Three Patterned Hat

I'd been wanting to make my son Michael a hat for some time.  I tried brioche stitch, but the stitches ended up being too open for our sub 0 winter temperatures.  I love doing colorwork (two different colors of yarn knit together) and found this pattern in Charlene Schurch's "Hat's On!".  The instructions were very clear and it knit up quickly.  I tend to finish colorwork patterns faster than others just to see what they will end up looking like.

 Michael wears it most every day in cool to colder weather so it is a great success.  Some projects take a long time in the planning stage and when the time is right they almost knit themselves.

I got a useful tip from a fellow knitter on how to keep stranded (two different colors) yarns from tangling as you knit. You put both balls of yarn into a medium size ziploc bag  then close the center of the bag with each yarn coming up on either side of the bag.  When the yarn gets twisted you just lift the bag from above the twist and allow it to spin the twist out.  So easy!

Since finishing the hat and 4 pair of socks, that I'll show off after they are clean, I started back in on the half pie shawl using Helen's Lace by Lorna's Laces.  The colors are beautiful and the feel of it is soft and springy.  There's no color pooling at all.  I'm into the last wedge of the half pie shape so it will soon move on to blocking and wearing.

Even though the shawl is entirely knit stitch I still had quite a bit of trouble with dropped stitches at the start.  That's because I was using nickle plated needles that were too slippery.  Once I switched to the laminated wood Harmony interchangeable needles available through Knitpicks my dropped stitches were a thing of the past and the knitting overall improved.

A Year of Quilts and Shawls

Yet another year has passed with more projects accomplished. It's been a quilting year. I finished a flannel quilt with a woodsy theme for my son. I am working on a king size quilt for my son's French Horn teacher in exchange for lessons. Pictures of both and all other projects will have to wait until I get a new digital photo card reader. My printer that had this feature borked and the new one is very basic.

The king sized quilt is made with Hoffman's Bali Pops in mulberry. The Bali Pops are 2.5 inch strips of preselected batik fabrics which you mix and match into a quilt. Very much fun. Would be difficult to get so much variety otherwise. The top is now done and just needs it's two borders. One will be piano keys using all the colors in the quilt and the other will be a solid border using batik prints that are included in, or complement the quilt.

What to use for baking? There is some very lovely thick flannel backing fabric at the store that would show the quilting very nicely, but not really match the batik theme. There is another fabric at The Quilter's Coop that matches the very brightest block in the quilt that would be fun, if Jan, the future quilt owner can enjoy the eyepopingness of it. I think it would look great to find the brightest color that is hinted at on the front, all over on the back.

On the knitting front I've been on an extended sock binge all winter. At some point after it got cold I decided that I could not wear store made socks any longer. What started with one sock quickly became two when I needed to wash the first pair. Then I had to knit up the wonderful variegated yarn I'd had in my stash for several years. Of course I also needed thick socks for the -20F weather we get all winter, which leads to another pair to allow for washing. Now I'm knitting a pair of cotton/elastic socks using Cascade's Sensations yarn. I'm hoping for a sock that will not fall down or stretch out terribly to wear while working out.

The Bamboo Jacket and Dale sweater still loom in the unfinished bags. I decided that I need to frog the Bamboo Jacket back to the place on it's back where the knitting somehow changed very noticeably. I also messed up the decreases for the bottom of the armholes by using the wrong size guidelines. The Dale will be finished after this sock binge before the winter is over again.

I got myself involved with 2 shawls this year; a Woodland Shawl using a two sided lace leaf pattern with dark green Jitterbug yarn, and a half pie knitted shawl using some very beautiful Lorna's Laces lace weight yarn that I coveted for a long time and finally got for my birthday from my daughter. Both are on hold. The Woodland Shawl requires complete concentration while undisturbed, hopefully with Classical music in the background. The half pie shawl should be simple, but I was having trouble with a few dropped stitches that required frogging back. Suddenly the desire to quilt hit me and then I started socks to have something to do while going from place to place.

People ask me what I do--I'm a fiber artist, a knitter, a quilter, a Mom. It's my life.