WIPing Wednesday (3)

I have finished one WIP mentioned last week. The baby cardigan was finished. I used a different colour yarn in my stash for the front bands and also used buttons in my stash. It was finished in time for delivery to the baby. So with that off the needles, an easy project was cast on. This will be a toy and no photo as it is just a yellow blob.

I am still working on the tea cosy. It is going slowly but I am more than half way through. I should try to finish it by the end of the month.

The shawl that was this close is now further away. But for a good reason. I wasn't sure if I had enough yarn to complete all the pattern repeats especially as the pattern and the info on Ravelry showed different amounts of yarn required and other knitters said they had run out of yarn. I had been weighing my yarn before starting pattern D and after finishing each repeat. Pattern D is worked three times and then there is a border pattern before casting off. After completing two repeats of pattern D I put in a life line and worked pattern E. I completed it last night and weighed my yarn. I had used less for pattern E than pattern D. So now I am going to frog back to the life line and work another repeat of pattern D and then work pattern E. It does not matter if I do not have enough yarn to complete all the rows of the border. So a project that I was thinking would be finished this week is still a WIP.

And this can be considered a pre-WIP. Yesterday I bought yarn so you will see that my totals are really messed up. But this is yarn designated for 2 projects. Just wasn't planning to start soon. A friend had made a baby jacket that I really liked and thought I would make a couple but later in the year. Yesterday I went to Michael's as I needed more yarn to finish the tea cosy and they had yarn on sale for less than half price. That's too good an offer to pass up so I bought what I needed for the baby jackets. So it will sit in my stash for a while but at least there is a definite plan to use it this year.

Finished Friday

OK, it's Saturday but I was side tracked by hockey yesterday. I was very pleased with myself. I managed to go all day without finding out the score of the US/Canada game.

Three projects to show off today. All simple and small but finished. Although these are all 2014 projects and I should be finishing my old WIPS.

First off the needles was this cowl. When I was looking in my stash for yarn to make hats last month, I cam across this yarn and decided it would make a nice cowl. The yarn is Pavlova by Stylecraft, and had been partly used in 2006. The pattern is Elis by Reiko Kuwamura, a Japanese designer and is available free on Ravelry. I cast on and cast off loosely but I think it would have been fine if the edges had been tighter but there was no way that I was going to unpick either edge. The yarn has a fuzz and clung to itself making any unpicking very difficult. The cowl is for my son's girlfriend.



Next off the needles (although that is not exactly correct as it was crocheted) was a hat I made for charity; another hat for Operation Gratitude. The pattern is called the Joel M Hat and is available for free on Cathy Wood's website. I used the right size hook for the yarn and followed the pattern and the hat came out too big for my head. But that is not a problem as it is for charity and there are people out there with bigger heads than me.



I used three different yarns in my stash. The blue is Waverly by Bernat. I had bought it on sale a couple of years ago as I thought it would be good for oddball blankets but it had not been used so far. The grey is Wool-Ease by Lion Brand which was left over yarn in my stash and the black is Simply Soft by Caron, also left over yarn.

The third completed project is a pair of knickers for a teddy bear. Originally, they were meant to be shorts to go with the sweater in this post, but I ran out of yarn on the first leg and as the point of making these clothes is to use up stash I wasn't going to buy more yarn. It was easy to turn them into underwear.

Here's teddy showing them off.

WIPing Wednesday (2)

I haven't posted photos of finished projects but that doesn't mean there haven't been any. This week I finished the hat I was crocheting for charity and an item of clothing for a teddy bear - also for charity. This is my car project and I have put new yarn and pattern in the car but nothing cast on yet.

I have finished both fronts and the back of the baby cardigan. I started the second ball of yarn about half-way up the back. I might need more yarn for the front bands but I will deal with that when I come to it.



As mentioned yesterday I started the tea cosy for February

but nothing else was started - this is good. The shawl is still this close to being finished as I have been working on the baby cardigan. It would be nice if next week I can report that I just have the bands left. Although I have in my head plenty of other baby things I want to make; with two babies in the family and stash yarn I can keep busy for quite a while.

Tea Cosy Tuesday

I mentioned in a recent post about joining a new group that is making tea cosies. The person who started the group is calling it Tea Cozy Tuesday as she is updating every Tuesday. Here is her blog post about the pattern for February.

