Tag Archives: blue

A Game Of Yarn Chicken

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I haven’t wanted to knit on anything else but my Kindness 2019 Shawl from my Mother’s Day cast on. I blew through all the remaining sections and I’m on the last garter eyelets before the garter bind off.

The pattern indicated that you could continue to add eyelets if you had the yarn to do it. So I added 12 extra garter eyelet rows. You can see my remaining yarn above. Did I do the smart thing and weigh my yarn to determine how much each row was consuming so that I could have enough yarn to do the four ridge garter bind off? Nope, I sure did not! I’m just straight playing yarn chicken!

Happy Knitting!!

Kindness Continued

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My zen knitting default is definitely garter stitch…..back and forth….over and over  and over again. My Kindness KAL 2019 shawl has been my go to project lately with my congested head and brain fog. I’m in section 8 of the pattern already!

I have three full skeins of the Hedgehog Fibers Merino DK, two in the blue and one in the speckled grey. Based on how fast the yarn is disappearing I don’t think I’m going to hit my goal of using up all the yarn. The pattern does have some minimal instruction on how to add to the shawl if you have yarn left. So I’ll see how the shawl looks and how much yarn I have left when I get there. I may have to improvise.

I really want a big squishy shawl for next winter and I’m the boss of my knitting! Now I’m off to down some coffee and take my runny nose to daycare drop and work. Maybe my Rudolph nose will keep people at bay??

Happy Knitting!!

Potato Chip Knitting At Its Finest

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I literally can’t put my mothers day cast on down! Between the luxurious Hedgehog Fibers yarn and the comforting garter stitch, I’ve already made it to section three!!

The speckles in the grey contrast color have me stopping quite frequently to pet and admire the stitches. The pattern is the Kindness KAL 2019 shawl from Jaala Spiro. It’s a free pattern and absolutely wonderful.

I used the needles recommended in the pattern (US 7) and I am finding that gauge is not tight but not very drapey. I probably could have stood to have gone up a needle size. But it’s a shawl and who cares. It will just mean its extra warm for winter!

Happy Knitting!!

I Might Have To Revoke My Knitter Card

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So all this week I have been fighting with my Westport Blanket and having all kinds of trouble. As I was knitting last night it really started to sink in that my work didn’t really look anything like the pattern picture. I think I have found the source of my problem….I PRINTED THE WRONG PATTERN FROM MY LIBRARY! I also own the Brookside Blanket also by Fifty Four Ten Studio and accidentally printed that from Ravelry. 

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As you can see, this pattern photo looks MUCH more like what was I was knitting than what I showed in my post on Tuesday.

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Now, this pattern and blanket are lovely. But they just aren’t what I intended. And since the border edge is already messed up on one side I’m just going to frog the entire thing and start over WITH THE CORRECT PATTERN this time. Man, I can be really silly sometimes but I might have to turn my knitter card in over this one though.

Off to the frog pond I go!

Easy Goes It…Plus Some

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The middle of last week I reached the end of the pattern instructions for my Easy Goes It shawl. I still had a ton of yarn left as the put up on my skein was bigger than the pattern called for yarn. (And I was even using a size 7 US needle instead of the pattern recommended US 6 to make my gauge bigger.)  What is a knitter to do? I didn’t want to bind off and leave so much unused.

Well, I put on my big girl undies and decided to extend the pattern. I am going to work another garter section and weigh my yarn as I go. When I get down to a few grams left I think I will add a short eyelet section before binding off in the pattern recommended manner. I will save just a teeny bit of yarn for my scrap blanket but otherwise I plan to play yarn chicken as best I can. This singles yarn is too yummy to sit in my leftovers.

I’m a few garter bumps in and my yarn is shrinking. I think a good nap knitting session today and post-bedtime session tonight should see me to the rest of my yarn….fingers crossed.

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Easy Goes It

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After my successful Antarktis finish, I really felt the need to fill the shawl sized hole in my knitting life. I did some queue searching and stash diving in my “golden skeins” and came up with a single skein of Neighborhood Fiber Co Rustic Fingering in the Easterwood color. I picked up this skein during my trip to Minnesota last February and it has been popping into my brain every since I brought it home.

This is a singles yarn in 100% merino. So perfect for a shawl and the subtle variegation to the blue would really shine in a single color shawl. I settled on Easy Goes it by Finincky Creations. I thought the name and the garter stitch based construction were just kismet. Easy is about all I am capable of right now, lol.

