Zipping Along.

The last few weekends have been for taking a break from blanket knitting.  Not this past weekend.  This weekend I woke hale and hearty and started working on the blanket again, in a big way.  There have been little spurts of knitting it, and there has been some progress.  

Friday I gave it a measure and realized that it was wide enough, so it was time to 'turn the corner' so to speak.  I am not really turning anything, but have started the decreases on the side.

I just kept knitting, switching colours in a sort of a sequence but not really with any plan.  I knit and switched as it came to me.  Saturday morning it was time to stop increasing.  The blanket was wide enough and long enough.  It was another great day of knitting.

And here I am this morning, with just under 40 stitches left on the rows.  

I love knitting this way for a blanket.  You start without any long cast on row and just increase at the beginning of each row.  You keep doing that till you have it as wide as you want and then you start a decrease at the beginning of every wrong side row and you do that till the blanket is long enough.  Then you start decreasing at the beginning of each row.  It means that just when you are starting to get tired of working on the thing, you realize that the rows are suddenly so much shorter and you know that you will soon have a finished project.  The idea of finishing is always something I look forward to with joy and my project love returns in a big way.  

That is where I am now.  I ought to get really close to finishing today.  

I redid the hem.  I looked at the hem on this Elton and almost decided it was good enough, but it was bugging me and I knew that if it was bothering me now, it would lead to me not wearing it.  

It's too lovely not to wear.  

A River of Beauty

I worked on my oh so beautiful River Elton sweater yesterday.  All I can say is O.M.G. This is going to be such a stunning sweater and I cannot wait to wear it.

I got to the point where I finished the last of the mohair stripes and have this much left of the giant skein of Fleece Artist Zambezi.  

This was such a wonderful thing to knit with.

I am at the end of the sleeve cuff and all I need to do is to bind off the folded hem.

This is everything that is left of the second skein of  Adam and Eve in the delicious River colourway.  I still have the front buttonband and the neckband left to knit so I will likely have to break into ball three but considering that I started with five skeins of yarn, I am not worried.   

In fact, even without weighing the yarns remaining in the skein of Zambezi, I am pretty certain that I could make a sweater for Luda very similar to this one. There appears to be at least a third of the Zambezi left and with three skeins of Adam and Eve remaining, a striped sweater is surely possible. The design is not her style though, so I will put my knitting  time for her into the lovely Silver Adam and Eve I have for a sweater in a style she likes, knit together with a simple white mohair.  

I have a bit more work left on the River Elton sweater though.  I am probably going to redo the hem.  There are parts of the hem that are a bit wonky.  As I bound off, I must have picked up wrong stitches and in a certain section, the rib pulls sideways. I might let something like that go on occasion and just wear it as is, but this thing is just too pretty not to have it be right in every way.  

Repairs

 I am sitting here this morning in two layers of wool.  It is a chilly sitting here in front of the open window but I am not closing the window.  The air is fresh and clean and forecasting rain.  It is truly lovely. 

I spent the whole day working on repairs on wee pants to no avail.

I finished work on one hole, and found that two more significant holes had arisen near the seams.  I am not sure the feet can be saved so I will consult with momma and see what she wants me to do.  Everything else on this sweet sleeper is fine.  Only the toes have problems.  I am voting for taking the foot off and going with a footless sleeper.  The little guy sleeps in a sleep sack so a feet aren't really and issue.

The same with this pair of pants.  It is in perfect condition but for the toes and again, the fabric is so thin that I don't think I can save them.  These wee pants will be great with the feet cut off and turned into a nice little pair of plain pants.

And then there are these.  These have been worn by an active little boy who fell and tore the knee.  They are in n great condition and well worth the repair.

Grandma had a good idea

and it is working. I found a picture I could use as a template and cut out the fabric and then tucked the edges under so the patch had a perfect Mickey shape. Then I sewed it on over the hole from the topside to make it look good and then gave it a good stitching from the underside right around the hole so it will stay firmly in place.  The fabric  used is a nice stretchy piece of bamboo waffle knit so that the patch will have the same wearing ease as the original fabric.