It looks like another one that can be made from left overs. I changed my mind a few times about the yarn I was going to use as I was not going to start this until I had finished my charity hat for the month. (It's bad enough that I have 2013 projects unfinished but I don't want to start having projects started in 2014 that take forever to be finished.) I actually started it on Sunday but changed my mind about the yarn as I did not want to run out like I did with the last cosy. So I restarted with a different yarn yesterday. It looks like a quick project, although, it will appear in tomorrow's WIPping Wednesday it should be completed by the following week.

WIPing Wednesday

Don't know what a WIP is? It's a Work In Progress. I don't know when it entered crafting lexicon but most crafters know the acronym.

It has been a frequent complaint of mine just lately that I have too many projects on the go and looking back at my posts I see that it was last April I expressed my concern.

One of the problems with having too many WIPs is that I don't have a finished project to show off. I was going to start WIPing Wednesdays last week to show projects I started as starting projects does not necessarily mean that I have previously shown a finished item. At least I can say one of the projects I would have shown last week as new is now finished. One thing I have noticed about WIPs that I haven't mentioned before is that when I get close to the end of a project I tend to work on it exclusively (depending on complexity level) because I know I will soon have a finished item to show off.

So this week on the WIPing front, I completed one project, a cowl using old stash. It was a quick knit for a gift. Photographs and details to follow as I'm not sure how I am going to photograph it to show it to its best. And then I cast on a baby cardigan, again using old stash. I have two 50 gram balls of baby yarn that I wanted to use while the baby was small. I chose a pattern that requires 100 grams with the idea that the bands could be worked in a different colour if I ran out of yarn, but having worked one front so far it doesn't look like that will happen.

I also have a hat that I am crocheting for charity that should be a finished item for next week's update. (I am also this close to finishing a shawl but I will finish the hat first.)

I'm Still Joining Groups

This is a reference to this post. Although I am doing slightly better with group joining than yarn buying. I have left the dishcloth group mentioned. The last mystery dishcloth I knit with this group was in 2011. I recently left the group because I had not joined in for so long and they were starting to repeat patterns.

As we know, nature abhors a vacuum so I had to fill the space with another group. At the beginning of the year a new group started on Ravelry for making tea cosies. One a month, alternating knitting and crochet. Umm, yes that does mean 12 cosies, and, no, I don't need 12 cosies. But, I'm hoping that I will be able to part with some of them and gift them. I'm also hoping that I will only use stash yarn but that is likely to become more difficult as the year goes on.

January started with a knitted cosy from Patons Canada. I actually had the recommended yarn in my stash left over from a project made in 2006. Amazing that it survived the pre-move clear out. As it turned out, I didn't have quite enough yarn to make the complete cosy; I worked fewer rows of ribbing at the top and didn't work the ribbing at the "armholes". I was tempted to buy buttons but if I'm using stash yarn then I must use stash buttons. And I had just three of these so no odd button left over. As good as completely using yarn.

The good thing is that I really like this cosy - the bad thing? I want to make another!

Left Overs of a Different Kind

These are really left overs. Having completed November's challenge in the Sock Knitters group on Ravelry, I was gung-ho to start a challenge for December. One of the challenges in December has always been using left overs. Meaning knitting a pair of socks entirely from yarn remaining from previous projects. Not necessarily socks but it must be a project knitted by you (no helping other knitters by using their left overs) and they must be partial skeins. (For example if you bought 3 skeins of yarn for a project and used 1 3/4 the partial skein of 1/4 would count but the whole skein would not.)

I have never partaken in this challenge because why knit with left overs when I have plenty of virgin skeins? But 2013 was different. Maybe I felt it was time to knit a pattern that I downloaded years ago. Who knows? Anyway I emptied out my bag of sock yarn left overs and sorted them into piles of yarn type and then chose three colours I thought would go well together.



The yarns are all by Regia - regular and stretch and are left over from these socks.

I didn't use up any of the three yarns but I could not knit another pair from the left overs.

I decided pretty early on that I did not want the pattern on the sole of the foot and changed it to stocking stitch, also I decided to work the gusset decreases on the sole of the foot, I liked the way this came out and am likely to incorporate it into other sock patterns.

