Baby Surprise Jacket!

Sam approves of my self dyed sock yarn. Soon there will be new socks for my mom.

And here I present - dah dah! The Baby surprise jacket!

I think Elizabeth Zimmermann was a genius. Look at this little jacket's design. Who would think of something like that? Only a genius!

Unfortunately the colors are not accurate. This is a lovely yellow and orange cotton yarn. I enjoyed knitting this so much, even though I don't know who will be lucky enough to wear it. Or do I???

Here's a closeup to see the flowery buttons. I found them in the second store I went to. They are perfect!

Well, he's the lucky guy (for now anyway). The color is a little more accurate but still not bright enough. This guy's almost too fat for this jacket.

I love it. It was knitted with the softes cotton yarn I've ever used for knitting. I would love to wear something made from it. It's Langyarns Tissa, 100% combed cotton. I needed 200 grams, on 3.5mm needles. It was knitted in two days and on the third day I sewed on the buttons, weaved in the ends and knitted the colar (not in this order).

I'm thinking of maybe making an adult jacket with this method as well. We'll see. This was a most pleasurable knit. Thank you E.Z.!

Clownsocks finished!

I've dyed wool for a pair of socks for my mom. She's sent me the easter egg colors, which she only got from the grocer because she's so charming! ;o) I hope she'll like the colors. She's more the beige/black/white kind of person, but a little color never hurts, right?!

The wool is still wet, but that's fine. The Log Cabin blanket is still far from finished, even though I'm knitting as fast as I can and until I'm running out of yarn. Since I only knit on it while watching TV, I'm making slow progress. Maybe 1-2 "logs" a night.

Of course my clown socks are not twins, but my toes will not care once they get all blue and cold. They are looking for firey heating action.

No left overs! I've used up all yarn and that's what I like about toes-up socks. The heel doesn't look that good, but who cares? They fit well and will warm my feet nevertheless. But now, they'll be put away over the summer. Their time will come.

Finally some pictures of my multidirectional contest top!

I just love this picture!

(my Hannibun)

The top's been done for some time, but we had to wait for the sun to come out.

This top was made with Artyarns Supermerino # 137 and # 201. The rule was to knit a wearable garment with multidirectional knitting from the Modular Knits book by Iris Schreier.

I didn't think it would fit anyone, but I had my daughter in mind and I think it really does fit her well.

Fits like a glove. ;o)

I'm glad.

I'm satisfied.

It's done.

So, go ahead and laugh ...

Bwahahaha - I'm big foot, you found me! It's officially the "clown sock". The color faded as expected, oh well. Next time ...

I bound off with a 4.5mm needle and it still is tight around my shaply foot. At least I used up all yarn. No left over lying around. Now comes the second one. Why doesn't it knit it self?

closeup of the diamond pattern

Long weekend!

A tired pup is a good pup. Biko was totally exhausted after playing ball. I had to hose her down, she was tripping wet and dirty (it was raining yesterday and today and the day before yesterday and will be raining tomorrow, I guess) .

Hand towel in the making from the Mason Dixon book, in the colors Moss Lake (greenish) and French Blue.

The finished hand towel measures 14" by 19" after washing, a round in the dryer and ironing. (It's a late B-day gift for Chris's mom.)

The color is fading gradually. One learns from one's mistakes. I still like my sock.

It's Victoria Day weekend here. We did some renovating, a lot of painting and some knitting. My daughter and her boyfriend Chris are here for a visit (and help). Anyway, I was knitting away on my sock, slow going. (It's a clown sock according to my daughter.) My son was wondering, why the heck is this sock standing up by its own? Well, it's stiff from the color and the vinegar, I guess. I'm a bit further along now with the sock. It's too bad one has to make the same sock twice. After the first one, I always wish for the second onw to magically appear. Oh well.

Who am I kidding?

I just finished weaving in the ends, which is not an easy task with mercerized cotton, and I steamed the whole sheepang. I don't know when I will be able to block it, so here is the picture of my first pinwheel blanket. It was made with Super 10 multi cotton, color orange juice, knitted with 4.5 mm circular needles and it's 40 inches in diameter. The beginning is not very professional, but it'll do. I don't think I'll do another one of these blankets. It was not as much fun as I thought it would be. The damned YO's! Anything else? Just glad it's done.
Oh, yeah - the border is knitted on garter stitch and I had the idea from one of Elizabeth Zimmermann's books. She was a genius. This border was the most fun with this work.

My first socks made with self dyed yarn!

This is proof, that I do indeed have two dogs. This is Biko being very sleepy and bored. It's raining outside and nevertheless, we went for a walk earlier. But it was not enough for her (it never is). Oh well. She's not impressed with the sock yet.

