Yarn Along - 2012 Washcloths April Edition

Joining in Ginny's Yarn Along. She says:

Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well.
Check out some of the great projects and books linked there this week!

The Lil One wanted to help me knit today, so I pulled out the April washcloth. She sat on my lap for maybe two rows, and then I finished it later in the day. Simple garter stitch with three-row stripes. The goal for this washcloth was to use up the scraps of dishcloth cotton I've accumulated and to do a trial run of three-row stripes. My friend Alisha made a Baby Surprise Jacket a while back using three colors and making stripes that were each three rows wide. It's a little hard to see the effect in the washcloth because I was using variegated yarns and had to swap in new colors when my remnants ran out. But I really like this idea, and I believe I will use it in my next BSJ, which will be my second and probably to be knit in the next few months.

The book is my new toothbrushing reading (use the moments you can), as I've finished the Harold Bloom collection from way back when. The Growing Church: Keys to Congregational Vitality was edited by Rev. Thom Belote, who was our History and Theology presenter at UU MidWest Leadership School my student year and my first year on the volunteer staff. It's a collection of essays by ministers of thriving congregations, and I'm using it to help me get back into church-lady mode as we gear up for this year's MWLS, and I gear up to rejoin my congregation's board in July. I think my position will be Secretary, which means I won't be able to knit as much at the meetings. :-P

Oh, and I finished the OSU Baby Blanket. In time and everything. It ended up being 170 stripes long plus two 3-inch borders. 170 stripes x 2 sides x oh, at least 130 stitches per row = I don't even want to know. Let's just look at the pretty instead.

Yay.

Yarn Along - More Striped Blanket

The end of the blanket is in sight!

Yesterday I started the final border on the Buckeye Baby Blanket. The rows go so much faster with almost half the number of stitches. Imagine that! Very excited to be nearing the end of this project. I'll even be done in time for the nephew's birthday.

Yesterday I read a graphic novel that explains the new Healthcare Reform Law - the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or just ACA). I understand it SO MUCH better now. This book is making the rounds of my Thursday afternoon knitting group. It seems very timely to read it this week while the Supreme Court is hearing arguments concerning this law. I wish there was a series of books like this explaining other pieces of legislation. What a great way to become informed.

I'm joining up with Ginny's Yarn Along again this week. Please check out her blog to browse all the cool books and projects.

Yarn Along - Striped Blanket

The Striped Buckeye Baby Blanket continues. All of my remaining grey yarn is in the picture above. My LYS has ordered more. While I should be avoiding any delays on this project, I'm actually excited that I may get to knit on something else for a few days while waiting for the yarn to arrive. I know I'm ready to be done with something when I start making detailed mental lists of what I'll knit next, which I have been doing today. I think I'm only about 40 stripes and a 3-inch border away from having a square blanket.

For month two of our bookclub the husband and I are reading Stephen King's The Stand. We're listening to it on audiobook, and we chose to go with the expanded version. It looks in the picture like we're almost half done, but that would be almost half done with Part 2 of 6. I'm really enjoying the book, even though it had me feeling that every cough might mean my death. I really enjoy Stephen King's books when I can bring myself to read them. I'm also really enjoying the new bookclub. I think this month's meeting will be to go to the Hunger Games movie together.

Please check out all the great knitting (and crochet) and books over at Ginny's Yarn Along. I've been loving all the cool projects and blogs that gather there weekly.

Yarn Along - Next Baby Blanket

Please forgive the crappy picture for this week's Yarn Along. It was a beautiful sunny day here, but I didn't think to take a knitting picture until after sunset. The red yarn does not actually glow in the dark. It's quite a nice Ohio State-colored scarlet and gray color combination. Please check out other Yarn Along projects and books (with better pictures) at Ginny's blog.

I just looked back at my posts and realized that I still haven't posted about the last baby blanket -- the orange and cream one due at the end of November and finally gifted recently. I'll put that at the top of my blogging list, now.

The newest nephew (little HH who came so very early) will be turning one at the beginning of April (and he may well outweigh my 19-month old Lil One by then!). Pastel baby colors just didn't seem to fit for this little fighter. So since that branch of the family is full of OSU fans, I got a Buckeye friend to help me pick the best scarlet-and-grey combination of Encore Worsted yarn and cast on.

