Cable = it's not just for TV anymore (and lots of other updates!) :)

So many updates, so I'm just going to dive right in. :)

A few weeks back, I decided that I wanted to work on learning cables. I love the look of cables...so elegant and intricate, but I had never really attempted them before. As you may know (or if you don't, you might not have tuned in before now), my go-to project for learning how to do techniques is to work on dishcloths. :)

My first cable dishcloth was one I had printed out a while ago, the Bridge Over the River pattern from the COTW Yahoo Group. You have to be a member of the group to access the pattern there, but an identical pattern (as far as I can tell the patterns are identical) by the same designer is found here (A Cable & A Zig). Whatever the pattern really is, I absolutely love it. I like that the lace and the cable patterns compliment each other nicely. In this pattern, I think that the lace is the dominant feature, at least in my opinion, while the cables are almost an after thought. I also think it is deceptively difficult- it looks a lot more complicated than it actually is.

I used the Peaches & Creme colorway Passion, which is currently one of their Premium colors. This cloth was made out of one of my leftover balls of Passion from when it was a Special and not part of their normal line, but it was so beautiful that luckily the lovely people at Pisgah took notice and added it to the Premium line. Hooray! I do wish that it showed the cables a bit better, but the K1P1 link shows a cloth in a solid color which shows off the cable and lace pattern nicely.

The next cable cloth that I picked on has been affectionately named my "ER dishcloth" because I started it and finished about 3/4ths of it while I took my mom to the ER a few weeks ago (note: Mom is fine now). It kept the waiting game from being boring! I did this pattern by default- I put all of my COTW patterns into plastic sleeves and keep them in a binder. Since the COTW patterns are only a page long, I can put 2 patterns into one plastic sleeve. I grabbed the same plastic sleeve that housed Bridge Over the River and thought I would do another BOTR cloth, but the back of BOTR had the C4 Lattice Pattern, which was another pattern featuring cables (no lace on this one though).

I am kind of neutral on this pattern. It was good for practicing both front cross cables and back cross cables, but I'm not all "OMG I LOVE THIS PATTERN." Still, it served its purpose and it has a great texture. I made sure to take a close up of this cable pattern because a- it has great texture, and b- I didn't really think of this as a cable pattern at first, but it is.

Since I was taking these pictures at night (when, oh when will I learn to take these during the day with natural light??), the Peaches & Creme teal is somewhere between the picture taken without the flash and the picture taken with the flash.

My next pattern was also done in the Peaches & Creme Teal, the Lace & Cable Ensemble. This cable is more of the cable I think of when someone says knitting cable- a 3 stitch back cross. There might be a zillion scarf and sweater patterns with a variation of this cable (or maybe I'm exaggerating). :)

This cable proved a bit more tricky because the other two cable patterns had a 2 stitch cross and this one had a 3 stitch cross. Aside from that, a cable is a cable is a cable- it's more or less just rearranging the order that you knit the stitches!

I did want to show a close up of this one to show how nicely the cables and lace compliment each other in this pattern too. In this pattern, unlike with the Bridge Over the River, I felt like the cables were the center of the pattern, with the lace just as a compliment to the cables. YMMV, of course. The only problem I had with this one is that the lace pattern consistently did not "open up" in one particular spot. I don't usually block dishcloths, but I may try it with this one. I will post updated pictures if I do end up doing that.

Anywho, so that's all for the dishcloths right now. I do have another cotton project on the needles, but it is undergoing some re-working since it came out a lot bigger than I expected. It also may have to do with a certain famous Beagle, so I will definitely wait until I have photographed it to say more...in this case, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Oooh, but what's this?

After working on all those exciting cable projects, I felt the need to expand on my newly acquired skills. I found a really cute sweater, the Cables & Garter Cardi (ravelry link), that I thought would be a nice follow up on my cable fun! I decided that I would bring this pattern along to my new "young and knitting" group (which met this past Sunday). However, when I went to go print the pattern, only the pictures printed with no text. Blegh. I had even selected the yarn, some Lavish Alpaca Light Worsted (ravelry link) in white since then it would go with anything! But no such luck for now.