And Voila, a perfectly matching patch!

Old Projects

It was miserable yesterday.  Hot heavy air.  The house stayed reasonably cool, but I still struggled.  I didn't do any big stuff.

I worked on Carter's blanket, but only till my hands said stop.

I pulled out the pretty River Blue Elton and worked on the sleeve for a bit.  

I dug through the WIPs bin for I knew not what.  It was too hot to think.

It seemed like a good day to do some unraveling.  

This pretty green yarn was meant to be a Breezeway Tee by Laura Aylor.  In my first go round, I struggled to find the right size for myself.  It had a lot to do with the building medical issue that I went through in the early winter last year. My counts were wrong, I couldn't see where the incereases were and I just couldn't cope through my fuzzy brain.  

But I wanted this top.  I still do.  The best thing to do was to pull back to almost the beginning or wherever my stitch count was right and restart.

But first to frog. 

It didn't take that long, really, but much longer than usual because it was worked from two different skeins of yarn.  I pulled back to the beginning but for the little garter stitch neck edge.  I did a wee bit of knitting and am back to the start of the short rows.

Today is going to be a clothing repair day.  I have a couple things to repair for Amy's kids, and then later this week will go for a visit with all my little boys and my big guys too to deliver repaired clothes and blankets.  I would love to have Carter's ready too but I don't think I am going to get it done.  

Oh well, that just means another visit for me!

Onward Big Blankets, Ho

I gave my hands a break on Sunday again.  I overdid it one day with the heavy yarn so the break was needed lest I slide into that long process of healing again.  Still there was some progress on Saturday and it won't be too many more rows till Carter's bright blanket is at it's widest and the stitch count can be static for a while.

Already this morning, I finished the orange and began another section of the bright yellow/lime green garter stitch.  I will do another section of the blue and that ought to take me to the width I want.  That bright orange part will repeat and back to the blue before finishing off with a final bright green part.  I hope. That is the plan but you all know how that goes.

Picking this blanket up again this morning, I have to say, I just am really enjoying this yarn.  I love its soft nature just the same way I loved my mother in laws soft grey minky pillows back before we called that delicious soft stuff minky.   I just hope the boys love them as much as I have enjoyed making them.  It's a huge delight to be doing these because these boys so seldom ask for things.  Marcus and Cassie do all the time, but these guys are not sweater people.  It makes me happy to make something for them for a change.

I picked out my River Elton sweater to work on and it is going along smoothly. The hem is finished and the second sleeve is well under way.  

Yoou can see the decrease markers on sleeve one.  My usual way of making sure that I get the right stitch count at the end, is to move stitch markers to the new sleeve as I make them.  It means I don't have to worry about it being long enough or matching.  I can easily count rows between markers too.  That is the real benefit.  I do something very similar on cables too.

This sweater is getting perilously close to finishing.  The sleeve won't be more than a day and them a day for the neck and button bands and it is complete.  

The real question is going to be will I break into ball three of the Adam and Eve River colourway?  Bwahahahaha

Eye popping

It wasn't a great day yesterday. I feel very slug like. The smoky air of the past week is, I think, a very big part of the reason that I am feeling so sluggish. I just couldn't settle to anything again just like last time we had a longer stretch of smoky air.  I understand it and don't really worry about it, but goodness, it must be difficult for those with serious pulmonary issues. I will deal with mine and today, directly after writing this, I am going to lay down for a very purposeful nap.

On to more eye popping blankets.  

Last evening, well into the afternoon, I eventually found my feet and settled down to start Carter's blanket.  Side to side it is.  

This is where I was up to by the time I crawled to bed last night and this is what I did this morning.

I am aiming for a good 40 inches wide on this one and most likely square.   Carter is a much bigger kid than Emmett and Owen and the wee one, so his blanket needs to be bigger.

