't blog because I think I have nothing to show but in the same way as I am setting aside time for sewing I am going to start setting aside time for blogging. I started a list of what I wanted to say/show off and there are actually a few things you haven't seen yet.

Let's start off with a picture of me wearing one of my hand knits. You can just see it poking out of the bottom of the pile in this post. As I said it really needed to be photographed being worn but, although I love the finished item I couldn't work out how to wear it.

One day last month I was meeting friends for coffee and it was a bit chilly and I thought it would be fun to wear a shawl instead of grabbing a cardigan. (It would have been quicker to grab a cardigan!) I was wearing jeans and a white top so colour wasn't a big issue except the pink looked too bright and another one looked too shawly. So I grabbed the Starshower put it on and was happy.

Don't you love the photo I took on the laptop?

Some Sewing

I enjoy sewing but I do not enjoy having to get everything out every time and I do not like to leave work and sewing equipment/notions out. Rather than try to fit in some sewing every day I try to block some time off each week to sew. This does depend on what else I have going on but this week I set aside time to make a bag for my sister.

I have Downton Abbey fabric left over from this project. This was fabric I had bought specially to make something for a dear friend and I didn't want to get rid of what was left but there had to be a very good reason for using the fabric. My sister seemed a good enough reason. I made my usual drawstring bag.

I didn't take any measurements for this bag. Just sewed two pieces of fabric together and that was going to be the size. I have plenty of cream fabric in my stash and one piece was just the right width for the lining. Instead of making drawstrings I used ribbon that I had in my stash. The resulting bag was tall and thin - ideal if I was gifting a bottle of something.

I Won

Whenever I knit socks I almost always reference the group on Ravelry called Sock Knitters Anonymous that have monthly challenges and prizes.

I won a prize three years ago, a bag, and wrote that I was wondering whether to keep up with the group. The group has eleven challenges a year and looking at my projects, 2011 was the only year that I participated every month. So when I wrote that post 3 years ago I was already not fully participating. Looking at socks started since then I participate about half the time, but what happened as a subconscious decision is definitely the way I want to keep going. I will take part in a challenge only if I like a pattern that fits and have yarn that works with the pattern. I found in December I was really trying to fit pattern and yarn to a challenge which is why I ended up with a fail, so although I have yarn to choose from I am going to continue not forcing what I have fit the challenge.

And in case you're wondering, the moderator with the injudicious comments? She left the group started up a new, anything goes, group. Except anything goes meant as long as it was what she said and she was very rude to a participant and now hasn't been on Ravelry for nearly a year.

So is this post going anywhere? Yes, I'm here to tell you that I won again in the Sock Knitters Anonymous group, three years after my first win. The prizes are random number generated and I won for my socks completed for the November challenge shown in this post. I won a bag and three years ago I won a bag albeit by a different designer. Although I have plenty of project bags, I was excited to win a bag from Peg's Procrastinations as I had always admired them and even considered buying one before I started making my own. Peg very kindly let me pick a bigger bag than was allocated for the prize and I am very grateful as I have many small bags and as nice as it was to win a prize I just didn't want another small bag.

Let's Start The Year With Hats

Finished items! They may only be hats but they're completed items. One started this year and the other I was thinking of frogging but changed my mind when I saw that I was more than half-way through.

First the one started this year as it feels good to start a project and finish without it being set aside for something else. It certainly helped that this was a gift and I had a box full of things ready to send.



The pattern is Antler Hat by Tincan Knits; the same design team responsible for the hat pattern shown in this post. Yarn is Red Heart Soft as it is easy to care for and I used 4 mm and 5 mm needles.

The other hat is one I started right at the end of October for Operation Gratitude. I was going to unpick it as the slip stitch pattern doesn't really show up in this yarn but as I had only an inch to go before shaping, I decided it was worth continuing. The yarn is Charisma by Loops and Threads and I used size 6 mm and size 8 mm needles. The colour of the yarn is Dark Blue but it really did not want to be photographed.



I immediately cast on another hat so that I would have something simple to work on.

2015

A bit late but lets see what I achieved.

The projects mentioned in my last post are not included in any of these numbers.

