Is it Spring yet?

I'm into the second strip of color for the second half of the blankie:



It's actually not taking too terribly long to knit, but it sure feels like it's been forever!

I gave up on adjusting the EZ Practically Seamless Baby Sweater so that it might fit E. I may try again at a later date, but for now it's off the drawing board. In the larger size, that is. I still intend to make at least one in the called-for size. I might make two for the twin girls of a friend in Iowa. Maybe.

I thought I'd try to 'write' a pattern for a decorative little sweater from scratch for my E. I'm not sure whether it'll actually be my pattern if it works out--I am loosely following the Handy Book of Sweater Patterns instructions, but adjusting them because the smallest size the book has is a 26" chest. My little girl would be swimming in that! So I am adjusting the smallest size and also adding a couple of elements--a stitch design from the Big Book of Knitting Stitches, a minor adjustment to the neckline, etc. At what point does something become your own? I may never know! :-)

And now, I'm headed back to the blankie.

Almost halfway there!

This is the first strip of the blanket for E. I cast on last night for the other half, which will be striped -- two colors, 5 stripes. I'm so anxious to finish the second part because I'm scarily excited to seam the pieces using the turquoise color!!

I realized that my knitting has involved a fair amount of pink in the past few months. Lots of pink. I'm not a huge fan of pink, so I'm not exactly sure how this happened, though I suppose it has something to do with a certain 3 year old girl...

On to the second strip!!

Minimal Log Cabin Progress

I like knitting the log cabin blanket much more than I thought I would! It's strange... It feels like I'm making a lot of progress each time I switch colors, but the blanket is still so very small. I enjoy the feeling of something being accomplished, even if it's a false feeling!!


As for my daughter's blanket, it's definitely growing. I can't wait to finish the first strip--the pink--so I can at least knit a different color for a while. She's very excited about her new blankie and I want to give it to her asap! I'm not posting pics of it because it's boring. Boring boring boring. Cute, but boring.

I also cast on (again) for the EZ Practically Seamless Baby Sweater from the Knitter's Almanac. I worked feverishly to calculate how many stitches I should cast on, how many to increase, how many for sleeves, fronts, back, etc etc etc so that it will hopefully fit E. She's just over 3 years old, but she's skinny as all get out. Skinny and tall. Couldn't we all be so lucky?! :-) So I cast on again last night and I'm knitting a row here and there. I hope my math was correct because I think E would look so adorable in it! It's a beautiful little lacy sweater.

In non-knitting news, we flipped the trampoline over after removing the posts that hold the safety net up. What a pain that was! It's still cold here and that wind sure does have a vicious bite! We couldn't stand the white trash appearance anymore, though. It still looks kinda icky, what with the posts and netting underneath the trampoline, but at least the thing's in an upright position. And of course, we learned a valuable lesson: If you live in Chicago and wish to keep a trampoline as a toy in your yard, you will require at least a few bags of sand to hold said trampoline in it's place during gale force winds and unheard of gusts.

Bye for now!

Chicago winter sucks.

That would be our 13' trampoline that actually made it into our back neighbor's yard on top of a couple of his evergreens. This photo is the 'after' view. I admit that it had to be funny as hell to watch us struggle to get the thing rolled back into our yard. That sucker is heavy and awkward!! The problem was, the wind (40mph and more) was working against us. Literally. We're sure the tramp is completely dead, not just the outer rails that hold the netting up. They're trashed. But it looks like the frame of the bouncy portion is all bent up, too.

Bummer.

As for knitting, there hasn't been a whole lot of worthy progress. I'm chugging away at the really large blanket for my daughter, but not quite half done with the solid pink strip. I'm bored to tears knitting it, but at the same time I'm excited to get it done and crochet that neato contrast color in!! Hope to post progress photos soon!

Ribbit... Ribbit...

I'm afraid both of the projects I was actually making progress on have been tossed to the frog pond. I messed up somewhere at the underarm joining of the EZ baby sweater and that completely messed up the gull stitch pattern... I'm still novice enough that I have no idea how to frog it back to the point I messed up, not to mention I don't really know where (or what) I messed up, so even if I could muster the courage to rip back, I wouldn't know when to stop.

