JC Baby Blanket

I am crocheting my fourth baby blanket in the Lion Brand Marbled Baby Throw pattern.  I love that pattern!  It is easy and you can totally zone out and it's all good.

This time this blanket is for a friend at work.  She went out on maternity leave and she will be due back really soon, so I really need to get on the horn if I want to send it to her before her return.

I am using Loops & Threads Impeccable (100% Acrylic, 128g each) in Clear Blue, Soft Fern and White.  While I am working with it, I am not loving this yarn; it is very stiff.  I am used to doing this large project with Berroco Comfort and that is relaxed and not so much strain on your wrists to get it out of the skein and to manipulate.  I wanted to save a few bucks (in case I never see this gal again; who knows, she may love staying at home and quit her job at work.  It would not be the first time I have seen this happen after the first child is born).

There is Razzy, helping me crochet.  Yarn attracts the cats, no doubt.  I ended up using one whole skein of each color and a little bit from a second skein. 

These types of blankets relax the more you wash them.  Acrylic is not the softest yarn, but it is sturdy.  It can withstand lots of wear and tear.

It will be nice to have a little blanket to cover either mommy or baby during those late night feedings or a nice square to lay down for the baby to hang out on the floor.

This was a simple granny square thing, around and around.  Perfect project for a beginner crocheter and a perfect project to use up scraps of yarn.

Colonnade Jacket

This sweater is going to drive me to drink!  Let me start from the beginning...

 

I love this sweater, the Colonnade Jacket from the Interweave Knits Summer 2013 issue:

I bought yarn for it at the end of November of 2013 and did a gauge swatch and have not did a thing with it until the end of March.

 

The yarn I bought is Berroco Vintage (50% Acrylic, 40% Wool, 10% Nylon) in a blue color called Cerulean, at my LYS Brandon Yarn Boutique.  It is so soft and has a heathered look to it, not completely solid in color.

Love It!!

 

Anyway, as you can see in the picture of the jacket, there is a lace on the entire front edge.  This pattern is written so that you knit side to side, so at the beginning and end of each row, you are knitting the lace pattern, with knit or purl sts in between.

 

This is where the drinking comes into play.

 

I wanted to challenge myself and read the pattern from the chart and not do words or a written out pattern.  Seems like an easy chart:

I mean, I have seen some pretty involved charts, and this one is easy.  WELL, it turns out my brain has not been wired to read charts.  I tried, really tried to get the hang of this.  I just could not successfully complete a pattern repeat through to the 10th row to save my life.  I would goof-up on something at some point.

 

I attempted this pattern on a gauge swatch, of course.  I'm crazy, but not that crazy to jump in on the project before getting the sts down pat on a practice swatch.

I grabbed leftover acrylic from my stash to practice.  The orange string is my lifeline.  Yes, a chart and a lifeline.  Two new techniques to me in this one project.  The object of the lifeline is that you have the string in your project at a point where you know that it is error free.  Like you are good up to that point and you mark where this point is.  You continue to knit and if you do make an error that you cannot fix, you can rip out your work down to the lifeline.  The lifeline has secured your row and you slip your needle in the stitches that the lifeline is holding.  Viola!  You do not have to rip the whole thing out and you just resume knitting from where you marked.

 

The use of the lifeline is critical in lace knitting.  There are yarn-overs (yo) and slip, slip knit (ssp) all over the place, where you would never be able to recreate that if you dropped a yo somewhere or whatever the error may be.

 

Once you get to a point, you insert a new lifeline and continue knitting.  I use two, so that when I am ready to place the 3rd one, I remove the bottom-most lifeline and use that same string again.  You remove it by simply pulling it out.

 

In the above picture with my practice swatch, just above the bottom repeat, there is an error.  A big boo-boo.  I had ripped out the whole thing multiple times and since I had not put the lifeline in at the start, I had to cast-on again and again and again.  Like I said, I was chart reading and really trying.

 

When I made that boo-boo, I just started back at row 1 and continued with my first lifeline.  It worked!  I had to rip back a few times to the lifeline in my practice swatch.  Well, at least that is what it is there for.

 

I continued with my practice swatch for a few more repeats and then bound off.  I wanted to graduate to my actual yarn that I will be knitting with and with the size needle I determined I would use.  Not bad, I have removed the lifelines, which I was gaining confidence on:

I can do this!!  Ok, so I cast-on for the project, ahem, 180 sts.  Jeepers, I hope we are good-to-go!!

