10 Stitch Baby Blanket

Now that the baby has arrived and been welcomed with a new blanket, I can post it  for all to see. It's a 10 Stitch Blanket made in Loops and Threads Soft and Shiny yarn. The mostly red colourway is Fiesta and the other is Aqua.

I had been aiming for a blanket that was 36" across. I wanted it a decent size so they could use it for more than a month. I finished a round and thought that it looked pretty close to that size. At this point it was taking me about a week to do one round. I laid it on the floor to measure and found that it was  32" across. I was waffling about doing another round and decided to have lunch and then look at it again. After lunch I checked my email and there was an announcement. Baby had arrived! At which point I called the blanket done , bound it off, wove in the ends, washed it and sent it off.



When I laid it out on the floor to measure, the cat (of course) decided to check it out. The cat is about 9lbs, so I would say she's a decent stand in for a baby, right?

Kitty Nip

I knitted a thing! A Fortune Cookie filled with catnip, to be precise. Its from the Feline Dim Sum patterns
Ripley was trying to pry it out of my hands as I sewed it up. Once done, it was thoroughly enjoyed.

Flowers!

Last year I bought a couple of bearded iris bulbs. They survived the winter and flowered! Well, one bulb has. The other has buds, but no flower yet.

No Sew, 3 Minute Yoga Pant Cover Up

I bought new yoga leggings. They are snug all the way down as opposed to the boot cut leggings I had before. The boot cut kept getting stuck under my foot etc. However I am now a tad self conscious about running about in the leggings. So I decided to make myself a yoga skirt.

You need:

A t-shirt:



and scissors.

Cut the shirt:

and try it on. mine was a little wide at the waist:


So I cut a slit down the side at the top and tied a knot:


And I have myself a skirt-like cover up for my yoga leggings!

Yoga Strap

I have started doing yoga regularly, so I bought myself a mat. It came with a carry strap that was basically a long shoestring with a loop on either end. This left a dent in the mat and wasn't very pretty either. Functional, but not pretty.

I embarked on an adventure. First I tried to knit a lacy strap that was k2tog yo but it twisted in a corkscrew fashion. So I went to the stitch dictionary and found a different stitch pattern called woven stitch, which is as follows:

Cast on multiple of 4.
Row 1 & 3: purl
Row 2: k2 PT
Row 4:PT k2

Where PT is purl twist. This means that you purl 2 together, leave on the left needle, insert right needle between the stitches from the back and purl the first stitch again.

Knit for 64 inches or so. To make the smaller loops at either end of the strap, when you reach 4” or so, fold the strap up and pick up the cast on stitches on a 3rd needle, purl together on a purl row. This should give you a loop about as wide as the strap itself is. Continue knitting. When your strap is long enough, fold the end up so that you have a similar sized loop, pick up stitches on a 3rd needle and do a 3 needle bind off.

Now comes the origami portion of our adventure.  To made the big loops for the mat to rest in, you pass one end through the small loop on the other end. Then you pass the end that has been looped through the small loop on the other end. I found the method on this blog.

For my strap I cast on 14 stitches, I added a purl stitch to either side of my 12 stitch repeat. I also slipped the first stitch of each row with the yarn in front.

Flower Slippers!

A friend has a birthday coming up, and she always has cold feet, so I thought a nice pair of felted slippers would go over well. French Press Knits Slippers are adorable. I had enough wool to make them, so I we are off to the races. Once knit up and felted, however, I really didn't like the tab for the front. I suspect it was because the slippers was so small. (friend has size 6 feet, thus smallest size knitted) Therefore, I did what any good knitter would do and improvised. I no longer had any blue yarn, having used it up on the sole and the now defunct tabs. Dark grey looked good, though, so I made 2 flowers for the front. I REALLY was flying by the seat of my pants and completely ad-libbed a pattern for the flower. I cast on 30 stitches, knit one row, knit front and back on the net row, knit 2 more rows and bound off. Then I wound the fabric up into a flower shape and sewed it on the front. I am rather pleased with the result.

A Hat For Me!

At my casual job, names are drawn for a Secret Santa gift swap.  I knit my giftee a Rikke hat and a matching cowl. I did not get a picture of it, mores the pity, but I liked the hat so much, I wanted one for myself. Stash diving ensued and 2 balls of Jo Sharpe Georgette were excavated from the mountain of yarn.







While knitting, I was unsure if I liked the colour. A common problem when I knit something in the pink/lilac tones. Now that it is done, I am quite pleased. It is a little longer than I expected, but I like the droopy effect, so it's all good!

Pattern: Rikke Hat
Yarn: Jo Sharpe Alpaca Silk Georgette

Done With THAT Chapter of My Life

In the fall of 2013 the boss at my job told me I was 'really late' the day before. She wasn't in, she was going by what a co-worker said. She then said I was late that day too. I looked at my watch and I was EXACTLY on time. However my watch and the dept clock were out by about 5 minutes. So 'really late ' is 5 minutes, I guess. Anyway, I started leaving home earlier, but needed something to do in the car to fill in the time between arrival and going in to work. I started a Baktus. Then I got made redundant last September. The Baktus languished.

I finished it. Here it is in all it's glory:

Sock yarn, VVS Handpainted, 2.5mm needles.

Second Chemo Cap

I made another chemo cap!

 

It's Todd's No Purl Hat except I cast it on in the round so I did purl for the brim :)
Yarn is Lyra by Lang Yarns which is a worsted cotton/silk blend. Delicious!

Hello! Is anybody Out There?