I'm so proud of myself! I love this color. I don't care about pooling, in fact, I like it a lot. It's interesting to knit because you don't know how it will turn out. I've started the pattern which is a simple littel diamond.

And, another first, I've started this sock from the toe-up! Never done that before. I can't imagine how the heel is going to work out and how it's going to fit over my foot, but we'll get there soon enough. Right now I'm enjoying knitting it.

And by the way, I did finish the Pinwheel blanket first. I had a hard time letting the sock yarn just sitting there, untouched, but the slow drying process helped a little. ;o)

The Pinwheel blanket has to be blocked before I'll post a picture. It's much prettier that way.

That's what I've been upto lately!

I had to take a break from blanket knitting. I wanted instant grativication. I didn't want to knit another Mason Dixon dishcloth, even though the pattern for it was the reason I bought the book in the first place. I still like it, but wanted to "invent" my very own dishcloth. I was browsing through some of my knitting pattern books und this is what i found. A garter slip stitch! (Nicky Epstein's, Kitting on the Edge) I even wrote out the pattern (free patterns on the side bar) for those who would like to try it also.

This knitted fabric is very tense and great for scrubbing the dishes (well that's what it's for,

duh).

I've tried different color combinations and not all work well (for me).

Since I've received the easter egg color from Sybille, I had to try dyeing my own yarn. It was fun. It was messy. It takes forever for the yarn to dry. And the next time I wont forget to put on gloves!

It's not THAT wet anymore but still, too moist to knit it up. Maybe that's a good thing, since I would have CO a pair of socks already.

There was also some Karaoke yarn in the mail last week (50% soy silk, 50% wool) I wanted to know how it looked like knitted. So, what else could I do. I've CO this scarf. I call it Peaks & Valleys scarf (free pattern/sidebar). The pattern was found in Barbara Walkers blue book. This yarn is great for scarf knitting. It would felt too, but I haven't done it so far. It's hard to get this yarn around here and it's not cheap. But that doesn't deter me for long. That's what internet it for , right? Anyway, I like the pattern because it is the same on both sides, which is a good pattern for a scarf in my opinion.

That's how far I got with the first ball. I think I'll need all six of them. This might be the one scarf I'm going to give some fringes and like it too. ;o)

I promised myself to finish my Pinwheel blanket and work on the Log Cabin blanket, which I did. Both not finished yet. It's a bit monotonous. The Pinwheel especially has been a pain in the a..... It lulls me into stupor and there goes the YO again! Anyway, I can see the end coming soon - the blankets, not mine.

The Log Cabin still looks the same, just bigger, so no pictures of that one.

And Sybille, believe it or not. I've ordered some Kauni at Wollsucht.de! My husband will have it in his suitcase when he'll be back in June! ;o) I've found two sources actually to get the Kauni and will use both of them in the future (Gaby!).

That's it for today.

Happy knitting!

Is this bad?!

The pictures are not in the order I wanted them to be, but that's what tiredness does to one. I wanted to show you the mitered squares projects I'm working on (or not). The only one finished is Daniela's Baby Blanket (posted previously). The Noro Kureyon Blanket has its first row finished. I did the "knit together" stitches differently as to see a ridge (above) on purpose. It's been a while and I can't remember exactly what I did. Hopefully it will come back to me. I like this methode because there is little weaving in involved and one square is knitted on to the next one. Very simple and clean. Drawback is, that as soon as the blanket gets larger, you have a lot laying in your lap.

This was supposed to be a shawl for my grandmother. Knitted in the diagonal. I made her the Dresser Scarf instead. The color is not as pink as in this picture, it's red. I'm not sure I'll finish this one. The wool is 100% wool, superwash and very stiff and scratchy.

Here you can see the Diamond Panel Scarf made with Artyarns Regal Silk. I'm not very happy with the outcome. I didn't like it, that the "white" had a yellow hint in it. It looked kind of dirty to me. (My mom's got it already; [for once the Mail delivery worked fast] she says she likes it.)

Maybe it's just that I don't like black and white together.

So, now to my question: Is this bad?

• that my eyes fell shut and my hands kept knitting (happened yesterday)
• I've run out of space/corners/closets to stash my stash
• when I close my eys at night I see knitting patterns in many colors and patterns I have neither done nor seen in reality, before I fall asleep
  

Books!

Here's one more look at the multidirectional baby blanket with border. The original pattern doesn't call for a border, but I like it much better with one. I made it a garter stich border with two increases at the corners (YO). Although I bound off as loosly as I possibly could, it still was not loose enough, but I couldn't stand the akwardness with the three circular needles any more, so I left it as is.
corner closeup

I've got these books in the mail today! I've ordered them from Schoolhouse Press. I'm very interested in lace knitting lately and I can't wait to read those books. The last couple of nights I was reading "Knitter's Almanac" by Elizabeth Zimmermann, boy was she as serious knitter! She was thinking about stuff I wouldn't have bothered with but I like her style and even though I'll never knit a sweater in the round, I like reading about it. Her writing is very entertaining. So, I've ordered more books by her. As usually I can't wait to get them.

