Saturday, October 28, 2006

Miss Dashwood Finished

Once I finished Daydream, I got to work on Miss Dashwood so I could get the set finished and in the mail. It was a much quicker knit than I expected, so it's finished and the package is on its way to Katie now. But, of course, I took some shots of Miss Dashwood before she left.


The Details
Pattern: Miss Dashwood, from knitty
Yarn: TLC Baby in Lilac. For both Daydream and Miss Dashwood, I only needed 1 skein and have some left over.
Modifications: I knit a 2 stitch i-cord instead of the seed stitch cord. I also omitted the buttons. This was partly because I couldn't figure out where the heck to put them. It seemed to me that if the earflaps were folded up, they would either have to fold completely up into the hat, which might be uncomfortable, or if folded up along the brim, they would still cover baby's ear halfway. I dunno....so I just left them out! Katie lives in Minnesota, so it's probably always going to be chilly enough for the earflaps.
Verdict: It's darling for a little girl, so I hope she likes it.

Here are a few more shots of it:


I wanted to give an idea of how it would look on, but since I don't have any babies lying around to model, I used my wine carafe. Yeah, I know....


Earflap close-up.

I'm continuing with the Christmas knits. One in progress is knit and tonic Wendy's Girlfriend Shrug. This is for my seven year old niece, who is a girly-girl. I was going to do a long sleeve version of the one skein wonder, but that is only written for adults, and since I was lazy and didn't feel like translating it into a smaller size, I'm going with this one. I'm using Knit Picks Swish and get a gauge of 14 sts/4" on size 10's, so since the pattern's written for 28 sts/4", I'm just halving the stitches. Hope that works out.



Next weekend is the Stitches Event in Baltimore. I'm already making my shopping list....

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Daydream Finished

I got pictures today from my friend Katie, who is 32 weeks pregnant. She's looking VERY pregnant, so it's a good thing I accelerated on Daydream over the weekend. It's finished!


The Details.
Pattern: Daydream from Rowan Babies
Yarn: TLC Baby. I didn't love this yarn. It's great for baby knits because it's washable, but it was kinda of splitty and strands stuck together a bit. Next time I might use a cotton blend.
Modifications: I knit the back and front together up to the armholes. But, next time I will knit this from the top down to avoid some sewing and make it look more polished.
Verdict: Great - I hope Katie's little girl will get some nice spring-time wear out of it.



If you subscribe, have you received your Vogue Knits Holiday issue? I've been dying to read it, but mine hasn't arrived in the mail yet. We often get mis-delivered mail at my house, but I don't know if subscribers just get theirs later than stores do. I can't remember when my Fall issue arrived relative to the issue date. Thanks!

Thursday, October 19, 2006

A dose of reality and some finished hats

I'm trying to figure out if I'm on track to finish my Christmas hats in time or not. I've got 3 complete and 7 to go. Looking at the calendar, there are 9 full weeks left until December 25, but really, I'm going to be giving some of these hats as gifts before the actual holiday. I also remembered that I was going to knit a long-sleeve version of the one-skein wonder for my niece. I also heard from my pregnant friend Katie (recipient of the in-progress Daydream and yet-to-be-started Miss Dashwood) who is almost 32 weeks into her pregnancy. I didn't realize she was that far along! I also thought I would be almost done Arisaig by now, but I am slowing making through the 1st sleeve.

So. It's been a dose of knitting reality for me these days that I am not going to finish things as fast as I planned and I must give myself a break. My goal now is to still complete the gifts, which is totally do-able, but also to not set goals for the projects for me. It's so hard not to plan ahead with all of the new patterns coming out, but I must be patient. Knitting is a hobby, it's therapy, it's supposed to be fun. Not stress. I must put the fun back into it, or else I might ruin my love of knitting.

Ok, the updates. Here are the 3 hats thus far completed.


Hat #1. For my brother, knit with the grey and stripes of blue and green mixed in. Sorry the picture is so dark.


Hat #2. For my friend, Jen. I was going to give this to another friend, but I saw Odessa and thought that would be really cute for her and a matching one for her daughter.


Hat #3. For my 18 month old nephew. This one is my totally my favorite one so far. I love how the stripes came out.


And, I picked up some Cotton Fleece to make my knock-off of Bea. But that's not til end of winter, early spring at best. No pressure! No time constraints!

Friday, October 06, 2006

WIP update

I've gotten some good knitting time in during the past week. It's only in the 50's here today in Baltimore, so I could be wearing Arisaig or the Grannie Smith Cardi if either of them were finished. Here's how it's going with them.



Back of Arisaig

When I started Arisaig, it was my first project using yarn that got a gauge of 28 sts/4". I was afraid this was going take forever. While it took a while to get going, the pattern repeat wasn't too hard to memorize and I am over halfway through the right front also. I hope to have this one done by the end of the month (maybe...).


Grannie Smith Cardi

This one I just started last week. I decided to cast on the fronts and back together to avoid some seaming, not sure if this is going to make it harder to sew in the sleeves or not? Ever since I made my first top-down sweater, I try to avoid sewing at all costs!

I'll have some pics of the Christmas hats next week. I've got 2 down, 8 to go...

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

A splash of color

Here's the new blog design I've been mulling over and editing for the past few weeks. It took me awhile to get the template done, but it wasn't until I saw Carrie's new design yesterday that the idea of photographing something for the banner hit me (thanks Carrie!). I pulled out my dpn case and photographed the fabric. It fit nicely with my already existing pink and green color theme. Ironically, I have updates on Arisaig (in pink) and Grannie Smith Cardi (in green) to show you later this week. Hmm, I do like pink and green a lot, so maybe it's not ironic at all. I should start expanding my knitting project color palette!