30th Birthday

I received many lovely presents for my 30th birthday but since this blog is devoted to knitting, I thought I would mention those that are most relevant to it.

Two large Chic-a Quick Draw Bags (colors: cherries and strawberries), Knitting Daily TV Series 100 - 400 DVDs and Knitting Daily Workshop: Inside Intarsia DVD with Anne Berk.

I have several Blue Sky Alpaca Pretty Cheap Project Bags in colors tangerine, turquoise, berry and purple. They retail for $7 compared to the $25 for the Chic-a Quick Draw Bags. The cheap project bags are made of muslin and feature a bird motif on the front. The quick draw bag is made of cotton that is double fabric. The outside fabric is polka dots and the inside is a single color. The bottom of the bags feature a vinyl fabric that is patterned. The inside also features a pocket. It's really important with the cheap project bags to not leave any small needles uncovered. I found one of my bags with a rather large whole from a size 2 dpn that I had been using for a sock.

Now, I think I'd like a Chic-a Single Yarn Keeper to keep my pesky balls of yarn from flopping about.

Hippity Hoppity

This is the Bunny Blanket Buddy from Lion Brand Yarns. I knit it in Lily Sugar'n Cream (colorway: Toffee) with size 8 and 10.5 needles. The face is embroidered in Blue Sky Alpacas Cotton so that I was only using machine washable cotton. The head is stuffed with blanket batting. I was afraid polyfill would poke out through the stitches and considering the head isn't knit very tightly, it definitely would have. It's a free pattern that can be found at the lion brand yarn website. It used only 15 grams / 25 yards of yarn. I have a coworker who is having her last day next week and wanted to be sure that I give her something for the little boy that's about to enter her family.

What's most am zing about this little knit, is that it's knit entirely in one piece. One piece, in terms of arms, head and ears. Seriously, that is really, really clever. There's no way anything is going to come off and harm a baby. I loved that the head is knit using the double knitting technique. With the use of slip stitches on both even and odd rows you are knitting the front and back at the same time. I was doing a brand new technique to me without even realizing it. The ears are knit by casting on and binding off additional stitches. In order to stuff the head, I had to place the stitches associate with the front and back on two separate needles so that I could get the batting in. It worked out splendidly.

Overall time to complete (includes embroidery)...4 hours. Not bad for a gifted item.

Curlicue Baby Blanket

Shortly after learning a close friend was expecting her first child (started on September 3), I decided I needed to knit a gift. With this in mind, I purchased 10 balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in a Khaki-ish color at Stitches Midwest. On size 4 (thought they were size 6 - oops!) needles, I cast on for the Curlicue Blanket by Skruddevutt (found on Ravelry. The yarn isn't exactly a mom's best friend but it's so unbelievably soft with it's fiber content: 55% Merino wool, 33% Microfibre, and 12% Cashmere. It's machine washable but is unfortunately dry flat and cool iron. But it can be dry cleaned.

The top and bottom border is 13 rows of garter stitch (approximately 1") and left and right border is 16 stitches of garter stitch. It's a lovely stitch pattern. Because I'm using a Sport-weight yarn, this is going to be a large project to tackle. I decided that I wanted the blanket to be at least 30" wide and 30" tall and cast on 209 stitches. This blanket, that is if I count my swatch gauge correctly, will have approximately 60,000 stitches. Crazy.

As of November 6, the blanket is 18 inches tall (over halfway there) and 30 inches wide - and it's only at 5 balls. This is by far the most intense project I've ever undertaken. It has to be comparable to knitting a sweater, right? Since it's just a square, it's not as though it looks like it's ever growing.

November 21, the blanket is 22" inches tall - 6 balls.

CO on 12/18/10 and blocked the next day. The final measurements are 36" wide and 31" tall or if one wants to place the blanket the other way 31" wide and 36" tall.

Sister's Glovelets

Here is one in action:

They should arrive at her doorstep in the next couple of days. I hope she likes them and that they fit. With the extra skein, I've started a pair for myself. I'm making the cuff shorter and will make them longer on the top.

Yarn from the Isle of Skye and Blackberry Preserves

It arrived!!

My dear ex-pat friend, Jill, who now roams the Scottish Isles, recently sent me a care package containing yarn and some jam. The package arrived on Saturday. I can't wait to dig into the homemade blackberry preserves that she grew on their allotment.

I went to my five-year college reunion and she gave me all these nifty Scottish tidbits. The most bizarre and tasty being Branston Pickle.

The yarn is called Elvincraft. A woman on the Isle of Skye hand-dyes the wool, which is a mixture of her own sheep and sheep from the Shetland Islands (also part of Scotland). Jill reports the Isle of Skye is "completely covered in sheep." I have to find a pattern that can feature the various colors in all their splendor.