The overall project time was 1 2/3 months but I was not knitting these all the time and they sat untouched for a while when it came time to sew in the ends.

Although I knitted socks for Novembers and Decembers challenges, I didn't cast on anything for January and I haven't made up my mind for February. Probably because I have got enough (too many?) projects on the needles.

A Trio of Gifts

2014 is turning into the year of new projects. The only good thing about this is that I am finishing the projects I have started. Also I am using left over yarn.

This trio of gifts is two hats I have made for others and a gift of yarn for me. So it is a good thing that I am completing some projects.

Before Christmas my son told me that his girlfriend would like a hat. She had been looking at hats and he declared that his mother could knit one. Sounds familiar to all you crafters? Do you know how many patterns there are on Ravelry for slouchy hats? Neither do I but there are lots and after sending photos of a few to my son I gave up. So with the start of the new year and DH having a business trip to Calgary, I decided to just make her a hat without input from son. I chose the pattern, used yarn out of my stash and came up with this.



The pattern is Nell by Lisa Gutierrez available free on Ravelry. The yarn is Red Heart Soft in the colorway Berry. This was a quick easy knit; the only thing I am not sure about is the stretch of the brim. With the yarn I used and the twisted rib pattern I am worried that it will stretch and not go back into shape. I used just over 1/2 ball, so it is a good stash buster project.

Having made this hat for his girlfriend, I thought I ought to make something for my son. Even if I wasn't sure he would wear it. In this post I said that I wanted to make another one as a gift so that is what I made. This time I used the large hook size - 5.5mm and it made for a softer hat. I still added 3 rows of DC after the pattern but not a row of SC. And I used up all the brown that was in my stash - just love that - so I can count that as a ball of yarn out.



So to prove Newton's third law of motion, one ball out has to be balanced by one ball in and my friend Clair sent me this yarn.



The dyer is local to Calgary and this is her Esty shop.

It is a fingering/sock weight yarn; 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon.

And to quote Douglas Adams "an increasingly misnamed trilogy" there is one more gift. I knitted some more booties. They are exactly the same pattern and yarn as these and these.

A Simple Cardigan

This is a project that has been on the needles for a number of months. Probably from the end of June but I did not make a note of the exact start date. When I left Calgary, Myrna gave me some of her hand spun which she very nicely said reminded her of me.



To show case the lovely colours, I knew I would want to knit with a loose gauge and a shawl would not do justice to the yarn or any design I chose. I looked at a number of cardigan patterns and knew that I would have to make my own design.



I swatched. To get some idea of how the yarn looked on larger needles as well as to obtain gauge.
Firstly I knitted the waistband sideways, with the yarn doubled for stability. Every row started with a slip stitch to make picking up stitches easier. I knitted until it fit but left the stitches live; 1) in case I changed my mind about the design; 2) as I had not made up my mind about the type of fastening I wanted.

Still using the yarn double, I picked up a stitch in every slipped stitch and purled a row, on the next row using single yarn, I knit into every stitch twice by knitting into each strand of yarn. After that it was plain stocking stitch with garter stitch front bands and working some decreases inside the bands. I cast on stitches for the sleeves and worked raglan decreases and continued to decrease at front edges but less often. When there were just the 4 edge stitches left on the front I worked a few rows garter stitch for the neck and cast off.

At this point I had to make a decision as to to if I liked the cardigan so far. I had got this far without cutting the yarn so I would still be able to take it apart without losing any yarn. I continued.

Firstly I had to decide on the fastening at the waistband. I sewed 5 small buttons on one side and chained loop fastenings on the other.

I then joined the yarn to the stitches cast on for each sleeve. As I wanted to use up every bit of yarn, the sleeves were worked at the same time using the end from the outside and the inside of the ball of yarn. As I was not sure how many rows I would get out of the remainder of the yarn, I worked a garter stitch cuff and placed random decreases under the arms. When I decided there were enough rows of garter stitch I switched to stocking stitch which gave me a nice rolled edge for the cast off.

No pictures of me wearing it yet, but you get the idea.

Oddball Blanket - Wild Turkey

It would seem that I can start and finish projects in 2014. Damn those 2013 projects that refuse to end. I have two more finished projects started this year, one of which I will show here.



