Blanket Done, Hat Started

Well, the blanket is done (bound off at pt on Friday, 23 Dec!), except for working in the ends and taking a photo. I really will have to do that! Everyone at pt asked about it on Tuesday! It is still very strange to have so many men asking about my knitting projects.

Anne wisely suggested I make "Steph, the Yarn Harlot's" hat for my next project. It is her quick and easy last minute gift hat pattern, as featured on her blog. It is just a K2,P2 pattern, with the appropriate decreases at the appropriate times, so very easy to do while out of the house. I am using the navy yarn from the blanket project, and size 8 needles. I might add a single stripe in it, of red, or white, or maybe the red,white and blue variegated yarn we have? It will go into Anne's stash of give-away hats when it is completed.

I am thinking about trying a pair of socks sometime. So many people seem to love knitting them. They are so portable, too! And, since I now know that I can handle the required dpn's, that isn't a factor. I guess time will tell!

Next time, a photo of the totally completed (ends woven in) blanket!

Anne's Dish Cloth

As promised ages ago, here is the dish cloth that I was going to finish for Anne, but ended up ripping out and starting fresh on. I worked on it while she was in the hospital during/after her surgery. The colors are a little off, I think. As in, they look a bit different in real life!

Let's see, cotton yarn, I don't remember the color or the brand--Peaches and Cream, maybe? The pattern I do remember, it is the Bee Stitch. It came out pretty well, I thought. I found it interesting the way it striped--so clear on the sides and more mishmashy in the middle. Strange things that these variegated yarns do!

Next up will be the baby blanket!

Blankey Almost Done

I haven't taken much time for knitting or anything like that the past few days, but I do continue to work on the baby blanket during pt. I did spend a little bit of time on it Wednesday evening, finishing up the white stripe, and starting the red for the final stripe. I like to go ahead and get a little start on the new color, as it is more awkward there at pt to get it started. I made good progress yesterday at pt, and am working on the final bits---the few rows of garter stitch that edge it and keep it from rolling up. I guess I will finish the last couple of rows at pt today and bind it off.

I guess I will have to take a picture later and put it up sometime, so you can see it!

Blue, Blue, Blue

I won't say I am blue! That is the color of the large---double-sized---stripe on the blankey brigade blanket, and that stripe is done! I did take it along to pt on Friday and worked on it till a quick rough measure (fold in half, is the blue as wide as the white and red together? Yes, then stop!) showed that it was surely 10 inches long. I will have to be sure to officially measure it and do a row of white so it will be ready for pt on Monday.

I did think about working on it for a little while today, but decided not to. I know that it will get done next week, at pt. Might as well go with that, finish it there, and let those interested see it finished there.

I really need to get back to that dishcloth, the one with the evidently overly dyed yarn, and get it finished. I have been a bit headachy though, and the dye/chemical smell bugs me enough not to want to work on it when I am already headachy. If need be, I guess I could always give it all a quick wash in the sink and let it air dry? Still, a nuisance that I would rather avoid!

I still have to photograph the second dishcloth/next item completed. I really will get that done and show it eventually! And I still have Pooh Bear quilting to do, that I truly kind of forgot about in the midst of all that has been going on. I really do have to get my act together.

An Interlude of Laughter

Okay, we take a break from our regularly scheduled descriptions of bouts of knitting, etc, to bring you a hilarious posting from our beloved Yarn Harlot!

Yarn Harlot

(Edited to add: My apologies. My mentor has gone to bed, and so I am unable to fix what I have messed up. I tried to get fancy. The link to the Yarn Harlot's blog actually used to work. However, it was in a very light color. I got the bright idea of trying to fix it by myself. I changed some colors, but it seems not the one I was interested in! To make matters worse, I can no longer get the link to work, despite all my best efforts. So, it will have to wait till another time. I guess we all still know how to copy and paste, so it can still work. I am so embarrassed!)

(Edit 2: Okay, I came up with a partial solution, and the link works. I am not as hopeless as I had begun to think I was! Hurrah!)

