Tag: knitting for love

Posted in knitting

Cast-On Monday: Time for Mittens

Posted on by Laura Kate

Knitting mittens is like eating tortilla chips with salsa. They go so fast and are so much fun that it’s hard to know when to stop.

When my grandson was a toddler, I think I made four or five mittens in the same yarn. I was operating on the theory that, since they are easily lost, spare mittens would come in handy.

This time around I am using the purple and pink Elision yarn for the third time. That’s extreme stash-busting in my world. The skeins were purchased for Lu’s simple sweater, to complement a hand-painted merino wool skein she had selected.

Earlier this year, I added a pale blue color to make her a balaclava.

Friday Finish: Child Balaclava

That left a full skein of purple and a partial of pink. I am using a basic pattern to get my stitch count and proportions right……

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zen-little-fingers-and-toes-part-1-mittens

…….. but substituting a different stranded pattern: a favorite from 750 Knitting Stitches published by St. Martin’s Griffin, New York.

Diamonds in the Snow has a 6-stitch repeat. It works perfectly with my cast-on count of 36 stitches. In colors selected, the pattern looks more like Posies in the Meadow.

Now if I can only use up both colors at the same time.

Posted in knitting

Works in Progress Wednesday

Posted on by Laura Kate

For the past several weeks I have had been knitting on two projects.

Let’s start with the Arrowhead Lace Interrupted cardigan.

As of last week, this project has been sent to Time Out. Here is where I am so far.

It’s looking pretty good. However, during the last repeat of the arrowhead lace sequence, I discovered pattern row 1 was short by two loops. And in my efforts to “fix” it, I lost three more loops!. Gah!

I’m having a much better time knitting the Biome hat. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/biome-hat The biggest challenge for me has been reading a chart that has 120 stitches per row with no pattern repeats.

After struggling to keep track of where I was on the long row, I decided to stack the two sheets together, held on a clipboard with a purple strip of paper to mark the current row. This proved to be much more manageable.

When I reach the end of the first sheet, I simply insert the second under the purple place holder. Using this practice, I easily completed 20 rows of the 50-row chart.

Here’s a better look at the Biome, in sunlight.

I’m calling the hat Summer Smoke, because the North Woods of Wisconsin was blanketed in smoke from Canada while I was visiting this summer. I purchased the yarn at North Wind Fiber and Book store, in Spooner, WI.

I think this hat looks pretty cool so far. It will go to Henry on his birthday in November. I expect there will be requests from other family members for Biome hats once they get a look at it.

Posted in knitting

Another Friday Finish – update

Posted on by Laura Kate

After receiving this photograph yesterday, I simply had to update my post.

It has been a delight to make this charming sweater for my grand-daughter. Lu chose her yarn very well. It’s the variegated one spun from merino wool and dyed by an indie dyer. Its quality shines through in the finished garment.

Here is a link to my earlier post where I wrote about the pattern.

https://wordpress.com/post/dailyfiberfun.wordpress.com/6380

It was very well written, no errors found. I made a few adjustments to accommodate a lighter weight yarn and adjust the measurements to fit my giftee. This sweater is sized halfway between the size 4 and 6, per pattern instructions. I also chose to make the neckline and button bands wider. It took just about all of 3 balls of 100 gram dk weight yarn. – I’d guess 650 yards.

I had a lot of fun experimenting with a gradual color change as I knit up the sleeves from the cuff. Once I got a color sequence that pleased me, I repeated it on the sweater body.

Even setting in the sleeves went great. I was telling Bill that this sweater ended up so well I should retire from sweater knitting – like an athlete who desires to quit at the top of her game.

Naw, I’m not gonna do that. It would be a shame to disappoint the fans. ; )

Posted in knitting

Cast-on Monday (and hopefully cast-off too)

Posted on by Laura Kate

Spring is in the air and on the ground! Although we had frost on the roof this morning, it is warming rapidly. I was in St. Louis for the spring equinox. When I got home last Thursday, there were hundreds of grape hyacinths blooming in the yard and the flower bed.

While in St. Louis, we visited a LYS located in a suburb. We had promised Lu that she could pick out the yarn for her next sweater. Many thanks to the tolerant staff at Yarn Com while the little one whirled through the shop, looking at and picking up every skein that attracted her attention. She carried this on while talking softly to herself. Finally, she triumphently presented me with this hand-painted merino wool skein in her favorite shades of purple and pink.

Alas, the label was torn off and lost, so I don’t know the maker.

I paired it with some lavender Cascade 220 and a soft pink blended wool in Elysion by Cascade, quickly and quietly moving to the register before she added to the stack.

The washed swatch is very soft.

On Friday I searched Ravelry and chose a pattern that fit this yarn quite well.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sweet–simple-cardigan

C2013 Coats & Clark http://www.redheart.co.uk

The other item I’m working is a scarf. It has many attributes, including travel knitting, mindless knitting, stashbuster and quick knit.

The brown yarn is a wool-acrylic blend leftover from Christmas sock making. The gray and white yarns are 100% alpaca. I was given the multi-hued natural colored skein from knitting buddy Kathy. The source of the white is forgotten and unknown.

To keep from being too bored I played around with different striping patterns. To achieve the diagonal stripe, you decrease at the end of the right-side rows and increase at the end of the wrong-side rows. I’ll knit until I run out of the shortest yarn. That could happen today.

Do you have a project in process that is inspired by Springtime?