Clapotis revisited

In my post-blanket spring knitting, along with the baby dresses, I've also returned to working on my clapotis. I'm making this out of recycled silk yarn - the kind that is made from the ends left over from weaving saris. My college roommate gave me several balls of this yarn awhile back and I thought a clapotis would be a good use of it. The project had to go on hold when I ran out of the gift yarn. I had enough projects on the go that I hadn't been looking very hard for more of it for several years. Right after I finished Niece S's blanket, I saw some recycled silk on sale at the Rain Forest Site, so I snagged three skiens right away. I enjoy the random changes in this yarn -- thickness as well as color. Sometimes it twists back on itself and gets difficult, and I really have to work at the stitches to get them to drop all the way down. But generally this yarn keeps me amused.

The clapotis is going to be very large. It's already very large, and I've only dropped six stitches so far. I'm going to need far more than the three additional skiens I just bought. I'm already feeling that at some point I'll need to make another clapotis out of a lighter-weight yarn. Anyhow. It's nice to come back to this. Here's one more picture that the husband thought I should include because it's "artistic and sh*t."

I figure that on the occasions when he pays enough attention to the knitting and/or blogging to make a suggestion, I should encourage him.

Blankets over, time for dresses

Whew! That was a long time without an update. A combination of (1) having to borrow a digital camera (2) long time of no nice days for pictures and (3) work taking all my mental energy.

The Rylee and Sofia blankets were both done on time, given at the birthday parties, and greatly appreciated by the moms. They were not, however, done far enough ahead of time to get finished pictures taken of them. I've asked the moms to send me pictures but they, oh you know, have small children. So no holding of breath on that one. I'll get pictures of them up here eventually.

After making two big baby blankets between Christmas and Easter, it was then time to make little outfits for this spring's two new nieces. I decided on the Cotton Candy Dress designed by Celeste Pinheiro, which is in the book Knitting for Babies and Kids, edited by Jeanne Stauffer. This is the cutest book I ever did see. Since these two nieces are also cousins to each other, I'm going to make two matching dresses in different colors. Monday, April 13, I bought the yarn for one of them, started it on Thursday the 16th, and by Friday the 24th I had this:

Baby clothes in worsted weight yarn may be my new favorite thing. I'm making the twelve-month size because it's a little hard to crawl in a dress and this one would look so cute on a baby starting to toddle.

My first mini-foray into lace went well. Well, the pattern calls this "triangle lace" but it's more material than holes, so I don't know about that. Either way, it's an adorable little border.

This picture of the bodice and armhole might actually capture the color the best. I usually don't make things quite this pink, but that seems to be the direction my sisters are going with the baby things, so I'm happy to contribute. I think the next one will be an equally intense purple. I still have the neckline stitching and the sewing up to do, but this will use less than 4 skeins of Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Cotton (100% mercerized cotton) at 93 yards a skein.

I've also been working on some charity knitting and my clapotis again, those updates coming soon.

Borders

LOTS of progress on Rylee's blanket this week. I finished weaving all the ends in late Tuesday night; I did nothing but ends at Knit Night, and then I took the blanket in to work and wove in ends during my lunch hour, and again while we watched TV Tuesday evening, staying up a little late because I was so close. I finished the upper and lower borders yesterday and attached them. Now I have just finished picking up 260 stitches for one side border and I intend to have all the knitting and sewing in of ends done today. Then I'll need to do some blocking of the edges, and the blanket will be ready about a week and a half early! So there hasn't been much progress on Sofia's blanket this week, but I think I'm still in a good place with it.

Major progress was made yesterday in the constant Struggle Against Laundry. It was a wonderful preview of spring -- 72F, sunny and windy -- and I was able to hang clothes on the line outside, allowing me to do three loads in a day for the first time probably since September.

Pat is away this week. He and a couple of friends are taking a Spring Break trip all the way to Arizona to visit another friend who moved there not long ago. So yesterday when it was so nice outside, I walked to three different libraries in town and borrowed a bunch of books to keep me entertained this week. I've been hanging out in the Sun Room reading, knitting, and listening to podcasts. Now if only I could take the week off of work, too, and do this all week long.

Also with Pat away, I'll probably be spending more time at my mom's and I intend to borrow her camera to get pictures of the blankets. I may need to help her figure out how to get the pictures off her camera, but I'll get some pictures for the blog soon.

Ends and Strips, Farms and Freedom

I continue to be bogged down in weaving the ends in on Rylee's blanket. I'm still less than half done. We are now in the same month as the little guy's birthday, and I still need to do all these ends and make and attach the boarders - and then do THOSE ends.

I'm about half done with the fifth strip on Sofia's blanket. Each of the four borders on that blanket will be at least as much work as one of the strips. The pattern calls for five strips, but once I've got them done, I'm going to lay them all out and see if I want to make one or two more. I'm starting to think I probably won't, though.

I made a lot of progress on the Sofia blanket yesterday; I attended an all-afternoon conference about the future of farming. It was organized by an alumnus from my college, and was a really good experience. I got to meet a young hay farmer who's attending K-State, which was cool because my parents used to be hay farmers and my uncle teaches at K-State (Go Wildcats). I think John did a really good job with the conference. Then in the evening I attended a staged reading of a new play being directed by one of the faculty in my department. It's about Freedom Summer, and if the reading (three days after it was cast) was that good, I can't wait to see the full play in October! So I knit through both of those events and got quite a lot done.

Today I have to create lots of time for end-weaving. My mom and step-dad are out of town for a few days and Pat has agreed to steam clean their carpet while they are away. So I'll go over there with him this afternoon, set myself up in their Sunroom and watch the Major League Baseball Channel with my tapestry needle and scissors. That should help!

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.

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.

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.