There has been knitting going on...

After approximately a year I finally finished this honking big hat for 1st DS. It was in hibernation for a big chunk of that time tho...  All the details are here on Ravelry.

It's going to be a Christmas gift but before I started this project I asked him if he would like/use it.  Cuz I sure wasn't going to do all this planning and knitting to have it sit on a shelf!

He suggested the 2 different sides so that it could have many different looks.

And I was very happy to have the plain side to knit after the other one was so busy.

But it made for an interesting hat and kept the knitting interesting too. 

I kinda love stranded knitting almost as much as knitting lace.

This got finished too.  Or maybe I've already posted about this.  My memory is "this long" these days.  Anyway, bear with me if you've already heard about it.  It's a Christmas gift for 1st DGD who is 7.

 



 

And here is how far I am on the stranded mittens.  Almost done with the 1st lining.  And that flies along pretty quickly.  Will be starting another pair ASAP!  The grey, tan and blue yarn is washed and waiting. 

 

Just a word of advice...if you do stranded knitting with Blue Sky Alpaca Melange be sure to wash it first.  It bleeds like crazy.  Both colors I've used has LOTS of extra dye.  

 

 

Actual knitting content!

Done! I finally finished the Eliina Shawl that I knit from the Zen Garden lace weight yarn that I bought at Joan's Stash Busting Sale.

This is really quite close to the color...it might be just a smidge darker in person.

I've tried lace weight yarn before and just couldn't work with it. But this time was magic and there wasn't a problem at all with the knitting. Of course that I loved the color and was going to knit with it come heck or high water didn't play into it at all.

I added some beads to the lace edging to give it a bit of weight and just a little sparkle. They are silver lined pink glass beads.

One bit of info that I learned--When you do a crochet cast off, and add beads while you are doing it, they face to the wrong side of the fabric. I had to pin each bead to try to force them into showing from the front. Uff. It turned out ok I think.

All the information about my Strawberry Ice Cream Eliina Shawl can be found here on Ravelry.

This doesn't look like much yet but it is going to be an Iceling baby cardigan. Norma has been telling how in love she is with this pattern so I thought I would give it a try.

The little cardigan will be for a sweet baby yet to be born in Moldova.

We have 3 foreign workers this year on our farm and all 3 of them are from Moldova. One fellow has a wife back home that is expecting a baby the end of September and they know that it is going to be a boy. I'm hoping that "blue is for boys" is the rule of thumb there too!

Dropped stitch....Yay!

I think the blue sweater is coming along pretty good. Of course, it's the only thing I'm working on right now! All scrunched together like this it looks like it would fit DGD and she's only 4. I'm nearing the 364 stitches that is the point to put the sleeves on waste yarn. Only a couple more increase rows to go.

I did have a brain cramp in the button band though. Thank goodness I caught it as soon as I did. I had knit a row when I should have been purling. So I got out a trusty crochet hook, threw in a lifeline and held my breath that I could actually do what I planned.

One at a time I dropped a stitch off the needle, pulled it down to where the mistake was, inserted the crochet hook and picked up the stitches again. Only making purls where it had been knits before. It turned out. So a dropped stitch can be a good thing in the right situation. Usually they just make me freak out! :)

Lullaby baby afghan progress

I don't think that I'm 1/2 way done yet, but I'm still loving the pattern and the yarn and the pink color and especially the needles. They are Susan Bates Silverado circular needles. Love the cord. So flexible. I don't have to fight with it at all. That makes the whole process so much more enjoyable. I usually don't care for metal needles but these have something done to them that makes them just the right amount of grip and slip with the yarn. Did I say I love them??

When I get done with this one and the blue baby afghan, I have some very pretty lavender colored yarn that I'll be making into another baby afghan. I'm thinking I should have a baby afghan on the needles all the time. I'm hoping for lotsa grandbabies! Just don't tell DSs that I said that! ;)

Pics of afghans and a knitting hint

This is the baby afghan that I finally decided on. It is Lullaby in Leisure Arts "Our Best Knit Baby Afghans". It involves counting which, as you may remember, I'm not particularily fond of...but I found a hint, that makes it easier, that I'll talk about later in the post. The color on the picture is pretty close to the real thing. Isn't it the prettiest shade of pink ever?? It makes me want to work on it just to look at the color!



This is the original baby afghan that is now a dolly blanket for DGD's favorite doll. Boredom and too many ends to weave in made me decide to make it a small size! I gave it to her for a birthday gift and I think it'll be put to use. I've made Dolly a lot of clothes and blankies and they all get used so that is a good thing.


And now for the knitting hint that I found in the magazine "knitsimple". When knitting a pattern that changes every row, copy each row onto a recipe card and punch a hole in the corner and attach the cards to each other with a bit of yarn. Now while doing the pattern you can see each row without searching through the full pattern to find where you are at. I used to use Post It Notes for keeping track of things like that but you have to move them each row and eventually the sticky wears out and it'll fall off at a most inopportune time! I now have 2 baby afghans going with pattern row recipe cards and it is SO much easier to do. You can also break down each row into sections and write them on separate lines on the recipe card making it even easier to follow. This hint may be an obvious thing to everyone else but it was a real "light bulb" moment for me!! :)


We still have snow but it is sunny and slowly the snow is melting away. The streets are pretty good now and grass is starting to show in the yard. Brown dead grass but a real improvement over all snow!!