Dishcloth Washcloth Mania!!!!

These dish/wash cloths are the products of the last...about 10 days. I had so much fun making them for friends and family for Christmas! I will give them with a scented kitchen or bath soap. They are all made from Peaches and Cream. I have used Sugar and Cream before, and found the Peaches much softer and finer. The rectangular cloths are from the pattern on the ball band of the yarn. The roundish ones are from the Mason Dixon book. I had such fun making the little bobbles on each point *which don't show up well in the pics) and even my very discriminating interior designer daughter loved them! Naturally one will be for her!

Stitches East...WOW

I returned from Stitches East Saturday night, exhilarated, exhausted...utterly enthralled with knitting and all the new inspiration!!! I took Brandon Mabley's class all day Saturday. I learned so much about how he and Kaffe create such daring color combinations! First we divided our yarn into two piles. One dark, one light...Then we began creating a light ball, and a dark ball, by tying lengths of yarn together in an order that seemed pleasing to us. He encouraged us to interject colors that you might think are too wild, but when it's knitted up, and you stand back, Oh my gosh! They just work!!! You can see from the pictures that each one is so unique, and yet you could put them all together in a blanket and it would work! Some were subtle, some more monochromatic, but each was beautiful! The first photo was taken when we broke for lunch. The others at the end of the class. During lunch, I walked through the market and bought more colors of yarns after listening to him during the morning....What an inspiration!!!

Finished Cable Sweater

Well, finally the cable sweater is complete! It is really cute, I think, and I know my nephew will love it! It was my first attempt at cables and I really am pleased with it. I took advice I read online to keep the purls next to cabled knit stitches tight, wrap the purl stitches from the bottom, and then to those same stitches on the right side, knit into the back of the stitch to twist the stitch the correct way. It is knit with King Tut mercerized cotton, which I am also pleased with. It has a nice little sheen to the yarn, and blocked well.

Ooooooo...New Yarn!!!!

The ribbon yarn I ordered from Katsara Yarn arrived today! Above are the two hanks, side-by-side. It is beautiful! I ordered the slinky ribbon in colorway Sojourn. This yarn will be knitted into Ilga Lega's Skin of the Sea vest. This is a little different than the yarn the pattern calls for, but I think it will be great! I can see that the yarn is not going to be easy to work with though. It is VERY slippery, but I like the idea of a very drapey, slinky vest.


Meanwhile, the cable sweater for my nephew is well underway. I have the back finished and am working on the front now. I am really pleased with the way the King Tut yarn shows off the cables. It has just a hint of sheen, more like a slight luster, and the cables look great! I hope to have his sweater finished by the time we leave on vacation a week from Thursday! I am fighting with myself to keep working on his sweater, and not put it aside to dive into the new yarn! So far, the "good little knitter" side is winning!

Oh my gosh! I wasn't knitting!

Instead, I have been resurrecting a dry sink that my brother made for my husband and I as a wedding gift, 32 years ago! He was in 8th grade when he made it, and I decided to give it a folk-style paint job for a bedroom we are re-doing! And I covered and trimmed the lamp shade with a few of my buttons! OK...now back to knitting my nephew's cable sweater! I am almost finished with the back!

Second Post

Well, the bath mat from Mason Dixon Knitting is finished! It looks great, and is soooo absorbant! I would definitely use the double thick Peaches and Creme yarn again. I did block it to get it looking nice and even. I usually block on my guest room bed. You can see in the next picture, I have the ruffled scarf blocking.

You can see from this photo what a challenge it is to block a scarf with one edge so much larger than the other! I figured out that I need to block it section by section. After starting at one end, spritzing and waiting overnight, I realized I could do more than one section at a time to speed things along! I figure a week or two and I should have the entire scarf blocked. It really drapes nicely and I anticipate it looking very nice! It better, I ripped this baby out 3 times before I got it right...no pattern! Just my memory of a conversation about a sample knitted in a LYS.
On to the next project! I am making the Cabled Pullover (froggy green in the booklet) from Classic Elite's Puddle Jumpers book for my 5 year old nephew. I have made him sweaters before, the Wallaby, and he loved them! So dramatic, he opens the gift and hugs it to him crying "It's just what I wanted!" Who wouldn't want to knit for a recipient like him? I am knitting this in King Tut cotton which I have never used before, but really like. It has a nice luster and shows the cables quite nicely. This is my first attempt at cables and I am surprised that, just as my knitting friends told me, they are not hard at all. I did knit a swatch not only to get gauge, but to try the cable pattern. In fact, I knitted the first swatch out of a left over yarn, just to try cabling. The second swatch it did after I found the King Tut yarn. This cabling experience is making me think of knitting vests for my dad and father-in-law for Christmas!

First Posting

I have been working on the bath mat pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting. It is a garter stictch, log cabin design and I am using the Peaches and Cream yarn specified in the book. I ordered the double thickness worsted cotton right from Elmore Pisgah. They had the best price even with a slightly higher shipping cost. This yarn is supposedly available in Walmart stores, but I have not found it in my area, NW NJ.

I like the yarn. It is a quite thick and soft, with a fluffy, rather spongy feel. I think it will be a great bath rug. I use Knit Picks Options needles (http://www.knitpicks.com/knitting+needles.html) which seem to work well for a very large project like this. I am using a longer cable with the cap on the end.

The only problem I am having is that you have to muscle the stitches a bit. Using 3 strands of thick yarn on a large needle size is a little tough. The tips of my index fingers are taking a beating and I actually developed a little cut on the right one. I tried covering the fingertips with little dots of duct tape to protect them, and this actually worked very well! I used about a 3/8" square, double thickness. They stay on well without being too difficult to remove and protect the skin enough that I am not poking holes in myself! I also decided that despite my desire to finish this project right away, taking period breaks from it might help. So I am also working a scarf. This way, when the fingertips have had it, I can switch off for a couple of evenings to a 'milder' project.

The scarf is a ruffled affair which looks like nothing on the needles. When finished, it should be a gently folding, draping ruffle. I had a skein of a fine rayon boucle which I bought a while ago with no particular project in mind. I saw a scarf in a local yarn shop knit from a similar yarn and thought I would give it a try. I am knitting this without a pattern...just from the description from the girl in the yarn shop who also used no pattern. More on this project as it progresses!