But I still had to find something to bring to my knitting group. Hm. It was as good a time as any to bring along my February Lady Sweater (ravelry link) pattern and Wine Kettle-Dyed WotA to start the sweater. Of course, I forgot to bring stitch markers, so I couldn't actually do anything except cast on and knit the first three rows, but I got out the stitch markers at home and continued progressing on my sweater. I even managed to work the first button hole (with a LOT of trial and error), using the Buttonhole Knit Over One Row D, including the Twisted Purl Cast On too. We'll see if I'll be able to replicate it again for the next buttonhole...I'm sure I'll be able to do it, but it may take more trial and error and reading the directions aloud slowly (my cat must think I'm nuts). Anyway, so far the sweater is going pretty well (but I'm only about 5 inches in). I like the yarn color, but I'm finding that even though it's supposed to be kettle-dyed, there aren't any color variations in this skein of WotA. I still love the color anyway, so I'm not complaining too much.

I probably won't have another update for a while, unless I finish tweaking my famous beagle project and have it photographed before Thursday. That is pretty highly unlikely at this point, though! :)

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home...

....okay so this post has nothing whatsoever to do with piggies, but it was the only clever thing I could come up with having to do with market. :)

Once upon a time, I started working on a market bag. And then I moved to Milwaukee and this project got packed into a bag, and got put into my yarn spare room closet, and I never got around to finishing it...(it's still in the closet, I really should dig that thing out). The other day, I went to dig out a cone of Raspberry Swirls Peaches & Creme, and I found a couple other cones of cotton yarn that I really wanted to use up, one of them being Blue Swirls.

I bought this color a while ago, and it got buried in the same closet after the move, of course...

Anyway, so I've been looking for a good market bag pattern. I like the one that I used with the previous market bag, but the Blue Swirls is a worsted weight, and not a double worsted weight. Plus I have a bunch of market bag patterns in my Ravelry queue, so I figured I should branch out. I settled on the Fantasy Naturale Market Bag pattern from the Plymouth Yarn website.

The pattern initially called for size 10 needles and size 15 needles, but since I was doing this in worsted weight yarn and it does eventually have to hold things, I looked through the projects on Ravelry and decided to make some modifications.

I cast on the bottom of the bag with size 7 needles (pattern calls for straights, but I used a KnitPicks fixed circular). This made a pretty firm fabric for the bottom of the bag. I did the same number of stitches that the pattern called for. I have never picked up stitches before, so when I went to pick them up, I only picked up 98 stitches instead of 100. So I decreased down 2 stitches since the pattern is repeats of 4. I didn't start on the pattern right away, but I "extended" the bottom doing just straight knitting for a while before switching to the bigger needles for the mesh part of the bag.

I switched to size 10 needles, and I used the size 10 from my Denise set. The pattern was easy to memorize, so I did most of the knitting while watching TV.

I didn't change anything else for the rest of the pattern, except since I only had 96 stitches instead of 100, I had to adjust the knitting at the end a bit. For Round 5, I changed it to: Knit 29, Bind Off 14, Knit 34, Bind Off 15 and Knit 5. That was the only adjustment I made for the end, I still re-cast on 20 stitches for the handle.

I really like this pattern, and I may knit more of it. However, there are so many market bag patterns and so little time, we'll see if I get back to doing this one! I think this will end up being a Mother's Day present for my mom so she can take it to farmer's markets this summer, but we'll see. ;)

Incidentally, I had this market bag in my Ravelry queue since 9/20/2008, so it officially counts as a project from my queue! That marks queue project #4 in as many months of 2010, so I should have no problem finishing 10 queue projects by the end of 2010. Hooray!

Easter Fun!

Aaaaaaaaaaaas promised, I will be showing off my exciting projects made after being "inspired" by the "colorways that make you want to stab your eyes out" on Ravelry (oh, how I love Ravelry for inspiration!). Surprise! Juanita Rose Peaches & Creme does NOT make me want to stab my eyes out. Repeat: does NOT want to make my stab my eyes out. I'm going to take a break from it for a while, but I do that after I use a colorway for a while (see also Pink Lilacs after the baby blankets! I still have the equivalent of about 2/3rds of a cone left of this colorway, buuuuuut I'm definitely not interested in using it for a while!). Anywho, without further ado, the fruits of this week's projects! Fun times with cotton variegated yarn!

