Working Cute..

I made the cutest hat this morning. I would show you but I haven't photographed it yet. It has put me in hat making mood so I am going to make another one. I also put an afghan on the needles and it is going to be a time and stash buster. It recalls doing the loop stitch and it's done over 140 some stitches. I know I get bored easily so it needs to find a way to make itself interesting to me and not just tedious. I am thinking of how it's going to look when it's all done with the loopy yarn and the straight stockinette in between loopy sections. That helps. It also helps it should kill a good ten skeins of yarn.

on the other hand the hat is really cute and so is the wrap I finished and photographed it so you may see it for yourself...It's made with Marble Chunky and its folded in half so there are other options to wear it. The colors are much more stunning than the photo and it feels like a baby's little behind. I have 2 and 1/3 balls left of the marble so I can make something else when I get a mind to.

It's not yet up in the store but it is priced for the show next weekend and the shop when I get around to getting it in. There's a fine line to how often you put something new in the shop. You want to keep it interesting by putting up new things or re-listing others, but you also have to match that with how fast you can make things. I have four things which are ready to go and I am spacing them out so there's no big time gap between listings and something coming off the needles. I have four afghans (two knit, two crochet) on the needles and the hats I am throwing in will all be done before any of them get close to ready and the hats won't take that much time away from them - they are just all very intense.

But that's the fun of what we do - especially when we do it for business reasons. I'm still lucky - it's all mine. No one tells me what to knit (sometimes I don't even tell me what to knit.) I get to manage the entire operation from beginning to end - not that I'm a control freak - but the best feeling is having something of your own to do that you can do with passion. Maybe I will tackle that loop stitch a little more...

Don't Save It All for Christmas Day

By all means, please drop snow at the end of March. It's in like a lion and out like a lamb. It tell you, this is one angry piece of mutton.

I have today off as far as work goes so no working on newsletters or trying to find an agent to represent my book, and no writing on the other book, no taking or retaking photos. None of that today.

And no walk, either. So I will have to content myself with an indoor workout and then have a relatively easy day. I do have on my list to clean the living room today and you all know how much of an adventure that's going to be. It could really count as my workout.

I am working on another shawl of beautifully variegated browns and golds. Almost done with it and of course I will show it to you. I may actually be in a shawl phase where I will make several of them. After all, prom is coming soon and the young ladies will need something light yet fashionable to place across their shoulders. This might be the time to whip some up for them to purchase.

It's the least I can do for the next generation.

On The Coast of Some Place Beautiful

There is just no denying we love our craft. We all have family members who shake their heads because just about every time they see us, we have needles in our hands. And on those rare occasions when we don't have needles, we have catalogs in our hands that have needles in them. We love our craft.

But, boy, we can get sick of a project.

Every project starts out with hope and gleeful anticipation. We see something in a picture, we grab those sticks and that string and we are going to make that picture come to full dimension reality. We start and race toward that finish line.

And sometimes it just gets boring.

We love it when we get to master a new pattern and it comes out looking just as it ought - and sometimes even better - we love it.

Except when we do it over and over

and over.

But we keep going because we know it's the destination and not just the journey. Because we know that if it's just boredom we should keep going because it's a phase we knitters get to when we're about done. It's an interesting phenomenon that happens. We just want it over.

But the only way it's truly over is when it gets done.
And when it's done we end up:


On the coast of some place beautiful.
Worth the trip.

Funkalicious Wrap

While you were all dancing in the new year, the stroke of midnight found me casting on for this drop stitch wrap.
I am officially in love with my steamer. The yarn was soft to begin with and I made it to the size specified, but I wanted to give it more width and so I pinned it to the press board and my steamer went to town on it. Not only did I get the size I wanted, but the thing makes the yarn so much softer and it smells so nice! I even believe it makes the colors pop ever so much.
It is six feet long and about 3 feet wide so it has plenty of wrapablilty. (Spellchecker will have a field day with that one!)
There is a story that goes with this wrap called 'How A Stash Gets Borned.' I shall save that story for another day - like tomorrow. But for now, I am enjoying this latest little creation. I snuggled with it for a little bit and it is now safely enshrined in it's bag ready for someone to claim it - for a price.

Knit Wide Scarf Prayer Shawl

I don't know what happens to you; but I get close to the end of a project and I just want to get it over with. I don't understand why, but it happens every time. This is a long prayer shawl. It was supposed to be 70' long before the fringe. I got to about 65' and just had enough. I haven't even worked on this every day and I just wanted it to end so I did the last rows, added the fringe and called it an early morning.

Here's the thing - this shawl is warm! Even with the open weave pattern, I placed it around my shoulders and felt the warmth of it. That's nice. And I love the fringe. The pattern (Prayer Shawl Ministry) wanted that double tied fringe and I finally figured out how to do it and didn't like it. So, I have this really thick fringe and I love it.
So, it's from The Prayer Shawl Ministry and I used Homespun in Sunshine State. The pattern called for size 10 needles and mine must have been in use because I used nines instead. It's an eleven row pattern but for the most part you will only use rows 6-11 and only two of those rows are pattern rows, the rest are straight purl rows.

I don't know exactly how long it took because I didn't work on it every day. I worked on it about once a week from October 22 so that's boils down to about a week total. It should be a faster knit than that but the thing is really long.

If it ends up on the sale table next week; I am sure it will find a nice home. If it goes to the chapel or sanctuary as a church prayer shawl, I know it will comfort many people - what more could a knitter ask?

Drop Stitch Wrap

Fresh off the needles is the drop stitch wrap. It hasn't even been blocked. Which can be the next post - showing the difference between something that hasn't been blocked and the same thing after it has been.

Anyway, this wrap is five feet long before blocking and was made on size 10.5 needles with Bernat Chunky yarn which is discontinued and I happened to get a boat load of it at Joann's for about $3.00 a skein. It is one of those skeins with about 600+ yards so it was quite a deal. I got two in turquoise and two in black. This wrap took about half the skein.

Cast on 48 stitches
Stockinette stitch keeping the first and last four stitches in garter stitch.

Work until the wrap is as long as you like it and then bind off in the following manner.

I used a tighter bind off because of the drop stitches. You can bind off the regular way or use the tight bind off which is done by k1, knit the next stitch but keep the new stitch on the right needle and the old stitch on the left and pass the last stitch over then drop off both stitches.

Bind off 8 stitches, drop the next stitch and make a ladder all the way down. Repeat.
Add fringe if you like. I added fringe to the ends of the ladders.

I will use a wet block and it should stretch another couple of inches and have a cleaner, more matte look. I think I just might have to do a post on blocking. I wasn't a fan of blocking until recently and now I think it will have to become a regular thing.

This wrap will be tagged and priced for the next craft sale we have in May. It is a very easy knit. I think I did it in no more than two days.