A magic day in knitting

I finally started to use the lion brand magic stripes my grandma gave me. She had picked up three skeins of it because she found it for 85% off!!!!!! She had never knit a sock before, being a crocheter, but who in their right mind can refuse yarn that is that discounted? Well back when I made my first socks I was working on them over at her house so she brought out these very precious skeins that had been fermenting in her stash for 3 years now and gifted them upon me.

I had been upset at knitting socks because of my last pair. The cotton ones that I hand dyed did fit, however they did not fit inside my shoes with my feet in them. Now finishing my first sock with actual sock yarn I think I know were I went wrong with my hand dyed yarn. Sock yarn is a much lighter weight yarn than I though it was so using a size 1 needle on the cotton made it way to thick. Next time I'm using a three because my cotton it probably closer to worsted.

I was annoyed at knitting socks because of the double pointed needles, I just plain don't like them. So this time I gave 2 circulars a go. I ran over to the craft store and the only size 2's that they had had a 29" cord, I wasn't to happy about it being so long but bought it anyway since it was the only one. I started the first sock toe up and finished increasing for the toe and the long cir was driving me almost as crazy and the double pointed needles where and wanted to cry. But that is when it hit me. I had heard about the magic loop before only needing one large circular needle, exactly what I had. So now not only are these magic stripe yarn but also done on the magic loop. I love it.

Magic loop is actually very easy and I don't understand why anyone would make socks any other way. But then maybe I am a bit obsessive about things not being clumsy and in the way. I found a very complete list of sites on the magic loop and learned after about 5 min.

Soft enough for a baby

I have another baby shower to go to at the end of the month so here comes a baby blanket. This one is a stash buster. I had picked up a sad amount of peach fuzz a while back when it was on clearance at hobby lobby. This stuff is crazy soft (obviously implied by its name but so much so you simply can't understand until you touch it for yourself). Well the one problem with being induced by the clearance yarn fumes is you really don't look at what you buy. When I got this stuff home (5 of sweetpea and 2 of playtime) I started thinking of all the cute soft baby stuff I could make. Finally, I actually looked at the ball band for the suggested needle size to see this:

There where several problems, 1) no knitting gauge, 2) this is a super fine yarn, 3) hand wash hot only (what is that?). Upon closer inspection it did say to used a US 3 knitting needle, but there also was a key ingredient that I was missing. On the other side of the ball band there was this:

This yarn is best used as a carrier thread with another larger yarn.

Well that says it all right there. Something that I might have seen if the yarn wasn't on clearance.

This turned out to be OK. I just got a nice worsted weight yarn and held the peach fuzz double with it. I'm using size 9 needles and really like the resulting fabric, nice and warm. It's not quite as soft as what I was imagining but still nice. Also, I will end up only using 2 1/2 of the skeins that I have so I see 2 more of these blankets coming. All was going along quite nicely and I was very happy about using stash.

I picked out a free pattern from lion brand (if it can be considered a pattern) just your basic wash cloth with the eyelet edging. I was slightly nervous about knitting a blanket diagonally for fear that I would run out of my worsted weight yarn (that I only had a lb of and didn't want to have to buy more) but I told myself I would just knit half way a start decreasing and there would be no problem. Well if you don't own a nice scale just knitting till half of it is gone is easier said then done. Lets just say I didn't make it (no duh my brain is screaming at me)

I'm going to go and pick up another Caron 1 lb, if they sell have that colorway (not likely knowing my luck) or what ever acrylic at the store is closest. I have some other acrylic stash that is close and will have to do if I can't find anything better. If there wasn't a dead line I would probably throw this in the closet and tell myself that at some point I will rip back all of the decreasing and several rows of the increasing and re-knit to be able to finish with what I have. Another plan that is running though my head it to rip back 4 rows, knit a eyelet row, then one regular and then bind off. Making a blanket something like this:

Any opinions?

Christmas all taken care of

I finished all of my Christmas knitting just in time. Christmas eve morning I threw all of my potholders in the wash Aren't they so pretty? I love how the patterns changed slowly though out the year making them. Washing them was a great idea, they became so much better once the hot water shrunk the stitches together making them much more pot holder like.

That is how much lint came out of the wash with them (not to mention what was in the lint trap.







And that is what was happening out side while washing them.







While they were drying I finished weaving in all the ends on my tailgate rug from Mason-Dixon knitting. My first project ever from their books.

I love knitting this thing but let me tell you, the weaving in part is no fun. There are a million ends (can you tell I don't typically do much color work?) I will however defiantly be making more of these, my mom and me both want one. This one went to my grandma.

While washing the rug I wrapped all the pot holders. They look so small all wrapped up. The rug came out of the dryer at 2:00 and we had to be out the door at 2:30 to get there on time. I guess I did cut it pretty close. But in my credit I a) got it done and b) started last January, it wasn't my fault I had 3 baby showers to go to and totally got distracted by discovering yarn on e-bay, knitting blogs and ravelry in the meantime.

Everyone loved their presents, or at least they did to my face. (that's all that matters) I'm very happy with this years knitting.

I have it all planed out for next year. I'm going to make Christmas ornaments. I'm using the "Cabled Globe Ornament" by Eunny Jang from A Little Something Special on knitting daily. I'm going to adjust the pattern greatly to

a) make it smaller, the pattern is for balls that are 9" across, I want them to be more like 3"

b)use the Christmas sale yarn I got already, here it the whole kit-n-kabotal (when I got the add from Joann's that said that all the wool-ease was on sale for $1.99 I couldn't wait until Friday but when I got there are realised that wool ease is regularly $3, I was slightly upset and almost didn't buy any, but as you can see, I did anyways. 33% off is still on sale)