I took out Owen and Emmett's blankets again, and did look at both of them again this morning to see if I was good with the size.  Owen's is perfect and after going back and forth on Emmett's?  It is fine too.  Any bigger and it would be a pain to lug around and a little boy does need to drag their blanket around after all.

Now for that nap.

Emmett's Blankie

And just like that, Emmett's blanket is done.  

I really enjoyed working on it.  Its just over 37 inches wide.  I kind of wish that I had done each blue stripe with 4 rows to get it just a bit wider, but I think it will be fine. If it is not, I have more of the blue and will add to it.  

Next up is Carter's  blanket.  I have decided to go corner to corner for his.  May as well keep doing each one with the same yarns but different designs.  Each of the boys is his own self and they all are such characters. The blankets should reflect that.

All the stripes mean ends to weave in.  

With a yarn this big, it makes an impressive pile.

A little bit of knitting.

The bottom hem is almost complete. Only part of the bind off to go.

There remains the second sleeve and button and neck bands to go so still a ways from done.  

I keep slipping on the side with the finished sleeve and let me say, this is going to be lovely to wear.

I wore my sweet Green Elton yesterday and I have to be honest.  Cardigans still bug me.  Every time I turn around to do anything, the whole front pops open and the sweater hangs at the sides.  That breaks the cozy warmth of sweaters, which is the whole point of the thing.  I will likely end up sewing the front closed. I am also going to have to make the button holes tighter.   In every other way, I love that sweater.  It is going to get a lot of wear.

And the buns and soup were delicious.

Knitting on a Monday

Its chilly this morning and raining very steadily. There has been good rainfall and that makes me happy.  We have had decent moisture for crops but it was time to rain again.

I spent the day puttering yesterday.  I did work on the River Blue Elton cardigan.  It is more of a summer cardigan and I could really use the light airiness of it. Plus, there is no room for it in the WIPs bin.  Time to finish some things.

I decided to make folded hems on this sweater.  It will help to stop the bottom rib from flipping.  It means going back and knitting the bottom ribbing more and means there will be much more ribbing to knit on the neck and on the button band.

It was time to try the technique on a sweater anyway.  I have done it once before on a capelet I knit many years ago out of some lovely blue Alpaca Peru, a now discontinued Diamond Yarn.  Oddly enough, I am using that selfsame yarn for my version of Joji Locatelli's Newspaper sweater. Perhaps that is what made me think of using a folded hem on this sweater.  

I am not anticipating much knitting or crochet today.  With the chill, it seems like a good day to bake and we are out of bread.  Fresh bread may mean it is a good day for a good hot thick stew or soup too. 

Variable things

The last post was supposed to go up on Saturday morning, but I just did not get around to it.  You will have a twofer today.

Though I spent all of last weeks working time on blanket work, I gave my hands a rest from thick yarns and big gauges on Saturday and Sunday. They really needed it.

I had to dig for my hastily tucked away projects for knitting of lighter weight things and while I did so, I cleaned out the WIPs bin.  I came out with two things I wanted to work on just for fun.  

Saturdays treat was my sweater from the lovely Midknit Cravings Comfort Sport/Dk base in my most loved Pesto colourway.

I love the tweedinesss of this speckled yarn.  I avoided speckled yarns all the while they were hot and much sought after, my usual avoiding of hype, but I now understand why people liked it so well. It's the tweed effect and it is very pleasing.  The yarn is just a pleasure to knit with, a real treat for my hands too.

The other thing I picked out to work on was my lovely River Elton cardigan.  I couldn't remember just where I was on it, but I knew it was well along.

One sleeve was complete but for the ribbing so Sunday, I got down to that.  I am going to focus to get this sweater done in between working on blankets.  I am going to enjoy it in my wardrobe.  I was going to give it to Luda but it is too broad in the back for her, so I will knit her something she did ask for out of that lovely grey yarn I got for her, the last of River City's Adam and Eve yarn before they became a teaching portal.  

