Category: Knitting
Getting Serious About Knitting
My goal is to complete the hexagon blanket in 3 weeks. Well, just the knitting portion; I’m giving myself a whole month to seam all the hexagonal pieces together.
I have 2 1/3 hexagons left to knit. The dwindling supply of yarn had me feeling anxious, so I took a road trip yesterday with Elly and my neighbor to my LYS, Yarn Gallery. While Elly snuggled with the resident dog, the owner found yarn to match my dye lot. What luck!
To aid me in my knitting goal, I’ll be joining Cheryl Marie of CherylMarieKnits.com in a Knitting Marathon on April 25th. I won’t be dedicating as many hours to knitting as Cheryl Marie because I’ll have Elly by my side, but I hope to make a serious dent in the remaining hexagons all the same. Elly should enjoy her movie time if nothing else.
If you have any unfinished knitting projects that you too are desperate to finish, you should join us!
Too Many Projects
When I told Dan about my desire to paint the kitchen walls orange, he laughed at me and told me I had too many projects. Maybe he is right. Here is my current to-do list.
1. Sew a party dress for Elly and me – deadline Sept 22nd
2. Plant tomatoes, zucchini and more carrots in my vegetable garden – deadline Mother’s Day
3. Paint stripes in the dining room – deadline asap because the carpet is falling apart which is no surprise since it is probably 50 years old
4. Paint the door white in the dining room – asap – see above
5. Paint the rad cover white in the dining room – not essential as the radiator can just sit bare
6. Finish knitting the hexagon blanket before the weather gets warm – approx May 15th deadline
7. Sew sheer curtains for the dining room and living room – deadline Thanksgiving Day
8. Sew slip covers for the wing back chairs – deadline Thanksgiving Day
What’s on your to-do list?
A 30-Year-Old UFO
Don’t you just love the 1970’s colors?
Clearly, it’s not my UFO, unfinished object.
1. I don’t crochet.
2. This would be an advanced project to make when one is 6.
No, it belonged to my neighbor, who is about the age of my Grandmother.
During a recent visit, my neighbor saw me knitting on the hexagon blanket. (I just have to shout out that I finished the 4th hexagon! If I can keep this rate up, I’ll have the entire blanket completed by mid May). She mentioned that a friend had taught her how to crochet many years ago, but that she had forgotten and frankly no longer cared for it. Still she had kept a half-finished afghan all these years, unable to throw it out. Would I want it?
I fell in love with the design. It’s not the typical crocheted afghan. It almost looks like it had been knitted.
But now that I have it, I’m uncertain what to do with it.
A. I could complete crocheting the afghan after taking a refresher course on how to crochet. Enough yarn is included to make it several inches longer. However, I’m not a huge fan of the colors and I detest the tassels. Plus, it’s acrylic yarn and not the nice stuff that they have out today.
B. Crochet a few more inches onto the afghan, but don’t include the tassels. Though the thought of weaving in all the current tassels makes me seasick.
C. Regift the afghan to someone who crotchets but not before translating the design into a knitting pattern. Then, knit myself a similar blanket in lovely superwash wool.
D. Hide the project for another 30 years.
What would you do?
Beautiful Noro Featured in the 4th Hexagon
The beautiful Noro matched with the natural Manos del Uruguay
I just love how the Noro changes color throughout the hexagon.
Serious progress is being made. There aren’t too many cool Spring days left in which I want to be working with warm wool.
I work on it every night. My knitting bag comes along on every trip to the local playgrounds.
Elly has even learned proper etiquette around a knitting project, such as pulling yarn out of a skein currently being knitted from is a no-no. Lol.
Baseball Blanket, a new pattern
With Phillies baseball season officially starting tomorrow, it gives me great pleasure to release a baseball knitting project.
A blanket for the baseball enthusiast!
