The Ballband Dishcloth

So last week, after finishing the baby blanket, I got an urge to knit dishcloths. So I drove down to Mary Maxim to have a look at the Sugar'n Cream colours. I found I few that I liked, bought 4 balls and came home. As I was knitting that afternoon, I realized that I didn't yet have end of year gifts for the teachers and wouldn't this be a great idea. Too bad I didn't think of it BEFORE driving down to MM. So I finished up one for me, with the plan of hitting Michaels in the morning for some Bernat Handicrafter cotton.



The colour selection of the Bernat are a little less appealling, but I managed to find 3 combinations that I liked. A solid blue and a varigated white/blue/yellow for two.



The same solid blue and a varigated white/blue/brown.



And yellow with a varigated white/green/lighter green. This one is really cheery, but not obnoxious bright



I did two for each, with the possibility of a third if there was time. There wasn't, but I have plenty left to make at least 3 more cloths, possibly 4. I made them in co-ordinating pairs by reversing the colours (Betcha didn't figure that one out! :)), and knit them over 39 stiches instead of 45 as called for in the pattern. All in all, not a bad showing for 5 days worth of knitting. I missed the kick of of Summer of Socks but that's OK, the teachers have gifts and school is done tomorrow.

Congratulations Steve and Jenna

Friends of ours that live in Vancouver had a baby boy on May 27th. His name is Liam, he is very cute, but I'm not going to post his picture because he's not my kid. Sorry, you'll just have to take my word for it. Very. Cute.

Way back in February, I started a blanket for him. I went like crazy for awhile, then I kind of languished a little. Then I realized it was May, and the baby was due in May so I started knitting a little quicker, albeit, not quick enough.



I chose the Modern Baby Blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting, it was cute, looked like fun, and was something I had never done before. I knit an Intarsia baby blanket for my nephew in 2002, and I never want to sew together that many squares every again, this blanket, no seaming. None. I had a really hard time choosing yarn, I wanted to use the Rowan Calmer, really wanted to, but I need 12 balls and at $13/ball it just wasn't going to happen. I spent a really long time at the LYS looking at different DK-ish yarns, the washing instructions and the colours. I had already decided on the colour look I wanted and it needed to be easy to take care of, and not stretch out of shape since it was going to be fairly large. I settled on Sirdar Snuggly, acrylic, I known, but it feels nice, washes well and the colours were right. Well, as right as they could have been, the Calmer colours were RIGHT.





And it was fun, the squares (and I use that term loosely, they're acutally rectangles) started off being small and quick. Then they got bigger and took longer and longer. I'm pretty sure the second to last set (2 side by side knit at the same time) took forever. Then, it was finished and I thought I would maybe do an applied I-cord border, so, I consulted the project pages on Ravelry and I like the look of it so off I went to learn how to do it. Then to decide what colour. I laid the blanket out on the floor and consulted the boys. "Navy Blue or Brown" I asked them (7.5 and 4.5 by the way). The small one didn't have much of an opinion, but the big one said "Well, there is a lot of dark blue around the edge and not as much brown so I think it would show up better and look nicer if it were brown". I couldn't argue with that logic, Jer had been thinking blue, but had his mind changed by C.



I applied I-cord for an hour on Sunday night and didn't even make my way across one of the short sides of the blanket, very discouraging. But then Monday night I was an I-cord machine just zooming around churning it out. I had to make myself go to bed because the end was in sight and I could have stayed up to finish, but it would not have been smart. So I finished it last night. It looks so good. Other than my too-tight cast off across one of the ends that alters the square-ness of the whole thing, I'm pretty happy with it. I hope they are too.



Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason-Dixon Knitting
For Liam McKinley H.
4.5mm circular needle
Sidar Snuggly DK, Ivory, light blue, navy blue, brown

Secret Project

Well, my secret project can now be revealed since it has been given to the recipient. Although, it probably wasn't that secret since I have mentioned it here before, but after my Mom got on Ravelry I decided not to talk about it anymore in case she read this. Are you reading Mom?

For my Mom's birthday I knit her Mags Kandis' Modern Quilt Wrap. The momment I saw this pattern on Knitting Daily last summer I knew it would be perfect for my Mom, the quilter, the knitter.



I ordered the Rowan Kidsilk Haze in the colours recommended in the pattern from Webs in early September. All of it was backordered. Forever. I think it was February before I finally received it.



I started knitting March 1, with my May 29th deadline. It was slow to begin, I've never worked with Kidsilk Haze before, it's very tiny and I was using my Addis because that's what I had and I don't really like bamboo so I wasn't going to buy any unless this really wasn't going to work.



It works. And I got faster once I got the hang of it, pretty slippery though and the grey yarn was tough to see on the silver needles. I really enjoyed knitting this, I though I would get tired of mitred squares, but I think the colour changes every 5-7 rows kept the interest higher. I finished on May 1st. I wove in the ends as I went and I'm so glad I did. I think I had about 8-10 ends to sew in when I was done and after I clipped them off, I added them to the one cup of ends I already had. I don't even want to think about how many that is.



It turned out really beautifully, although, I'm a bit critical of the edges, but that's my own pathology.



Modern Quilt Wrap by Mags Kandis
From
Folk Style: Innovative Designs to Knit, Including Sweaters, Hats, Scarves, Gloves and More, but I downloaded it as a free pattern from Knitting Daily
Rowan Kidsilk Haze
4.5mm Addi Turbos

Someday soon it should stop raining and I'll show you all my unfinished "Earth" projects. And my new RSC08 yarn!

The best laid plans

My plan today was to blog about all my unfinished Project Spectrum Elements: Earth projects. But, I left my camera at my parents last night (I kind of feel like I've lost an arm) and I have no photos of said projects. They are, Hedgerow socks, Icarus shawl, and the leaves from Vintage Socks. All very earthy, all very unfinished. It's probably against the rules, but I'm thinking about extending Earth through Air, since the Air element isn't really my thing and I don't have stash that matches and I'm not going to go buy Air yarn. So my Earth, may just continue.

But for today, a non knitting PS:Earth photo, in the shape of a very noisy frog who sat on our pool shed for a very long time being very noisy.