2011 Washcloths - January Edition

One of my goals for 2011 is to knit a washcloth every month. This will be rather like the self-imposed sock club that the Yarn Harlot established for herself last year, only I haven't organized to pick out all the yarns and patterns ahead of time. Each month, I just make a washcloth. Hopefully, this will help put me in a good position for Christmas gifts at the end of the year.
I'm off to a good start with January's washcloth coming off the needles in the middle of last week.

This is the "Shapely Diamond" pattern from a Leisure Arts booklet called "Kitchen Bright Dishcloths," and I knit it out of my standard Sugar 'n Cream cotton, this one in sage green. I think for next month's cloth I'll use the pattern that came on the ball band.

Second Finished Object - Socks

I've been motoring right along on my projects this month. The second finished project for 2011 is a pair of socks for my mom.

These were made using the Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula by Amy Swenson from Knitty Summer 2006. The yarn is Regia Bamboo in a many-shades-of-blue-with-some-brown colorway. I bought it and started the socks early last year, but when I picked them up again at the end of the 2010 Christmas knitting they fairly flew off the needles. It helps that my mom has small feet - the first skein lasted me past the heel of the second sock. So, as with 2011's first finished project, I'm looking for something to do with the rest of yarn. I'm thinking matching fingerless mitts for this, too. I'm mulling over a design idea, so we'll see if anything comes of that.

I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretching Bind-Off, which I now absolutely love, and anticipate using it for many things in the future.

First Finished Object of 2011

Well that didn't take very long at all. My first finished object for the year is a Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret (ravelry link) for myself.

I used Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in the Purple Mystery color. I bought this skein early last year, and had been saving it for a time when I could make myself something for a treat. I think right after Christmas and a year of baby knitting qualifies! I only used about half the skein, so I'm trying to decide whether to make another hat or some matching fingerless mitts. I'll probably make the mitts.

This was a super fast project. I cast on on Wednesday, January 5th and finished on Saturday the 8th. I really enjoyed working with this yarn; it's a fluffy single. I also really like the pattern and love the finished hat. I haven't left the house without it since it finished blocking. On the recommendation of Alisha, who has made at least five of these hats, I went down a needle size and used #9 (5.5mm) for the ribbing and #10.5 (6.5mm) for the body of the hat. I'm quite glad I did because I like the fabric better this way, but I would have liked to have a slightly larger pie plate to use for blocking it -- just to give it a little extra slouch.

You can see the cables a little better in this picture, but not the colors (there aren't many good picture-taking opportunities in January, I'm afraid).

This was a great start to a new year of knitting!

New Year, new dedication

Wow, it's been way too long. I've had this blog for two full years, now, and I'm going to be more dedicated to making better use of it this year. First of all, I think I have a pretty good excuse for being away from this for most of last year:

My lil one born the day after Labor Day, 2010. My universe has re-arranged itself more than a little bit, as I'm sure other parents know well and other people can imagine.

Secondly, some catching up on the knitting:
During my June vacation at the Lake, I worked on a cabled cardigan for me. I have finished the fronts, back, and sleeves. The next step is to block them all, connect them to each other, and work on the huge shawl collar.

What a nice place to sit and knit all day.
I'd really like to finish this soon, because I think it'd be a great sweater to wear this winter while I'm breastfeeding so much. It turns out that nearly all the sweaters I own right now are pullovers.

Then I made two more baby sweaters - a six month and a twelve month size of a lace sweater for a new first-cousin-once-removed and for a new niece.

Then I made my baby a blanket. This is the "Baby Shane Blanket" from Tanis Fiber Arts. I made it with four colors of Baby Boutique, two solids and two variegated. The colors remind me of a sunset at the Lake.

After a bit of a break (see baby picture above), I made a hat and sweater for a new nephew. Here's Strong Bear modeling the hat.

No pictures of the sweater. It wasn't quite done for the baby shower, and then the little guy came early so I had to hurry up and finish it. Christmas green Encore worsted weight in a simple pattern with some cabling. I had to size down what the pattern called newborn size because it was coming out huge. It's still more like a 3-6 month size. I also modified it to add buttons. The pattern called for a drawstring around the neck, and that just seemed like a really, really bad plan.

I also made two pairs of baby mittens, one for Lil One and for Nephew O, out of leftovers from the baby blanket. Those little hands just will not stay in swaddling and get so chilly during the night.
The only Christmas knitting consisted of four stockings. Here are two of them:

There was one more Snowman Head and a Rudolf. These are Mary Maxim stocking patterns of which I have about 60, I think.
I also gave my grandmother a nice pair of fetchings in blue alpaca, but I had that gift idea right after Christmas last year, so those were knit almost one year ago. I'm just glad I found them!

So ends 2010, The Year of Babies.

Catching up Part the Last

Finally, well not quite finally, but for now, I made duckie-themed baby clothes for the first baby of my college RA. He'll be arriving anytime in the next month, and the shower was the second Saturday in June. The duck theme has a little story behind it: The first few weeks of school the first-year students tend to follow the RA everywhere - to dinner, community events, etc. - and someone joked that we were all following Marta around like her baby ducklings. The idea stuck and she got called Momma-Duck Marta. So now that she's having a baby it only seemed right to my roommate and me that our gifts be duckie-themed.

I don't have any completed pictures of these items because this was one of those finish-at-the-last-minute projects. I'm very glad it was a surprise shower and we got there a while before Greg and Marta got home, because I was sitting on their living room floor sewing on buttons and weaving in ends!

I'm also glad that I had just read and followed the Yarn Harlot's advice on blocking sweaters before sewing them up -- otherwise I might not have any pictures of this little sweater at all.


Here is the Puddle Ducks cardigan in the process of blocking on my Sun Room floor. This pattern is from the Knitting for Babies and Kids book by Jeanne Stauffer, as so many of my recent baby projects have been. This is an very good and useful book; maybe I'll review it sometime soon.


Here is a close up of the little puddle ducks. There're also supposed to be embroidered raindrops around the ducks, but that didn't happen. The sweater got buttons instead.

This was made in the six-month size out of DreamBaby DK and Dale Baby Ull. I'm collecting quite a little stash of DK/baby weight machine washable colors. I intend to make good use of them if I ever get through this summer's slate of projects.

To go with this sweater I also made the duck socks from the recent Spring/Summer issue of Knitty. No pictures of those at all, but hopefully Marta will send me some later, when they are being worn. I'd include a link, but the Early Fall issue just went up today so the Knitty site is too slow at the moment. I must be a pretty ambitious knitter because here are all the new techniques I learned just for these little baby socks: (1) toe-up socks (2) Magic Loop (3) Judy's Magic Cast-On (4) Turkish Cast-On (5) applied I-cord and (6) Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. I think I just don't let my lack of knowledge and experience get in the way when I find exactly the right pattern. Also, other people figured out how to do all these things - reading and following their directions doesn't seem to me to be the hard part.

I just realized at this very minute that I forgot all about the knitting guild meeting that was last night. Shoot. I really wanted to make that little beaded Christmas stocking, too. Bummer. Well, it was probably for the best - we're going camping this weekend and had tons to do last night.

So now we're all caught up with the news of my early-summer baby knitting. Next, there'll be an update on what I knitted on vacation, and probably more baby knitting.

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.

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.