In 2015 I had 53 projects on the needles, four of which were frogged, although there were more that didn't get past the first couple of rows so a project page was not made on Ravelry. (Two of these were projects started in 2014 that I finally decided to end.) Uh oh, two of the projects on the needles at the beginning of 2015 are still not finished. One of them has become the project that I work on at the outdoor concerts in the summer. Maybe this year is the year. The other project is not one that I can just pick up and work on for a short while. Like I set aside sewing days I need to set aside a day for this project. It would also be a good time to catch up on podcasts.

But in addition to these two projects, I ended the year with four other projects on the go. (Although I'm pretty sure I'm going to frog one.) One is a shawl that I would have finished before we went on vacation except I want to use all the yarn. I have reached and worked some of the border, which is knitted on sideways, now I have to decide how many extra rows to add before the border and which pattern to use.

The other two projects are cardigans, one of which is very lacy, but I should look at the other one and see if it is suitable for knitting group.

But (yes another one) I cast on a hat this year, so although not in the stats it needs to be finished first.

Ten projects were for charity and 18 were for other people. I only knit five pairs of socks, (plus the two frogged projects) but also used sock yarn in four other projects. I made 18 hats, nine shawls/wraps (two still being worked on) and four pairs of gloves; seven projects were crochet.

And how did I do for yarn buying? Notice I left this to the end. I knitted 9532 metres and crocheted 814 metres. This is about the same as 2014 which isn't bad considering December was a total wash out. I haven't got a final figure for the total yarn added but it is similar to 2014. In other words more yarn in than out. Yes, I'd like to use more than I buy, so let's get knitting.

Vacation Knitting

We went away for just over two weeks at the beginning of December and I made sure I had a good supply of yarns and patterns with me. But this trip was a total disaster for producing anything I liked.

The flights would be long so I thought that making a scarf was a good idea as scarves can be quite tedious to make. I also chose crochet as I would not be happy losing knitting needles. Having made the Tulips Hat for charity, I decided to make the Tulips Scarf. I had a good supply of Red Soft in my stash and made sure I had a collection of crochet hooks in various parts of my luggage in case any were taken from me especially on the return flight from another country. (Although I was never once asked about them.)

The first problem arose on the long flight. The cabin lights were dimmed for the entire flight and the overhead lights shone on my husband's seat and not mine. I was working with dark blue yarn and soon gave up. A missed opportunity but I should have been sleeping anyway. Then when I looked at it in the light of day, I did not like the edges of the scarf as they were uneven. I need to take a better look at it to see if it can be improved or if it is a design "feature".



In down time on our vacation I cast on a shawl, I thought this would be a quick knit and it would be nice to have a finished item and not add to my WIPs. The pattern I had chosen was Spytacular by Meaghan Schmaltz she of the hat at the end of this post. I have seen this design IRL in two different colourways so knew I liked it, it wouldn't require much concentration but it wouldn't be boring. I also had a skein of sock yarn, purchased at The Vista Fiber Arts Fiesta in October this year, which I thought would be perfect. In fact when I purchased it I had decided I wanted to make a shawl and not socks.

The first problem was with the knitting needles. I was using needles from my interchangeable set and one had a groove at the join of the wooden needle and the metal end and the yarn kept on getting caught. I am not sure if that played into my decision that I didn't like my project. So I didn't actually pull it apart, I just stopped working on it. There isn't a problem with the pattern nor the yarn; I just think they do not work together. The yarn will be better in a stocking stitch pattern to show off the colour - and yes it is likely to become socks.



And, of course, looking at this photo I wonder why I don't like it.

Not to worry I still had other yarn and patterns. So I cast on a sock. I used Oink Pigments in the colour Goldfish Bowl. I had looked at projects on Ravelry and this colour stripes, so I looked at self-striping patterns, inspired by the Ravelry's group theme of self-striping for the December challenge. I chose Borracha Socks. There are three things wrong with this sock that I know make me not want to continue. 1. The yarn does not stripe enough to show off the pattern; 2. I do not like the way the pattern changes the shape of the foot - see on the right side of the photo; 3. I'm convinced the sock will be too big. I have already chosen another pattern for this yarn which will fit a future SKA challenge.



At this stage I was pretty disgusted with myself for not committing to anything. Although I had another skein of sock yarn and a pattern as well as internet, so access to a multitude of patterns, I gave up on the idea of working on anything.

Happy New Year

December was a busy month and I've been writing an update in the spare minutes I have each day. The nice thing about being so busy, I can ignore the yarn in and out for 2015 for the moment. But I did take a screen shot of my blog yesterday so that I have a record of amount crocheted and knitted as KnitMeter resets to zero at the beginning of each year.