It's another Oddball Baby Blanket. We have two weeks to complete a blanket and I usually get going on one as soon as it arrives so that it does not get forgotten. With this one there was no choice in stitch pattern as it is an all garter stitch blanket. Not my favourite thing to knit as it takes so long to knit but an easy no concentration project.

Both yarns were in my stash. Speaking of which, the observant among you might have noticed that yarn in is no longer zero. I need yarn to finish a project so it was definitely a needed purchase.

I'm also going to record meterage in as although I like balls in and out as a way of (trying) to make sure I knit more than I buy it doesn't fully reflect the growth or shrinkage of my stash. I am already showing meters knit or crochet so why not meters in?

An Oldie

This is a project that I finished in 2008 but I didn't have any good photos to show, mostly because I hardly wore it. So when I wore it the other evening, I persuaded hubby to take some pictures.



The pattern is a Drops design using two different yarns. None of my local yarn shops had both the yarns so that I could choose two colours that matched. Eventually when a LYS was going out of business I bought all that they had of the Drops Silke-Tweed (which is now discontinued) and used it double.

I really enjoyed the knitting and pattern construction but initially it wasn't an easy item to wear. If you don't do it up it flares at the back and looks stupid (on me anyway) but how to fasten the front? The pattern shows it fastened with a button but nowhere in the pattern does it say where to place the button. I bought a brooch but this did not keep the jacket together after a short time. Then when a new store in Calgary had their opening sale I bought a couple of shawl pins and they work fine.

First in 2014

A finished project already! Which is a good way to start the year, except I started the project on 1 January so it is not one of my WIPs. But the good news is that it is for charity and I used yarn in stash, so much so that one colour was completely used up. (Although I didn't feel that I used enough of any one colour to count balls of yarn out of my stash.)

I had mentioned about wanting to knit for charity again and have worked a couple of sections on Odd Ball blankets and also another group on Ravelry that had welcomed me. Well with the start of a new year I thought I would get involved with this other group that makes things for Operation Gratitude. Each month they have a knitting and a crochet pattern suggestion and this month was hats and they chose patterns that used different colours so people could use stash. A crochet hat is a quick project and using oddments was even better, so I made a hat.

Here are a couple of photos of the finished item. The first model is a lampshade as it really shows the hat well and the second model is my husband as his head is a better shape than the lampshade's.



The pattern can be found here. it is an easy pattern but beginners may need some help as techniques are not explained. All my colours are Red Heart Soft Yarn, left over from various blankets, and I am very excited that I had just enough of the blue to work two rounds and none left over to hang on to. The recommended hook size for this yarn is 5.5mm, I used a 5mm but the hat would look just fine worked with the larger hook. I also added 3 rows of double crochet (American terms) and one row of single crochet to make the hat longer. I used the instructions for the woman's size and I did not think it would fit me but it was amazing how as it got longer the fit improved, a good lesson for any hats I make from the top down. (As an aside, a similar principle to making toe-up socks, the toe of the sock shouldn't be increased to fit completely across the toes of the foot otherwise it will be too big once you start the main part of the sock.)

Once I finished the hat, I wanted to start another as a gift, but sense prevailed as I have all these other projects to finish.

OK I lied, I cast on a different hat pattern as a gift to work on during the play offs.

Left Overs

These are a couple of projects that I finished at the end of last year so didn't have time to make it into a blog post.

Both items are for charity and the first one is the start of a new blanket for Western Regions Oddball Baby Blankets. In the post where I showed the first section I had knitted for this group, I mentioned that I started a new blanket. What I always hate about starting a blanket is choosing a name. But living close to the beach in Southern California it wasn't hard to come up with Surf's Up, although I don't know how I will come up with a name the next time.



The blanket starts and finishes with a few rows of garter stitch. I knew I did not have enough of the turquoise to work the edge and 4-inches of pattern so I worked the garter stitch in an off-white. I think it sets off the pattern nicely. Both yarns were left overs.

I keep an easy project in the car to work on in those times I am waiting in the car without knitting, usually because I was picking up son or husband from work. The last project, a dress for a teddy bear, shown here lived in my car for almost 2 years. And the new project (a sweater for a teddy bear) was going the same way. So now whenever I stop at the beach I work on my car project. This meant this project took just over a year and I'm hoping that the next project (matching shorts) takes less time.



