Little Squares

I've started a project that I'm only working on at my honey's house.

It's going to be a throw blanket for us to use on his sofa while we watch TV. I'm following the guidelines of the Buncha Squares knitted adaptation of Denyse Schmidt's quilt design, as described on Mason-Dixon Knitting.

I'm using all Cascade 220--a little tweed, but mostly regular 220. The overall color scheme of the blanket is going to be shades of brown (boring, I know, but it needs to blend in with honey's living room), with little bits of plum (left over from the plum tweed sweater) and dark green tweed (left over from some mittens I made for Melisa a couple years ago).

It's a whole buncha garter stitch, but that's good TV knitting. I'm going to work 16 squares, and my goal size for the blanket is about 5'x5'.

Stranded!

I decided it was ABOUT TIME I did some stranded, or fair isle, knitting. I indulged a bit at the yarn shop yesterday--first yarn shop purchase in 2 months!! I got 2 skeins of the new Spud & Chloe sock yarn, Datchsun and Calypso, aka brown and light blue, and I'm going to make myself a Selbu Modern. I did a bit of trolling around Ravelry in the forums and the Stranded group and got a few tips, including this helpful video.

I determined to be successful in this attempt, so I've done a right and proper gauge swatch:

I worked my gauge swatch in the round--it's more of a gauge tube. I worked one side of the tube with a US 1 1/2 Addi (pictured below), and the other side with a US 2 1/2 Addi (pictured above). The 2 1/2 side ended up at gauge, so that's the size I'm going to use for the main portion of the hat.

I worked part of the gauge swatch with floats on the inside of the work, and part of it with the woven technique. In the floats section, I was worried about keeping my floats loose enough so that the fabric doesn't pucker. I was less concerned about my tension in the woven section, but in the end I liked the feel of the non-woven section better. In this pic, the woven section is in the middle, with unwoven sections on the top and bottom:

By the end of the gauge tube, I was much more comfortable working the 2 colors. I'm holding the mail color (brown) in my left hand, my usual way of holding yarn, and holding the blue in my right hand. It took a few inches of knitting before I felt like I wasn't a total right-handy klutz, but now I feel like I've gotten the hang of it.

Now to cast on for the actual hat!

Vest update

The vests, wee socks and nap sacks made their way to a birthday party on Saturday. The blue vest fit Logan really well, with a little length for growth.

He was so excited when he pulled open the little napsack and pulled out the vest and socks. The gifts were definitely a hit with Logan.

Dylan lost interest in opening gifts after #2, a dress up set of knight's gear--shield, helmet, sword. I managed to get his vest onto him while he was sitting in the PowerWheels Jeep the boys got from their parents.

Unfortunately, his vest is just a tad too short. So I'm going to figure out some way to add length to the bottom of the bottom. Here's what I'm thinking: since it was knit bottom up, and I want to preserve the cable pattern, I'll add the length just above the ribbing at the bottom. This might be a bit tricky, but I'll figure it out.

In non-knitting news, I've been experimenting with letting the cat outside for short periods of time. He goes out, explores, eats some grass, then comes back in.

Sometimes, though, he's not ready to come in when I want him to, so I have to go get him and bring him in. In this case, he spends anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours crying at the door, wanting to go back out. It's pretty annoying.

Sorry, blog

I haven't been giving you the attention you deserve. I've thought quite often of updating you, but alas! I've had nothing to update you with. Relatively little knitting being done over here. But now that I have a couple small FOs, I thought I'd share. First, the second little boy vest, this one in blue.

These vests are headed out tomorrow to the boys' birthday party. Along with this slew of wee socks.

Aren't wee socks wonderful? Such quick knits, and a good way to use sock yarn remnants. For the 4 year old's socks, I cast on 44 stitches; for the 2 year old's, 40. The foot of the 4 year old's is about 5.5"; the foot of the 2 year old's, 5".

I guess I never showed you a picture of the Purple Pangea shawl all done. Well, that's because I didn't get a good one. But here's the best of what I got.

I've made negligible progress on the 2nd Purple Blob. But it's good mindless-ish knitting, so it'll get done eventually.