The air is clean and decently clear this morning.  The smoke from fires up north near High Level has blown else where and my work is going to be to keep on working on Emmett's blanket.

I am just into the third section but I have a feeling to get the right proportion, there is going to have to be a fourth section.  Still, the blanket looks very happy and so am I.  I hope Emmett will love it too.

Again with the fuzzy yarn.

Wow.  Cassie and I went shopping on Wednesday last week and we had a lot of fun.  This was my fuzzy yarn haul

And this was Cassie's.

She wanted to crochet a blanket for herself and did not realize that it would take so long.  Still, she did a good job and took her blanket to  about 8 inches.  She did ask me if I would help her a bit so I will.

But first, I must work up all my fuzzy yarn.  This blanket will nominally be for Emmett.

The stripes will go up and down in the finished blanket but only because my initial coast on was too long for a nice five year old boy blanket.

I absolutely love these colours.  They make me so happy.  But the yarn is thick and there is only so much I can do in a day.  It has taken 4 to five days for the first two and I think it will take a bit more for this one, simply because it will be larger.

And then Isaac said he wouldn't mind one and Carter would like one too.

And that was that. I had a wonderful time with just Cassie.  And just a wonderful a time with Carter and before him, Marcus.  I have never had just one on one time.  There has always been a couple at a time and this was just really special.  But Grandma needs a bit of a rest now.  Not really a rest, but the quiet will be nice.

One More to Go. For Now.

And done.  I finished up the big Granny Square blanket using the remainders of the Bernat Blanket yarn for Owen or Emmett.  I have to finish another before I dare to visit again.  The boys are waiting and hoping I will have theirs ready very soon. 

The ends remain to be woven in but that won't take long.  While I was working on this blanket, Cassie was playing with the very few ends of yarn that there were.

She started playing around with finger knitting and was interested in making a blanket for herself.  We watched a video on youtube where the maker was finger knitting of a sort, but honestly, it was complicated looking and would have been a process where you could not have folded up the work and taken it with you.  Cassie asked me about crochet and I showed her a basic single crochet.  It took a bit to find her way but after a row or so, she looks up at me and said, 'I think I have got it, Grandma' and then did a couple more stitches and said, 'this is fun!"  She was surprised and has dreams of a blanket to show mom and dad.  

It was ten o'clock and she was pleading with me to let her keep going, but it really was bedtime.  She certainly was bitten by the bug yesterday and we shall see what happens today.  We are going shopping for more yarn for the third little blanket and she is going to get some more for herself too.  There may be another knitter/maker in the family yet.   

Hoist By my Own Petard

I have been busy this last bit with grandkids and there is more to come.  Cassie is here again, to visit and sew.

About the only thing I have been working on the last few days is a second blanket to use up all the remaining fuzzy yarns. 

I am using the biggest slippy crochet hook I have. I cannot remember the size. Though I have a couple bigger hooks, they seem to be sticky with the yarn and I was not enjoying the process at all.  I switched hooks and even though the fabric is a bit tighter, the overall project is much more fun to work.  The blanket will loosen in the wash.

Note Jeffrey the Duck.

I did buy one more ball of yarn, the blue, to make the blanket up and I am just going to crochet till everything is gone.

It's a fun process but as I said the other day, this is not my usual yarn weight.  It is really too heavy but its coziness is very admired by certain people.  Like Carter, Emmett, Owen and Isaac as well as Marcus and Cassie and even Uncle Keith.  They have all expressed an interest in having one of these.  I may have gotten myself into something big here.  We shall see. Meanwhile, Emmett has claimed Everett's blanket but has agreed that if I make one for him, he will give Everett's back.

Because I am a great believer in giving my kiddies what they ask for, I will probably do it.  And that is just the way the world works.

Feeling Good About Handwork

I got a lot done yesterday.