And I have a completed project for 2014 which will have it's own post.

This Year, Next Year

Here we are again, a round up of everything (an exaggeration) that has happened in my life this year. Also for a change I'd thought I'd combine the year in review with plans for next year.

And for a change I am going to start by saying happy anniversary to my lovely husband and thank you for another great year.

On the knitting (crochet) front I had 46 projects on the needles; of which 7 were frogged, including a project that I mentioned this time last year. Of the remaining 39, 5 were carried over from 2012, including one that is always being carried over, and 9 are still on the needles. That is way too many, although one of those is the aforementioned never-ending project and one is a project that stays in the car and one just needs the ends sewn in. There's also the project that got put to one side as I needed contrasting yarn and now I need beads so I have decided to finish another beaded project before going back to this one. Most projects got pushed aside when I started making baby items. By year-end I have made, 1 hat, 3 dishcloths/washcloths, 5 shawls, 4 pairs of socks, 2 baby blankets, a skirt, 3 baby jackets, 3 pairs of booties, a baby hat, a sleeveless cardigan, a scarf, a baby dress and cardigan, a sweater for a teddy bear and 2 sections for oddball blankets. 16 items were gifts and 3 for charity.

As well as having a new look for my blog this year, I added 2 yarn counters. One shows the amount of yarn I have knitted and crocheted. It is from Knitmeter.com and although it looks cool I'm not sure if it serves any useful purpose. it would probably make sense if I had counted the meterage in this year. So I'm not sure if I will continue counting in 2014. Also I added a count of balls of yarn in and balls of yarn out as an encouragement to use up stash. In fact, if I hadn't had to make baby clothes and therefore had to buy suitable yarn, the yarn out would have exceeded the yarn in.

Which brings me to my plans for 2014. Which is to use up my stash. OK I know I say that every year but having gone through my stash, it is really doable. The only spanner being the babies, as I can't not knit for them and although I have yarn left over from this year's projects, it is not enough of any one thing to make something useful. (Although it will be enough for booties and hats for the next round of babies.) So knitting for the babies will cause me to buy yarn and stop me from using stash. But I would like to make a serious dent into my stash so that I can buy at the next yarn crawl.

Wishing everybody a fantastic 2014

Presents Revealed

Now that Christmas is over, I can reveal the items I made for gifts.

Socks for my hubby. I decided to knit a pair of socks for the November challenge for Sock Knitters Anonymous. November 2012 was the last time I completed a pair on time and I have only knit one pair that fit the challenge since then. These socks that were the mystery pattern for March.

One of the challenges was designer RoseHiver. I have knitted a number of her sock designs and she has so many designs that are are free This seemed like a good time to get back into the challenges set by the group. Because I still have sock yarn.

So here is the finished pair.



The yarn is Comfort Sock by Berroco and looks way better as a sock than in the skein. I had to sneak into my husband's sock drawer to match the size against other socks I have knit for him but I was still concerned that they wouldn't fit so I didn't sew in the end at the toe - just in case - but they fit fine.

The other knitting was a dress and shrug for my great niece. I started off buying yarn according to a dress pattern and ended up designing my own patten and having to buy more yarn.



The yarn is Tecido Trico by Cirulo. It is fabric (gauze) with holes at the top. the cream yarn is Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK by Sirdar. The comments on the original pattern that I was going to use indicated that the dress was not long enough so I purchased more of the fabric yarn so that I could make the dress longer. (The original pattern had a fabric skirt and bamboo bodice.) It looked awful; too frou-frou. So I made up my own pattern. This meant I did not have enough yarn to complete the shrug. I had to order it but it arrived quickly and I was able to finish the shrug and get everything mailed off.

I was going to make 2 dresses, one for each of the little girls in my life but having to write my own pattern and complete the first one in a hurry, I took a rain check on making the other one.

The final Christmas present was a sewing project. My son's girlfriend asked if I would mind making her a "Hello Kitty" quilt. I was non-commital because I didn't want to be under pressure to make it but I decided that it would make a good gift that would be a complete surprise. The end result is about a queen bed size. I really like it and she does too,

Charity Knitting

I have not knitted anything for charity since we moved last year. Doesn't really matter why I haven't, I just haven't.