The other book I've read was "Knitting Patterns" by Mary Thomas and would you believe it, it was not boring at all. The more I knit and expand my knowledge about knitting, the more I understand the "gooble-di-gook" of knitting (as my son calls it). The last book I looked through (before I fell asleep) was "Lavish Lace" by Carol Rasmussen Nobel & Cheryl Potter. A nice book, but nothing to get too exited about. So now you know, what I'll be doing the following nights, with my new books on the night stand! ;o)

Thank you, Sybille!!!

What's that now you say? Crossing that threshold will shorten my life expectancy? Oh, all right then. I'll plant my butt.
The long, long, long awaited package from Germany made it!
Sam the sniffer dog - all clear!
Sybille and I are both members of the multidirectional yahoo group and we've decided to exchange yarn, since she can't get the Artyarns in Germany. I had a hard time getting it here in Canada too, but that's not the point. In the meantime we have an online store here in Canada (http://www.handknitting.com) where you can get it. Not the point either. Anyway, look at this! She not only sent me some beautiful, soft yarn, she even put the Edgar scarf in, which she knitted with self dyed yarn! Amazing! So that I could try it out myself, Sybille put in some Easter Egg colors, which she is using to make this colorful yarn. I'm still breathless because we thought the package was gone for good (sent on its journey almost two month ago).

So, there you have it. Thank you so much Sybille!

Not everything is a success!

My P94 BB is getting a border. I piked up all around the 116". I didn't count the sts, but I'll never do that again. It is not even a big blanket and I'm using 2x 150cm circulars and 1x 120 cm circ. That's very akward to do. I'm doing a garter stich border with mitered corners. Will be glad when it's done.

My computer had a screw loose! Really. It didn't recognize it's own parts any more, namly the slot where the photo card should go into. After a half hour phone call between my son and tech support, it's working again. Puh!


This was supposed to be my Tee for the summer. I had knit about 40 rows, I liked the pattern (designed by elann: Silk City cotton gauze shell it's called). I bought Endless Summer Collection Luna and lots of it (me thinks I'm an idiot) in this lovely orange and several other colors as well, just to find out, that I hate knitting with it. It splits so easy, you have to watch every stitch (well I do). The pattern used here was see through (I used 4mm, which was way too loose, my fault) and it pulled together too much. It should havebeen 25 " wide and it was only 22". So I ripped the whole thing and was depressed for a couple of hours. Didn't feel like starting over again. What to do? Well, I've decided to finish the Blanket first, so I can put it away. The Log Cabin was beckoning as well. And than there was this ...

This one's driving me crazy. It's going to be a Pinwheel Blanket, what else? My son couldn't see it, doesn't look like a blanky to him. Anyway, I ripped more rows than I knitted. Seems to me, it's not so much a mindless knitting after all. I repeatedly forgot the YO, dangit! Had to stitch back one after another for several rows, twice! And the yarn has so many faults as well! It's broken throughout, just hanging on, on one thread. The only thing I still like is the color right now. Oh well, the sun is out, it's nice and warm again. Sam had his walk and is pacified. Biko had her fun with the garden hose, she loves water.

P94 is finished- almost!

Sam is a lot better, as you can see, he's talking back to me. He's sick and tired of waiting for me to get my big butt out of the chair and go for a walk with him. Well boy, have you forgotten that we did that already today - three times!!! Well, he's not tired and rather bored, he tells me. Sigh.




And I was finishing up the P94 Baby Blanket by Iris Schreier. I wanted to knit that for some time now. It's made with Marble DK 100% acrylic, that's one of a few acrylic yarns I like to work with. This pattern is made of triangles with no seams and it's reversible, that's what I like about multidirectional knitting. It's 22"X36" which is a bit small. I'll add a border, since I have some yarn left. I'm pleased with this project and am glad to have it "out of my system" to move on.

I've already cast on a summer top for myself, but have knitted only about 10 rows so far. More about it another time. I've spent a lot of time in the garden lately; yeah, it has to be done. And by the way, my fingers, hands and ellbows needed a break for a few hours. ;o)

Look what the mail - lady brought today!

This is Super 10 multi cotton and it arrived today, boy that was fast! It's so delicious I couldn't just look at it, now could I?
Had to put everything on hold and dig the DP out of my knitting needles basket. By now, everybody knows that orange is my favorite color and this one is called "orange juice", so
I had a little knit of orange juice. Ahhh! Delicious! The pink is called "lipstick" and the multi's called "Carousel". How nice. ;o) Back to knitting, just wanted to share the wealth!