Relay For Life - Knitted Donations

Our work is involved in a charity, Relay for Life.  It is an American Cancer Society event and we are putting up a tent and walking a track on April 5th from 6 pm to the next morning.  We are getting excited to do this because this is the first time our company is having their own team there.  We have a monetary goal of $5000.  Which sounds like a lot and we are doing all that we can to raise this money.

If you would like to donate, please follow this link [Relay For Life] and click the orange DONATE button.  Then choose the blue Search For an Individual link.  Type in Nancy Victorino.  Any donation is greatly appreciated!

One of the fundraising events we are having is called a Silent Auction.  We asked the employees to donate a new or gently used item and on a designated day, they will be displayed for everyone to go around and place a bid by recording your bid on a sheet of paper for that item.  At the end of the bidding (We gave 2 days), the person with the last and highest bid wins.

So, I have donated a few items and two of the items are knitted items that I never got around to finishing them in time for the baby there were originally intended for.  I won't mention who they were supposed to be for (I feel too bad about it).

First up is a baby sweater knit in Berroco Touche (50% cotton, 50% rayon) in a raspberry pink.  The yarn has since been discontinued.  

All I needed to do was sew up the side and arm and weave in ends.  This was a UFO, so I am happy to be completing it and giving it to charity. 

I don't even remember what size I was making.  Probably a 6 month old or 1 year.  I can't tell!  I don't have kids, so I really have no clue how big or small babies are.  I know, for shame!!

Next up is a pair of baby booties knit in Berroco Suede (100% nylon) in a tan color they called Butch Cassidy.   This yarn has also been discontinued.  The name was cute, so I remembered it all these years.  I would consider this yarn a novelty yarn.

These were actually already complete, just sitting in my yarn stash and UFO bin.  They have little fringe going around the top edge.  So cute!

I am glad to have brought these two out so that some baby may enjoy them.  I've been wanting to knit for charity, so since I have not yet, here is my chance.

The auction is coming up on March 12th and 13th.  I'll update everyone if they sell! 

More Hats...

I have another hat!  This is the same hat that I made for the I Heart Hats post from last week, but I used a different combination of yarn along with a different object dangling from the top.  Here is the yarn I used:

Hats: Round 3

It is Bernat Softee Baby in Soft Peach and Naturally Caron Spa in Green Sheen.  The Bernat is the yarn I previously used in the I Heart Hats post and the Spa is the same that I used to knit up my Aloha Maddie Baby Blanket back in August.  I find that the Spa yarn splits very easily when you are working with it, which drives me nuts, but it is so soft.  These two yarns together give the hat a very cozy feeling.

Instead of crocheting more puffy hearts, I did a puffy leaf.  It seemed to suit the colors better.  I first knitted up two leaves.

Much Easier than the Hearts!

Then I put them wrong sides together and started to seam them together with the left over tails.  Once I got close to the top, I stuffed some polyfill into it.

Can You Picture It?

Then I closed up the hole in the same manner.  I took an extra double strand set of the green Spa and crocheted a chain of about 5 chains and attached it to the leaf and then tied it to the top of the hat.

Now, I Heart Leaves!

I really liked this one too!  I definitely make things I don't like.  You may see them on this blog, but most likely it will only be the projects that came out cute.  Who wants to write about their mess-ups? 

The next and last hat will be this color combo (can you guess it?):

Round 4

Hey, when I buy yarn, everyone is getting a little bit of it.  There is no need to buy a ton of different yarns, just a few and mix and match the colors or textures.  I will put a puffy leaf on that one too.

I will be in Massachusetts next weekend with my family.  I may write about my socks.  I hope that I can start while I am there and not just eat the whole time.  Stay tuned!

