Monday, July 20, 2009

Going Crazy!

It's been a crazy month. Our weather has been ever changing, so the migraine and dizzy beasts have been attacking. Plus, I've been trying to catch up on outside work in between rain drops...and nursing a sick dog. Because of all this, I've been concentrating on small projects or projects with pieces I can finish quickly. Like a dish cloth kitchen/bar set, granny squares for a baby blanket and a CAL on Ravelry, and a scarf. Then there's the sweater from the "My First Sweater" class I took at a local yarn store.

This is one quarter of the Four Quarters pullover from the Simple Style book by Ann Budd. Great book, lots of patterns I want to make. I just have to get my butt in gear and get back to it. I have the first quarter done, and most of the second quarter. I guess that means I'm at the 2-minute warning and close to half time. Boy, thinking about football already, geesh!

I started a scarf in garter stitch, thinking it would be a quick project. I also wanted to see what knitting through the back loop only would look like. In my class, I was told that my stitches were twisted. I looked rather stupid and didn't quite know what the instructor meant. I think it's because she uses a different knitting technique than mine. I don't think my stitches are twisted. I may be twisted a little, but not my stitches. Anyway, I didn't realize how much more slowly I knitted using the back loop. I did a section in regular garter stitch, but didn't like the look. I found a crochet pattern that might look good with the yarn. It's Vanna's Choice by Lion Brand in the color Brick. Thankfully it's stood up to repeated frogging without much damage.


These are two of the three July squares for the Ravelry CAL. I wasn't crazy about the other square-I couldn't get it to come out correctly and I didn't want to spend any more time on it.

I was inspired by a design on some of my favorite towels, as well as this pattern from the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year perpetual calendar. This is the Squares Pattern, and it's pretty easy to do. Right now I have one dish cloth and 4 coasters from one ball of Sugar 'n Cream, and I'm hoping to squeeze at least another cloth from it. I plan to do just one repeat of the square pattern so the set isn't too visually busy. If I can find a ball from the same dye lot, I want to do a towel to match. It should make a great gift.

I haven't done regular granny squares in so long I've almost forgotten how! I had some Red Heart Eco-ways in my stash, and thought the green and soft white would be a nice blanket. I picked up some blue and pink, thinking I'd do all grannies, but am considering doing a row of squares at each end, and some simple stitching in the middle with the green and white yarn. Problem is, I'm not sure I'll have enough of the same dye lot of both yarns to do that. I could always add the pink and blue squares, and stripes to the blanket, too. We'll see.