“Grandma” loved the knitted gifts for baby! Tears welled up and she said she couldn’t wait to show them to her mom and to her daughter. Quote, “These are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen!”
Translation = KNITWORTHY!!
December 9, 2010
December 6, 2010
From Susan — Knitting for a Wee One
One of my friends’ daughter just had their first grandchild. Certainly a notable reason to knit some baby items. Grandma is heading to the daughter’s home this week in the United Arab Emirates — packing must be light!
I first chose a small carseat blanket — about one quarter the size of a regular baby blanket (18×19 inches). The pattern is called the Shipley Baby Carriage Blanket. It is knit out of -er- how do I say it? — Pound of Love. Yep, crappy practical acrylic. What can I say — it’s for a baby. The size is tiny but I think it’s kind of practical — it can be used as a carseat blanket, changing pad, and when the daughter gets older, a blanket for her dolls.
I attempted to kill the acrylic as described here and hope it worked!
That didn’t seem like enough of a gift and my friend LOVED my Saartje’s Seamless Booties (pattern link here), so I made a pair in Tilli Thomas Pure and Simple 100% silk, color “Hope” and a simple hat:
I used the same buttons for these booties as my first pair! Anyway, I think it is kind of a cute little gift. The “grandma” is so supportive of my knitting that I am sure she will appreciate it.
November 26, 2010
From Susan — “Christmas Knitting” by Franklin Habit
This is really cute and very timely! It made me laugh!
Christmas Knitting by Franklin Habit
I do not know how to insert a YouTube video directly into a post — technically challenged!
November 25, 2010
From the Two of Us — Happy Thanksgiving!
We are both spending the day with family, across the many miles. And, no, the turkey pictured did not fall out of Susan’s tree onto the dinner table!
Enjoy some quiet knitting time this weekend!
November 21, 2010
From Susan — Turkey Day
I hate to “step on” my own post, but I have to share these pics! Do any of you need a turkey for Thanksgiving? Come on over!
I woke up today to a city of ice — it drizzled all night in below freezing temps. While on the phone to Surly (of course! 😉 ), I noticed a whirl in my peripheral vision — the turkeys had descended! We have been overrun with turkeys in our community, and in our neighborhood specifically. We have a huge crabapple tree that holds its fruit throughout the winter, and the turkeys have found it.
They look like vultures and are WAY too big for the tree!! Yikes!
From Susan — LV2KNIT
My knitting moniker is taken from my license plate — or vice versa (chicken and egg?). But, I think of my blog name and Ravelry name as a big part of my identity. Recently I renewed my license tabs. To my surprise, I received a shiny new gift from the state:
They are so pretty! The letters are flat, though — they used to be raised. I suppose it is to save money. I like ’em!!
November 13, 2010
From Both of Us — Sitting Around Knitting Bahn Bahns
We have not written much about our respective Eala Bhans. Early on, we kind of made a pact that we would knit this project in tandem and not post individually, on the off chance that one of us would speed ahead of the other. In reality, of course we knit at different paces: we have different amounts of time to spend, life and work and other projects intervene. But right now we are pretty darn close to each other, so we will post! (Note from Sally: No, we are not all that close. Susan is waaaaaay ahead of me. But that’s fine.)
The Yarn
The yarn is lovely. The feel of it, the wooliness of it, the depth of the color. It gets an A+!
When you take colorwork classes from Alice St@rmore, she presents you with a small white box which holds a sample of every yarn color. Of course, her color cards are required to identify the name of the color in question:
The Pattern
The Eala Bhan pattern is crazy detailed. For the collar, Susan had to move between three pieces of paper to track every row! It is easy to see that the sheer magnitude of pattern itself could turn off many knitters. But it is also very beautiful. Sally thinks it might be too dressy to wear often, but Susan thinks it will be a great work sweater.
Progress
We knit the fronts and back in one piece, knowing full well that this would be a slow go. What we did NOT anticipate was how slow the back would be once you made the split at the armholes! We thought we would breeze along after leaving the fronts behind, but it felt even slower! The fronts themselves were speedy quick.