Thanks to some Grandparent babysitting I managed to get cast on and work the first section of garter and start the second section that incorporates more pattern like stitches. the bag is a Suburban Stitcher bag and I hope to finish this shawl in time to enter it into the PALKAL run by the Actually Knitting podcast. We shall see….there are a lot of baby growth spurts ahead. And I’m not counting my knitting time before it hatches so to speak.

The yarn is lovely but it’s been a long time since I worked with a singles yarn. I do with my needles were slightly more pointy but not too pointy. I’m using bamboo needles from Joann’s because that is what I had on hand. And they are perfectly serviceable, I just wish the tips were just a little bit better to make the knitting faster.

Happy Knitting!!

Midas Hat Update

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My Midas Hat has a brim! I was selected for the core team of an software implementation project at work. So this week I had two loooong days cooped up in conference room talking expectations, timelines and assigning project duties. The Deputy Director of IT is a knitter and therefore understands the need to knit to save one sanity.

I managed to plow through the 30 rows of inner and outer brim and connect in the round! The yarn is just so stunning. It’s not quite as purple as it shows in the photo, it’s definitely deep royal blue. The needles are some cheap bamboo Clovers. The tips are showing their age and I swear I got a splinter the other day. This might be the last project these needles see. But for now it’s just straight knitting until I reach nine inches (or desired length) of hat. This project has been living in my backpack and has been great to pull out when I need to keep my hands busy.

Happy knitting!!

FO Friday: True Blue Fingerless Mitts

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While on vacation I managed to finish my True Blue Fingerless Mitts!


I JUST squeaked by with enough yarn to finish. I’m finally done with the mega skein of the Hansen Hand Dyed merino!


The Ravelry details of my project are here in case anyone is interested. I made the pattern up myself and tried to take good notes.


The only slight bummer was the thumb hole on mitt #2. It turned out a bit to large and gapey after the crochet edge. So I used some waste yarn and closed it up a bit to make it fit better. But all in all I’m very pleased with with and can’t wait to wear them.

Ps. As I finished these it was literally 111 in Topeka with a heat index of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Asphalt literally got too hot and buckled. It might be awhile before I need these!

Happy Knitting 

Cast On: True Blue Fingerless Gloves

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I recently had the opportunity to attend a conference in Kansas City that was centered on empowering women who work in public administration. I am even luckier that I work for an organization that values sending employees to this kind of conference. Of course I needed to take knitting how else was I going to spend 10 hours in a ballroom listening to presenters. But I didn’t have any simple round and round stockinette projects on the go. And then my mind drifted to the project bag from my Terribly Simple shawl that I just finished blocking.

For Mother’s day I picked up a skein of Hansen Hand Dyes Mega Merino.  That whopper of a skein had 820 yards of yarn in it. And despite working it into my Nangou and Terribly Simple I still have a TON of yarn left. And a light bulb went off….I could make finger-less mitts to match both shawls!

I grabbed some size zero needles and threw the yarn into a bag and off to the conference I went. I cast on 72 stitches in the round and just made the rest up as I went!

I was able to complete the cast on, 2×2 ribbing and all of the stockinette arm portion as the conference. And then thanks to Daddy doing bedtime that night I was able to complete the thumb hole split. I plan for these to be some long mitts!

As you can see above I simply got to a point where I thought it was long enough and stopped knitting in the round and went to knit/purling back and forth. I am going to do this until it roughly matches the height from the bottom of my thumb joint to the web where my thump joins my hand and then I will hop back in the round!

P.S. I was smart enough to split my leftover skein into two equal parts before starting to knit. So I know I will have enough to make a matching mitt…

Happy Knitting!

WIP Wednesday: Terribly Simple #2

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I’m not sure what I did during long car trips before knitting. Thanks to my husband driving, because he knows I like to knit, my Terribly Simple shawl has grown!

It’s a one row repeat that is perfectly soothing garter stitch. I’m improvising on the pattern a wee bit. I’m doing 10 garter ridges of the variegated yarn and then 2 garter ridges of the solid color yarn. So that 20 and four rows respectively. It’s getting quite big and scrunched up on the needles. I do admit that I stop and pet this project from time to time in-between rows….

Happy Knitting