Two Weeks Later

My latest projects:


I only knit the hats for this set & the one below. Dee, a member of our K4 group, knit the scarves. Both are double yarn on big needles so I made the hats with the same doubled yarn on a size 15 circular. I used Quaker Stitch (knit 3 rows, purl 3 rows when worked in the round) to give them some texture & an every round decrease to make a flat top.




This set started with a beautiful ball of yarn that shaded from greens to golds & back again. The hat is the same style as the ones above but it left only about 1/3rd to 1/4th of ball when I finished. I made a narrow scarf with double yarn overs every six rows both to make the scarf as long as I could & to allow one end to be slipped between the elongated stitches to fasten it around the neck. Necessity is the mother of invention.. {g}


Above & below are the two latest of the knit lap robes for the Veteran's Hospital. I'm working on another one now with five strands of thin coned yarn in black (2), navy, purple & royal blue. Held together, the yarns approximately equal an aran weight & the resulting knit is pretty. Only problem is that with five cones of yarn being attached the project doesn't transport very easily so it has to stay by the chair in the front bedroom where I watch TV so it's going slowly.


In other adventures, DH's sweater is coming along nicely now that I'm reworking it on size 13 needles. The body is complete & after using a 3-needle bind-off on the shoulders & working the neck ribbing, I've picked up stitches around the armhole for the first sleeve & am about half way down to the cuff. It has gone faster this time because I'm working it in plain old stockinette instead of the aran patterns that I had to frog.

What I've Been Up To This Week

First of all, another lap robe for the Veterans' Hospital. This one has shades of rust & orange at one end & the rest in various creams. We have a lot of creams & whites that have been donated, so I'm trying to use some of them up while keeping the color scheme interesting. You'll notice that one of my favorite models, Max, is almost coordinated with this one.


I had a request from someone at the Senior Center for a baby hat in yellow for a new grand-daughter. So I went back to the hat pattern I used a couple years ago that looks darling on babies.


Sorry about the lousy photo, (I snapped it at the last minute before heading to the center on Thursday) but the point of the hat continues up and looks like this one from a couple years ago:



I think I should probably knit a few more of them as there have been a number of new grandparents & great-grandparents at the center recently.

And finally, a decent shot of the sweater for Tom that I'm going to be frogging. The re-do is going to be straight stockinette.


I also have another lap-robe on the needles, probably a little over half done.

I Thought I Was Short A Couple Projects

When I was rearranging my knitting bags (yes, plural) this morning in preparation of this afternoon's K4 group, I found a few items that I knit during December.


This hat combines a medium grey worsted with a long color change fun fur in black & grey. Only problem was that I ran out of the fun fur just before the last couple rows so I used some red so it looks like Rudolph's nose on top.


This hat combines a dark blue worsted with a ribbon yarn in blue, green & gold. I used biroche stitch as it's bold enough to show up with the combination of colors.


And this sadly is what took up a good bit of my time - a sweater for DH that unfortunately is headed for the "frog pond". I had him try it on at this point before I started the sleeves & it's way too small. I could have sworn that the last time I knit this pattern that I'd used size 11 needles with a double strand of worsted, but it will be reknit on size 13s and I'm probably going to leave out all the aran patterns & make it straight stockinette. Once again, I'm not sure why the photo is so dark - it shows up a lot lighter in IrfanView - but the patterns are horizontal areas of a 4x4 basketweave, a 2x4 shifting rib, trinity stitch, a woven K2, P2 travelling trellis and double moss, all divided by 6 rows of garter stitch. (sob)

Happy New Year (A Day Late)

Here we are at the start of a new year & a new decade. I haven't kept track of what I've been knitting & crocheting, but for the most part there are photos of my projects in previous blog entries. What I did keep track of - over there in the left sidebar - were the books I've read this year. I missed hitting #150 by 95 pages on New Year's Eve, so that book became the first book of the new year.

Most of my projects last year were lap robes that went to the Ann Arbor Veteran's Hospital and I started out this year by finishing one that I cast on last week. I'm not sure why the picture is so dark - maybe the camera picked up Boomer's white fur & thought it didn't need the auto-flash? - but the lap robe is a lot like the other ones I've made. Size 13 needles & various amounts of worsted weight acrylic yarn. I tried a different color arrangement starting with the darkest green followed by the lightest green and then made the darks progressively lighter & the lights progressively darker until the last two stripes are almost identical. Not sure how well I like the finished look so probably will fall back on going from dark to light or from dark to light to dark again.



The other two end of the year projects were hat & scarf sets made with Bernat Boucle yarn. Because the yarn is so textured, I used a Quaker Stitch pattern for the hats & a simple garter stitch for the scarves. The hats have a strand of worsted worked in with the boucle to make them warmer - that accounts for the grey hat being slightly darker than the matching scarf.






It seems like I should have more to show for the past month, but unless I find other projects while packing my knitting bag to go to the Sr. Center tomorrow that's going to be it. I did spend a fair amount of time transcribing cemetery inscriptions from Sullivan Co., NY, for my genealogy site. I think there are 45 cemeteries from the county on line now. If you have ancestors in that area or really anywhere in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York or Michigan, check out the site. There are over 5000 files on line from those states and a few others.