Ruffled Neck Kercheif

Here is my finished "Ruffled Neck Kerchief" from boutique knits. I really loved this pattern, it made me love chevron lace.

inspired to knit

Yay, so on Saturday I ordered "Inspired to Knit" from target.com and it came yesterday. I'm excited I want to start knitting the winter wonderland coat but I have to pick what yarn to use first. I don't know, I think I want it to be a vibrant red. We will see. I have to earn some money to buy yarn first. Anyways I'm excited that I have the book now. Here is a picture of the coat that shutter honey’s finished & posted on Ravelry.

almost finished...

I knitted a lot on it today. I went with a new friend of mine I met at the beginning of this month and my husband to the park today. It was beautiful blue sky with a few streaks of white fluff, green grass, green trees and a nice gentle breeze, and sunny. We only moved our picnic quilt once to be in the sun again. Texas weather is quite odd. We brought art supplies along and drew in charcoal and soft pastels while we were there. Had a fruit cup snack break. My husband finished reading "The Light Princess" by George MacDonald with illustrations by Maurice Sendak, who wrote and illustrated "Where the Wild Things Are". She is working on this cute purple and rainbow on white yarn bed spread. It was her first ever project. I made some progress on my Ruffled Neck Kerchief; I'm at 106 out of 171 rows. I made some more progress after church at a game night get together where I participated partially and then proceeded to knit and made and drink Asian orange citrus tea that looks like jam till it was time to return home for the evening.

new book added to my collection

Last night I went to Barnes and Nobles with my mother who was visiting. First thing I did was raid the shelves of the knitting section and sat down with around 10 knitting books and one of their comfy chairs flipping through the pages intently looking at all of the stitch patterns and knitted designs. After putting them back on the shelves choosing three to look through again, to in the end choose one. I decided on “Vogue Knitting Stitchionary Volume One: Knit & Purl” by Trisha Malcolm. I figured I could use this book a lot considering my desire to make my own patterns. I felt honored afterwards because during the outing someone struck up a discussion with me by starting off with asking what the difference between sewing and knitting was and some more unusual conversation and I was able to by God’s grace entirely share with this person The Gospel which in my husbands and my life group (home church) this past week learned means Good News.

the acorn hat

Ok, the brown experiment is now officially a hat, yay. I guess I didn’t really notice till I put it on but the edges are scalloped from the body pattern, sweet. And when I saw it on me in the mirror my first instinct was it looks like an acorn so I lovingly named it that on ravelry. The yarn I used and the needle size made it pretty large on my head. I think I’m still going to add an edge to it as another variation of the hat. I have no idea how to make pdf files, so I’ll have to look into that so I can post the pattern on ravelry. I also want to try to shrink it as much as I can and see how small I can get it. I’m really honored with the four hearts it’s gotten so far on ravelry compared to my other three in total over all my other projects.

Since I finished the first faze of this project for the moment, in researching for my next design project I opened up my newest Anthropologie catalog issue January 2009. And found one of the few knitted items on pg. 43 the withering frost vest. After finding the project that now interests me I set out to find what the stitch pattern is for the vest, searching google, ravelry, and library knitting books with not much luck. My husband and I ending up going to Hastings (a book and AV store) after our home church group where we are going to be going through the book of Mark this semester, anyways at Hastings I found two similar stitches one was in the “forest park dresser scarf” from the book “101 Designer One-Skein Wonders: A world of possibilities inspired by just one skein” by Judith Durant and the other from the pattern “wedding ensemble skirt” from the book “Inspired to Knit: Creating Exquisite Hand Knits” by Michele Rose Orne. I'll post swatches of those two designs later. I think this is going to be an ongoing project.

What's on my needles...

Here is what's on my needles. The cream one is the "Ruffled Neck Kerchief" pattern from the book "Boutique Knits" by Laura Irwin. It is worked in a chevron lace stitch. I really like how it is turning out. I'm using US size 4 needles with lion brand fishermen's wool.

The brown one is my first attempt at making my own pattern. My first knitted creation of my very own, I’m so proud. It's going to be a woodland/forest/tree stitch themed Rastafarian style hat. Too bad I don't have dreads to stuff inside of it. I bet that would look cool when it is finished. Maybe I'll have to take a picture of it on someone with dreads when I'm finished with it. It is going pretty fast. I started it yesterday to take a break from the neck kerchief. The body is stitched in a curving lattice lace pattern that becomes reverse stocking stitch with embossed leaves around the crown as the hat is decreased and I'm going to add a rim with an acorn rib.

Plain Talk Ruffled Mittens

Ok, second up on the count down of knitted projects from my new book "Boutique Knits: 20+ Must-Have Accessories" by Laura Irwin are the "Plain Talk Ruffles Mittens". I have never knit mittens before so, this pattern was intriguing for that reason also, I thought the ruffles along the cuff made them real cute and bonus I learned how to make button holes (smile). I decided to put some yellow buttons on them and sew them on in the arrow style (for a better idea of what I’m talking about) I like to call it the plant style or grass style. Where you have a button with four holes you sew diagonally across then from the bottom of the holes that you sewed diagonally across sew from that hole to each of the other two holes. I think it adds a bit extra to the button.

Side Slip Cloche

Ok, so on our way back home from visiting the first set of parents for the holidays we stopped at a Borders because my parents had given my husband a gift certificate to buy books because that is pretty much all that he wants buy, ever. He could live in a book store especially a resale one if they'd allow him to set up camp and could convince me to live a life of yellowing pages and dust. And with this gift card was uber kind and told me he wanted me to pick out a book I wanted too. I looked at all the knitting books they had that I'd never heard of before. You don't get many new knitting books at our library. And out of all of these knitting books I decided not to get the book I was excited to check out because of a side bar add on craftster which was "Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines: Patterns, Stories, Pictures, True Confessions, Tricky Bits, Whole New Worlds, and Familiar Ones, Too" by Kay Gardiner and Ann Meador Shayne and published in September 08 and instead get "Boutique Knits: 20+ Must-Have Accessories" by Laura Irwin which was published in Nov. of 08. And I am thrilled about it, wanting to knit everything in the book. My husband was like yeah get this one because he thought a lot of the stuff was sexy and he wanted me to knit it for myself or I guess for him to see on me like the first thing I knitted from the book, the "Side Slip Cloche" hat. A picture of the hat is used as the cover of the book. I am really please with this hat. It didn't take that long at all to knit and it looks fabulous and my girl friends all want me to make them one too which makes me smile. I can't knit enough or fast enough to knit all of the presents I have planned, stuff to sell and stuff to keep. Oh, well such is life; I guess I'll just keep on knitting at my pace, which I don't mind.