I was working up to a post last weekend when my beautiful daughter spilled coffee on my laptop, effectively rendering the keyboard mostly useless. A week later, a new laptop keyboard unit is on its way. Hopefully, all will be better by the end of the weekend. Since I can't type on my laptop right now, I was going to just wait to post again when the repairs were made. Then I realized I've had several knitting adventures that I would surely forget. As much as I hate typing on a cell phone, I needed to get this stuff out of my brain. So I apologize in advance if the photos are all out of order. I think you can probably tell a sock from a blanket, so you should be able to follow along. I might get around to rearranging things once the trusty old laptop is back up and running again. We'll see.
Basket-weave Baby Blanket
I got about a foot into the basket-weave stitch pattern. The more I knitted, the less I liked the basket-weave. Could be the size of the squares. Could be that I thought it looked a little sloppy. Could be that I was bored with the stitch pattern. Could be all three. In an attempt to keep myself from ripping it out, I joined a new giant skein of yarn and spent time weaving in the cast-on tail and the ends from the first join. In the end, I gave in to my instincts, picked out the ends, and ripped it all out to try a third stitch pattern.
I found the Elegantly Simple Baby Blanket from HeartStrings. I knitted up a swatch with different needle sizes until I found what I thought would fit the drape and feel I had in mind. As it turns out, that equals size US11 needles with this medium-weight (4) yarn. I've only been working on this blanket, so I've not been distracted by other shiny things since I cast on... Like the sock yarn that was delivered a few days ago. I'm forcing myself to finish the blanket before I start another pair of socks (in a modified King Charles Brocade pattern I worked up and have waiting in the wings).
Striped Self-Striping Yarn Sock. Huh?
I knitted a 1/4"-striped ankle sock. Why? Out of curiosity and because I didn't want to waste the yarn leftover from the blue Fibonacci socks and the pink-ish Cameo Tree socks. But I haven't even cast on the second sock yet. Why? Because the first one was a pain to knit and the sock sits a little too low on my ankle. Maybe some day I'll get around to the second one. But I won't hold my breath...
I've had a sweater for about 20 years that I absolutely loved. I managed to shrink it accidentally long ago, so I lent it to my daughter to wear for the past few years. She's through with it now, so it was about to go to Goodwill. I pulled it out of the pile, because I wanted to attempt to unravel the yarn that I liked so much. I started carefully picking apart the seams and managed to unravel the collar and a sleeve. I discovered, however, that the yarn is so worn in several places that the fuzzy bits are totally missing in several lengths of the yarn. Oh well. So much for that idea.
More Camping
This Mother's Day weekend will be spent camping in the woods with my family. I'm taking the brocade pattern, a set of dpns, and more yarn than I could ever knit in a weekend. We'll see how far I get!