After rearranging my stash a little while ago, it is now in drawers instead of a box, I decided that I should look into knitting for charity. First stop Ravelry.

I searched the groups to see what was out there as I liked the idea of knitting for a purpose. I joined one group and felt bad because I was welcomed by name to the group, my intention was just to see what the group did before getting involved. I was careful for the next group and put it on watch. This means I can see what is going on in the group but am not a member. In effect I can do that with any group on Ravelry, (as an aside I don't know why people set up private groups on Ravelry that can be read by anyone) but by putting it on watch the group is marked and easy to find.

Finally I decided to join a group which made oddball blankets similar to the group I belonged to in Canada. There are some slight differences with this group. For example each person only has to knit 4 inches.

Here is my first contribution. The name of the blanket is Anchors Aweigh so this pattern I found in one of my stitch dictionaries was very appropriate. I wasn't too sure how it would come out but it is showing up better than expected. The yarn was left over from the blanket shown in this post. So nice to be able to use up yarn.

I was the last person to work on the main blanket - the next person will work the edging so this group likes the last person to use the needles and cast on a new blanket. So I did. Also using yarn leftover from that blanket.

There have been some finished projects but nothing I can post about yet as they are presents.

Not Secret Knitting

There are two or three things that I have made for other people for gifts, so I am not going to post pictures here yet just in case they are looking. But I did knit a dishcloth the other day. Although it was knitted for someone else it is not a Christmas or birthday present.

A dishcloth. I still have a small amount of dishcloth cotton in my stash; in fact less than I thought I had as I nearly bought yarn for this project. the only thing that stopped me was that Michael's did not have the right colour of blue so I decided to go ahead with brown.

Something For Me

This item was finished a while ago but photos were only taken last weekend. Not very exciting photos either but at least there are some. Photos were uploaded to my laptop today and then I put off the update here until I was in mid-row and decided that the time was right.



The yarn is Biography by Fable Fibers. I had three skeins and used all three, although the same colour, they are quite different. The pattern is Aléantine which I found courtesy of Ravelry, of course. As I had a limited amount of yarn, I did not complete the full number of rows from the pattern, also, I did not thread ribbon through the eyelet holes. I did when I first finished the top but did not like the look. I'm not keen on the picot edge on the armholes but not a lot I can do about that now. If I was going to make this pattern again, I would decrease some stitches on the row before the sleeve cast off row so that the picot edge did not stick out so much.

The mother of the baby who received the items in my last post was very pleased with them, especially the booties as she said they stayed on.

I still have a few things on the needles but a couple are for Christmas presents, so I will either have to finish some non-gift items pretty quickly or post about something not related to my knitting.

Part Two

I mentioned two babies. That means knitting everything twice. These items are for baby A and have been mailed.

I enjoyed the little jacket so I made one for the other baby, in a different yarn. This time I worked the borders in seed stitch and included buttonholes.



The yarn is Snuggly Baby Speckle DK by Sirdar, a cotton/acrylic mix which felt soft and smooth as I knitted. I used exactly two balls.

Then there are the booties which are exactly the same as the ones I knitted for the other baby (baby E).



And another pair of booties, almost the same pattern, knitted to match the hat. I only have a really bad photo but there is a section of lace pattern to match the hat. I should have checked photos before mailing. And I'm pleased to report that I have used all this yarn.

Thank Heaven For Little Girls

because I have some finished items. Two babies were born into my family this summer (hence the two baby blankets here and here) which means plenty of opportunity for quick projects. But the photographing of said projects is not so easy.

With yarn left over from the baby blanket I made a jacket for the other baby. I found the project on Ravelry and it can be found here. It is knitted from the hood down but I made a few changes. I cast on with Judy's Magic Cast On so that I didn't have to seam the hood; I didn't like the ties on the front so I added buttons and loop buttonholes made by working a single crochet foundation chain.



Using the same yarn, I knitted two pairs of booties. I have the pattern but it can be found on Ravelry under Christine's Stay-on Baby Booties.



There was yarn left over from the baby top I showed you in the last post. It is a pattern that I made a few years ago for charity and, of course, I originally found on Ravelry. I worked with the yarn doubled so it was a quick knit. This hat and the baby top are for Baby A, the jacket and booties are for Baby E.