The other ribbit is the hearts blanket. I decided today that there are many factors I just can't live with about the project. 1) It's bound to be WAAAAAY too small to do any good for my daughter and I don't want to spend $100 or more to get enough yarn to make it bigger. 2) It's kinda looking like a glorified dishcloth to me. 3) The seed stitch pattern has gotten completely under my skin and I can't take the slow progress anymore. 4) While I really do love this yarn (Rowan Wool/Cotton) I don't like it for a blanket. Not this blanket, anyway. I think it'd be much better used in a sweater or two.

So I started on a different blanket for dd. She kinda helped me design it... It's going to use up a fair amount of cheap acrylic yarn (Lion Pound of Love) I've had in the stash for a year or so, and I think it's gonna be cute as hell! I totally copied the idea from Alison at The Blue Blog, only using different colors, yarns, and making up a pattern myself instead of buying the Sarah Dallas Knitting book. :-)



You can't see it in this photo, but the blanket will be two pieces--solid pink on one side, striped purple and white on the other, joined in the middle with a turquoise. The same turquoise color will be used for a simple crochet stitch around the entire border of the blanket.

If this one for my daughter actually makes it to completion, I plan on making another in a blue, turquoise, and white combo with a red contrast crochet border for my youngest son. My oldest son has agreed to the Log Cabin Blanket, but I'm having a hard time locating all the different colors he wants me to use... I wanted to use Wool Ease since it's cheap for the yardage, on sale here locally, and is supposedly available in lots of colors... that I can't find. :-(

Too many projects

As always seems to happen to me, I have startitis and get too many things going at once, so all the projects suffer V-E-R-Y slow progress.

Over the weekend, I did make a little progress on E's Hearts blanket, but not much. I think it would be easier and more fun to knit this blanket if I knew how to knit continental so the seed stitch would go faster and smoother.


I made some big progress on the Practically Seamless Baby Sweater from EZ's Knitter's Almanac. I'm using this attempt as a practice run for a larger one to be done for E using something like my Knit Picks Andean Silk or another wool blend yarn. I'll have to adjust for sizing, so I wanted to be sure I could manage the lace pattern before diving in with real yarn. This one is Bernat Softee Baby in lilac. I really like this pattern and think it's a perfect introduction into lace knitting, primitive as it is. You gotta start somewhere, right?! I'm anxious to finish it and go from there on sizing for E. I am hoping that I can just knit the exact pattern using a larger gauge yarn/needle combo and get something that will fit her, but I'm just not sure yet.

I also got started on T's blanket. He had originally asked for a pirate blanket, then a striped blanket, then he saw a picture of the Log Cabin Blanket in the Mason*Dixon Knitting book and really lit up at it. That's what I'm working on for him, using Lion Brand Wool Ease in multiple colors. I can't even imagine knitting an entire blanket of garter stitch in a cotton yarn, as is called for in the pattern. My hands would break off!!

Back to work... Gotta finish at least one project sometime soon!!

Neutral Baby Gift Set

The last piece of the baby gift set is seamed and ready to go. I finished the Debbie Bliss boatneck sweater this morning and decided last minute to add a striped pocket because the winter white color was way too boring!



A close up of the pocket:



I'm not happy with how the buttons worked out, but it's not a big enough deal for me to tear them out and seam the neck further. I just wouldn't do the same thing if I made another. I do really love the pocket, though. In my opinion, the colors are bold but not too gender-specific. I hope the parents think so, too!

And here is the complete package to be given to our favorite pediatrician at our next visit:




Specs on the boatneck sweater:
Pattern: Boat neck sweater from the Baby Knits for Beginners book by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: TLC Essentials in winter white for the sweater and TLC Heathers in teal and mulberry for the striped pocket.
Used size 8 addi turbos on this one and got roughly 4.75 spi. I made a few adjustments to the pattern such as: added k2p2 ribbing at hems and cuffs, added buttons to neckline, and added a small striped pocket. I followed the 6-9 month sizing and personally think this sweater would almost fit my large 17 month old. The sleeves might be short on him, but otherwise I think it would fit!

Now I need to get back to work on the hearts blanket for E!! She's getting a bit impatient, asking several times a day whether or not I'm done with her blanket for her bed!!

Oh, and did I forget to mention that I bought more yarn?? I plan on making two Essential Tweed sweaters from the Garter Belt website... one for myself and one for a friend!