All of the dishcloths used a size 6 needle which can be quite rough on the hands when combined with cotton. Remember to take breaks even if the dishcloth is calling your name and you just have to get another pattern repeat in there. Don't do it!

Oh, and I also took all these pictures without the flash. I think they are pretty close to the actual colors (after doing a little editing on the photos), but they might seem a little less "bright"....someday I'll do this during the daylight, I mean it. Oh, and if you haven't figured it out already, you can click on the photo and it should take you to my flickr page where you can see the whole picture. Since my template is kind of narrow, it tends to cut off part of the pictures.

ORRRRRRRRRRRR, The Powers That Be at Ravelry just unrolled a brand new feature, the SHARE BUTTON! Yay! So if you want to see more details on the entire project (including pictures), click here!

#1- Garter Dishcloth w/Pointy Corners (Ravelry linky): Have had this pattern memorized pretty much as soon as I learned it. Love it, but get bored with it quite easily. Pros: can tune out knitting and watch TV.

#2- Feather & Fan Dishcloth: Also have had this memorized forever. And love this one too. I've done it a bunch of times, more times than I can count, actually. Not as mindless as the aforementioned dishcloth as I have to tune in to do the lace row, but aside from that, it's pretty mindless.

#3- Eyelet Rib : I've done this one once before in a solid, but it isn't so lacy that the pattern disappeared in a variegated/ombre. I prefer it with a solid, but this one turned out pretty nicely too, I'd say. I didn't do the Slip1-Knit1-Pass Slipped Stitch Over (Sl1, K1, PSSO) and instead used the Slip-Slip-Knit (SSK). Why? Whenever I do a Sl1, K1, PSSO with cotton yarn, my passed slip stitch looks uneven and kind of wonky. I think it's just because cotton yarn has a lot less give and my gauge is a bit tighter. Your mileage may vary, of course, so if you want to do this pattern I recommend trying both and using whichever one you like better/looks better.

For this one, I even took a close up. Ta-da!

#4- The infamous BallBand pattern: As you may be able to guess, this pattern, in addition to being found at the Peaches & Creme website, is found on the ballband (clever!) of every single skein of Peaches & Creme you will ever buy. Since I didn't want to tote around my computer while I was working on this (since, it's a- annoying, b- distracting, and c- I do have to share it!), I just went up to my craft room, rummaged around for about 5 seconds and found a ballband. Voila, a BallBand pattern! Yay!

For this one, since it requires two colors, the other color I used was the remains of the Tea Rose skein that I used on my Lilacs on the Veranda cloth (found here). I didn't even use up about 1/2 of what I had left (so I'm guessing I only used about 1/4 a solid skein, or approximately 25 yards), so there might be another BallBand in the near future using Tea Rose...

I even took a closeup of the ballband too.

I'd just like to warn people that these are actually like crack. They are so addictive. And not hard. And there's also a crochet-friendly variation: The Brick Wall Dishcloth (I have not crocheted this since my problem with crocheting mainly is that I crochet waaaaaay too tightly and cotton has no give, so me+crochet+cotton=major disaster, and yes I've tried crocheting with cotton, so I cannot comment as to whether this is like crack for crocheters). I lurves me the ballband pattern. I already cannot wait to start my next one (which will most likely not be a present, but who knows) and am planning many fun color combinations with this!