 

I place my lifeline at Row 1, my first knitted row.  Good thing, because I messed up and ripped out... a few times at various rows.  I was getting a bit fed up with this.  So, I reverted back to the way I like to knit: with flashcards.

 

I write out each row on an index card in words or abbreviations.  I have one card where I mark what row I am on and where I have placed the lifeline.  This way, I am only looking at the very row I am knitting, not distracted by symbols or viewing the entire chart and losing my place and translating in my head what to do next.

Let me tell you, this has worked out SO much better!  I no longer feel the need to get drunk after knitting or requiring blood pressure medication.  I am using the lifeline as I go and I feel much better about the project now.

I'm not that very far along, but at least I actually want to keep working on it, rather than ditching it and looking for another project to knit with my boutique yarn.

Arm-Knitting

Yup, Arm-Knitting!

I made an arm-knitted infinity scarf for my friend for her birthday.  Vince's daughter showed me a YouTube video of arm-knitting and I was like, "Huh?  I need to try that!"

 

The tutorial I like is this one:  Vicki Howell

 

You need at least 2 skeins of bulky or super bulky yarn.  You can also use multiple strands (about 4) of worsted weight yarn.

 

In my project I used 2 skeins of Vicki Howell's Sheepish Stripes in Punk(ish) and 1 skein of Red Heart Boutique Sashay in Boogie.

Sheepish

Sashay

 

As you can see, I have a purple theme going on here.  I bought the Sheepish yarn but I had the Sashay in my stash.  The Sashay you are supposed to make this ruffle scarf with, but I never got around to it.  This project is perfect for it.

 

Basically, with arm-knitting you are using your arms as the knitting needles.  This creates a very large gauge knitted item.  The concept is the same as knitting, really!  I had to watch the video a few times and practice the cast-on and did a few rows, then I took it out and started "for-real."

I am in the midst of doing it above.  See how large the gauge is?!  It's huge! 

Above is the knit side.  Below is the purl side.

The green you see in there is the Sheepish self-striping yarn.  It has the purple and green in there.  Love it!

Here it is finished.

You can also double it.

And, of course, me wearing it (got to try it out before you give it away!

Very Cozy!!

I'm also knitting these for Relay for Life (in addition to the Coffee Cup Cozies).  I will post more about it in my next post.  Clearly, everyone will want one! :-)

Cabled Cardi KAL - Finished!

Happy New Year!

 

I am so relieved to be posting this project as a Finished Project!!  This is my Cabled Cardi Knit-Along with my sister.  We started this project back in March of 2013.  Which isn't a terribly long time when you talk unfinished projects, but I am still feeling a sense of accomplishment.

 

Here are my past posts related to this so that you can catch-up:

• Cabled Cardi KAL - Part 1
• Cabled Cardi - Part 2

I visited my sister in Massachusetts in December for my "Holiday Break" and brought this sweater.  What I still had to do on this was finish the cabling on the body and pick-up and knit along the edge for the ribbing and button holes and knit the sleeves.  Yeah, still a lot!

Here is where I left off.  I really need to knit more than a foot of cables.  The original pattern called for knit stitches every other, so a cable, knit, cable, knit...I did not properly read the pattern and so cabled each one.  Good grief!  I wanted to rip it out, but my sister said that it should be fine.  So, I continued.

 

I then picked up stitches to do ribbing and buttonholes along the inner body edge.  I had a too-short circ needle, but used it anyway.  This really was a challenge because my knitter's elbow was bothering me because of the cumbersome nature of squeezing it all on and holding it.

I know, like what is that picture??  Exactly, but I was able to pick-up the exact number of stitches required to do a k2, p2 ribbing evenly along the edge.  Whoa, go Me!

 

The ribbing is about 12 or so rows, so at row 6 you need to do a button hole.  From trying on my sister's completed sweater, we both agreed that more buttons would be better.  I knit in 4 buttonholes.  I also reduced the hole from a 3 st to a 2 st hole.  The holes will stretch, I know this from past experience.

Once the ribbing was completed, I have 4 buttonholes.  They are not exactly evenly spaced, but good enough.  The top and the second are a bit off, I think, but no one will notice. Shhh!

