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Monday, February 28, 2011

Druid Mittens



What a fun knit! I can honestly say that this pattern held my attention for the entire duration of the project. Its been awhile since that has happened. The pattern is chalk full of twists and turns and bobbles and the palm section has texture gone wild. Yes, the pattern is predictible however there are 3 different sections on the front of the mitten and each section is doing a different thing than the others. If you are looking for a challenging knit, this is it.

The entire pattern is charted and split up between 3 separate charts, something I consisider to be a bonus. The first chart is a simple knit and purl combinations that no where near prepares the knitter of what is to follow.

The second chart is segmented off by the front and the palm of the mitten. And while one can clearly see that the pattern repeats and is somewhat predictable, don't let this fool you. This is not some sittin'-by-the-TV kind of knitting. This is you-must-really-pay-attention kind if knitting. I found this out while watching my "Desperate Housewives" and realized that I crossed my braid the wrong way. Luckily I was able to fix one of the mis-crosses but was unable to fix the second mistake. (I keep trying to convince myself that all will be OK.) Once I reached the end of the second chart, I just assumed that we were to do a 3-needle bind off. So, I turned my knitting inside out and proceeded to do just that, when a little voice said "Libby, this is a Jarod pattern and we all know about Jarod patterns. Will you please just read what the next part says?" And luckily I read the pattern because a 3-needle bind-off is NOT what was to be done next. Next, I was instructed to short row across 5 sts decreasing on either end every other row. THEN came the 3-needle bind off.

Chart number 3 is saved for the thumb, whose stitches were placed on some waste yarn in chart 2. Again as with chart 2, one must really pay attention because the front part of the thumb is cabled while the back part is the same texture stitch as the palm.

The yarn I chose to use was Woolmeise 100% Merino Superwash. When I first touched it I fell in love. Right there at my kitchen table me and the yarn had a moment. Tingly sensation and all. The depth of color was...well words can not describe it. And the twist. Lets talk about that for a second. I've never knit with a yarn that had the twist that this yarn has. I was advised to ball it twice to help with the twisting during knitting.

I couldn't be more happy with my pairing of yarn and pattern. It provided the challenge I was looking for with exceptional results!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Blanket Square #3



This texture pattern I borrowed from another pattern, Druid Mittens by Jarod Food. It requires minimal attention and is definately a sitting-in-front-of-your-favorite-tv-show kind of knitting.

Jarod's Texture Pattern

Multiple of 2 sts.

Row 1: *K1, with yarn in front slip 1 stitch, Repeat from * across.
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: *With yarn in front slip 1 stitch, k1, Repeat from * across.
Row 4: Purl

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Blanket Square #2

For the second square I decided to keep it simple and go with the seed stitch. I absolutely love the seed stitch. The texture is amazing, its very easy to do, and the results are to die for!



Seed Stitch

Multiple of 2 sts.

Row 1: *K1, p1. Repeat from * across.
Row 2: *P1, k1. Repeat from * across.

Blanket Square # 1

Determining what type of square to knit was alot harder than I thought it would be. The possibilities are endless afterall. There are cables, or texture, or lace, or cables with lace, slip-stitch patterns. Like I said, the possibilities are endless. So to keep my sanity I decided to limit it to texture squares.

Here I am, curled up on my couch going through the "Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns" by Barbara Walker, trying to decide on a texture stitch pattern. The book contains over 700 patterns so I'm bound to find something. Right? I flip on over to the "texture" section and again find an overwhelmingly amount of patterns. Left leaning texture, right leaning texture, texture with zigzags, texture with ribs. What part of this is going to help keep my sanity? Damnit woman, just pick a pattern and be done with it!



For the first square I chose the "Seeded Rib Pattern" located on page 7.

Seeded Rib Pattern

Multiple of 4 sts plus 3.

Row 1: K3, *p1, k3; rep from *
Row 2: K1, *p1, k3; rep from * end p1, k1

Libby's Blanket

So I was thinking that it sure has been awhile since I’ve made myself a big blanket and wouldn’t it be great if I got my bum in geer and made myself one?

To help stay on track, I came up with a timeline for what needed to be made and by when.

Jan: make 3 squares
Feb: make 3 squares
March: make 2 squares
April: make 3 squares
May: make 2 border strips
June: make 3 squares
July: make 2 squares
August: make 3 squares
Sept: make 3 squares
Oct: make 3 squares
Nov: make 2 border strips
Dec: Sew it all together

When its all said and done, I'll have made 25 12"x12" squares and 4 5' border strips. And when its all sewn up, it will be my blanket!

Now for the yarn. I've decided to go with Elann.com Peru Soft (now a discontinued yarn) because I have a crazy amount of it. Yes, Ann had a bag sale at an amazing price and lets just say that I have several bags. The other thing that is absolutely great about this yarn is that its a bulky wt, translating to very fast knit!

So if all goes accordingly to plan, I will have a blanket by the end of the year!