This Might be the Nicest Thing Everyone Has Ever Done to a Piece of my Knitting

A couple of years ago we hosted Christmas, and my Mother-in-Law saw the Lizard Ridge blanket that I had made and proceeded to show it to everyone who came into my home while loudly exclaiming “look what my daughter in law made me.”  Well, I took the hint and on the 26th of December headed out to one of my LYS and took advantage of their boxing day sales.  I came home with 6 balls of Noro and cast on her blanket before the end of the week.  Six months later the blanket was finished.  Then there was a slight delay in her receiving the gift as they weren’t able to make it to the province for the following Christmas and the thought of putting the blanket in the mail first made me pale, then made me turn green and induced a  little nausea.  But she eventually received and now it looks like this.

It might be the nicest thing that anyone has ever done with my knitting.

YOP Update Jan 29 2012

 

It’s been another busy week in the knitting world for me.  Flavia, the first of my 12 shawls in 2012 is finished!  My February shawl is under way and I am in love with it.  I actually blocked stuff!!!!! The Flamboyen blocked out huge and as long as the weather hold out I should have pictures to show you later this week.  My reunion cowl is blocked and I must say not a moment too soon.  It came in very handy yesterday when winter literally decided to appear while we were having supper.  It’s long enough that I wrapped it around my face, neck, and head while we were on our way home from down-town.  Probably, the most important thing this week is that I have started to finish up the last of the late Christmas gifts.  They are all relatively  time consuming, but I am hopefully going to have two of the three finished by the end of February.  

Hope everyone else had a greet week.

Mr.  Linky is at the bottom.

 

WIPS:

• Clockwork (cast on June  &  part of the Knit-a-long of Doom) (Finished July 2011)
• Wallis Cardi (cast on August of last year)
• Rattlesnake Creek socks (cast on about 1 1/2 years ago)
• Noro Log Cabin Blanket (cast on in June & it’s Christmas Knitting)
• Toe Up Socks

Christmas:

• Super secret BFF gift (I know you read this.  No peeking, but you’ll like it.) (Finished Sept  2011)
• Super Secret Husband gift (He reads it too.) (Finished Dec 2011)
• Urbana  (Finished July 2011) (Dad)
• Podsters
• Saturday morning slippers x2 (FIL, mom)
• Minion (Teiff) (Finished October 2011)
• Gargoyle (Sean) (Finished October 2011))
• Strangling Vines scarf (Christine) (Finished Dec 2011)
• Windcheif hat (dad) (Finished November 2011)
• Cherie socks  (mom)(In Progress)
• AStericks (MIL) (Finished November 2011)
• Dog Chewie (Maggie) (Finished October 2011)
• Super Secret Little J gift (See first super secret gift.  That’s her mum.) (Finished Oct 2011)
• Kleenex covers x6 (Finished October)
• Algonquin (In Progress)
• Washcloth x2 ( I really thought I was finished with those!)  (Finished Sept 2011)

 

Shawls

• Flamboyan (Finished Jan 2012)
• Reunion Cowl (Finished Jan 2012)

Cardis

• Roam (In Progress)

Socks

• Lenore (The third) (Finished Dec 2011)
• Flaming Desire 
• Staked  
• Fishbone Gansey  (Part of the Knit-a-long of Doom) (Finished October 2011)
• Cut & Paste
• My Vampire Boyfriend (Part of Nerd Wars) (In Progress)
• Matrimony Socks
• Masonic Lodge
• Flutter-by
• Aragorn
• Duckies  (Finished Aug 2011)

12 Shawls in 2012 (first 6)

• Herbivore
• Sharktooth (In Progress)
• Flavia (Finished Jan 2012)
• Stephen West Club shawl (In Progress)
• Stephen West Club shawl (Feb)
• Walnut Grove

 Dishcloth Challenge (first 12)

• 3/12 complete

 

Newly added

• West Knits Mystery KAL (Finished Sept 2011)
• Julia
• Minion Army (Finished October 2011)
• Blue Whale shawl – replacement MIL Gift (Finished Dec 2011)

 

The running totals so far are:

22/46 complete

11/24  in progress

To try to have a better idea of what happens in my stash

Balls in/Balls out

0/11  (January)




