Thursday, January 10, 2008

Baby blanket

Greetings and Dear Cynthia,

Well, I have half of our Christmas tree dismantled, and hopefully I'll get the rest of our Christmas decorations put away today. It's a task which reminds me of weaving in the ends of my knitting. I'm always glad when it's done, but I have a hard time motivating myself to do it...

I needed a mindless project to carry around, so I went to the stash and pulled out eight skeins of acrylic discount store yarn. It was given to me from a former knitter, and it's a lot of sport weight yarn, so I decided to make a baby blanket with it, holding the yarn doubled. It is an Evelyn Clark pattern, and I actually saw a blanket similar to this when I was out and about one day, and I was trying to figure out how the corners were made, having such a large garter stitch border. (Aside from the wide border, it looks just like the standard dishcloth pattern, yes?) In any case, SHORT ROWS! This blanket is going to be a rectangle, and the second and third corners will be made using short rows. I'm just about ready to make the second corner... I'll let you know how that goes...

Here is one of the Christmas gifts I received this year:Isn't this little bag adorable? Some friends of ours have a daughter who is a junior in high school, and she loves to sew and has really gotten into making bags. I love it! I carry it with me all the time! LOVE IT! Perfect for knitting, and the top narrows just enough so that things don't fall out of it all the time.

And finally, I finished all of the little circles motifs for my SuperNova pullover. Instead of pinning the pieces together, I decided to pin them all down onto my ironing board to hold them in place as I sew them together. (I tried pinning them together initially, but everything ended up shifting all over the place, and the first circle ended up being lopsided once sewn in -- so hopefully if I stand over my ironing board and leave things pinned to the board as I go, I'll avoid that problem? Hypothetically, anyway...)

AND, I sold my chemistry book on ebay for $51.00. YAY!

I'm thinking about purchasing the Hanami pattern. I have 900 yards of lace weight which I bought for the Mystery Stole last summer, but I didn't end up knitting that because I was too busy with a class...and then I decided that I really like the Hanami pattern more than the Swan Lake one... Hmmm... Any thoughts? Pattern calls for 880 yards...so might be a close finish...

Have a great Thursday!
Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)

5 comments:

Sus said...

Brilliant idea pinning the sweater together on your ironing board!!! You're just so resourceful, aren't you? :-)

I love the Hanami stole! I vote for that one! (sorry, I had to send that afghan to my niece, but if you'd ever like to send me a stole... ;-)

Kitty Mommy said...

Just don't sew the sweater to the ironing board cover. Yeah, and please don't ask how I know that could be a problem ;o)

Cindy G said...

Oh Hanami! I think it's one of the most brilliant new lace patterns I've seen.
Wonder if you could post a question on one of the Ravelry forums about how the yardage works out for people, maybe it's already been discussed...

Evelyn Clark is also a design genius.

And I know exactly what you mean about the last ends of the Christmas decorations. It is just like weaving in ends.

Rebecca said...

I haven't even started taking down my decorations! Argh! As for weaving in ends, I don't like doing that either so I spit-splice as much as possible :-)

Hanami! Hanami!

allisonmariecat said...

The Hanami stole is absolutely gorgeous! I vote for that one. Plus, there's no way it'll be a boring knit with all the variation in the lace pattern.

I think one of Debbie Bliss's books has pretty much that baby blanket pattern, only square. The rectangle with short rows is a really cool way to do it.

You're so smart with your pinning SuperNova to the ironing board.

Love the Christmas bag! Happy New Year!