Hooded Scarf

This project came as a request.  My boyfriend had his eldest daughter down from California for a visit over winter break from college.  She knew I knitted because I knitted her a scarf for Christmas.  Below is the Christmas scarf:

Third scarf of the season

The scarf I knitted her for Christmas was the same pattern as the Trio Scarf and the Quintet Scarf.  One thing that was different between this scarf and the other scarves is that I knitted this with hand-dyed cotton rather than hand-dyed wool.  I did continue to use the Katia silver novelty yarn.  I am definitely getting my money's worth with that yarn.  So, by using cotton, the drape is heavier than the wool, but I think it has charm. 

Ok, so back to the request: She had asked if I could make her a hooded scarf and a skirt.  I said that I would make her the hooded scarf, but to ask her grandmother to crochet the skirt for her.  (Hey, I have to divy up the workload, you know?)  I have a ton of knit magazines and there is a wealth of free patterns on the web; I was bound to find something.  I searched the web first to get an idea of what this will entail.  It appeared simple enough, although I did find a varied selection of how the hood is assembled onto the scarf.  I looked through my knit mags next, but found a scarf with a cap rather than a hood.  Eh, I didn't like it much.  Now, I just got a Knitting desk calendar (the kind that has a pattern-a-day) for Christmas.  Even though I vowed not to look ahead at the patterns and to take it one day at a time, I thought since this is for a purpose, that I should be allowed to look in the index and search for a hooded scarf.  So, guess what?  In March, there is an easy, great pattern for a hooded scarf!  Who knew this would be popular? 

So, I talked it out with the daughter, and the yarn she selected was not the one they knit the sample with, but it looked like a pattern that you could work up with just about anything and it will come out good.  I went to Joann's that evening and bought Vanna's Choice (100% Premium Acrylic) from Lion Brand in Oatmeal.  It is a natural-grayish-brown yarn with tweed flecks in it.  It is the very yarn that my sister knitted up my cabled blanket that I showed at the end of the Crazy Cables post. 

The right-side is wavy

The scarf in the pattern sample was made with a faux mohair yarn that gave a flatter look than my scarf was.  Vanna's Choice is very, very stretchy, so it tended to shrink into itself and give this wavy look to the right side.  The pattern alternated between knit and purl to make a sort of basketweave ribbing.  Here is the appearance from the wrong side (back side):

The wrong-side basketweave

I really liked the wrong side and during the process, I had asked if the daughter wanted this to be the right side, but, after thinking, she chose the right side to be facing.  So, this yarn, as I mentioned, is very stretchy.  I had to do a few gauge swatches to get it right (and it still was questionable)!  The pattern called for size 9, I ended up using a size 11.  I even could have gone up another size, but I did not want to make another gauge swatch, so I stuck with the 11's. 

This pattern is so simple that you knit the scarf really long, then fold the scarf in half to find the middle, then seam down from the fold along one edge about 12 " and, viola!  You have a hooded scarf!  Very clever.  The creator of this pattern is Designs by KN.  She is also known as DBKN and she has been published in several books and magazines.  Her website offers free patterns, too.  This is a great beginner project.  It is something more than a scarf, but not complicated.

The best thing about this scarf was that I bought the yarn on a Thursday night and knitted it throughout that weekend and finished it up on the following Monday.  Here is the hooded scarf complete:



Definitely will keep the chill out!

After the hood was seamed, I added fringe to the ends and added a tassel to the hood.  At first I was not going to add the tassel, but it really does add a cuteness factor to it:

To tassle or not to tassle...

The original pattern called for the tassel and not the fringe, but I think that it needed something else than just the tassel.  Maybe if I used the yarn recommended in the pattern, the fringe would have been unnecessary, but since I like to reinvent the wheel all the time, I added it.

I feel like all I have been knitting lately are scarves.  I am actually working on one right now.  I think once my current one is done (which it is for me, yippee!) I am moving on.  I like scarves and will most likely come back to them after a few months have gone by, but I am feeling overscarved right now.  I have some sewing projects in the queue and a few more knit ones, too.  I have a couple of dying projects too, but I am searching for a used stock pot that I can dedicate to dying on the stovetop.  The bucket method took a long time (remember Halloween 2010?), so I will be searching yard sales and the local Goodwill for the perfect one.  Wish me luck!