Blog Is Moving!

So I have finally had enough of the "new" Blogger. I hate that I cannot be logged in to blogger and my personal email account at the same time. Google, which usually makes me happy, has really messed things up this time :)

I can now be found at

http://crayolaab.wordpress.com/

I hope you will follow me over there! I am in the process of importing all of my old entries from this site and eventually I will probably close things down over here but not for awhile.

Fingerless Gloves

(This is the second time I have posted a post successfully according to the new Blogger only to have it not show up on my Blogspot page. I am really not happy with new Blogger lately - anyone have suggestions for a photo-friendly blog site?)

I'm making these gloves for the friend of a woman in my knitting group. She has a disease that means she has to wear gloves nearly all the time, so the woman in my knitting group has put out a call for fingerless gloves for her friend.
I think I bit off a bit more than I should have on this one - I'm making them up entirely. I'm not sure I'm pleased enough with them to give them to someone else. I think the middle finger is a bit too long and that's easy to fix. However, I think the palm is a bit too bunchy (possibly just due to the thickness of the yarn) and I don't have the patience to fix that. I'm also not positive I can recreate it for the other hand. So this might be a single glove for me - we'll see.
I do really like this detail around the cuff; it reminds me of leaves on a vine.
I am very proud of my thumb gusset, though!

It's My Birthday Tomorrow!

It's my birthday tomorrow, and coincidentally someone at my knitting group last night was sharing these prototype headbands with us :)

She said she would be sharing the pattern with the blog world when she finalizes it, but I think it's great the way it is!
The fabric is beautiful, the photos definitely don't do it justice.

Thank you Suzanne!

Basic Dishcloth

This is a boring project but I love the colors :)
Just a quick and easy basic dishcloth.
Sugar n Creme, I believe. For my mother :)

Curran Scarf

This is my April Three Irish Girls YOTM yarn. It's Galenas Merino, dyed in the Curran colorway. I love-love-love this yarn. I don't know why. I would not have thought I would like it. But I love it. I have visions in my head of a big (adult-sized-sweater) project using this stuff. For now, though, it has become a drop-stitch scarf.
Tomás thinks it is just fabulous. He approves of Three Irish Girls yarn in general and seemed especially fond of this one. I did not attempt to get a photo of the scarf stretched out fully.
Close up of the color. Yes, it's a single ply yarn. Yes, I have said in the past that I loathe single ply yarns. More and more I am beginning to think that I just loathe Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride.
This is how much yarn I had left (that's my handy new scale - it measures to the nearest gram!). I originally underestimated how much yarn was left and bound off too early. Actually, I just really wanted ice cream and I had promised myself I wouldn't get any unless I finished the scarf, so I think I convinced myself I didn't have enough for another repeat just so I could have ice cream. When I got home from knitting night I unpicked the bind off and did another repeat. Not too shabby! I'm getting good at this guessing game.

Ruffle Washcloth

I still had yarn left over after making the flower washcloth so I made this. I didn't intend for it to be ruffly but after the fact I actually like it a lot. It is nice and floppy in my hand. I did the flower cloth on size 7s (Knitpicks options) and this one started on u-nitt bamboo DPNs size 8 and then used Knitpicks size 8 options, binding off with the size 11s.
I think it looks kind of like a sun dial here. The chenille was VERY hard on my hands. I spent about 4 hours on both cloths today, 2 earlier and 2 this evening, and my hands are kind of tingly now. Very strange.
A close up of the fabric :) This cloth is stockinette in the center and garter around the edges.

Flower Washcloth

This is my Three Irish Girls May Yarn of the Month Club yarn project. The yarn is Sonnet Italian Chenille, dyed by Dashing Dachs in the "Shubunkin" colorway. 125 yards to 4 oz, rayon/cotton blend.
This photo shows how shiny and pretty the yarn is.
And I think this one shows off the awesome way the yarn spiraled toward the center.
Here's another view, just for fun :)

Top-down Hat

I had some yarn leftover from my felted bag, so I made this little hat. I'll be donating it to my LYS which is collecting warm hats. I think it's for the Dulaan Project.
I started with six stitches and did kfab increases in sets of 6 until it seemed big enough.
Then I worked until I was out of blue, then I worked until I was out of red (which was really mostly orange for the hat). My cast off is a little tight so I might re-do it tomorrow.

Nashua Wooly Stripes

I picked this yarn up on sale last year. I had other plans for it originally but they fell through. So I tried the yarn as "Danica" from Knitty. I liked the pattern fine but not with this yarn. I didn't realise the blue yarn had this teal color in it (you couldn't tell in the skein), or that the red color went so yellow-orange.
Instead, I decided it would be a felted bag. I quite like it, pre-felted (back).
Pre-felted (front). I wish I had thought to measure it. Alas I didn't. It seemed nearly big enough to be a sweater!
Post-felted. Ignore the bags and boxes coming out of it. Blocking is tricky!

Baby Sweater, (nearly) Finished

You would not believe how many ends I had to weave in. The sweater is really not lopsided, it just needs a good blocking. It's very soft. I wish I had used a size smaller needle I think - but I wanted to make sure I had a nice soft floppy fabric, and I certainly do.
I was a little unsure of how the striping would look carrying on to the arm this way. I kind of like it. I don't like the underarm area very much. It's slightly choppy. It was my first time seaming in garter stitch and it was a bit tricky.
On the inside on one side I carried the yarn up the edge instead of cutting it for each color change. I tacked it all down so it wouldn't have loose pieces to catch baby's fingers on.
Here's one of the side seams. Not bad for my first garter stitch seaming. Not perfect but I think it will do.

A Sweater Progresses

Here's the original MDK Baby Kimono. I was nearly finished with the first front when I realised 1) I was worried about running out of yarn and 2) the neckline was all wrong. I decided to rip all the way back to where I bound off for the neck. I knit one more stripe's worth on the back before binding off.
Then I re-worked the front, making it a cardigan rather than a kimono. I worked four button holes by binding off one stitch and casting it back on in the next row. If I could do it again I would bind off two stitches and cast two back on, I think, but I was worried that would make TOO big of a hole.
The sleeves are 5" wide at the armhole edge; I felt like the MDK pattern made sleeves that were just too skinny. I also made the sleeves a bit longer which required more increases/decreases so I spaced them out accordingly.

This is where I ended on Thursday when I just couldn't look at it anymore!

Details of WWF Swap

The lotion
The DPN holders
The knitting needle chart (I got a few of these - I'll stick one in each knitting bag!)
The stitch markers. They are beautiful, and nice and simple!