My one beef with this project was actually not with the patterns at all, it was actually with the yarn. Weird, I know. The Juanita Rose colorway is, according to the Peaches & Creme website (found here- scroll to the bottom of the page, Juanita Rose is 229) is Sage Green, Lemon and Shrimp. I had no problems with the Lemon (which is more of a soft yellow, not an ugly neon yellow like the poster in the Ravelry thread described it as, haha) and Shrimp as they were pretty neatly and tightly wound, but the Sage Green was often very splitty. That is very unusual for Peaches & Creme (in my experience, anyway). I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that I did not buy this cone from the factory directly, but I bought it at the Evil Empire. I hadn't even set foot in that store in over a year because a- the one near me is waaaaaaay ghetto-fab, b- it's not far away, but it's totally out of my way for the most part, and c- well, I won't go into it....but after going to 2 Joann's and 2 Michael's in ONE DAY trying to find a color of yarn, it was my last option (short of ordering online and having to pay higher prices + shipping)... so while I was there, I got some Juanita Rose since I hadn't tried that color yet. Hmm, lesson learned. I'll just order from the factory from now on (though I am well stocked in Peaches & Creme yarn, so I won't need to order for a while....maybe not till 2020). :)

And now that I've finished that project, I've updated my KnitMeter! I have now knitted 859 meters this year. Well on my way to knit 2000 meters in 2010! If I keep this up, I should be able to for sure hit, if not exceed, my goal. :)

Well, that's it for now (it took me about two hours to write this, wtf!)...now that I've got this out of the way and over a month till Mother's Day (my mom's present usually involves dishcloths), I'll try to accomplish some non-dishcloth knitting. I hear that Shimmer Yarn and CashSilk Fern Scarf calling.......

Dishcloth Fun!

I am trying to blog twice a month, but so far I have failed for March by only posting once! The horrors! :)

Anyway, I spent a while attempting to design a hanging dishtowel based on the VanDyke Lace Panel cloth by Maile Mauch. It is a beautiful pattern, but I just haven't quite figured out how to work the top decreases in a flattering way. So I will keep working on it.

In the meantime, what have I been knitting? Well, I had made some dishcloths for my Grandma as an Easter '08 present. I decided that I would make her some more as an Easter '10 present. But what color scheme to use this time? Well, in the interest of amusement's sake, in the "Yarn" forum on Ravelry, I had come across a thread about "colorways that make you want to stab your eyes out," which happened to be in regards to the Peaches & Creme colorway, Juanita Rose. So I dug my cone of Juanita Rose out and decided that would be the dishcloth colorway that I would use for this year.

I am going to do a total of four cloths, and so far I have picked out the standard Grandmother's Favorite, but am using the pattern with Pointy Corners (Ravelry link) because I think it looks better, the standard Feather & Fan that I have done many, many times, the Eyelet Rib pattern (another favorite from Maile Mauch!), and for my last one I am not sure yet on what I will pick, but I am thinking this might be the time to attempt the infamous BallBand. I am not sure what coordinating color I will use to go along with the BallBand, but I am thinking either shrimp or tea rose (tea rose is looking like a good option since I have a partial ball that needs to be used up, lol!) :)

Anyway, I will post pictures once I am done with all of them!

Yay, I'm back!

I really haven't posted in a while, but I haven't done a huge amount of knitting lately. :)

As for the lovely lace scarf, I re-wound the yarn and put it away for now. I really am going to start working on it, but just have not motivated myself yet to re-cast on. So short of casting on and knitting like mad 24/7, I won't be wearing a lovely lace scarf on Easter. I'm guessing that the 24/7 knitting isn't going to happen, so c'est la vie. :)

As for my crochet project, it is coming along slowly but surely. The hook really is hard to get used to. But like I said, I have quite a while to work on this, so I'm just doing a little bit at a time.

In the meantime, I keep pretending that I am organizing my craft room. By organizing, I mean I've put a couple of my COTW patterns into plastic sleeves and then into my binder. Aside from that, I might have moved a few skeins of yarn into various boxes, but the room still looks kind of disastrous (yarn everywhere!). I guess I can give myself a pat on the back though, the closet is still organized (all of the yarn in the closet is in a bin or box).

However, while I was "organizing" my craft room and adding patterns to binders, I found a bunch of dishcloth patterns that I printed out over the last few years, but didn't print out a copy with a picture. I looked at those as a "mystery" knit and I looked at the skeins and skeins and cones and cones of cotton yarn I have and figured that the "mystery" knits would be fun.

