Tag Archives: cast on

Cast On: Jay Jay Shawl

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After finishing Reyna I knew I needed another shawl on the needles. I pawed through my bag of prepped projects and pulled out the Jay Jay Shawl by Francesca Caricato. This is a DK weight shawl with garter and eyelets. My yarn was wound, pattern printed and needles ready to go so I cast on.


Jellybean had a doctors appointment and his flu shot which resulted in a very tired and grumpy three year old. He puppy dog eyed me and convinced me to stay home and snuggle him instead of going to daycare/work. And I managed to get a good chunk of the shawl started!

It’s crescent shaped and gorgeous. The yarn is some REALLY old stash that is Cascade Yarns Sunseeker. It’s grey with a fine thread of sparkle running though. It’s not the softest yarn but oh is it pretty!! I’ve got to two skeins and and I plan to use as much as possible. This might be my next obsession!

Happy Knitting!!

Uh Oh Froggie-O

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My Downpour Socks have been niggling at me from the back of my brain. While I was folding laundry downstairs this past weekend I pulled this WIP out of storage. And it hit me….I cast these on in the WRONG NUMBER OF STITCHES. I was in Colorado when I did it…I’m going to blame the altitude.

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So these beauties are headed to the frog pond. I guess the silver lining is that a) I’ll have socks that actually fit me and I won’t be forced to gift them and b) I can restart them and they will count for the #dcspigskinparty17 KAL.

Le Sigh….more knitting I guess!

Daunt Cowl Preparation 

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Jellybean is now officially three. We had a blowout family bash that was totally spooky and Halloween themed. Literally my kid has not stopped talking about Halloween since last Halloween so we just kinda leaned into the theme for his birthday.

Well birthday party meant quality grandparent time which then correlates into mommy free time. I had been thinking more and more about the Daunt Cowl. The only thing holding me back was the lack of a good neutral in my stash. All my sock stash is highly variegated or self-striping. So I tip-toed over to my LYS and found a neutral sock yarn…..Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet 100 Splash in the Autumn color….

So while Jellybean was showing Papa around the local Zoo…I culled my sock scraps and found a rainbow’s worth. That’s 24 minis that go from grey/pink through the rainbow and back to grey. I made a pattern page here and you can see what my scraps are.

I painstakingly weighed and wound according to the directions and look what beauty I got!

Isn’t this about the best thing you have ever seen? My ball winder JUST barely was able to wind this bad-boy. It’s over 1,000 yards because some of my scraps were over the 5 gram suggested allotment. I wanted to use up as much as possible plus this now counts as a Blitz project for the #pigskinparty17 KAL!

I’m going to cast on as soon as my Reyna is finished 😉

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Reyna

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During my tomato madness last weekend I decided to pull a project from my Pigskin Party KAL prep. I cast on for the Reyna Shawl by Noora Laivola.

I had some beautiful speckled Hawthorn Speckle Handpaint in the Cosmic Speckle in my stash. This yarn told me it needed to be something squishy in garter stitch.  I’m loving how the pops of color are popping up!

This pattern is just so amazing. It’s a free pattern and has been knit over 5,000 times. I’m probably the last person on Ravelry to stumble on this one, lol. The pattern fits on one page, it’s well written, and you guys it has a row tracker check box thingy! With as much as I have to pick up and put down my knitting this is a life saver! I completed the cast on, one garter section and one lace section in one sitting.

I can quickly feel this project becoming addicting!! This yarn is just so yummy I can’t wait to see the finished product. I was thinking this was going to go into the gift box…but I may not be able to part with it!!

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Mom’s Christmas Socks

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During a recent visit to my parents, my Aunt Barb pulled me aside and said that my mom was bummed that she was the only one in our immediate family who hadn’t received any hand knit socks. Well, what knitter can resist the sirens call of that kind of request!

I pulled some Cascade Heritage Prints in the Christmas colorway from my stash and some size 2 needles and immediately cast on. Now she is roughly a size 7/7.5 US women’s shoe. So I’m pretty certain I’m going to work a 64 stitch sock but I’m not sure how much length she needs. I kind of want this to be a Christmas surprise so I need to find a way to steal a peak at her favorite shoes….


Happy Knitting!

Cast On: Knitted Knockers

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The Down Cellar Studio Pigskin Party KAL is here! And on the first day I wanted to get a quick victory and clear out some old stash. I have two skeins of Cascade Ultra Pima in my stash from 2012 that never found the right project. Well, it is in fact once of the approved yarn for Knitted Knockers so both skeins are destined to become boobs!

To make sure I could wrap my head around the construction and get used to the size 8 DPN needles, I made an A cup size first. The first of the pair flew off my needles in one evening!

Un-stuffed it looks like a weird pyramid, lol. But other than some slight laddering between the needles I’m quite pleased. I remembered halfway through how I need to tighten the stitches after switching needles to discourage laddering. So the second one will be better. 

The charity accepts them in this state (un-stuffed). But I want to see what they look like filled so I think I will stuff this pair just to see. My plan is to sprinkle in some knitted knockers among my other KAL projects to get a fast win here an there but also to do some good for women healing from a mastectomy.

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!

Cast On: Summer Morning Triangle Shawl

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Happy Fourth to all!

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I have had this rainbow gradient cooling its heels in my stash since I picked it up this spring at a yarn shop closing. The siren call of this has been strong. It’s 350 yards of DK gradient glory. I just couldn’t find the right pattern of a shawl that would fit my style and show off the gorgeous rainbow. I auditioned several before I realized that the yarn dyer had a free pattern posted with this specific yarn in mind!

So let me introduce you to what will become a Summer Morning Triangle Shawl by Done Roving Yarns. I gathered the project bag, needles, and yarn….all that is left is to cast on!!

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Terribly Simple

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After finishing Nangou I had a TON of the contrast color left over. I couldn’t bring myself to put it back in stash. At first it wanted to be socks and then it wanted to be a cowl and now I think it wants to be a shawl. It’s a sock skein from T&H Fiberworks in Blue Suede Shoes.


And then it hit me….I could make another shawl that would mirror Nangou in color. I did some Ravelry diving and came up with Terribly Simply by Caitlin Ffrench. The and everything was already wound so I took off!


The pattern is written for one color but I’m improvising stripes. It’s all soothing garter and the yarn is looking pretty good! This is my main project now ❤️.

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Antimuon Vanilla Socks

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With my Nangou almost done I started scheming for my next project. (Let’s forget the box of WIPs hibernating in the basement and the two pair of socks I already have on the needles.) I dug through my stash with glee and pulled a shiny skein of self striping.


For my last birthday my husband got me some String Theory Colorworks in the Entanglement base in the Antimuon color. This is a fingering to light fingering sock yarn. And the best part was this is sold in two matching half skeins. All I had to do was wind them up!

I will have to pull out a little of the skein on the right to make sure I start with the same color as the one on the left. My needles and notions are tucked in the bag just waiting for me to start. 😃

Happy Knitting!