8 posts tagged “knitting”

I'm at work right now, so what I'm actually reading is an assortment of PHP files that make me unhappy. Once home, however, I crack open "Knitting in Plain English." It's a lot more fun to read and has numerous great suggestions. I've needed to expand my knitting books beyond pattern collections. This seemed like a good start, and so far I'm pretty happy.

Knitting in Plain English, Updated Edition

Maggie Righetti

Most of my money these days is going to pay off bills and friends that I owe money to. That's good news. For one thing, I'm paying off bills and friends that I owe money to. For another, I am devoting a lot more time to pastimes that don't require much money. That means knitting, and a lot of it.

Brooke's sister is expecting a daughter in November, and I volunteered for the task of knitting some nice things for the impending niece. I did okay, with my first ever sweater:

finished baby sweater

It's far from perfect, but I don't think it's bad at all for a first try. I also made a hat:

Hat for Impending Niece

I think it's pretty darn cute, even if they will have to roll it up quite a bit to fit a newborn head.

Once I got those projects down, I decided to put together something for Sarah, the older niece. Her request was for a pair of socks. So here's that project, still in progress:

Sarah's Sock Progress

I just grabbed the Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits this afternoon, especially so I could poke around at the URLs for the companies advertising. There was a blurb for Knitting Daily, so I went to the URL. They aren't open yet, but if I sign up now I get two patterns, included a fairly elaborate looking number for "Caspian Sea Socks." I sign up and grab the sock pattern right away. It's only for women's 6-7, and not much in the way of suggestions for adapting it to larger sizes. My wife's feet are ... well ... not a 7. That's foot discrimination, that is.

I suppose it's okay, though. I'm already learning how to adjust patterns for the feet and bodies of people in the real world. It's fun, but a bit more math than I was expecting when I started getting into knitting. Meanwhile I can go back to reading the magazine and looking at ads.

Show us something you made yourself.

I made this a while ago, but it's one of my favorite things that I made myself.

Striped Scarf

I went to the store yesterday to purchase 14 little skeins of cotton yarn for my first sweater project. This will be the "Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater" from the Knitting Experience: Knit Stitch book. I decided to go for one of the simpler patterns for my first article of clothing larger than a pair of socks.

Sallys-summer-sweater-00

It's sort of a knitting "doodle" that I put together between Sunday and Tuesday. I was just digging through the yarn basket, picked two colors, and started making something. I didn't know it was going to be a wallet until a few rows in. Brooke is pleased - she got two knitted gifts in one week.

Wallet

1 comment

This has a few firsts:

•     First time knitting with two yarns at once - on the cover
•     First time using crochet to join pieces
•     First button!

I need to get a better camera. The camera phone is convenient, but not great for showing off.

I think I figured out what I'll use this blog for: finished projects. Knitting, programs, new web pages, whatever. So here's the first - a pair of green socks that I knitted for Brooke. That brings the sock pair count up to 3. I'm just talking about hand knitted socks. She owns many other socks that weren't made by me.

Green socks for Brooke