Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Catching up Part 4

Yet another recently completed baby project is an entrelac baby blanket for a friend's newborn baby.

This is the first entrelac project I've done, and I liked it. With a total of 83 squares, It left a lot of ends to weave in, but that could be adjusted by color choice or using a variegated yarn. This pattern didn't call for triangles on the edges, but left them with decorative points.

The blanket was made with worsted weight Plymouth Encore. When I was picking out colors, there wasn't any white or cream at the knit store. So I decided to go with bold colors instead of pastel, and since we knew the baby was going to be a girl, I used purple as the main color. I think it worked out well, although the green isn't photographing well -- it's brighter than this shows. I think the mom's hair has been at least three of these colors while I've known her, so I think the blanket will go over well. It'll be in the mail hopefully on Friday.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Catching up Part 3

Last weekend I finally put the finishing touches on my Olympic Project, the Dale of Norway seal sweater for my cousin's first baby. This had been sitting in the knitting basket completely sewen up with the ends woven in and everything for a few weeks. It needed only the three duplicate stitches for the nose and the embroidered whiskers. Since this little boy was born in March, it was time to get it in the mail. Here is the sweater getting a heavy-duty steam blocking before being shipped halfway across the country.

And here's a closer shot of the nifty little cuffs.

I hadn't steam blocked with my iron before, and was really pleased at how well it performed, especially since it's a rather old hand-me-down. Look at that little cuff lay flat!

This sweater was made in the nine-month size using Reynolds Kids Wash Day Wool (main green color) as well as Dalegarn Baby Ull (all accent colors). I have a lot left over, which I'm planning to use to make the overalls from this same Dale set for another baby -- more about that later.
So this has finally been shipped, and the USPS website tells me it was successfully delivered last week. Another item crossed off this year's baby knitting list, and Knitting Olympic dreams (belatedly) fulfilled.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Catching up Part 2

This is the year of baby knitting. After my brief break from it in late March/early April, it was time to churn out some more.

Niece V got a blanket for her first birthday:

Made out of yarn gifted for Christmas (colorway is called Monet), and older yarn gifted from a friend's unused stash.
Here's a close-up of the pattern:

The pattern is very easy -- stripes of cream stockinette and colorful garter stitch with slipped stitch cable columns. Great mindless knitting. I actually got this done well ahead of the birthday party, which was a new experience.

Next update: Olympic Knitting finish line!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Catching up Part 1

Whew! April and the first half of May are crazy times for me. I've mostly recuperated from the end-of-school-year insanity now. So, I'll work on getting back into the blogging habit with a series of posts catching up with my projects over the past two months.

After finishing Niece H's blanket, and inspired by the Spring Stash Sort, I took some time out to do three projects for pay:

Forgive the flash picture, please. I only had late evenings or early mornings to work with for a while. From left to right is a cabled headband in Malabrigo worsted Velvet Grapes, followed by two mini dishcloths in two colors of Sugar 'n Cream - camouflage and landscape, I think. And another pair of fingerless mitts in the dark purple color of Misti Alpaca worsted. All of these yarns are so very nice to work with, and all of these projects have gone to happy homes with ladies who work in my mom's building.

After that brief break it was back to the baby knitting.