Everett's blanket is moving right along.  I am on the final colour section where the main colourful mixed bright is interrupted with pops of green and pinky orange ridges.  I am hoping to get it completed today, though it is going to depend on my hands.  I am finding that I can only knit short spurts of this chunky yarn before I need to break.  Still it is moving along and I am pretty sure that my goal of tomorrow by lunch is doable.  I am going to speed the finishing by weaving some of the ends in while I have to take the knitting breaks. 

 The other thing I worked on yesterday was my gauge swatch for Joji Locatelli's Newspaper pullover.  I am practising two colour brioche, particularly the increasing, at the same time as trying to figure out what the gauge will be in this yarn combination.  The yarns are heavier than the yarn specified by Joji but they are both quite soft yarns that have a tendency to thin out when they are worked.  Manufacturers gauge isn't always what we end up with when we have a fabric we like. The two yarns are Incense from Elann, a wool silk and bamboo blend and Alpaca Peru from Diamond Yarns, both discontinued.  The pure alpaca is a slighter yarn than the Incense so I am holding a strand of a pure wool laceweight, Knitpicks Shadow hoping to give the blue a bit of wools durability and bounce back.  I am going to knit a fair sized swatch and I am going to wash them and do a bit of a hang test to see how they will perform together.  I don't want one yarn to sag and the other to sit nicely.  If they sag, fine, but they both should be doing the same thing.  I hope to work on the swatch a bit more today.

Todays work is getting buttons on my lovely green and blue Elton.  

 I have worn it already and it is really the perfect thing for chilly summer mornings.  

The summer weather here means a light sweater over whatever else we wear for the even the nicest of mornings.  I find I am wearing my variation of Threipmuir with my dresses routinely and my Blue Granito is getting a regular wearing too.  I love the way these shorter sweaters work with the dresses, providing just enough warmth till the heat of the day sets in.  

But the weather can be very changeable too.  The last few days have been full winter gear with undershirts, socks, and heavy sweaters being worn, topped with scarves and shawls.  I was really wishing my winter sewing was done so that I could wear my long johns under my warm pants too. 

The blast of cold gave me the chance to appreciate the way things I have chosen to make, colours I have picked to knit and to sew with go together. I love how comfortable my clothes all are to wear and how the fit is so much nicer than anything I could ever buy. I have a very few things that are not handmade any more and when those are gone, the replacements will be handmade too.  (The exception is undergarments.  I am not sewing or otherwise making undergarments.  Nope.  No sirree.) 

This is my joy. It isn't dancing in the streets though sometimes it makes me feel like I could do that.  It isn't shouting out to the world that I did this, though sometimes I have on this blog. This is quiet contentment and deep satisfaction.  My outside feels like it matches my inside for the first time in a long time. 

Bernat Blanket

I kept working on Everett's blanket today.   

I am just on the second section of green stripe pink stripe green stripe before going back into the colour pattern I was doing at first which was 2 sets of the lace repeat with no garter row and then a garter ridge of the green or the pink.  

This very chunky yarn is working up fast and that suits me just fine.  Wee Everett is already half a year old and grandma hasn't made him anything yet. Bad Grandma.  Still I love this project.  It could be a blanket or a cuddle blankie after a bath, it is that soft and comfy feeling.   I haven't done the washing test yet but I have a piece of the hot pink that I will do a quick crochet swatch with tomorrow and will toss it in with the last load of towels. And then straight into the dryer to see what the worst wash and dry conditions will do.  

 I hope to have this ready by Thursday afternoon.  I want to deliver it to my wee sweet thing so he can start using it right away.  

 

in spaint

After Frittering

It was a busy past few days.  But absolutely marvelous.  Marcus was with me and it was wonderful.  We laughed, we cried (about Casper, his special kitty), we danced, well he did and with had a very good time doing and talking about all sorts of things. 

