keep knitting

and some of it has already been sent to respective recipients

my sister’s scarf. Hmm, what shall I start next, I wonder?

• double knitting weight wool in mid blue
• double knitting weight wool in mid green
• fine shetland wool in soft blue
• fine shetland wool in turquoise
• fine varigated synthetic with tufts in blues with some pink and soft yellow

for SIL completed last night – in the turquoisy-bluey colours she said she particularly liked :-)

I’m going to incorporate that aim into this one…and move on to Bigger Projects

Hi…I’m only 14 yrs old and i have knitted 4 bags,one teddybear, and 2 scarves….its really hard for me b/c i have little hands and its hard for me to knit with big needles…i love to knit and it is one of my biggest hobbies…i luv it..

I worked on the boucle baby blanket all weekend long – on the plane, in the car, at the hotel – and managed to increase the finished length from 3” to 6”. It’s still going much more slowly than I thought it would and I’m worried that I won’t finish in time, so I decided to do something about it yesterday.

I went back to my favorite store (wanted to get the pattern for my unfinished hat anyway) and bought some heavier gauge yarn to start a new blanket. It’s a beautiful soft Alpaca wool that’s been spun quite thick. I brought it home and did swatches on both size 17 and size 15 needles. It looked a little loose on the 17’s, so I cast on 108 stitches on the 15’s at 7:15 last night, and by the time I went to bed, I had 3” done! This one will go so much faster, I’m guaranteed to finish.

Once it’s done, I’m going to continue to work on the boucle for three reasons – the alpaca is really baby blue, and they’re not really baby color people; the alpaca is hand wash only, and the boucle is machine washable; and i’ve put so much work into it, I can’t imagine giving up on it now.

I nearly doubled the size of the baby blanket this weekend! I guess 5 hours in a plane and 10 hours in a car helped. :)

Now that it’s getting longer though, my “mistake” rows are becoming more prominent and look more like mistakes and less like a decorative border. I may have to make the blanket longer than expected and turn that edge over and hem it to help hide the errors.

It took someone from Chicago to find the coolest yarn store ever, 2 miles from my house.

Beth and I went to “Only Ewe and Cotton Too” on Sunday, and holy jeebus was it awesome!

Firstly, they carry beautiful yarns with the prices clearly marked, and little notes on the shelves (“you can throw this in the washing machine!” “this one’s great for felting!” “ooooh, cashmere!”).

Secondly, their prices are better than the other shops.

Thirdly, the guy who works there let me try stuff out before i bought it, AND taught me how to knit in the round for FREE.

Fourthly, they have “drop in class” on Thursdays – for $15, you show up, tell them what you want to learn, and they teach you.

Fifthly, they are more artsy than crafty, and said that if I start hand dyeing cotton, silk, or wool, they will buy it from me and carry it in the store!!!

I’m in love.

For the first time in over a week. I noticed that I’m not very good at switching from knit to purl and back in the same row, so I decided to just make the whole darn thing in garter stitch. This means that there will be a “decorative” (read: mistake) strip near the top, but I’ll act like it’s on purpose. :)

Also noticed that I add stitches when switching – I knitted the row after the decorative stitch, and realized I had 240 stitches rather than 200! Next row, I will slip every 5th stitch to complete the decorative aspect and get back to 200.