My Knitting Escapades
The top row of pictures are projects (all hats!) that I knit from my stash. My stash is dwindling!
The bottom row projects are all items I’ve finished from recent yarn purchases. With a dwindling stash and a few projects on long-term hold, maybe I should do some more yarn shopping?!
I have partial yarn skeins, like, many partial yarn skeins (truth be told, a small tub of sock yarn). Do you have this problem too? I think about donating those partial skeins, selling them on eBay, or knitting another scrappy blanket (see this post: End of an Era), but I just keep telling myself that I can find something to do with them. Here’s one option I’ve come up with: Helical Socks.
Here’s what I started with: 25 grams of red Cascade Heritage Sock yarn, and 17 grams of Beach Bunny Yarns World Traveler (leftover from this project: Vacation Knitting). I am using the red for the cuff and heel (and maybe the toe if there is enough?)
I started sock #1 and knit through mid-instep. Then I decided to start sock #2 by knitting from the other end of the balls because I’m not sure I’ve got quite enough for two entire socks. (Don’t worry…I have other yarn that can finish the toes of these socks!) It’s kind of messy knitting from two ends of two balls so I can’t take it to meetings or knit in the car, etc. As I take knitting breaks, I carefully lay it out so I can pick it back up again without many tangles.
Not sure what Helical knitting is? Need a tutorial? Click here: Helical Knitting Video and thank Jen of Arnall-Culliford Knitwear for her great Year of Techniques Tutorial!
I wanted an eyelet-style dress, but not in white which seems to be the predominant color of eyelet, especially during the summer. So off I went on a fabric-hunting expedition, but with gas at $5.00/gallon, I only went virtually. I shopped online at Fashion Fabrics Club and bought an excellent burgundy eyelet, more geometric in design than floral. For the dress I used McCall’s M7948; at about $7.00/yard multiplied by 3.5 yards, I got a great deal! (It never ceases to amaze me how expensive Joann’s sub-par fabric is.)
About this fabric:
Thing 1: it’s dry clean only, but I’m confident that I can carefully wash it.
Thing 2: It frayed very easily as I was sewing it. It’s a good thing I’m an experienced seamstress!
The fabric is lightweight, and the dress is billowy and comfortable. But because sometimes air conditioning in the summer is a little aggressive, I knit a simple shawl to go along with the dress. The shawl is the Souvenir Shawl by Maria Samuelsson on Ravelry. It’s a great pattern to use up a skein of yarn that just had to be purchased on vacation (better a skein of yarn than a t-shirt, right?)
It’s a 100% self-made outfit! I love it when people say, “I like your dress!” or, “I like your scarf!” At which point I say, “Thanks, I made it!”
What yarn is this, you might ask? It is Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere in the February 2020 Pop Up colorway. I bought this when The Loopy Ewe lady was retiring and had a big sale. But don’t worry because The Loopy Ewe lives on! Visit their site, help a new owner of a previously loved LYS by grabbing some yarn!
I had a three balls of Fixation left and I knitted 3 more pairs of Goodbye Summer Socks. Of course I sent two away before I took photos…one for daughter’s birthday, another for coworker who was recovering from medical treatment. Here’s the one that I did take pictures of:
Have you tried it yet? Got a spare ball of Fixation or DK yarn hanging around? Go over and get the pattern on Ravelry. It’s only $1.00!
Someday one of my kids will call and say, “You’re going to be a grandma!” I decided not to wait for that moment to start knitting some little baby things. I started with this blanket in a soft yarn that has excellent drape. It’s machine washable in warm water, but it will need to dry flat. That’s not too bad!
This is an easy blanket to knit, with a 24 row “modified basketweave” stitch pattern, 18 of which are just knit rows. The other rows of this basketweave pattern are a knit 3, purl 3 repeat across the row. It makes for nice texture and something a little more interesting than plain garter stitch. Oh, and the pattern is free! Click the link below!
The blanket measures 28″ x 32″ and should be easy to tote along for families on the go. I recall having a few blankets that were way too large to bring along, so I didn’t want to make this one too big.
For those experienced in knitting for grandkids, what do you suggest I knit next? Follow my blog and make a comment, and I’ll pick a winner to receive 3 balls of Brilliant Blues Universal Yarns Bamboo POP yarn! Winner will be chosen randomly on Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 8pm MST. I will notify you by commenting on your comment, so stay tuned!
It’s been cold and rainy here in the valleys of the mountain west, while a few thousand feet above us in elevation ski resorts have had a banner year of snow, a whopping 700+ inches!!! We did have one warm spell, and my feet were hopeful that winter was over because they were clad in sandals. During those few warm days, I was knitting a summer sweater.