Susan’s Eala Bhan Blocking
The collar
Susan is ready to start knitting the sleeves.
From Sally: I am NOT ready to start knitting the sleeves. I have finished one front. Mine is not yet blocked, and I hope it looks as nice as Susan’s does after the blocking. Here are a couple of my slower progress pictures.
Sally’s Eala Bhan before the split for the arms (the color is very true here)
Sally’s Eala Bhan with just the left front finished (unblocked)
Weather
And here is what Susan woke up to this morning: snow-flavored rain!
November 2, 2010
From Susan — Sleeve Circling the Drain
One thing great about knitting is that you can usually rip it out and fix it. The bad thing about knitting is ripping it out and fixing it.
I made a few mods to the sleeve for fit and construction. One thing I wanted was to finish the gusset decreases before I started the sleeve shaping — I did not want the increases and decreases to collide (been there, done that — did not like the look!).
I also did not want the sleeve to narrow quite as drastically. In the first version, I did my sleeve decreases every 6 rounds — now I am starting with the every 8 round decreases. This will mean that the sleeve stays wider where my arm is fat wider and get narrow where my arm tapers to the wrist. Duh.
So, I spent most of my weekend knitting time reknitting and figuring. That’s okay 🙁 . I had nuthin’ better to do…
Eala Bhan is also progressing. I have about 6 inches above the armhole split. Yay!!
PS: How many Trick-or-Treaters did you have? We had ONE. Uno. Singleton. Not a duo. I am now forced to eat all of the leftover Snickers before they go stale.
PS2: Today (Wednesday) I am wearing one of my “new” outfits, made a few weekends ago — made to go with my Sunrise Circle. And it does!!
November 1, 2010
October 15, 2010
From Susan — So It’s the Weekend; Sew What??
I usually knit in my spare time. It is portable and I derive both pleasure and knitted garments from it. Yay. I used to sew much more than I knit, but those days passed many years ago when I decided that knitting allowed me to spend more ‘creative’ time with my family (instead of being sequestered in my sewing room!). This weekend I have to bust out the sewing machine again. I have no clothes to wear. At all. It is more than simply embarrassing.
The other thing that suffers with my knitting is cleaning (ugh squared!). I am committed to doing a little of that this weekend, too. B-O-R-I-N-G!!!!
So, this weekend I plan on sewing and cleaning and not getting much knitting done — though I will still knit on my frequent breaks! 😉
Hour One: One bathroom cleaned and our bed linens in wash. Motivation already gone. Checked out fabric stash. Fabric options are there, but no thread or other notions. Run to store will interfere with continuity plan for day. See golden opportunity fading. Making more coffee to think.
Hour Three: Drank coffee; made list. Back from store with 80% success ratio. Is it too early to take a movie/knitting break? OK, even I know the answer to that one…will at least set up my cutting area. 🙁
Hour…??: It’s hopeless. I started cutting out one of my items. Younger DD called for ride. Came home and sat at computer. Can’t seem to find my way back to my cutting table. I need a break.
Day 2
I did finish cutting out Item #1. I am trying to decide if I should sew Item #1 first or cut out Item #2 and then start sewing.
Decision Made: Cut first, sew second!
Hour 3: Cutting done; one more trip to the fabric store 🙁 and now I will begin. I am not coming up except for coffee until something is accomplished!
Day 3
One item done except for the hemming. I will work on the second to the hem and then sit with a good movie to do the handwork. The Mad Men finale is on tonight 🙁 so no knitting or sewing then!
Second item done but for the hemming as well. Now to the TV for the handwork!!
Sunday night: all three items are done with 2 minutes to spare!! The third item has been marinating for two years an only needed to be hemmed. Three hems in one day — yuck!
Day 4
In the light of a new day, I don’t think I like any of the items I made over the weekend and may have to do some tweaking. 🙁
Day 5
I am wearing one of my new outfits today and actually got a compliment — mostly because it is new and not something I have worn every third day for the past 15 years! Woo Hoo!