It is an easy and fun project to work on while watching your favorite baseball team. The blanket is knit entirely in garter stitch so you can keep your eye on the ball. Three sections are knit separately and then seamed together to form the shape of a baseball. Shaping is created through simple yarnover increases, k2tog and ssk decreases, cast on rows and bind off rows. The yarnovers also serve as a visual guide of where to put the baseball stitching.
Knit one to take to the game today!
Price: $5.00 USD
This blanket would fit perfectly in a baseball themed nursery too!
I originally designed and knit this blanket because I needed my firstborn child to have a baseball blanket. Dan and I are huge Phillies fans. Of course, our daughter would be a Phillies fan too. Already, she shows great enthusiasm for the game.
Go Phillies!
More information about the pattern can be found here or on Ravelry.
Thank you to Nihart Photography for the beautiful pictures. More of her work can be seen at nihartphotography.smugmug.com.
3 Down and 13 Inches Left
The 3rd hexagon was completed on Sunday.
About halfway through the hexagon, I realized I was going to run out of the Taos yarn. Not wanting to switch yarns in the middle of a hexagon, I ripped all the yarn out of the sample hexagon I had knit when making a gauge.
It was barely enough. I was left with only 13 inches.
More luck came my way during the finishing phase. This time the hexagon lay flat. There was no bubble in the middle as there had been with the previous two hexagons.
See the difference?
Perhaps I had seamed them together wrong. Sure enough, too much of the cast on edge was bunched up in the middle causing the bubble. I only had to rip the seam back 3/4 of the way, match the end of the cast on row with the top stitch of final section knit, ease the fullness of the cast on row and reseam. They look so much better.
I’ve already cast on for the 4th hexagon. When I get further along, I’ll post pictures. The Noro yarn is just beautiful.
2 Down and Still 5 to Go
Another hexagon is finished.
There is a little bump in the middle of the hexagon where all points meet. I am hoping that it will lay flat during the washing and blocking stage.
I am no closer to finishing the blanket than the last time I posted due to a silly geometry error. It’s a reminder of how much I need to write an apology letter to my geometry teacher. I was so certain that I would never use any of the information he taught.
Only knitting 6 hexagons like I thought would leave a huge gap in the middle.
So, I still have 5 more hexagons to knit. I’m pretty sure I have enough yarn to see me through thanks to my policy of always buying an extra skein.
Picking up Speed
Remember how I said this blanket was going to take years to complete? It’s looking like I may have to admit I was wrong. Give me a little bit of knitting time and I don’t screw around! Ha!
Since Elly is more and more independent with each passing day, I am back to bringing my knitting bag with me everywhere I go. While visiting my godsons for the eldest’s birthday, I managed to sneak in a few rows.
In the past 4 days, I have knit 1/3 or 2 sections of one hexagon.
Why I just might finish this blanket in the course of a few months. Oh, I hope so. I have so many other knitting projects I want to make like a skirt for Elly, a jacket for me and a sweater for Dan.
Garland or Drawstring Purse
For 2 years, I have had my eye on SewSpun‘s Peppermint yarn.
The not-too-Christmasy raspberry yarn plied with snowy white wool always made me think of the Christmas Eve poem and sugar plums dancing.
Last month, I caved and purchased the yarn. Though I was so certain I would knit it up into garland the day it arrived in the mail, it has sat on our dining table for 3 weeks now.
I’m paralyzed by the possibilities this yarn holds. It would make a lovely drawstring bag to carry my phone, chapstick and keys. Plus, it would warm up my hands in a pinch being a lovely wool.
Since this is an OOK yarn, one of a kind, the pattern needs to have no real ending. I plan to stop knitting when I run out of yarn.
So, what would you knit: garland or a bag? Maybe you would knit something all together different. Don’t say a scarf though!
A side note to KGDC readers living in the Pottstown area: a call for help has gone out to restock the local food pantries. Drop off points for non-perishable food and laundry detergent in the Pottstown Borough include the Mercury office, the Cluster (Pottstown’s local food pantry), Boneyard Joe’s, Grumpy’s and Evergreen Consignment.
The Life, Designs & Crafts of Marie Haigh 