Having looked at what I wrote at the end of 2014, I'm not sure I have achieved much of my plan but it will be fun planning for 2016.

Spot the Mistake and Two Finished Objects

The other day I was packing up items to send to Operation Gratitude and couldn't work out why I had nine different hats when I knew I had worked one pattern twice. Checked Ravelry - definitely two hats, one pattern. Really confused until I looked closer at the photographs - one was inside out.

Here's the right side


which is the second one knitted and shown here.

And here is the wrong side


which I showed here not noticing that I was showing the inside. I think I prefer this side.

Last month I finished three items, one of which is a present so can't be shown yet. First is a baby cardigan knitted with Berroco Elements. Common Threads had a sale before the Yarn Crawl and this is the only yarn I purchased; once again I agonized over the pattern and ended up with Wee Bean by Taiga Hilliard. She has a lot of children's patterns on Ravelry, many of them free. I worked more rows between the buttonholes and continued them down the front, if I make this again I will space them out more, and added two rows of garter stitch just after the armholes. I bound off with just a few inches to spare.



The other finished item is socks (of course).

The yarn is Show Stealer by Leading Men Fiber Arts a merino, cashmere, nylon, sock yarn in the colorway "Fox Says What".



The challenge for November was all about fraternal and mirrored socks and as I didn't know how this colour would show patterns I chose a simple pattern - Zigzagular Socks. From the blurb on Ravelry - This pattern is my solution to the variegated yarn conundrum - that one where a gorgeous skein of yarn refuses to knit well in a pattern, but the thought of yet another totally stockinette sock is too monotonous to bear.



I have started to make changes to all the socks I knit:- work the leg in a larger size needle; have two or three garter stitches on each side of heel flap; work heel flap to length I like.

Some Socks

This was, and still is, a short post to show off a pair of socks I'd knitted. The writing took no time - yarn, pattern, photo - until I decided to add a photo of the yarn in the skein. I found three that looked good so why not make a collage I'd done that once before. And then I spent too much time looking at my photo editing programmes to make a collage. My post back in March 2014 said I just clicked a button. Do you think I could find any freaking lets-make-a-collage button; was I driving myself crazy looking at these programmes over and over and was I glad that hubby and I had a lunch date? Until later in the day when I was putting my sewing machine away (I did a little more sewing which has to be redone but that's another story) and remembered that there was old photo editing software on my old laptop. Fired the thing up and voila, hey presto, Bob's your uncle, there it was, the magic make-a-collage button. So now to the action.

As I have a little supply of sock yarn my aim is to knit something with sock yarn every month - doesn't have to be socks. So this should be my tenth sock yarn project of the year. Hmm, unfortunately that isn't the case; but it is the seventh so not too bad.

The challenge for October was under appreciated patterns. Which meant any pattern that was available to the general public, had been published more then three months previously and had less then 15 projects on Ravelry. I wanted to use this yarn - Celestial Strings Shuffle Sock and thought it would be a good idea to see if any of the patterns in books I owned qualified. I started with a cabled pattern from Think Outside the Sox but quickly stopped as the cables were not showing. I then turned to a pattern which I had wanted to work for the self-striping month but it did not qualify - Double Wing 'Agate' Socks. I really like how they came out. I finished them within the month and also entered them in a Pinktober challenge.

Some Sewing

I would like to do some sewing every week but I don't often manage to achieve that. So I am excited when I actually finish a sewing project.

A while ago I had purchased a jelly roll from Jo-Anns but had no plans until I saw a video from The Missouri Quilt Co. She used a jelly roll for this quilt based on a design by the 3 Dudes. A sewing day with my friend Jenny, got all the strips sewn together. Although I was disappointed with the quality of the jelly roll. It had been cut with the fabric folded in half and was not cut straight at the fold line. One of the reasons for buying pre-cut fabric is that it will be precisely cut.

I don't have any photos of the strips sewn together or cut into squares but here is a picture of a square after it has been cut on the diagonal.



The quilt needed backing and binding and this is where The Missouri Quilt Company came in again and I used self-binding baby quilt. You have to e careful to follow her instructions so that the mitered corners lie flat. After adding the backing, I inserted some batting and then sewed all round the seam.