Anne came into the computer room to visit, and I had "tuned in" to see what the harlot had blogged about this time. Towards the end, we hit the funniest bit, and after 10 minutes of trying to laugh as quietly as possible, so as not to wake Mike, in bed on the other side of the house, and laughing further after hearing the sound of Anne spitting her mouth-full of pop back into her cup---a good 10 minutes passed before we were finally able to speak without bursting into laughter once more!

I did work on the baby blankey again today, as Anne made it back to pt today. Although, we arrived, Steve found that she still isn't totally over her bug, and he asked "why are you here?" He took it easy on her, and he decreed it is best for her to miss the appt they made for her for Thursday (they did that in an effort to maintain that 3 times a week deal). So, we have a free day tomorrow for her to work on getting better and get rested up, and I can continue doing the things I have been doing the past few days!

Oh, back to the blanket. I am making good progress on the blue stripe, and it will soon be ready to start on white again. Since that is the case, I will be sure to measure and knit as needed to get the white going before Anne goes back to pt on Friday.

Blankey Continues Yet Again

Well, I am several inches into the blue section now. When last I wrote, I had done one row of the blue to get it started, so it would be ready to go for pt. I have worked on the blue during the Wednesday and Friday pt sessions, and am making good progress. Since this section is much bigger (twice as big!) as the other sections, I am not working on it at home. I get a lot of comments and questions on it at pt. It is rather amazing the number of men who ask about it. One thinks it would drive him crazy to try to do it. One asked I was doing "knit one, purl one or knit one, purl two!" I guess that says something that guys even know those phrases?

A couple of people today were talking about it, and mentioning how neat it is to see it getting bigger and bigger each time Anne and I are in there. I figure in the long run, it is good therapy for everyone! I enjoy the knitting, and talking to people, and they are enjoying watching, talking about it, and it gives them a bit of distraction! I think just about all the staff--including the big boss---and most of the patients, have asked what I am knitting. Who would have thought so many would be interested?

Anne made a really cute dishcloth/washcloth today. It has an animal on it, I won't tell which, since she might blog about it herself later? She did have a good idea, she said there are patterns with other animals too, and it would be cute to do them in a different kind of yarn and make a baby blanket with them. I agree! It would really be awfully cute!

I hope to have more time for knitting and quilting before too long. I really don't like to take time from the things that have to be done right now though---shopping to be finished, boxes to be mailed, presents to be wrapped, Christmas cards to be addressed and sent, sun room to be rearranged, elusive item to be found for Anne, etc. I do hope to have it all done and the tree up in plenty of time to be able to relax a little bit before Christmas! I know in any case that even if that is not the case, that week after Christmas is usually a really good one for vegetating with good books, knitting, tv, etc! Hurrah!

Blankey Continues

I am still working on the PT/Blankey Brigade blanket. I am doing it in 5 inch wide stripes, using the red, white and blue as mentioned before. I can't get the whole 5 inches done at a pt session--I guess things are too distracting there? As usual, I finished off the white at home last night, and I went ahead and did one row of the blue so it is already started and ready to go.

I did find, in finishing the white stripe, that a yarn cake from Anne's ball winder is just the right amount for one of these 5 inch stripes. I had just a little bit of yarn left when I finished the stripe. Always a good thing to know! The skeins of red and white are huge, so it is handy to have a cake wound and take that instead of the big skein.

I haven't gotten any other work done at home as far as knitting or quilting goes. The sun room has been keeping me busy, and the impending Christmas time has too. I remind myself that it will all (both!) be done eventually and I will have much more time to work on things!

Knitting at Physical Therapy

I am briefly skipping over the next completed project, since I don't have a photo yet!