I ended up frogging that Columbine Peaks sock I was working on last month (or was it 2 months ago???). I was bored with the pattern, annoyed with my gauge/tension and knew I'd never finish it. So now that yarn is becoming a Springtime Bandit--or as I'm calling it Autumn Bandit. This is a super fun knit. The pattern is just interesting enough to keep me going, but simple enough that I don't have to reference the chart.

In non-knitting news, I've got a new toy! Thanks, mom!

I really need to build up some calluses on my left fingers.

I'll try to be a bit more diligent about updating you.

An experiment

You know what that means! I'm blocking the purple blob. Finally! Which brings us to the experiment I'm conducting: can I block this shawl on the floor of my apartment without the cat bothering it? I sure hope so. I planned on blocking it on the table using those handy knitter's block puzzle pieces, but it proved to be just a bit too large. I may end up locking Butters out of the living room for the night if I decide he's not trustworthy (he's probably not).

As soon as I put the purple blob into soak, I cast on for a 2nd purple blob! I had a whole 52 grams of the J. Knits Lace-a-licious left over, and decided to knit a shawl from a much simpler pattern that will require far less concentration.

Went for a little day hike on the eastern edge of Mt. Rainier National Park yesterday with the fam. Naches Peak Loop Trail. It was a good hike, though we spent about twice as long in the car, which was kinda lame.

The wildflowers were in full bloom, and they were just lovely! There were lots of people on the trail. The views were absolutely stunning.

I wish it was closer to home, but we have those hours in the car to thank for the finishing of the purple pangea shawl. :)

1 vest, 2 vest

Red vest, blue vest! I'm making matching vests for 2 boys with birthdays next month.

The red one is for the soon-to-be 2 year old. The blue one will be for his soon-to-be 4 year old brother. The yarn is Lion Brand Cotton-ease and the pattern is a free one from Lion Brand. I modified it a bit to make it a more pleasant garment to knit by knitting into the round until the arm pits; weaving the shoulder seams using kitchener stitch; working the neckband and armbands as continuous circles. I hate seaming. Also, I mirrored the cables for aesthetics.

In addition to the vests, each boy will be getting a pair of socks--because when a 3-year-old says he needs a new pair of knitted socks, how can you say no???

The 2 year old's socks are made out of left over Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in a colorway that reminds me so much of the Sounders FC. :) Note the penny for scale. Little socks are so cute!

And, in honor of our passing heat wave, I made a hat!

That is, of course, Turn a Square. I used some left over Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted and a little bit of Noro Kureyon that was flowing around the stash.

I'm STILL plugging away on that purple shawl, but I've finally reached the last chart and have about 6.5 more rows to go. I'm getting really bored of it, and I just want to get it off the needles. The long rows are starting to feel like punishment. That being said, I've been plotting which shawl I'll make next. :)

Something blue...

The Sea Blue Sea quilt is all done! I quilted it in waves using free motion quilting and I'm pleased with how it came out. You can see the waves in this pre-wash pic, with the blue water-sol marker still on the quilt.

Things I like about this quilt: 1) It's the perfect snuggle-on-the-couch size; 2) The back is pieced for added interest; 3) The binding is a mixture of all the fabrics used in the squares. Things I'm not too pleased with: 1) My free-motion quilting skillz, or lack thereof; 2) The amount of time it took to sew on the binding on the back of the quilt.

This is going to a 1 year anniversary gift for a special blue-loving couple. The quilting went pretty quickly: 2 episodes of Radio Lab (60 min each), all of Radiohead's In Rainbows and most of The Shins' Wincing the Night Away (appropriate since I was finishing it up around 10:30pm). In that pic above you can kinda see a little yellow thing in the top right corner of the quilt--that's a pin marking a small hole in the fabric that I spied while sewing on the binding. No idea where this hole came from, but I'm going to cover it up with the label (which I have yet to make).

In other sewing news, I whipped up a little headband just now.

After seeing this type of headband popping up on other blogs, I decided to make one. People have been using the pattern in Weekend Sewing, but I kind of improvised mine. The main piece is a rectangle 17x4.25", the elastic casing is a rectangle 8x1.5" and the elastic was about 5" long, but sewn with about .5" seam allowance on both sides.

No knitting news--I have a slew of things in progress, but hopefully I'll finish some of them in the near future so I can share them with you.