Category: My Knitting Designs

The plan before I knit the swatch was to make an afghan out of 12-inch hexagons knit out of Manos del Uruguay and my handspun.

With the first hexagon finished, I’ve changed my mind on just about everything.

I love the demo colors so much that I no longer want to use my handspun yarn. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough Taos yarn for the entire afghan, so I’ll have to dig through my stash for a complementary yarn.

Knitting the hexagon and picking up the stitches after completing each section made me want to come up with a way to cut down on the need to knit so many sections and in turn pick up so many stitches. The easiest way to reduce the amount of hexagons needed to make an afghan would be to increase the size of each hexagon. Therefore, I plan to approximately double the size of each hexagon.

Knitting the hexagon also made me realize that the gauge didn’t match my estimate of 4 stitches per inch. Rather than a 12-inch hexagon, I ended up with a 9-inch hexagon.

I’m still unsure how I want to piece all the hexagons together. Should I make a circular afghan or a traditional rectangular afghan?

This exercise has made me hesitant about casting on for Elly’s blue and orange skirt. I really ought to knit a swatch first to make sure my gauge is accurate and to make sure the yarn is a good fit for the pattern. Sigh. And I was looking forward to starting it this weekend.

While knitting the baseball blanket, I made an error in counting the number of rows knit. The center piece ended up being 4 rows too short.

During the finishing phase, I was able to manipulate the pieces so that even an experienced knitter would be hard pressed to notice. Heck, I’m not sure that I could point out the error now.

Before publishing the knitting pattern for the baseball blanket, I would like to test knit it again just to make sure that it was a personal counting error and not a mathematical error in the pattern. Unfortunately, I simply don’t have the time to knit it myself what with juggling Elly, knitting swatches for the new designs I’m working on and dabbling in my other hobbies. Besides, I hate knitting the same thing twice.

Though I plan to post my call for a test knitter in Ravery’s Testing Pool group, I wanted to post it on my blog first. I would love to work with a Loyal Reader rather than a complete stranger.

Details:

• Test knit the 3 sections only. I will handle all the finishing work. Sample to be kept by me upon completion unless negotiated otherwise.
• The blanket uses garter stitch throughout. The shape of each piece is created by the following increases and decreases: k2tog, ssk, yo, and kfb. The test knitter should be comfortable with these stitches.
• Yarn to be provided.
• My gratitude along with a small tip sent via Paypal to be given as compensation. Additionally, the test knitter will be acknowledged in my pattern.

If interested, please contact me directly at knittedgems@gmail.com for more details.

Thank you!

Though I feel like my mind has been muddied since Uncle Willie’s death, it must have woken up the creative side of my mind. After months of not coming up with any good knitting designs, I’ve made a list of 8 not too shabby ideas in a week.

Two days ago I cast on for a new project that will hopefully become my next published pattern.

I’m using Eos by Unique Sheep to test out the pattern.

I had some leftover from the Something Blue stole that I designed for them 3 years ago.

It is good to be back in the saddle again. I had missed the rush of dreaming up a new design, crunching the numbers, picking out the perfect yarn, feeling the yarn slide through my fingers and watching the pattern take shape.

According to my Ravelry project page, it only took me 1.5 years to complete.

To be honest, it’s not truly finished. I need to single crochet an edging. Of course, first I need to relearn how to crochet. Afraid that it wold take me another 2 years to add the edging, I called my mother-in-law to ask for help. Not only did she agree to crochet the edging, she agreed to do it while on vacation in Mexico. Isn’t she wonderful? I didn’t even have to bribe her with chocolate.

After the edging is on, I’ll give the blanket a good blocking. Then, it will be truly finished.

Of course, I’m not waiting for the banket to be completely finished before casting on a new project. My little girl NEEDS wool soakers. I have gorgeous wool just begging to be knit into a soaker. Besides the quicker I make Elly a soaker, the quicker I can start the project I’m head over heels for: Mommy and me ponchos.