But the cold has settled in again and I’ve changed back to winter knitting. I’m knitting a dress, something I haven’t done in a LONG time! When I lived overseas in a house that was very chilly, I knitted a bulky dress. This time I’m knitting a fingering weight dress which, of course, is taking much longer, but it is keeping me warm as it gets longer and the cold sticks around.
This dress pattern is from Justyna Lorkowska called Hanke dress. It’s an above the knee dress in fingering weight yarn. Fingering weight and dress = a ton of knitting. At least I can read and binge watch something while I’m working on this dress.
The yarn is called Poems Puzzle by Wisdom Yarns. WAIT! That’s a super-bulky yarn! Yes, it’s a chain yarn and the suggested needle size is from 11 up to 50. What gives? Well…
I bought a batch of Poems Puzzle yarn on eBay along with a Vogue Knitting magazine containing a cowl pattern using 4 skeins of the yarn. BUT, the cowl was to be sewn, not knitted together. Uh, no.
So I stared at the yarn and then decided to unravel it. To my surprise, each skein of the Puzzle yarn became 200 grams of Wisdom’s Poems Sock yarn…over 800 yards. With 4 skeins of the Puzzle yarn, I figure I’ve got 3200 yards of yarn! That’s how I settled on a dress.
My hope is to get the body of the dress finished before the warm weather sets in (3 days away!) and I still have about 9 inches to knit. I’ll give it my best shot, especially since school is winding down and after-school meetings are at a minimum.
Burning question: is this my favorite yarn? No, not by a long shot. But it’s what I had and I think this will be a colorful way to celebrate the dead of winter.
Here I present the end of an era. It’s the end because I started this leftover sock yarn blanket in the fall of 2008. After almost 9 years, a lot of changes have happened. It’s inevitable. The kids grew up, we moved almost across the country, went from a house to a condo, and now we own e-bikes, for crying out loud! Change happens! It is time to knit other things. Or, finish other things, because of the way my year went, with teaching almost a full schedule at school, and then throwing teaching 3 graduate classes for SLC teachers on top of that! I have about 5 projects that are mostly finished, but need a little more attention.
Back to this blanket-afghan-throw thingie. I wasn’t sure how big I was going to make it; I was just enjoying the process. But 8.5 years later, I’ve decided to finish. And by finish, I mean, squaring it off, not adding any height or width to it, and most importantly, edging it in i-cord! The edging, you see, is like a stopper; it prevents me from adding more rows. Smart, huh? Done.
But at the end of this crazy-sock- leftovers-turned-into-a-blanket era, I have a crazy urge to come up with something else “scrappy” because I’ve still got a small tub of sock-yarn leftovers. Maybe in a year I will have a new pattern to show.
I briefly entertained the idea of putting this on Etsy for a ridiculous sum of money. I was thinking something over $2500, just to see if anyone would “bite.” But that’s cheap. Way too cheap. I calculated my labor at $10/hr (hey, I’m a skilled knitter!), 30 minutes per block which takes into account tucking in loose ends and knitting the i-cord edging. So, with 380 blocks @ 30 minutes per block, that’s 190 hours. Multiply that by the $10 per hour, and the labor cost on this blanket is around $1900. That doesn’t include the yarn. And it takes a lot of sock knitting to accumulate a great variety of yarn. (That was my excuse, anyway). So, the next time someone knits something for you, they don’t do it to save money or time. They do it because they LOVE you!
For now I’ll just sit on my balcony on cool mornings and enjoy the warmth of this throw.
I almost can’t stand it anymore. Everything I have on my needles are projects I’m tired of, or long-term projects that I’ll be working on for years to come. The “years to come” projects are two afghans made of tiny mitered squares. So I’m waiting for deep winter to work on those. I also have three sweaters on the needles. Oh, and I have two pairs of socks on the needles. And a laceweight scarf, Kernel. Plus a cotton table-runner. You can check these out on nancyknit’s Ravelry page. I like these projects. Well, I love these projects, but not now. I’m itching to start something NEW!
I want to knit some gloves 
and a vest 
and I want to start a new sweater. 
But I guess I’ll be disciplined and try to finish some things.
Here’s my dream list of items to have on the needle. If I can keep these items on the needles, then I feel my knitting is under control:
Socks: 1 ladies” pair and 1 men’s pair, plain, ribbed, or simple cable
Fingering: 1 lace project like a scarf or socks, or 1 pair of stranded socks
Sweaters: 1 ladies’ sweater and 1 men’s sweater
Home: 1 project for something around the house
So, I guess I’m doing well, except I have one too many sweaters on the needle right now. I guess I’ll wait to start something new. Hmmph.
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