FO Friday - Ownerless Baby Blanket

Waaaaay back in 2010 when I first started knitting, I found some dishcloths with motives that I thought I'd knit a bunch of and then sew together in a blanket. I got about 28 done over the course of the next year or so, and then just - abandoned them. I still liked the idea, but the squares were simply too boring to knit. There was no pattern to learn off by heart, and each one took quite awhile.

Last week I finally realized that there was no way I was ever going to finish them. Besides, my knitting has changed a LOT since then (I now know how to purl properly instead of the made-up fashion I used then ;) ), so any square I made now wouldn't look like the others anyway.

All in all I figured that making an afghan/blanket size thingie out of this was doomed to fail. I'd need another 80 of the squares, and I just didn't see that happening. However, I figured that the squares I did have would be just enough for a decent sized baby blanket! Not that I know of anybody close to me who's pregnant at the moment, but at my age that's bound to change at any time, and this way I would have it ready in plenty of time :)

Took me about a week, but I finally managed to get all the squares sewn up, and I must admit, I LOVE the result! Almost a shame I gave up on the blanket idea, but it's going to make for one awesome babyblanket :)



Hard to gauge size in this photo, but each square is about 21cmx21cm, so just over a meter to each side.

(Since finishing this up I actually have heard of somebody close to me who's pregnant, so now I know exactly who to give it to! Perfect timing :) Just hope it'll be a girl, as the colours are perhaps just a tad too pink for a boy.)

WIP Wednesday - Not Running out of Yarn after all :)

I'm finding myself with a lot of time on my hands to sit and knit and read these days, so the September Morn has seen an aweful lot of progress since my last WIP post :) I've almost reached the ribbing of the body, but decided to take a break from that and knit the sleeves instead, in order to get a better idea of how much yarn I have left. And fortunately it has shown me that I don't need to be worried about having enough yarn - the sleeves will only use up one skein each, leaving me with THREE to finish the body! I may end up having far too much yarn rather than too little :)
Just have the cuff left to do on the left sleeve, so another 20 rows or so. Sorry about the bathroom shot - it's the only mirror I have with decent lighting.

Hopefully I'll be able to finish within a week or so.

I've also gotten a fair amount of work done on my Hitchhiker as I've been out-and-about a bit this past week. I'm now at 32 tips, so the end is in sight :) The rows are getting looooong though!
My youngest niece saw me knitting at a family-get-together last weekend and came and jumped on my lap, as she wanted to "help" me ;) Since it's just a plain garter stitch scarf, I figured there was no harm in getting them started young, and had her hold the needles with me, and repeat after me, "Through the loop, around the thread, under the loop and off!" She wasn't too good at the "through" and "under", but chanted along with me anyway, and was very adept at the "around the thread" and "off"!
Fortunately Mum got a photo of us sitting together like that - I love it :)

WIP Wednesday - Running out of Yarn?

I haven't done much travel-knitting this past week, which means I've been pretty much monogamous, and thus am now about half-way with my sweater!

I've tried it on a couple of times to check size and love the way it looks and fits :) The collar is a tad scratchy against my neck, but I'm hoping that's just until I've blocked it and gotten some of the stiffness out of the yarn - at least my swatch turned noticeably softer after blocking.

I'm getting slightly worried whether or not I'll have enough yarn though! I've just started my 5th skein out of 11, and still have to do another 7 inches for the body and both sleeves! Granted, the turtleneck itself took an entire skein, so I'm hoping it's just that which is skewing the average, but I still worry... especially since I got the yarn on sale, so don't know if I'll be able to get more... not in that dye-lot anyway.

Apparently my reaction to that worry is to become totally monogamous, so I get to the answer as quickly as possible ;) I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

WIP Wednesday - More Squares!

Yup, still knitting away on my sock yarn blanket. It's very potato-chip'y :) I foresee it getting a lot less portable as I go on though ;) Right now I can still add squares to the length though, so it's perfect for train knitting :)
Mum gave me a lot of scraps awhile back, and it's so much fun to look at the squares and go "Oh, that's from that sweater! and that's from that sweater!". There'll be a lot of memories knit into this blanket :) That might be another reason why I love knitting it!

I have also managed a few rows on my September Morn sweater though - only have another 16 rows to go before I put the sleeves on stand-by. I'm still not terribly fond of the yarn - it doesn't make for a very even knit - but it IS nice and soft, so I think I'll like it once it's all knit up :) I'm VERY glad I gave up on my original plan of making a cardigan though! The ribbing is more than enough purling for me, thank you very much!
The colour's way off - not nearly this pink IRL.

FO Friday - Colour-Coordinated Socks

I finished the socks for my nephew last Saturday :) I was a tad concerned whether or not they'd fit him, because the heel looked really small. Fortunately I needen't have worried because if anything they were too big! But that just means he'll be able to wear them next year as well :)

The very puckered heel.
They did look okay while blocking though

My very colour-coordinated nephew :)
Pattern: My own creation. Just plain-vanilla toe-up socks with an afterthought heel.

WIP Wednesday - Sock Scrap Yarn

This weekend I fell into the rabbit-hole of the sock yarn blanket. I'm not sure why, I've been seeing it around for years, but Saturday I realized that I just really wanted to knit it... so I cast on, and have been churning out 4 a day on average ever since :)
I'm really happy with the way it's turning out so far :) I decided to cast on 41 sts for each block instead of just 31, so I won't have to make a million of it... now I just have to make 400 or so to get a blanket as large as I'd like ;)

That doesn't mean I've given up on my Puzzle Pieces though - in fact, I've gotten all the existing ones sewn up!
But doing so made me realize that it really doesn't work all that well with the really varigated yarn - I think it ends up being too busy and works better in solid or semi-solid yarns, so now I'm doing a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

Besides, now I can stick with just maing this a lap-blanket or a pillow-case, as these pieces are much smaller than the sock blanket squares, and a full-size blanket would take longer than I wish to contemplate ;)