I really love this quilt; it looks complicated but was simple. It is on its way to my nephew for his upcoming baby.

Yes I Cast On New Projects But I Also Finished Them

Insert smiley face.

Last time I wrote how happy I was to have finished five projects and not to have started five new ones. That didn't last long as there was a report of cold heads in Calgary. So over the course of four days I made three hats - two knitted, one crocheted - baby, toddler and adult. And they have been mailed.

I used Red Heart Soft that was already in my stash; the hardest part was choosing three patterns.

First off was Kiddie Cadet for the baby.



I didn't work the purl round just before the increases as I wanted a rounded shape.

For the toddler I crocheted a pattern that was already in my queue - Olivia's Butterfly. I started this with a size I hook as recommended on the yarn label but the hat came out too small so I restarted with a J hook and added three more rows of double crochet before working the butterfly chains.



For Mama I had a few patterns saved from when I had been asked to make her a slouchy hat and I chose Small Hills Hat. There were plenty of comments about that hat coming out small so I added 12 stitches - a complete pattern repeat. This pattern has instructions for a regular hat or slouchy.

Finishing Frenzy

This week I have finished five items. And when I say finished I mean completely finished, ready to wear, ends sewn in, blocked, buttons sewn on. I feel so good to have these off the needles and not to start five new projects to replace them.

Here they are all piled up waiting for the photo shoot.



Let's go through them in order of starting.



It's a Clapotis. This was the project I mentioned at the beginning of May that I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue. Obviously I did - after much thought. It is an easy pattern and I like one of those on the needles; I had had a hard time coming up with a pattern for this yarn. I am pleased with the end result so glad I decided to continue. The yarn is handspun by a friend given to me when I left Calgary. I started it on 17 April while on holiday and finished it on 8 October. When I give finishing dates that is the date when the item is ready to wear not when the knitting is finished. For example with this project I finished the knitting on 2 October, sewed in the ends on 4 October and blocked it on the 8th. This is the second Clapotis I have made. I made my first one in 2009 and you can see it here.



This was started on 1 July as 3 of us were going to do a CAL. I was very slow with mine but finally finished it on the 9th. Luckily I had bought the buttons a while ago otherwise this still might not be finished. The pattern is Eloise Baby Sweater and I used Red Heart Soft that was in my stash because my intention was to make two of these. The first one I finished a year ago but I just didn't feel like making another one straight away. In fact if it hadn't been for doing a CAL with friends I doubt I would have made this.



I started this in July and deliberately made it a slow project working a few rows a day. I need a photo shoot with my husband to show off all my lovely shawls that I have finished this year. The yarn for this one is Regal Silk by Artyarns and it is sooo soft.



In August I started a top for my expected baby great-niece. A local yarn shop was having a sale and I was looking at patterns in my queue on Ravelry to get some ideas. In my queue was Super Simple Baby Tunic and Ravelry told me that it had been made with yarn in my stash - Sirdar Snuggly Baby Speckle which I had bought on the yarn crawl in 2013 and used to make this jacket. I had one complete ball left over but had no idea what to do with it. This little top was ideal. I converted the pattern to top down and knitted in the round as I wanted to use all the yarn. I added some white sparkly baby yarn I had in stash and the buttons were in stash also.

I don't have a photo of the last finished item as it really needs to be worn to show well. But it is Starshower, a shawl-cowl hybrid. This was a project started on vacation and also a KAL with a friend who was working a worsted weight version. I used sock yarn that had been in my stash since December 2011.

I was really happy to finish all these items as now my WIPs are at a low level. I need to make something for charity but will aim for something easy and quick.

Three Hats

In my first post this month, I mentioned I had made another Man Hat for charity but I noticed I had not posted a picture - so here it is.



I decided not to make one of the suggestions for July, instead I searched for a crochet pattern I could make with yarn in my stash. I chose Textured Unisex Hat crocheted on a size 6.00mm hook with Lion Brand's Vanna's Choice. The hat looked really big but fit me so I added a couple of rounds of single crochet on a size 5.00mm hook to make the edge fit better.



The knitted suggestion for August was Turn A Square by Jared Flood. I had knit this pattern before in 2011 and decided to knit it again for charity. It was knitted on size 5.00mm needles with Red Heart Soft from my stash.

A Tale of Two Socks

I know I’ve only just posted but as I have a photo, I’m quickly writing about my socks before something shiny appears. These socks have a bit of story behind them as it was a classic case of love the yarn, can’t find a suitable pattern.