Dishcloth Challenge; 2 down, 22 to Go

My second dishcloth for the month is finished.  That means that I am on track, at least for now.  In fact, I have to admit what I am finding most difficult is not finding the time to make the cloths.  It’s resisting casting on a new cloth every time I finish the one that I am working on.  They are such instant gratification knitting and very satisfying, and that really appeals to my impatient nature.  I have to keep reminding myself that I do not need to knit all 24 cloths in the next three weeks.  I have a whole year to do that and I will still be successful at this challenge.  In fact, I have come to realize that the real success will be in only knitting two cloths a month and not allowing them to take over my entire knitting life! (I don’t have enough cotton for that and the whole point is to rid myself of the cotton I do have! I also think that if I start covering the walls of my apartment with brightly coloured knitted dishcloths my husband my not find it overly amusing and may attempt to have me committed for my own good).

Allowing for the anticipation of the next cloth is good.  It’s building character and keeping me interested.  But without further adieu here is my second cloth for the month.

The pattern is the waving frog knitted dishcloth and the yarn is Florafil Super Soft Cotton Yarn.  I love my jaunty little frog and I love my husband even more for being able to correctly identify said pattern as a frog.  (He did chuckle and say that he did have a brief moment of terror like when a three-year old brings you their art work with great pride and then asks you if you can tell what it is.)  But, it is clearly a frog and that pleases me.

The yarn is from my stash and again is a ball that I had no real use for.  I received it for free one night after a knitting event.  It was left all alone unclaimed and unwanted by any other the other knitters there.  (Its much prettier coloured mates all got scooped up very quickly.)  So I brought it home and tossed it in with the rest of my cotton stash.  I really enjoyed knitting with this yarn and that’s not something I often say about cotton.  I still have about half the ball left and will definitely use it for all or part of another cloth.

A quick note about the pattern, the math is all correct and it you follow the pattern you will end up with a jaunty little waving frog of your very own.  However, the original pattern has a lot of visual clutter in it that I found exceedingly annoying.  I opted to cut and paste the pattern into a word document and then spent about ten minutes removing the excess “noise”.  Once that was finished the whole thing was smooth sailing and knit up in next to no time.  It really is a fun little pattern.

Only 22 more to go!

For more dishcloth mania check out

Ruth  the women responsible for this fibre filled maddness and Kim who is has also joined in the fun.

Join our Ravelry Group! 

FO Friday – I Love You Enough to Make you Another Scarf

The “I Love you Enough to Make You Another Scarf” Scarf

For Christmas this year there was no doubt in my mind that my hubby needed a new hat and scarf.  He still very proudly wears the first two that I knit him from the beginning of my knitting career. (I remember the hat took me something like 12 hours to make.  I can do the same hat now in under 3 hours.  I know this cause it’s happened).  I am very tickled by the fact that he still wears and loves the set.  But it old and well-worn and he needed something at little more updated.  So I set about to find a set I liked.  What I found was the Windschief hat and cowl set.  But the husband didn’t  need another cow.  He needed a scarf.  So, this is what I came up with.

(I’m going to add better pictures this weekend.  It’s actually a perfect winter day outside for photos, but alas I have no model currently.)

Note: As this is a scarf gauge is not critical to a completed project. Please keep in mind that finished lengths and widths are based on the yarn and gauge used in this pattern. Altering the weight and gauge of yarn used will result in a scarf that may use more or less yards than this pattern suggests.

Suggested Yarn: Any DK weight yarn. Scarf knit in Tosh Merino DK colourway Stovepipe

Yarn requirements: 675 yards/618 yards (3 ball of Tosh)

Gauge: 20 – 22 sts = 4 inches in stockinette stitch

Finished size: Length

Width:

Materials:

Needles – 4.5 mm or US 7 straights

Notions: 2 split ring stitch markers

Measuring Tape

tapestry needle

Abbreviations

CO: Cast on

K: Knit

P: Purl

K1tbl: knit one through back loop

Garter Stitch

Knit all stitches

Repeat for every row

Twisted Rib

(K1tbl, P1) across row

repeat above row for all rows

Section One

(Using Cast on Method of choice)

CO 42 stitches

First row: Begin Twisted rib, (K1tbl, P1). Repeat for all stitches to end of row

Repeat Twisted Rib on all rows until scarf measures 1″ from cast on edge.

