Friday, February 20, 2009

Hats and Blankets

Today we have a picture post. The pictures are all very blurry, but I figure blurry pictures are better than no pictures. The easiest way for me to get pictures for the blog is via my friend Matt's cell phone camera. And it's still one month to go until the Equinox so there's not a lot of light after I get home from work. Having disparaged these photos already, I will now show them to you:

First, Pat models his new hat. Voila the husband:

It's slightly large, but that was mostly on purpose so he can fold the edge up nice and high for extra thickness, and completely cover the back of his neck.

Next, the Skull Beanie for my brother:

It'll be in the next College Care Package. He's already looked at it on the Polar Knit website and seems pretty jazzed about it.

Now for the big news. ALL the squares for Rylee's blanket have been attached to each other!

It takes up about half of the dining room table. I took the picture of the back because it's the side that will be getting all my attention for quite a while. I calculated that there are more than 500 ends to weave in. This will be my Knit Night task for awhile, so it won't seem so very boring. Here's another shot of allllll the ends.

I don't hate weaving in ends like I know some knitters do, but they are definitely not my favorite thing about this craft.

Finally, with Rylee's blanket entering the final stages, the strips of Sofia's blanket have become my lunch hour and bus knitting.

I think I'm entertaining the bus drivers as they watch my colors change day to day. I hope so.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Piecing, Piecing, Piecing...

I have been SICK since the end of Tuesday. A very yucky sore throat bug that Pat brought home from work. I'm not all the way better, but I've finally started feeling human again.

So far today I've been piecing together the squares of Nephew Rylee's blanket, and starting to feel that the piecing will never end. I've just started the last of six strips of seven squares each. Then the strips will go together and I'll be ready to weave in more than 500 ends. I'm looking forward to knitting the boarders, so those will have to be my reward after all the ends are in.

I've also had PBS on non-stop today. Starting Tuesday we'll no longer have TV. We got one of those digital converter boxes, but because we're in between two markets, and digital signals are weaker than analog, we aren't able to get any TV to speak of. I am strongly anti-cable and am pretty upset by this whole switch. I guess I'm trying to overdose today in hopes that it won't be so bad.

But back to knitting news, I started the skull beanie Polar Knit hat for my brother on Tuesday and finished it last night. That was the only bit of knitting I was able to do while sick this week. So that hat and Pat's Polar Knit hat have been washed and are likely dry by now.

At Knit Night on Monday I picked up a job and I'm pretty excited about it. I'll be putting names on some Christmas stockings using duplicate stitch. Christmas stockings are what I've made the most, and I've never seen any with quite this design. I'm waiting until I'm completely better to work on that, though (I suppose the logic there is that the blanket will get washed and stockings don't really).

And back to sewing up.... starting to think that I really won't take up quilting.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Bulimic cats?

The snow day was great fun. Several of our friends live within walking distance and so were able to come over to our house in the afternoon. I finished Pat's Polar Fleece Hat (although it hasn't been washed yet), and we built a snow fort in the front yard. Complete with ice crenelations and everything. Picture is forthcoming. The fort received reinforcements later in the week, but is now in full retreat. It currently consists of an oval of snow in the middle of our otherwise brown and muddy yard. I'm glad we've had some real winter, but I'm also enjoying this weekend's spring-like temperatures. I even have some towels drying on the clothesline.

But on to the knitting news: Pretty pleased with Pat's Polar Fleece Hat, and I think I'll be making one for my brother, too. If I buy the yarn at Knit Night tomorrow, it's even possible I could get it to him before Spring Break.

I've finished putting the side edges on all but a few of the squares for Rylee's blanket, but I have been slowed down considerably by the cats. My two cats are generally very good and don't take too much interest in my knitting. However, they both seem to have mild eating disorders. The younger one just seems to love her food a little too much, but the older one seems to be bulimic. No matter what kind of "digestive care" cat food we try, she's always leaving little piles of throw-up around the house. Disgusting, but bearable. This time, however, the little dear threw up into my knitting basket. It wasn't a lot, but it was right onto the Rylee blanket squres. It won't be too hard to wash them, but I had to walk away from the project for a while. As soon as I clean off two or three more squares, I'll be ready to put them together and start edging the blanket.

While taking a break from Rylee's blanket, I started Sofia's. This blanket is knit in strips of garter stitch, changing colors to make squares. The pattern calls for five strips of six color blocks, each 5 inches square. My squares are more like 5 1/2 inches on a side, and I may end up knitting more strips. I'm trying to maker her blanket comprable in size to those I've made (am making) for her brother and cousin. The border that will go around the strips once they are sewn together has a twelve-stitch pattern repeat and I figure it won't be too hard to adjust it to fit a slightly different size of blanket. Mostly, though, I just didn't want to stress about matching gauge for a blanket. I think reading the Yarn Harlot's blog is making me braver about modifying patterns.