jeannie's hands at work

Knitting, crocheting, other handwork, and personal.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Another FO, hooray!



I finished another Panta. This was started before the new year for a friend. It's one of two for her.
It's taken me longer than I thought it would.

I'm thinking of doing another one in cables after these two - but maybe not 'til later this summer.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Finished Christmas presents - not fit to send

Here are two wallets I made for Christmas. They were supposed to be felted. What a great idea for men who don't wear hats or ties or anything like that.
Well, look at 'em. What do you see?



I see one that felted but not enough, and I see one that didn't felt at all. So much for using mystery yarn from the stash.
What you can't tell is how long skinny and the darker one is. It's easily 12 -16 inches long. I guess it could be a triple fold or quadruple fold wallet....NOT!!!
I need to wash it again and block it to see if I'll get anything that I can use .

I want to start this by saying I LOVE this pattern. Whatever problem I'm having, it's mine.
I'm a lot farther along in this baby sweater than the picture shows. I'm using TLC Wiggles in baby yellow and white. However -I'm stuck. I divided the stitches for the right front and knitted it- no problem - then I had to rip it back
( not enough stitches- needed 27 only did 23 to start) and do it again. No problem. Did the back according to the directions. No problem. Started the left front -Problem! I'm six stitches off. I have 6 stitches too many. I had the proper number when I started "the Great Divide" for the front. Everything was okay when I shaped the right front and the back. Now I have too many stitches. I'm stuck till I email the designer just to check and make sure I'm reading this correctly. And I was SO close to getting the body finished. Six stitches, no big deal, you say? Well ordinarily, you'd be right. However, this makes the front overlap too much. It's the button side of the front, but the picture shows the buttons on the front band not six stitches in on the sweater body. So what to do? I'm not opposed to ripping it back to the 7.5 inches stage before it's divided and starting over on the fronts, but the yarn is harder to frog than mohair and I don't want it to happen more than one more time.

That's it for now. I have a really busy late day today. Probably no group knitting for me.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Finished Knitting and Cat
















These are Finally Finished Objects from before the New Year. Complete with Speedy as accessory. The top left is two washcloths from yarn bought at Different Drummer. I got them wicked cheap -less than $2.00 a ball. The grey is a silver and 100% cotton and took a whole ball for the butterfly lace. The blue is cotton and rayon -since I have 2 balls I'll get 3 washcloths.

The scarf is the Fan pattern from Scarf Style (I think). It's for DD's teacher who teaches Flamenco and English.

Friday, March 09, 2007

UFO's and FO's

This week it's all about UFO's and FO's.

Here's a Panta I started during Christmas. I bought the 100% alpaca at a local Alpaca Ranch.
Hand dyed and gorgeous. I'm thinking about taking it out and doubling the yarn. It wasn't quite warm enough in the winds we had last month.

Aaacckkk! Messy hair! I guess it's from wearing turtlenecks all the time. It just always looks like that in the back.




This is from - I shudder to think - at least two years ago. I started this garter stitch jacket Katmandu Aran Color #113. I've a real challenge with the needles. Nothing has worked satisfactorily with this yarn. Wood is too grabby, metal wasn't right. I'm using a god-awful large plastic circular needle. It's a good size but the point on it is so long that when I push the stitches along the needle to the cable, they're so tight I can hardly move them. That means I'm knitting on the point instead of the needle. I'm not going to find anything better to knit this on, so I'm stuck. I ressurected this for the UFO group and I'm glad I did.

I got bored, bored, bored with the stockinette and had put it down just six or eight rows short of finishing the back. Now I'm on the sleeves (see?) and can knit this on the bus to and from work. I cast them on together and I'll do the fronts the same way. - I'ts the only way they'll be close to the same gauge.














Back unblocked sleeves started

Because I can't have just one thing going - and I have some maternity deadlines, I have a couple of other things going.

This is a baby sweater in one piece www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer03/PATTdaisy.html

I started swatching for this yarn in late December and didn't like the fabric in garter stitch At ALL. It's really cute for a baby sweater and very nice in stockinette. The flatness or the "plainess" of the fabric shows off the Wiggles in the TLC Wiggles yarn best. I also wanted to do the bands in a contrasting color and there will be a hat and booties as well.
















Here is one of two Pantas started during Christmas break and almost done for a friend's girls.
Woolease gray and oatmeal tweed.