(I moved my split ring marker every two rows to make it easier to now when to start and stop the twisted rib pattern).

Next two rows: K1, (P1, K1tbl) x20, K1

Row 3 & 4: K2, (K1tbl, P1) x19, K2

Row 5 & 6: K3, (P1, K1tbl) x18, K3

Row 7 & 8: K4, (K1tbl, P1) x17, K4

Row 9 & 10: K5, (P1, K1tbl) x16, K5

Row 11 & 12: K6, (K1tbl, P1) x15, K6

Row 13 & 14: K7, (P1, K1tbl) x14, K7

Row 15 & 16: K8, (K1tbl, P1) x13, K8

Row 17 & 18: K9, (P1, K1tbl) x12, K9

Row 19 & 20: K10, (K1tbl, P1) x11, K10

Row 21 & 22: K11, (P1, K1tbl) x10, K11

Row 23 & 24: K12, (K1tbl, P1) x9, K12

Row 25 & 26: K13, (P1, K1tbl) x8, K13

Row 27 & 28: K14, (K1tbl, P1) x7, K14

Row 29 & 30: K15, (P1, K1tbl) x6, K15

Row 31 & 32: K16, (K1tbl, P1) x5, K16

Row 33 & 34: K17, (P1, K1tbl) x4, K17

Row 35 & 36: K18, ( K1tbl, P1) x3, K18

Row 37 & 38: K19, (P1, K1tbl) x2, K19

Row 39 & 40:K20, K1tbl, P1, K20

Switch to garter stitch, (knit every row), and continue until scarf measures approximately 7” shorter than desired length.

Section Two

Begin Twisted Rib pattern

(I moved my split ring marker every two rows to make it easier to now when to start and stop the twisted rib pattern).

Row 1 & 2: K20, K1tbl, P1, K20

Row 3 & 4: K19, (P1, K1tbl) x2, K19

Row 5 & 6: K18, ( K1tbl, P1) x3, K18

Row 7 & 8: K17, (P1, K1tbl) x4, K17

Row 9 & 10: K16, (K1tbl, P1) x5, K16

Row 11 & 12: K15, (P1, K1tbl) x6, K15

Row 13 & 14: K14, (K1tbl, P1) x7, K14

Row 15 & 16: K13, (P1, K1tbl) x8, K13

Row 17 & 18: K12, (K1tbl, P1) x9, K12

Row 19 & 20: K11, (P1, K1tbl) x10, K11

Row 21 & 22: K10, (K1tbl, P1) x11, K10

Row 23 & 24: K9, (P1, K1tbl) x12, K9

Row 25 & 26: K8, (K1tbl, P1) x13, K8

Row 27 & 28: K7, (P1, K1tbl) x14, K7

Row 29 & 30: K6, (K1tbl, P1) x15, K6

Row 31 & 32: K5, (P1, K1tbl) x16, K5

Row 33 & 34: K4, (K1tbl, P1) x17, K4

Row 35 & 36: K3, (P1, K1tbl) x18, K3

Row 37 & 38: K2, (K1tbl, P1) x19, K2

Row 39 & 40: K1, (P1, K1tbl) x20, K1

Next Row

continue in Twisted Rib across all stitches until scarf measures 1″ from point of triangle.

BO all stitches.

Weave in ends and block if necessary

For more Friday knitting check out FO Fridays, Creative Friday, Fiber Arts Friday, and Fibers on Friday

On My Needles and Between My Pages Jan

On My Needles

There’s really not much new happening here.  I suppose I could ramble on about how I have managed to cast on the edging of the Flavia and have moved into the final stages.  But, there’s not too much more to say about that at this point.

The dreaded blanket has made it’s way back to the table and I have given some serious thought to working on it.

The lace scarf is still sitting unloved, but I intended to tackle that as soon as the shawl is complete.

And Roam did get a little love.  I haven’t made much progress, but for me any progress on a sweater is good progress.