I don't remember if I mentioned the cotton dishcloth I started, that I had thought I would take along to physical therapy to work on. I changed my mind about that, as the yarn seems to be excessively dyed, and residue is left on my fingers when I work on it. So, I decided that a better project would be the baby blanket I had started knitting ages ago for the Blankey Brigade. It got put aside for Anne's blankey, and the Pooh costume, etc. I have now taken to it pt twice, and it is coming along nicely. It is just a simple stockinette, with a border of garter stitch. It will be striped, red, white, blue, white, and red again. It makes a great project to take along, as it is so simple to work on and no pattern to deal with. I am doing it on circular needles, because of the width.

The Christmas stockings for Christine and Michelle will wait till next year. I didn't want to mail them and especially not overseas, just in case they should get lost in the mail. It would be too heartbreaking. They both have stockings to use till they come back this spring, so they won't be stockingless at Christmas! It should be a lot of fun to knit them!

Dishcloth

Well, I had thought I would start a dishcloth, and would have it to take to work on when I take Anne for pt over the next days/weeks/??? times. I checked the book for a pattern that wasn't too complicated to do---only because I didn't want to have to be constantly referring to the book, while out and about. I found a nice one, and chose yarn that actually was more fitting than I realized. Anne was the one who decided it was a nice choice, it is white, blue and dark green, well, with some lighter green too---all a variegated cotton yarn---Lion cotton. The pattern is Crocus Bulb. I don't know that I think it looks like crocus bulbs, but I guess we have to allow poetic license?

I got it cast on and have gotten a good start on it---12 rows or so already? I don't think I will take it out with me though. It is one thing that the yarn seems rougher than the Peaches and Cream-- or is it Sugar and Cream?-- that I have used before. However, I noticed when I stopped that I had dye residue on my fingers. From the dark green, it looked like. I imagine it was just one of those things, and perhaps the excess dye accounts for the feeling of the yarn. I am sure it will feel lovely once it is washed? However, I will keep it as something to work on at home, where I can wash my hands with unscented soap!

Next time, I will post a photo of the second dish cloth I did, which was the one I finished for Anne, done in the Bee Stitch Pattern. It came out quite nicely, and I really like the yarn color more than I thought I would! It was my next completed project, anyway!

Comment

No photos today, or really anything new. One thing that was interesting, that I didn't mention about Michelle's costume. It has to do with my increasing abilities with knitting!

In doing the collar for the top, I used dpns for the first time! I was amazed at how well it went. It felt a little bit awkward the first round, but after that was fine. I can really see getting into that!

I have read a number of knitting books, some of them recommended by Jo! Thanks to them, I have become braver in things I will try, and have learned a lot. I am quite good at tinking, and almost always do Anne's tinking for her. She has a hard time seeing well enough to even begin to take care of that herself. I have even learned how to go back and correct a mistake (sometimes!) without having to rip it all out!

My biggest or at least most tedious repair job was when I was working on Anne's blankey. I found an error many many rows back. It was something that she definitely wanted fixed, even if I didn't! Even if no one else ever noticed, we would. It would have taken forever to tink, but I had read about life lines, and had also read enough and retained enough to have an idea of what loops to pick up. So, what I actually did was take a smaller size circular needle, and threaded it through the stitches a row below the mistake. The worst part of it all was the basketweave pattern in the blanket. It was easy to see which loop to pick up on the stockinette, but harder with the purl side. I did manage to pick up each stitch, although some of the ones from the purl sides were backwards. Easy enough to correct that though. Once the circular was in place, I madly ripped back, and saved an immense amount of time.

I almost forgot, I have used circular needles for knitting in the round now too---although right now, I can't for the life of me remember what I was knitting? Anne had read about the little loop thing you need to do when your circulars are longer than the thing being knitted, which works amazingly well. Okay, I had to ask Anne and she figured it out!!!! The pants for Michelle's costume started out with circulars, knit in the round. I totally forgot! The pattern called for using circulars till the point where the pants are split for the legs. I can't believe I forgot. Oh my, too much going on, and I was in such a rush to get it all done at the time too. Anyway, that was my first time using circulars for something other than straight knitting (when regular needles weren't long enough!)

So, thank you, Jo, for kindly suggesting some really good knitting books! I have really learned a lot!!!!!