Next was the sleeves.  The sleeves were left as live stitches so that they just simply go back on the needle and you knit.  I did have to pick-up a few stitches in the armpit.  The pattern instructions were confusing to me, so I did my own thing.  I have picked-up stitches before, ahem, I just did it for the ribbing, so no problem.  I looked at how many stitches I was going to need for my cable repeat in the round.  Once I figured that out, that was the number I needed on my needle.

I decided to make this a short-sleeved cardi, so that it is Florida friendly.  We are talking 100% wool this sweater is made out of.  No joke, it will keep you toasty through cold times, but I don't need that kind of warmth, typically, around here.  Layering is popular in Florida, so short-sleeves is just right.

My sister gave me 4 green buttons (no pun intended - the original pattern name was Mr. Greenjeans). 

 

I don't see us doing many more KALs (Knit-Alongs) because she will knit me in circles, like she did with this one.  But, maybe there will be times where we knit or crochet the same sweater or accessory.  That will be when I showcase our projects together.

 

I was toying with the idea of dying this cardi.  The natural color is really not in my color pallete and maybe something in blue or pink would be nice.  I heard that you can dye in  Kool-Aid.  Hmmm....

Ice Cream Cozies

For the ladies at work, I wanted to knit them all an ice cream cozy.  I had previously knitted one and gave to my friend and she loved it!  Here is that post:

• Ben Ice Cream Cozy

I have 6 ladies at work and I assume they all love ice cream.  Perfect!  I started out by buying a bunch a different, vibrant colors of yarn at Joann's:

 

I chose Deborah Norville's Everyday Soft Worsted (100% Acrylic).  The colors I went with were, clock-wise from top:

• Electric Green
• Aubergine (Purple)
• Baby Yellow
• Wild Blue
• Neon Pink
• Snow White

Here are the finished cozies:

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Once I was done knitting those, I decided to make 2 more, one each for Vince's daughters:

 

 

 

When I gave my work friends their cozy, I also had a cooler full of pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  They each got to pick out their flavor.  I will do the same for Vince's daughters.

 

I do still owe the friend I originally knitted one up for at least one more.  She has two daughters, so, I will probably knit up two more.  These make the best gifts!

 

What is your favorite Ben & Jerry's ice cream??  Share your thoughts in the comments!

 

Mine is Chunky Monkey (Phish Food is a close second) :-)





New England Patriot's Beanie

A friend asked me to make a few hats for her son.  I had made her daughters a few hats in the past years, so they must have gone over well, because she is asking me to make more.  I love knitting for someone who will use it! 

 

Her family is a real sports-loving family, Patriot's, Bruins, Red Sox...all of those and probably more, I just don't know.  I decided to knit her son a New England Patriot's inspired beanie hat.  I looked online and this is one that I found:

I got this!  I went to Joann's and bought 3 skeins of yarn:

A navy blue, gray and dark red.  All of these are Lion Brand Vanna's Choice (100% Acrylic).  Perfect yarn for washing a ton of times and still holding up.

 

I adopted a pattern from one of my magazines for basic beanies and figured out when I would need to change colors.

I started with a k2, p2 ribbing for the brim.  Then just straight stockinette st, then started the decrease for the crown right after the last red stripe.

 

I then topped it off with a navy blue pom-pom.

It's finished!

 

It practically fits my head, so I hope that I did not make it too big!  I will be visiting Mass the weekend that this is posted, so I will be giving it to her then.

 

Stay tuned for more Christmas knitting!

WIPs (Work In Progress)

I track my knitting and crochet projects in Ravelry (an online knitting and crochet community).  I have six (6) WIP's: including one (1) that I bought yarn for and have not even casted on for yet and one sewing project that is incomplete.

I figured I would showcase theses projects as to remind myself and my faithful readers what are still outstanding.  Yes, I am calling myself out!

I am going to list them from oldest to newest...here we go (I'm going to be hiding under a blanket as to no show my face while you read this)...embarrassing!

Dec 2009, Celtic Knot Sweater:

This is supposed to be a Celtic Knot Sweater from Interweave Knits Winter 2007.  Yeah...I was so psyched to buy this, only to never even knit up a gauge swatch.  This is what the project should look like when complete...