Between my Pages

I finally finished The Mocking Jay, the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy.  This book is a painful read at best.  It starts off horribly slow.  So slow that I almost tossed it aside unfinished.  Eventually Katniss, the lead character, becomes an active participant in her own story again and that leads to about 100 pages that are worth reading.  The middle of the book is very enjoyable and I was able to settle in to the plot.  Unfortunately, the end of the book is incredibly predictable and disappointing.  It is repeatedly stated throughout the book that the other characters do not know what to do with Katniss and really I’m not sure Suzanne Collins knew what to do with her either.  For a series that began with such potential for greatness it all really falls apart in the third book and I was left feeling very unsatisfied.  If you’re interested in reading the trilogy I strongly recommend skipping the third instalment all together and waiting for the film.   At least the battle scenes will create great cinematography.

For more great Wednesday stuff check out WIP Wednesday and the Yarn Along.

It’s Getting Close to Being 11 in 2012

With only 7 days remaining in January I am pleased to say that the Flavia shawl has finally turned a corner.  At some point, I did hit that magic sweet spot where the rows started going faster and I felt like I was actually getting somewhere.  A single row stopped taking so long that my hands would get tried and I would get bored and start cursing under my breath about how I had entered knitting damnation.  To make matters worse, Glenna C, the designer, is one of my knitting buddies so I know that in the end the shawl is going to be beautiful.  And that the pattern is well written, so I couldn’t even curse her while I struggled through the nightmare slog that is row after row of seed stitch.  But even with that knowledge, here’s what I realized:  if it wasn’t for the 12 shawls in 2012 group there is a very real possibility that Flavia would be set aside…….possibly forever.  It would be sent to whatever that space is in your home that projects go to be forgotten about and where you can eventually block out the nagging guilt that is induced every time you see it because you don’t really have to see it that often.  It’s not the same place as the naughty knitting pile because there is nothing naughty happening here.  The pattern is not poorly written.  The yarn is not jumping off the needles, flipping me a little yarny bird every time I put the knitting down and walk away from it.  I have not bollixed up the pattern for more than a few stitches at a time and have always noticed right away.  In reality this is a very well behaved peice of knitting. 

But I have to admit that it will only be finished because of the challenge.  Maybe it’s a good thing that this first shawl is being slightly disagreeable.  I am hoping it means that everything else will be slightly easier and elicit far less cursing on my part.

Onto the edging!

YOP Update Jan 22, 2012

 I’m pleased to report that I feel like this has been a much more productive week.  I finished the Reunion Cowl and it’s been added to the” needs to be blocked pile”.  (Is any one else bad at that or is it just me?  I don’t know why getting things blocked is such a challenge for me?)  I have finished my second January dishcloth.  I’ll post it later in the week.  But that does mean that the dishcloth challenge is on track on at least for this month going strong.  I have finally reached the point in Flavia where I feel like I am making progress and actually believe that I might be able to finish it by the end of the month and get it posted into the 12 in 2012 group.  The notorious blanket has been returned to the coffee table.  It is certainly harder to ignore while it’s staring at me every time I sit down to work on something else.  All in all I’m happy with the progress.

This weeks goals are to block both items waiting to be finished, return my Victoria to the living room and use it, and write-up the pattern that I created to make my husband’s Christmas Scarf.  It really is all doable. Wish me luck. 

Looking forward to reading about everyone else’s week.  Hope it was a good one.

Mr. Linky is at the bottom.

 

 WIPS:

• Clockwork (cast on June  &  part of the Knit-a-long of Doom) (Finished July 2011)
• Wallis Cardi (cast on August of last year)
• Rattlesnake Creek socks (cast on about 1 1/2 years ago)
• Noro Log Cabin Blanket (cast on in June & it’s Christmas Knitting)
• Toe Up Socks

Christmas:

• Super secret BFF gift (I know you read this.  No peeking, but you’ll like it.) (Finished Sept  2011)
• Super Secret Husband gift (He reads it too.) (Finished Dec 2011)
• Urbana  (Finished July 2011) (Dad)
• Podsters
• Saturday morning slippers x2 (FIL, mom)
• Minion (Teiff) (Finished October 2011)
• Gargoyle (Sean) (Finished October 2011))
• Strangling Vines scarf (Christine) (Finished Dec 2011)
• Windcheif hat (dad) (Finished November 2011)
• Cherie socks  (mom)(In Progress)
• AStericks (MIL) (Finished November 2011)
• Dog Chewie (Maggie) (Finished October 2011)
• Super Secret Little J gift (See first super secret gift.  That’s her mum.) (Finished Oct 2011)
• Kleenex covers x6 (Finished October)
• Algonquin (In Progress)
• Washcloth x2 ( I really thought I was finished with those!)  (Finished Sept 2011)

 

Shawls

• Flamboyan (Finished Jan 2012)
• Reunion Cowl (Finished Jan 2012)

Cardis

• Roam (In Progress)

Socks

• Lenore (The third) (Finished Dec 2011)
• Flaming Desire 
• Staked  
• Fishbone Gansey  (Part of the Knit-a-long of Doom) (Finished October 2011)
• Cut & Paste
• My Vampire Boyfriend (Part of Nerd Wars) (In Progress)
• Matrimony Socks
• Masonic Lodge
• Flutter-by
• Aragorn
• Duckies  (Finished Aug 2011)

12 Shawls in 2012 (first 6)

• Herbivore
• Sharktooth (In Progress)
• Flavia (In Progresss)
• Stephen West Club shawl (January)
• Stephen West Club shawl (Feb)
• Walnut Grove

 Dishcloth Challenge (first 12)

• 2/12 complete

 

Newly added

• West Knits Mystery KAL (Finished Sept 2011)
• Julia
• Minion Army (Finished October 2011)
• Blue Whale shawl – replacement MIL Gift (Finished Dec 2011)

 

The running totals so far are:

21/46 complete

11/25  in progress

To try to have a better idea of what happens in my stash

Balls in/Balls out

0/9.5  (January)




FO Friday – Christine’s Little Lace Scarf and a Pattern

This year for Christmas I made my friend Christine a scarf.  She found out about it before hand when I found out she reads my blog.  We laughed about that.  I originally had settled on the Strangling Vines Lace Scarf.  I am not really sure what I was thinking since I don’t knit lace.  Sure a little bit here and there but not a whole scarf.  I realized I was never going to finish it on time so I morphed it into the final product.

Lace on the ends only! Speed up the process a lot.

I altered the pattern to only include lace on the two ends and continued the 3 stitch border throughout the SS middle section.  It went much faster and even with needing a heavy blocking it was finished on time!

If your interested here’s what I did. (I used two skiens of sock yarn for this.)

NOT QUITE STRANGLING SCARF

CO 42 stitches (I used 4mm needles)

K3, Place marker, K to last 3 stitches, place marker, K3

K 3 more rows

Lace repeat 

Row 1 & 3: K3, purl to marker, K3

Row 2: K3, *yo, k2,ssk,k2tog,k2,yo,k1* repeat to marker, K3

Row 4: K3, K1, yo, K2, ssk, k2tog, K2, yo* repeat to marker, K3

I made 8 lace repeat sections, (I repeated the last four rows eight time creating 32 rows of lace).

Middle section

First  row: Knit across row

Next row: K to first marker, purl to second marker, K3

Repeat last two rows until 5 inches before desired length

Using the same lace repeat pattern as in the first lace section, do 8 repeats of section.

Knit 4 rows

BO

You will need to block this.  It curls a lot.

For more Friday knitting check out FO Fridays, Creative Friday, Fiber Arts Friday, and Fibers on Friday

A 12 in 12 update; Or, This is Harder Than I Thought it Would Be

So this year I decided to embark on the 12 in 2012 shawl challenge.  I knit shawls, a lot.  You can read more about that here.  For me this will be challenging but not undoable.  Ambitious without being insane.  I intend to complete all twelve shawls and am happy about what this will do to my stash.  Right now it’s all sunshine and roses, (aside from the fact that my January shawl is driving me a little mental), and I am in knitted shawl bliss.

And then I go onto to Ravelry and Twitter and this petals start to wilt and fall off the roses and the sun peeks behind a cloud and things get just a little dimmer.  See, here’s the thing: people keep making new shawl patterns and I want to knit them all.  I want to knit them all right now.