The first "mystery knit" I picked out was the Lilacs on the Veranda cloth. Since it's a lace pattern, I decided to pick out a solid color, so I used up about half a skein of Peaches & Creme in Tea Rose.

The pattern is not difficult at all, especially now that I've mastered the ssk. :) I think this pattern would work well in a variegated or ombre yarn, but I wanted to see how it looked in a solid. I may do this one in an ombre should I ever want to give this as a gift set or anything.

The next "mystery" knit I picked out was the Waterfall Bubbles. For this one I picked out a variegated that has been sitting in my stash for a while, the Peaches & Creme Newport color scheme. This is a really pretty ombre of burgundy, navy blue and tan.

However....as beautiful of a color scheme as this is, I really should have picked a solid to show off the lace pattern. I am giving serious consideration to using this pattern for a lace scarf with real lace yarn sometime (okay okay okay, after the AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf is done!). I did like the cool pooling that happened though.

So that's what I've done in the past week or so.

After I finish this post, I am going to start working on the Vandyke Lace Panel cloth, but adjust it to be hand-towel sized as a gift for a friend's parents. I am also going to knit up a cloth and do an accompanying Jonathan Livingston Seagull cloth too. Since this is going to be a gift, I am using Peaches & Creme Ecru, a nice neutral shade. One I have finished the Vandyke Lace Panel towel, I will post my modifications to make this "towel sized."

Maybe after this is done, I will get around to starting up my AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf.....

C-R-O-C-H-E-T!

Well, I've decided to put off the pretty pretty lace scarf for a while. I attempted it first with this beautiful yarn

and a size 3 MeiMei Pro Bamboo 24" Circular needle. And it didn't work because the cable on that needle was too thick. Attempt #0 (not quite 1, lol): Fail.

Attempt #1- After I received my pretty size 3 KnitPicks fixed 40" Harmony Circular, I re-cast on with the pretty yarn. I had two repeats done, and was working on the third when a stitch disappeared, and after tinking and counting and trying to figure out what stitch disappeared, I finally just decided to frog, and re-wind the yarn. Then, as I blogged about here, I decided to knit up a quick dishcloth as an instant gratification to make myself feel better about lace attempt fail #1. :)

So, I cast on again, for lace attempt fail #2...and I didn't even make it through the first repeat before I realized that I was again missing a stitch. Sigh....so, I frogged again.

This time, I decided I was going to forget the Shimmer yarn and try a different lace yarn (because as one knows, I've got too much yarn that I don't need as it is). I decided on the KnitPicks Gossamer (ravelry link as this yarn is now discontinued).

The only thing that I accomplished with this yarn was proof that my long tail cast on sucks hardcore and cannot be used. Boooooooo.

I decided to take a break from the lace knitting with lace yarn to mull over what my next project should be.

I decided that one again, an instant gratification project was necessary. :) So I pulled out some Peaches & Creme worsted weight in Shaded Pastels (because I don't even really LIKE that color scheme, but I've got 12 skeins of it...so I'm always looking for excuses to use it up. Only 10 skeins left.....).

While I was knitting up my Feather & Fan, I decided that my next step was going to include CROCHETING! (gasp!)

So tonight, I chained up what I needed to, and crocheted up the first 3 rows.

And that's all the info I'm going to volunteer since the crochet project may or may not be a gift in the near or possibly not near future!

Oh, except I will let you know that the crochet project involves the following:

So far, so good. Though crocheting with a hook this big is kind of a pain in the rear. But I think the finished project will be a happy success. :)

Lace Attempt #2 - Fail...ish

Well, the bad news is that I already had to frog my pretty lace scarf. But it really was more or less my own fault for just being careless and not paying attention to the stitches on my needles. And it was only into the very beginning of the 3rd repeat. I spent about 35+ minutes trying to figure out where the dropped stitch was and how the hell I dropped it, before I just gave up, and frogged it. I figure I didn't really lose a whole lot of work in the grand scheme of things. So yes, I'm sad, but I saw a few lace projects on Ravelry where the knitter noted that they made so many mistakes, they just frogged the WHOLE THING. I'd rather frog not quite 3 pattern repeats, learn where I made my mistakes, and re-cast on later. Whew. So that is what I will do....sometime this week.