My poor neglected blog. I have something for you! A hat. The Purl Knit Turban, to be precise. Made with Paton's Canadiana in...blue, obviously. For a person who is undergoing chemo and needs a head warmer. Instead of wrapping the yarn tail around the front the way the pattern calls for, I knit a 5 stitch stockinette strip that was about 4 inches long and sewed it on. I attached it just above the last purl section and then wrapped to the inside to the same spot.

Please forgive the model's dirty nose,, she has seen better days, but is oh so compliant at holding still for my photography attempts. Unlike the cats.

First Laceweight Project

I have Laceweight yarn. I also have quite a few projects I'd like to do, but first a simple one, a one row lace scarf. With this yarn 

Air Plants!

I have been fascinated lately with Air Plants. Also known as Tilandsia epiphytes. They don't need dirt to live. They just need to be dunked in water once a week or so, depending on how humid your  area is.

My birthday was coming up, so I had the perfect excuse to get some.
I ordered them from Tropical Expressions. Since I am just starting out, I got the 11 pack of random plants. I ordered them on a Thursday and they arrived on the Tuesday. (Monday was a stat, so they might even have been here faster!).

Here they are soaking after their arduous journey:

And drying out, I attempted to figure out which plant they were and labelled em, correctly, I hope!



and all together:


I forgot to get a labelled pic of the Bulbosa....

Here is one of the little displays I have put together:


Another display:



And the display I am most excited about (excuse the crap lighting...raining, AGAIN, here)



I glued together some of the wine corks I have been saving and put it up on a little stand. I am really pleased with this one.

ciao!

Been a While

So, I haven't posted lately because I was on vacation in Italy and then work kind of ate my life. This is where I was:





In the Alps near Trento. The  weather was unseasonably cold.

So the vacation knitting I brought along turned out to be useful too:



These are the Slouchy Gauntlets made in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. Nice easy pattern, great for vacation knitting.

Antique Yarn

Many moons ago my aunt let my sister and i go stash diving in HER stash and take home yarn from Italy. I saw some red angora that just SCREAMED at me to take. So I did.  And it sat in MY stash for years waiting for just the right project.,  Then Kate Middleton got married and wore a little angora number at her reception. I am not a 'royal watcher' but the sweater looked perfect!

Tada!



Pattern: Royal Shrug
Yarn: Angor'Anny, 6 balls of it. A fair bit leftover from those 6.
Needles: size 9
Modifications: Many. I knit the sweater 2 inches longer and blocked severely for length. I have a 38.5" chest which falls right in between 2 sizes, So I knit the smaller size and added 4 stitches to each front piece.
I knit the sleeves 3 quarter length and did no decreases. I did the front and back separate,seamed together and then knit the sleeves on instead of seaming them on. (I picked up the total number of stitches around the whole armhole and then did short rows corresponding to the pattern backwards from the shoulder down.) I DID do the crochet edging as the edges really needed that finishing touch.

Overall I am VERY pleased.

Beltway

I recently went shopping and found a black jumpsuit. (you know, shirt attached to pants) that made me feel very Audrey Hepburn-esque when I tried it on. So of course I bought it!  The belt is a bit sad. A black elastic affair with 2 small pseudo-leather strips that have gold studs (to match the god buttons). So I decided I should knit myself a colourful belt to wear.

In keeping with my efforts to knit down stash, I went stash diving and found some banana silk yarn I acquired ages ago.



Now to find a pattern.....

Nessie Knit

I recently participated in a scarf themed swap. Here was my contribution:



Pattern: Nessie-English
Yarn: Lana Grossa Meilenweit sock yarn
Modifications: The lace inset is written as a doubling of stitches (k1 yo) but I did not have enough yarn when I did that, despite the pattern's statement that 400yds should be enough. I was seriously short even thought the skein was 459 yards. So I did yo k2tog. I also did a picot bindoff.

This yarn is a lovely soft wool. A pleasure to knit with. It had been sitting in my stash for way too long, so I am glad it has gone to a good home!

ciao

Stash Shrug

I've had this Rowan linen Print yarn in the stash for a while and never really saw a pattern I wanted to make  with it. Then I saw the Shrug pattern by Bonnie Jacobs. However I did not have enough yarn to do it without mods. In addition, the Rowan was bulkier than the yarn called for. So, this is heavily modified.

Yarn: Rowan linen print
Mods:

•  Size 8 needles for cuffs and 10’s for sleeves/body. 
•  Did increase on rows 1 AND 3 of the the 5 row repeat (instead of just row 1) 
•  Did a garter border on the body to prevent stockinette roll  (not enough yarn to knit on                  border after). Thus sleeves are shorter and more dolman-like

Piccies!

Happy knitting!

Stash Using

I am trying to use up some stash, so I have been matching up yarn I have with patterns I have queued on Ravelry. Here is one such project.




Pattern: Poplar Cowl
Yarn: Lana Grossa Basics Stop

This is an easy 4 row per repeat cowl. Good tv knitting. The yarn is an acrylic rayon blend. Can be splitty, but not horribly so. This is going in the gift box for whoever I decide it goes to, in time.....

Ciao

Warm Feet

And a little stashbusting project. I needed new slippers, so I dug out the Paton's Classic leftovers, this time in black,brown and blue and knit up slippers.
I present, the B3 Slippers.

Pre-felting:




Post felting:




Pattern: Fibre Trends Clogs

Ciao!

Skinny Scarf 2

The first skinny scarf turned out so well, I wanted one for myself. Thus:








350 stitches cast on longways, knit 2 rows each colour ending with the same colour you started with. This turned out to be almost double my height. And I am 5'3".  I lurves it.

It is knit out of Steve sport yarn. From Rain's Obsessive Stitchery
I cannot emphasize enough how soft this yarn is.

Ciao!