It started innocently enough when I won a copy of the Walnut Grove pattern from KnitPurlGirl.  It’s a great shawl and the kind I like to knit.  It doesn’t have a bunch of lace so it’s right up my alley.  Simple enough.  I swapped out one of the shawls on my Year Of Projects list and added that one in its place.  I even have all the yarn I need for it and it’s going to be damned pretty when it’s finished.  Then the January shawl for the West Knits Shawl club dropped and I love it.  No real problems here yet.  I just have to force myself not to stash dive and cast on the shawl right freaking now.  And because Mr. West is already not a huge bundle of temptation for me on any normal day, he has a new patternoutside of the club dropping on February 1st.  I love it and it will look great with the birthday yarn my husband bought me.

Birthday Yarn!

This  may not seem like a big problem, but this now puts me in the position of having to really start juggling my list or saying forget it all and just add it.  I’m leaning towards the first one.

But that’s it in a nutshell.  I only have two hands, which do get tired sometimes.  I need to eat and sleep and go to the gym.  I need to work full-time.  All these things contribute to a better, happier, warmer life.  It’s a life in which I have a roof over my head and food in my belly and that makes me a much happier knitter.  I just don’t have enough time or hands and I don’t have any magical powers that would allow me to knit two projects with my mythical second set of hands at the same time.  (Though I do wind balls with my ball winder in my hands instead of on a table.  I’ve been told this is odd.)  I just don’t have time and I can only knit so fast, which is not as fast as I would like.

So now I have to juggle my list and fall into a fibre filled haze of madness and pretty shawls.  I’ll post regularly as I fall into madness.  Please, just pull me back if I go in too far.

On My Needles and Between My Pages January 18

One My Needles

I am very proud of myself for the knitting week I have had. Even though temptation abounded (there’s are rant about that tomorrow), I was very good and did not cast on anything new. I focused on the WIPS and did manage to decrease the number by one.  I finished the Reunion cowl on Sunday.  I also joined the dishcloth challenge, and finished my first cloth.  (And yes I realize that was something new but it’s small and fast and took less than two hours. Just let me have that.)

My apologizes for the repeat picture. It still looks more or less the same, just slightly bigger.

So my focus has now shifted to Flavia. It is the second shawl that I cast on for the 12 in 12 challenge. (Sadly the first one is not finished, just being ignored. It wasn’t working for me right after Christmas, but I’ll get back to it). And here’s what I can tell you about it. This shawl is driving me slowly crazy. (Okay, crazier than normal.)  The big problem is a huge cast on, followed by rows and rows and rows of seed stitch seed.  For those of you not familiar with seed or moss stitch, it is a knit stitch followed by a purl stitch across the row. Each row alternates what stitch it starts with to create a fabric that is very textured and very pretty.  It’s not hard, it’s just incredibly time consuming as every for every one stitch you make you have to do two actions (creating the stitch and then moving the yarn to the front or the back of the work), which will slow down the fastest knitter.  Add to that each row is huge and even though I have completed just over ten wrapped stitches on each side, I am still waiting for the magical moment when each row doesn’t take me forever.  The bottom line is this: it is a lovely shawl and I am going to be very happy to have it when it’s finished.  There is nothing wrong with the pattern.  It is well written, concise and clear.  It’s just reminding me that underneath everything, I am an impatient person and this is a little test of wills between me and the seemingly never ending short rows. I hope that by the time I write this next week, that I have exciting progress to share. If I’m really lucky, I’ll be dealing with the 310 stitch border.

Between My Pages

There wasn’t a lot of reading this week. Time didn’t really allow for it. However, the little bits I did managed to sneak in got me to the point in The Mockingjay, the third book in The Hunger Games, where I am finally enjoying the story.  After well over 150 pages of the lead character dithering about and remaining uncommitted and passive the author decided that maybe she should involve Katniss in the action instead of having her behave like a stereotypical clueless female. Also, the message in the book is clearly shifting to how one person can make a difference. For me as the reader, I am to the point where I want to be reading the book again.  It should go much faster from here on out.

For more great Wednesday stuff check out WIP Wednesday and the Yarn Along.