After that lace yarn fiasco, I didn't want to cast on right away again, I figured I needed something to do that was an instant gratification type project so that I didn't decide that I was a total failure as a knitter. :) So I pulled out my trusty size 6 needles and a cone of Peaches & Creme cotton and knitted a Garter Dishcloth with Pointy Corners (ravelry link) which is basically your standard Grandmother's Favorite dishcloth. I like this pattern better than the regular because of the short-rows that allow for a pointier corner. Call me a perfectionist who likes my dishcloths to have all four corners pointy. Which is odd, given that I got a D in high school geometry.... Anyway. Quick, useful, and instantly gratifying. I actually use these as facecloths in the shower. More exfoliating than a regular washcloth, in my opinion, and I can make them out of fun colors. This one wasn't so much a "fun colors" as it was "oh hey, I've got this 787-yard cone of Aqua Mist because I just frogged another project so I could get my needle cord back...let's use some up!" I do like the Aqua Mist though. Next time I think I'd go for a more fun set of colors, but right now I wasn't about to be picky. Or use Teal Ombre since it too closely resembles that lace yarn....

Last but not least, I found a fun "counter" to add to my blog: The KnitMeter! Can be normally found on the right hand side of the blog, but for your enjoyment, I am adding it to this post. Ta-da!

I'm going to try and knit 1500-2000 meters this year. So far, almost 400 meters in almost 2 months. That puts me on track to knit...let's see...200 meters a month, 12 months a year....2400 meters (there's that pesky math again!). Not bad...not bad. :)

And I lied when I said last but not least before, but oh well. If you have a fiber related blog that you'd like me to link to, I'm trying to compile a list of knitting/crocheting blogs that I follow and would like to start a "Fiber Blogs I Read" sidebar. Just let me know! :)

Olympic knitting project, some FO's and a new template to boot!

I hope you all like the new template! I had fun picking out my template...I think it makes my blog more fun looking than it used to. I had a hard time finding a template that fit my blog without having to make a lot of obnoxious changes. But I persisted and success!

Anyway, on to the knitting content, which there has been a relative amount of lately.

As you know, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics started on Friday! On Ravelry, the Ravelympics started as well. I didn't join up on a team, but I'd had a blast doing the 2008 Summer Ravelympics, so I figured I would use the Olympics to at least start a project I'd been wanting to work on for a while. I had narrowed it down to three choices: The February Lady Sweater (Ravelry link), Bella's Mittens, and the CashSilk Fern Scarf (Ravelry link). As you may remember, I attempted the CashSilk Fern Scarf last week without success. That was mostly because the only size 3 needle I had was not pointy enough, and the cable was too thick, so even once I got the stitches off the actual needle, there wasn't a ton of room on the cable...so back to the drawing board. At the beginning of the year, I blogged about staying on a yarn diet. I am ashamed to confess that I broke my yarn diet again, but this time it was so I could order from KnitPicks in order to get the size 3 needles I need. I picked up some skeins of Wool of the Andes too since those are a- inexpensive and b- good workhorse yarns. I'm developing a bit of a yarn snob complex and I like worsted weight wool a lot better than worsted weight acrylic...but I digress. In addition to the Wool of the Andes, I bought a two 40" size 3 fixed circular needles, one Nickel Plated and one Harmony Wood. And who could resist this???

Now I promise that aside from that Magenta Red Heart SuperSaver I need for another project, I really am sticking with my yarn diet for a while. Because now I really am broke...that KnitPicks order ate up my Christmas money. :)

Anyway, back to the CashSilk Fern Scarf (I have now named mine the AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf, because I am using KnitPicks Shimmer yarn which is 70% Baby Alpaca and 30% Silk. Mmmm....

