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Not much going on in my knitting world… I’ve been working on this simple two-color ribbed scarf for my four-year-old son. It’s a simple 2×2 rib. Originally I started it in Brioche Stitch, but I kept dropping stitches and found it impossible to re-seat them properly on the needles when that happened. I dozed off a couple of times while knitting, and would awake to dropped stitches, so rather than rip out and start over for a fifth time, I copped out and switched to simple ribbing. It’s ok, my little boy won’t notice the difference; he’ll be happy to finally have his mom-made scarf. (He’s been asking for one for a while, but I’ve felt he’s been too little for a scarf. Wouldn’t want it to get tangled up on the playground!

New Book!

I finally received the long awaited Melissa Leapman book,
Cables Untangled: An Exploration of Cable Knitting. Wow! What beautiful designs! There’s even a reversible cable scarf design in here, which is a concept I’ve been playing with.
I have a total fear of charted knitting patterns, and of course, this book is full of charts! I know my eyes will drive me nuts on this one. But I love cables so much that I’m willing to give it a try. This book has quite a few patterns in it, but it is also filled with stitch designs too…. plenty to keep the avid cabler quite busy! Love this book!

All for now…

I started working on a new scarf design recently and I thought I would report on my progress. I spent a couple of weeks playing with some new design ideas, and nothing much was working for me, until I stumbled on this stitch combination, and I love it.

Right to left (since that is the direction in which we knit, we have an eyelet, a left over right crossed cable, a 12-stitch panel in mistake rib, a right over left crossed cable, and another eyelet.

Here’s the pattern:

Cast On 36 stitches.

Knit 2 or 4 rows of garter stitch to make a firm edge.

Begin pattern:

Row 1, 3, 7: K2, yo, K2tog; P1, K6, P1; K2P1 (four times); P1, K6, P1; SSK, yo, k2.

Row 2, 4, 6, 8: K4; K1, P6, K1; K2P1 (four times); K1, P6, K1; K4.

Row 5: K2, yo, K2tog; RC Cable; K2P1 (four times); LC Cable; SSK, yo, k2.

Repeat Rows 1-8 until desired length is achieved. Finish with the same number of garter stitch rows that you chose to do in the beginning. BO loosely.

Notes:

RC Cable: Sl 3 stitches to cable needle and hold in back, K next 3 stitches and then K3 from cable needle.

LC Cable: Sl 3 stitches to cable needle and hold in front, K next 3 stitches and then K3 from cable needle.

Let me know if I can improve on these instructions. Hope you enjoy this pattern! I find it fun because I feel like I’m doing something different every row. I don’t get bored wtih this one! And for me, that’s a major plus.

That’s all for now!

I’m so excited that my hat is finished! So I asked my DH to snap this picture. Cool, huh?

Here are the details:

Pattern: Fiber Trends AC-02
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted (solid color); KnitPicks Wool of the Andes (stripes)
Needles: KnitPicks Options, Size 10 Circular
Random Stripe Generator
Magic Loop Method

I wore it to work yesterday and got lots of compliments! My mind is already spinning about my next hat, which will be a retirement gift for a friend at work who always admires my hats and offers to buy one every time. (No, I don’t make them for sale; with the amount of work it takes I could never recoup the investment! Therefore, they make a nice gift when I am so inclined.)

I re-felted the hat some yesterday, and it is clearly has decided to shape itself in a different direction. It maybe wasn’t what I intedend at first, but hey, it’s cute, don’tcha think?

It’s still damp, but I hope to wear it on Friday.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I miss you.

Well, here’s the hat after felting! It’s not quite what I wanted it to be but I haven’t given up hope yet! First of all, there was a rather large hole near the center of the crown at the top… I must have droped one of my K2tog’s when decreasing or something. I tried felting another piece of fabric to it but it would not stick. So then Rhoda suggested that I darn the hole, and re-felt the hat in that area. It worked! The hole is gone!

The hat overall was not felted enough at first, and I’m still not convinced that it’s small enough yet. The crown is nearly there but I don’t know what to do with the brim. It is just too floppy to hold a turned up shape like I like. I’m wondering if it will ever get firm enough, or if this is just one of the idiosyncracies of the AC-02 pattern as opposed to the AC-01. I definitely was after a chic, rolled brim, rather than a big floppy hat. Sigh… I hope I can get it to the way I want. Perhaps I should have opted for the narrow brim option, but it seemed so narrow that it practically covered the crown section in the example photo. And since I did a strioed band on the lower part of the crown, I wanted it to show!

So, I’ll be messing with this for a while yet in hopes of getting the brim firm enough to actually do something with it. Wish me luck!

I’ve been in my knitting comfort zone the last couple of weeks with this hat project. Except this time I’m using the Fiber Trends AC-02 pattern, which uses one strand of yarn instead of two. And I modified the brim just a little in terms of the number of rows for the wide brim style. So we’ll see how the shape looks when I’m done! I’m also using the Random Stripe Generator, except I modified the number of rows needed because I decided to make my stripe section a bit narrower than I first thought I would. Right now the color combos look, um, interesting… haha! But I think when I get the top couple of layers of stripes on it will all come together nicely. My summer knitting buddy Rhoda was here yesterday and we went through my collection of hat pins and I found a cute butterfly that has a subdued green color in its wings that will go nicely.

Today is the 5th anniversary of an event that my dad attended honoring the service of the USS Canberra and all that served aboard. (My dad created that website and would be proud that it’s still going strong…) The event took place at the Australian Embassay and the President was there. He often said it was one of the best and most memorable days of his life. Little did he know that on the very next day, the whole world would change…

I miss you, Dad.