This pattern is from an old edition of Knitty and is based off a blanket knit by First Lady Lou Henry Hoover. I've made this pattern before, four years ago for Nephew V, out of blue and cream. This time I may have made it a little bigger -- I did some math in my head and cast on several more stitches than the amount in the pattern. Also, I bought all the yarn my LYS had in stock - 3 red and 2 grey - and I'm pretty sure I'm going to run out. Of course I didn't swatch! It's a blanket. If I'm going to make it a square, I think I'm going to need at least one more skein of each color, and I think it'll end up about three feet square. Did I mention it is double knitting? So it's almost like knitting two blankets at once. I am nothing if not ambitious. I'm glad I let myself start it before I finished weaving in all the ends on the last blanket. The estimate right now is that if I knit four rows a day I should be done in time. Each row takes 20 minutes. At least there will be only two ends to weave in for this blanket. The rest can just be tucked between the layers.

I really do love the pattern, though. Double knitting is so much fun, and seems a bit like magic. So far I only have one spot where the yarns crossed over -- it's way back and I can't tell without dropping stitches exactly what happened, so I'm not sure I'd be able to fix it. It isn't the normal crossing mistake I make and have corrected at least twice already. I decided when I found it today that I can live with it.

The book for today's Yarn Along is Le Seigneur des Anneaux: Le Retour du Roi. This is my go-to-bed-nursing book with Lil One. I've been reading The Lord of the Rings in French to her for a while now, at about three pages a day. We just finished the Houses of Healing chapter after the battle at Minas Tirith. These are my favorite books, and this was a great excuse to finally read through my French editions. I bought them while studying in Luxembourg, which was nine years ago now.

Baby Surprise

I said last week that I thought I was all caught up on recently finished projects, but there is one more to share.

This was my first time knitting Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket. I got her Knitting Workshop book with a birthday present gift certificate at Nautical Yarn. This is a great little store, and it's the LYS where we go on summer vacation. It's a great book, and this is a very clever bit of knitting. I neglected to take a picture of the piece before I seamed it. I'll have to remember to do that next time, because there will definitely be a next time.

I made the sweater with Reynolds Wash Day Wool in brown and periwinkle (extra ball from my Lil One's sweater) and some dark blue and bright blue Dalegarn Baby Ull from the stash . The darker blue is the same I used for one of the little hats back in April. I made up the stripes as I went along. I think they turned out well, but now with more knowledge of how the knitting actually relates to the finished project I'll be able to place stripes a bit better. Also, I'm going to try to find a way to stripe it so there will be fewer ends to weave in!

I made this for our newest nephew, HH. Like the jacket, he is surprising. First because when he arrived in April it was three months early and second because the ultrasound had said that we were going to get a niece. I made him a couple of hats earlier this year. He hasn't had an easy time, but he is home now and doing well. I finished this in time for the baby shower in early August. It was a new experience to attend a baby shower where we knew specifics about what the baby likes and dislikes.

Now I think I'm all caught up on finished objects. No, wait, I finished something else just today!

Tiny Hats

We recently got a new nephew! Little Nephew HH was born on my husband's (30th) birthday, and he is very excited to have a birthday buddy. This little guy surprised everyone because (1) best guess had been that he was going to be a she and more significantly (2) he got here three full months ahead of schedule. Weighing in at just over one pound, Little HH is really tiny. He's more than two weeks old now, and he and his mama are in a great hospital. We haven't gotten to see him yet except through Facebook pictures.

So what does a knitter do when she worries? Knit something, of course. In this case, I knit a couple of tiny hats.

I started with the Care Wear Preemie Jester Hat by Cathy Gilroy from the book Knitting for Peace, and worked that as written in some yellow Dalegarn Baby Ull that I had in my stash. It actually ended up a little smaller than the pattern called for -- just a few rows shorter and it used every scrap of the color I had left.

It fit one of my old baby dolls very well, and my Lil One has since been having lots of fun with the doll. Mr. HH's nursery is decorated in a Snoopy theme, and this hat in this color makes me think of the little bird Woodstock.

However, the "Preemie" size as written in this pattern is much too big for the little guy. So I used some blue of the same yarn and made one about 2/3 size -- cast on 40 instead of 60 stitches, and made 14 rows in each part of the pattern instead of 20. Then, because pom-poms would have been overwhelming on this smaller hat, I improvised some tassels instead.

His Grammy believes this one will fit him.