More yarn p0rn:

So I cast on to the 40" Harmony Circular needle. It was rough going at first. I have never used a yarn even remotely this small, and I think the smallest size needle I've ever used was a size 5 and that was almost 3 years ago. After about the 4th row of the pattern I was about ready to frog already! But I persisted, and gradually it got easier. Hooray! I made it through one pattern repeat (12 rows, and half of those were purl rows).

I am feeling very good about this project so far! I love the color, and working with the tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny yarn is not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be! I am not sure that I will be done with this by the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics however. I am thinking a more realistic goal will be to have this done by the end of Lent so that I can wear said lace scarf to church on Easter. :)

Anyway...before I decided on the AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf as my Olympics project, I was also contemplating the February Lady Sweater. However, the gull lace pattern on that sweater involved lots and lots of slip-slip-knits (SSKs). I was very fearful of the SSK, so I decided that before I could even contemplate doing the February Lady Sweater, I would need to master the SSK. A quick trip to my Cloth of the Week Yahoo Group helped solve that problem! In the December 2009 COTW, there is a pattern called Amelia that calls for SSKs everywhere. If you are not a member of COTW, I can not say enough good things about it. As the group name indicates, there is a new dishcloth pattern every week with a variety of techniques. I have knit a number of the COTW patterns and while I have not loved all of them, I have learned a lot of new techniques I might not have otherwise attempted. Plus, a dishcloth is useful way to learn a technique, in my opinion. :) So after I found the Amelia pattern, I went to KnittingHelp and found a quick video tutorial on SSK. After watching the video once through, I realized why I had been so afraid of the SSK...I had gotten very poor instructions on it initially! Live and learn...after I knitted the entire Amelia cloth, I am now a master at SSK. :)

I picked the Mocha Swirls colorway in the Peaches & Creme Article 930 Worsted Weight Cotton. I adore this colorway, but now I have this weird craving for Neapolitan Ice Cream....

Please excuse the fact that I have not yet woven the ends in yet. :)

Finally, I finished this scarf a while ago but hadn't gotten around to photographing it yet. I bought some Malabrigo Chunky Yarn in Brilliante a while ago at Iris Fine Yarns in Appleton, but never found a pattern that claimed the yarn.

At the end of fall, I realized I wanted to make a scarf of this, so I dug through Ravelry in search of the perfect pattern for this yarn. I stumbled across the Scrunchable Scarf pattern and decided that this WAS the pattern for the yarn. It didn't take long using size 11 needles and both skeins of yarn. Soft, cuddly and warm.

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I will make some more progress with my lace scarf this week and I will try to post another project picture at the end of the week.

Sigh...cats.

This afternoon, I came downstairs and was greeted by this in the living room!

I followed the trail of yarn to the kitchen....

And was greeted by this!

And then this!

The culprit, however, was nowhere to be found....until I followed the yarn back to the living room and what do you know??

Smores, you are a bad liar and I'm not buying your "I'm innocent" look. So much for the rest of my sparkly wool-ease. :)

Lace Attempt #1 - Fail.

As I blogged about in my 2010 Knitting Resolutions, I really want to start knitting lace. I have queued a number of lace patterns on Ravelry for a while, but either I didn't have the right yarn, didn't have the right yardage, didn't like that specific pattern, etc. I finally, finally, FINALLY found my ideal pattern. Hooray! I decided on the CashSilk Fern Scarf (ravelry link) because I liked the relative simplicity of the scarf, but it is a gorgeous scarf.

So tonight, I decided that I was going to cast on for this scarf. I dug through my craft room, and found a size 3, 24" circular needle, and then dug through my yarn to find some lace yarn for the project. I considered using the Cashmere/Wool Laceweight yarn that I bought as a 26th birthday to me present from Mad Angel Creations, but I decided against it for now...I'm not sure I really "see" this pattern with this yarn, though I could end up proving to be wrong. Instead, I picked out this beauty- KnitPicks Shimmer in Turquoise Splendor.