The yarn is called Opposites Attract by Barking Dogs Yarn


This is how the dyer describes the colours: Fun pairs of one split skein! The idea behind these pairs is to get a pair of socks whose colorway has reversed itself. One sock will have a large area of a main color with other smaller accent colors. The alternate sock is just reversed as in one of the accent colors used in the first sock will be the main color with smaller accent colors.

This seemed a fun idea so I bought some; way back in 2010. There were fewer colourways then and I chose Liz & Richard for a couple of reasons. The colours duh. Of the choices at the time these two went together well and Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were a British/American couple just like my spouse and me.



When the yarn arrived I knew there was no way I was going to make a pair of socks with it. Although the skeins were complimentary, I would not want different colour socks. So the yarn sat in my stash. After failing to convince a friend to swap for something of hers, we did some brain storming and decided it would work as a shawl(ette) and in August 2014 we started a mystery shawl pattern.



Both of us gave up pretty quickly although I did knit all the light blue and let it sit on the needles until May 2015 when I decided to use the yarn for a mystery sock pattern. I started off with the dark blue, loved other people’s socks, just not mine.



Now I was determined to use this yarn. The challenge for June 2015 in Sock Knitters Anonymous was Unusual Construction and I found just the pattern for the theme and my yarn - Pole Dance - each sock has both colours. To fit in with the trouble this yarn has been, I did not finish these socks by the end of July – the finish date of the challenge – I finished them in August.

Not As Long As I Thought

It feels like such a long time since I posted on here but I see that it’s only been a month. In that time one post was started and forgotten and 8 items have been finished. Impressive eh? Just not sure how I still have many items on the go!

I finished three hats, a cowl, 2 shawls, a toddler jacket and a pair of socks. I don’t have photos of all of them yet but I can show some off in this post.

I’ll just show these in order of finishing.

Firstly the jacket for a toddler.



The yarn is Cozy Soft Prints by Ella Rae which I bought on last year’s yarn crawl. I purchased two balls to make a toddler’s cardigan which should have been enough except I chose a pattern with a hood. (I should insert here that I took forever to choose a pattern because I wanted to make something different which is ridiculous really because I was just making a cardigan.) My friend had bought the same yarn on the yarn crawl and let me have her left overs. (She had made a hat.) With my two balls and her left overs I had just enough to complete the jacket.



Buttons were in my stash, from frogging this.

Next finished item was a hat for charity. It is another Man Hat. When I was away at the end of May, I took yarn to be able to make two of these. I cast this on when I had finished the first one and finished when I got home. The yarn and needles are the same except I used the Faded Denim colourway.

And then I finished a shawl. I had another skein of TOFUtsies by South West Trading Company that I had been given and as I liked this shawl so much, I decided another shawl would be ideal.



The pattern is Crooked Cathedral, available through Ravelry (of course). I had purchased this pattern in 2013 when it was on sale so I was pleased that I actually got to knit it. (I rarely buy patterns unless I am ready to cast on.)



I used size 4mm needles, I lengthened the first section according to pattern but not the second as I didn’t have enough yarn. I worked a beaded cast off. There was yarn left over but not enough for another row.

I have a poor photo of another shawl I finished. I’m showing it because I love this shawl so much. More information when I have better photos.



And another hat. This time because I wanted to try the pattern. One of my knitting groups meets every other Tuesday evening and I have started to go on a more regular basis. The organizer of this group is Heather of Ewe Ewe Yarns and her friend is Meaghan of The Unapologetic Knitter. Meaghan is originally from Calgary which must explain why she designed this hat. (Isn’t that a great photo of Meaghan BTW.)

I decided to knit this pattern because I have never knit two colour brioche: I certainly don’t need a thick hat. And if I’m going to knit something to try the technique and support a knitting group friend then it certainly makes sense to buy the recommended yarn and support another knitting group friend. I had never used Ewe Ewe Yarns before, so this was a good excuse.

This was a good learning project. I am disappointed with the neatness of some of my decrease stitches. I probably shouldn’t beat myself up about that as it was the first time of working decrease in brioche knitting. On the other hand, I am an experienced knitter and should know better.



And that’s it for photos. I still have to photograph a hat and the socks and get better photos of the shawl. I’ll try not to leave it so long.

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.