Category Archives: Knitting

All my knitting adventures

Mothers Day Cast On

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The Prairie Girls of the Prairie Girls Knit and Spin podcast have a Mother’s Day tradition I decided to adopt!

The deal is you cast on a just for your project on Mother’s Day and take pic of your kiddo holding the yarn or project. Then you get some unadulterated knitting time to work on it! I’ve already informed my husband this is what I want.

I pulled my 600 yard skein of Cashmere Super Toes sock in the Pieces of Eight color way that I got at Knitting In The Heartland this year. And I found a perfect pattern, Old Man of Storr shawlette by Carie Harling. It’s triangle shawl in mostly garter stitch that should help me maximize this mega-skein!

Happy Knitting!

WIP Wednesday: Beach Glass Vanilla Socks

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I might be becoming addicted to sport weight sock yarn….

Thanks to some recent windshield time I’ve finished sock #1 and have a good start on #2. The pooling/flashing is much more pleasing to my eye over 62 stitches than the 68 I started with. Not to mention the fit is much better!

I’m making this pair an honorary member of my 2016 sock yarn experiment and it’s one of my favorites so far. The yarn is Mint Rin Hand Dyed Sport Sock in the beach glass color way. I’ll definitely be getting more of this!

Happy Knitting!

More Little Old Man Sweaters

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I’m in that season of life where my friends are having ALL THE BABIES. And lately it’s been a string of boys which suits me fine because like I said last week, I’m obsessed with tiny baby old man sweaters!


I couldn’t resist and started another Baby Sophisticate by Linden Down. This time out of some deep stash Bernat Satin in Royal Blue. This is destined for a little boy that if he’s anything like his sister he’s going to have the most amazing blue eyes. 

I’m just now ready to separate from the sleeves. And of course do the finishing on my Uptown Worsted baby sophisticate….

Happy Knitting!

Falling Out Of Love

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I’ve had a Clapo-ktus on the needles since Jellybean was a few weeks old. It looks like this…


The yarn is great, the pattern is great, the FO will be beautiful but I just don’t love it anymore. It takes so much brain power to count my stitches and it’s hard to set down in order to chase Jellybean away from danger. I need more simplicity in my life. I think I’m going to rip this and cast on something garter related.

Maybe 22.5 degrees by Martina Behm….

FO Friday: Mandrake Vanilla Socks

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Happy Friday to all! I have a finished cheerful pair of springtime socks to share today!

  
Pattern: Toe Up Vanilla socks with afterthought heel over 68 stitches

Yarn: String Theory Colorworks Continuum in the Mandrake color way

Needles: US 1

  
These were part of my 2016 sock yarn experiment. I really enjoyed this yarn. The colors really popped and the fiber content of merino/cashmere/nylon was just buttery under my fingers! I will totally use this yarn again. And best of all…my stripes match!! I got a little off on the second heel but it’s still very close.

  
My only disappointment was that my afterthought heel was a bit snug. I worked it over 60% of the stitches but it still feels small. We will see how they wear. For now they are going into the drawer for next fall.

Happy Knitting!!

I Love Little Old Man Sweaters

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I’ve been surrounded by pregnant ladies of late with large percentage having boys. Not that I’m partial but I adore tiny male humans in tiny old man sweaters.

Some friends of my husband are having a boy so I pulled out a favorite sweater pattern….Baby Sophisticate by Linden Down

This pattern is easy and adorable. And at worsted weight it practically flies off the needles. I’m already at the sleeves. I’m using some yarn I bought on my 2015 yarn crawl, Uptown Worsted in Navy. It’s 100% acrylic and first time mom friendly. It has a soft feel but knits nicely. Pretty darn happy with it for it being acrylic.

This pattern runs small so I made the 6-12 month size just to be safe. I also plan to “finish” this one wit grosgrain ribbon on the button bands. It’s definitely time to step up my finishing game!

Happy Knitting!!

Sock Whoopsie

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I was cruising along on my Beach Glass Vanilla Socks when that all too familiar niggle started in my brain. The whispers were swirling “this is too big” “this is too wide” “this will never fit”.

So I compared it to my finished Mandrake sock and measured with a tape measure just to be sure. And what do you know…I’m like 6-8 stitches too wide for my foot.
  So this happened…

I frogged back to the toe and I’m starting over. Based on that this yarn is sport weight I’m going to work on a 62 stitch foot and an 64 stitch leg. I really like working with the yarn. It will be interesting to see how the pooling changes between the counts and especially how it looks from my first attempt.

Happy Knitting!

Preparing For The Holidays

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I’m really trying to get ahead of Christmas and birthdays this year. (My mother and sister have birthdays right around fathers day in June). I was really caught off guard last holiday season and it was not very fun. I felt like I really didn’t think about the meaning behind each gift.

This year is different. I have been hearing about Henry’s Hat by Joanna and Eric Johnson on literally all the podcasts. I just knew Jellybean needed this for Christmas. And thanks to Amazon it’s already landed on my doorstep. For sure Jellybean will get a matching hat to go with this book. Anything beyond that is still up in the air

Happy Knitting!

Talking To Muggles

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I have a department wide staff meeting twice a month on Fridays. At our last meeting our director got up and shared about his volunteering and coaching youth basketball. It was really heart warming and neat to see behind the suit. He wants to have some time at every meeting to learn more about each other. He asked for volunteers and you guys you could have heard crickets! So being the proper outgoing theater girl I volunteered.

What’s a girl to talk about? Knitting and yarn of course!! So I did up a short 10 minute presentation about knitting with an awareness I was talking to Muggles. I focused on the health benefits and crazy fun that comes with knitting. I even let them pet a few of my pretties!


I got a really positive response and a few knitting requests, lol. (Which I politely deflected!) All in all it went well and was really fun!

FO Friday: Dad’s Lap Blanket

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Well the blanket for Dad is done. And all I can say is….meh…

  I definitely screwed up somewhere. I crocheted on this almost exclusively at night after Jellybean went to sleep. Sometimes in the dark. And boy did I pay for that. The cast on side of the blanket has at least 12-14 more stitches than the bind off side. My fingers just can read/feel crochet the same as knitting. And I know I missed some stitch placement. Le sigh….
 It’s still beautiful and my Dad will never care. (P.S. he will definitely be able to tell because when you fold it its patently obvious its not square.) For now this is “done” and gone into hiding/hibernation. I did consider un-picking the cast on edge and ripping back to where I realized I was getting smaller and crochet back the other direction. Being as this is crochet I think it would work. But I’ve already wove in ends so I could have a couple tricky places given that. For now…I’m just done with this and it needs to think about what it did!