I love it even today...someday I will start this project.  Next:

March 2013, Scrappy Quilt:

My Scrappy Quilt!  Each weekend I think that I will work on it, but I don't.  I have to sew on my borders, sew the backing and then pin the three layers with the batting in the middle and quilt the top.  I have a friend that has a quilting machine that I will arrange a visit when I am at that stage.  Ugh...the winter would be a great time to finish this quilt.

March 2013, Cabled Cardi KAL:

 

 

 

I am still deciding whether to unravel or keep knitting.  This was not knitted according to the pattern, where I knitted a cable at each interval, but there should be a patch of knitting between each cable.  My sister thinks it will be fine if I continue as I have been knitting.  I suppose so...I am going to visit in Dec, but I doubt I will be done with this by then.  But on the other hand, visiting Mass will be the only occasion in which I will wear it.  Whatever...

 

 

June 2013, Indecision City (aks Plum Lovin')

 

 

This is supposed to be a shawl.  I have not even blogged much about it.  I'm not in love with it, so I may rip it out at some point and choose another project for this yarn.

 

 

This yarn is my alpaca and silk blend.  I want a worthy pattern for this yarn.  I think I have convinced myself that I will rip it out and start a different pattern with it.  Alas...

 

July 2013, Palm Scrap Afghan

 

 

This is supposed to be a WIP, but I have gone past these 4 motifs.  I need worsted weight yarn for this and ideally machine washable.  I have some wool, but I cannot wash it, and other weights of yarn.  I could still use them, I just have not gotten there yet. 

 

August 2013, Romance Shell

 

 

I have paused on this project because the yarn is not nice to work with.  But I should work on this at the beginning of the year, to ensure it will be wearable by spring.  This will be perfect for spring.

 

I am still doing some Christmas knitting, where those projects will not be revealed until after Christmas, as to not spoil it for anyone, so those are not counted here.

 

I write this over Thanksgiving weekend and cannot resist the urge to go to Brandon Yarn Boutique and buy yarn for my next project.  Buying yarn really is a habit and it is hard not to do it.  I clearly do not need any more yarn or projects, clearly....but I love new projects and new yarn and using my ball winder and cataloging the yarn in Ravelry.  I need to knock off my Vampire Knits patterns...I think my purchase will include yarn for the Lore Hoodie! 

 

 

Ooh I can't wait!!!



Vivien's Layette

I had scheduled a few vacation days mid November to chill and get a jump start on my Christmas shopping/knitted gift knit time.  Since I was going to be off from work, I wanted to pay my friend a visit who had a preemie baby in September.  You know what that means??  I needed a homemade gift, pronto!

 

I had crocheted a few baby blankets:

• Bata Blanket - Finish
• Bata Blanket #2

But did not have the time to crochet up a baby blanket so I chose a baby layette.  The pattern was a free pattern I found on Ravelry by Linda and here is her blog: http://clickertyclick.blogspot.com/.  Very crafty gal!

 

I chose Cherub DK Multi by Cascade Yarns in Rainbow Sherbert (55% Nylon/45% Acrylic).  This yarn to so soft and was a pleasure to work with.  One skein worked up this newborn baby layette.  I used a size 4 circular needle.

 

This yarn is so sweet!

 

I followed the pattern to the T.  I could have made it a bit longer, but it all worked out in the end.

 

 

This sweater had raglan sleeves (sleeves that are worked with no seams) and I am in love with raglan sleeves!  You leave the stitches live at a certain point you simply place them back on the needle and knit in the round to complete them.  So simple!!

 

 

The sweater design had eyelets as the pattern.  Nice and simple = fast knit.  No time for fancy-smancy lace design right now!

 

 

Stitches are live, so I placed them back on the same 40" long circ needle  and I finished the sleeves using the Magic Loop technique.

 

 

The hat was way too small.  I will make another hat for her at a later date.  The sweater did fit:

 

 

So cute and little!

 

 

I posted this pic of me holding Vivien on Facebook and everyone thought that I was a natural and/or thought that this was my baby or I should be having one!  Ha!  I like other people's baby's...I'm good!

 

After I fed her a bottle, she fell right to sleep in this position.  No boppy needed after the feeding.  I'm glad that Vivien is healthy and doing well and (on the side, am happy that the sweater fit).

 

Until next time, Baby Vivien!