So, I cast on the required number of stitches, and knitted the first row. The needles I picked out (MeiMei Pro Bamboo)...NOT working. I think I need a metal needle of some sort. Unfortunately, my KnitPicks Interchangeable needles only go down to a size 4, and this requires a size 3. I checked some other Ravelers project notes, and going to size 4 doesn't seem like a good plan. So for now, the project is halted until I can get a metal needle with a pointy tip. Possibly a KnitPicks fixed circular either in the Nickel-Plated or Harmony Wood, or maybe an Addi Lace. We shall see.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and figure out a different project until I can get my hands on the required needle. :)

Baby Gift Extraordinaire!

My main project for this week was to accomplish two things: 1. Finish up the baby blanket that has been sitting on my needles for over a year waiting to find a recipient. 2. Make two burp cloths to go along with the baby blanket and the onesies I bought for said baby.

Check and check. Man, I rule.

I even have pictures, because I am just that awesome.

First, the blanket. I did not use a blanket pattern for this one, just a stitch pattern and some simple math. I used the feather and fan pattern, which is, for this blanket, multiples of 18 + 20. My major mistake with this was GAUGE. And a gauge swatch that lied. This isn't a baby blanket so much as it is a small rug. But by the time I realized "oh crap, this is too big" I was almost out of variegated yarn and was over halfway done. No way was I going to frog that much work. So, it's an all-purpose, take-it-everywhere blanket. Use it while kiddo is playing on the floor, use it while kiddo is playing outside, use it when kiddo gets a bigger bed...okay maybe not the last part, but you get the idea.

Another mistake I made was mixing and matching my yarns. I used Caron Natura Baby Rainbow Ombre yarn for the varigated, and Red Heart SuperSaver for the solid. No, the problem isn't that acrylic melts babies. No, the problem isn't that Red Heart SuperSaver is actually the devil incarnate. The problem is that Caron Natura and Red Heart SuperSaver aren't exactly the same yarn weight. So the needle size I picked (US 10.5) was a bit too thick when it came to the SuperSaver, even though it was perfect with the Natura. Live and learn. Next time, either a- don't mix and match Natura and SuperSaver, or b- use a smaller needle size. That would have solved the overall size of the blanket too. Oh well. Anyway, so along with the Baby Rainbow in Natura, I used SuperSaver in Petal Pink, Pale Green and Light Blue (oh, what original names!). I had initially planned on panels of yellow, but see aforementioned "running out of variegated yarn" and that is why there were only three solid panels. :) Aside from the things I'd change if I could re-do it now, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and only hope the recipient likes it too.

The two best pictures I got of the afghan are just before I finished (a few more rows to go):

and just after I finished and folded up the blanket.

To accompany the blanket, I made two quick burp cloths out of Peaches & Creme worsted weight cotton in Spring Meadows. The first one I used a pattern called Plain & Simple Burp & Wash Cloths (ravelry link). The medium called for 36 stitches and the large called for 41, but I settled on "medium plus" and cast on 39 stitches. Quick, mindless knit. I like this color scheme for baby girls.

And a close up to show off the colors a little better:

The second burp cloth I made using a dishcloth pattern and just continuing to knit it to make it a long rectangular rather than a square. This was made using the Waffle Knit Dishcloth pattern from Homespun Living. Again, a pretty mindless knit. My trouble was actually getting the hang of the P2, K1 for the first few rows, for whatever reason I was having a difficult time with that particular row. Aside from that, the pattern was, I think, a success. I like the texture of this one a lot, and I will probably make some dish/wash cloths using this pattern.

And another one to show off the whole cloth:

All in all, I feel pretty successful in completing these projects this week (and last!). Hooray for me! Now, I am going to try and make some baby hats for Laura & Elizabeth so I can ship off that baby blanket as well. Then my project choices are wide open!

Oh, and what kind of a Wisconsinite would I be if I didn't send off some Green Bay Packer onesies along with the blanket and burp cloths! Not a big Packer fan here, but the recipient's parents sure are....

Now I need to find two more skeins of the Red Heart Super Saver in the colorway Magenta. I have located it online at Joann's and Knitting-Warehouse, but not locally. I only need two skeins, I'm not gonna pay shipping. I am going to have to do another craft store round next week in my question for this seemingly non-existent yarn. Who saw that one coming??