Along the way, while he was busy doing something else, I managed to finish all the ends on my sweater.  The photo is fuzzy but the sweater is good.  Better than good.  I just needs to find some buttons.   

Forgive the fuzziness.  Marcus took the photo and was laughing while he did so.  Eight year old giggling means wiggles. The sweater is wonderful and I put my arm out to show you the fit of it.  It is the exact perfect amount of ease.  And the yarn is something else.  The yarn is two shades of Fleece Artist 2/8 BFL and the pattern is Joji Locatelli's Elton.

That left me time to get a good start on the blanket for Everett.  I wasn't sure about Marcus' yarn choice but you know what?  I kind of like it.

 The yarn is the giant balls of Bernat Blanket Brights.  I could put the colour choice down to Marcus, but we both just had to have the brilliant multi colour.  We would have liked to have the brilliant blue for the ridges in the pattern along with my favourite neon green, but it was not to be.  We will get by with the lighter highlighter yellow green and the hot pink.  It will be a plain feather and fan pattern with two stitches either side to set the edge.   

It is wonderfully soft and is knitting up much easier than I thought it would. I actually think it would be really great used as a towelish blanket for after baths but I will have to wash my sample to see if it holds up. No matter what else it is, it will be eye poppingly bright.   

Frittering

It was another full day of knitting, though if I am honest, when I say full day, it was really only a couple of hours.  It really means that I spent most of the day reading and frittering away my time.  

Frittering away time might be a waste but if humanity never frittered away our time, we would never have advanced beyond stone tools.  Someone back in the mists of time, was just sitting, and thinking. They had enough frittering time to notice that the sharp edge of a stone could cut things and they wondered if they could make a stone sharp enough to cut too.  And someone, somewhere in time, had a moment to notice that when they twisted fibres left in a bush by a passing sheep or bison, or from a broken branch of a tree, that they became stronger.  Never underestimate the power of frittering away time.  

My frittering was mostly connected to spinning and the debate of do I want to join the Tour de Fleece this year.  I tried last year, but in hindsight, I was not even close to healthy enough to participate and this year, I think I will spend my time getting my sewing begun for winter.    And my knitting.  Some fairly serious work needs to happen on my sock drawer.  

I did let my mind wander while I was knitting too.  While that was going on, I got a fair bit done on my green Elton sweater.  I completed the flawed sleeve so now both are done.

 I also completed one of the buttonbands. 

One more button band to go and the neckband, neither of which will take to  long, so I expect to finish this lovely thing up sometime today or tomorrow.

 If I keep my head focussed on the knitting and don't fritter too much.

Sigh

I spent my whole day knitting today.  It was great and I was getting very close to the end of the second sleeve till I noticed this.   

One sleeve with decreases neatly marked and a second sleeve almost done with nary a decrease done at all.  Sigh.  

I pulled back several colour sections, but not all to the beginning of the decreases.  If I increase just a wee bit more often, ie, every section not just alternating four row sections, I will catch up and no one will be the wiser.

It won't take long at all till I am back in the groove and the sleeve will be done.  Then it is only the neck and button bands that need knitting and the sweater will be mine.

 The really great thing?  I gave it a quick try on before I picked up stitches for the second sleeve and it looks really good.  I think this could be one for the ages.

Tomorrow is also going to have some sewing.  There is a piece of fabric, a lovely apple/acid sort of green and a matching floral piece that is another of the colours that I would love to wear. The delay sewing this has been will the plain green be a jumper, a dress or pants?  I bought it for pants, but then I thought my pinafore would be the thing and then I thought a dress, but with the linen that is on the way, I think I have enough dresses.  I finally made a decision today.  

It will be none of the above.  A skirt.  It will be a skirt.  Maybe.  I am a bit wibbly on decisions.

Delivered

The sweater was delivered for the last day of school.  He loved the pockets.  

However, I really wish I had knit one size bigger and at least an inch longer on the body and sleeves.  This guy is growing so fast.