Tag Archives: stripes

FO Friday: Zen Yarn Garden Baby Blanket

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I’m so pleased to keep my FO train rolling! This week I finished my Zen Yarn Garden Baby Blanket!

Pattern: Zen Yarn Garden Baby Blanket by Staci Perry

Yarn: Knit Picks Brava Bulky in Solstice Heather, Cobblestone Heather and Red.

Needles: US 13s

Mods: Cast on 144 total stitches and worked extra stripe repeats. I also added fringe/tassels. My Rav notes are here.

I really wanted to use up every last inch of yarn and I had pretty decent sized balls when I bound off. So I thought…tassels! I measured and broke up my remaining yarn and added them to the points of my chevrons. This took the yardage of this blanket to 1,006 yards! I know the tassels are the most baby friendly but I can always remove them later. But for now I adore them!

I haven’t taken finished measurements yet but I have washed and dried this blanket. The above photo is taken on our king sized guest bed and it covers a good sized portion of it. Most of all, I’m just beyond thrilled to have over 1,000 yards of acrylic out of my stash and put to proper good (and washable) use!

Happy Knitting!!

One Last Stripe

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I am getting SOOOO close to the end of my Zen Yarn Garden Baby Blanket. I only have one stripe and the bind off to go!

The last stripe is blue and I have almost a full ball to do it. I will certainly have leftovers and I have a small ball of grey and tiny ball of red left as well. My brain is thinking old school tassels on each of the points of the chevrons? Maybe not the most practical for a baby but would use up the last of yarn and give this piece a vintage feel.

I guess I could always add them and take them off later? Thoughts?

How Tall Should A Hat Be?

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Well, I finally settled on a plan for my Kindness Double Brim Hat. I went with coordinating two row stripes to match the Kindness KAL 2019 shawl. I put in six Salty Tales stripes before I decided it looked good enough. I have a tiny ball of yarn left but I think I’ll save that in case I need it to close up the hat.

What I really need to decide is how tall to make the hat! I have a pretty small ball of the Ink (blue) color left. And I am balancing between making a well fitting hat and playing yarn chicken again. I mean I could be bothered to get my scale out and weigh my yarn and track how much yarn each row is consuming. But that seems like a lot of work and I am trying to get this knit done after kiddos bedtimes. My brain is mush at that point!

I think I’ll knit another couple of straight rows and then start decreasing. I can always fudge a few extra decreases here and there if I start running out of yarn right? The husband said I should just quite and make it a messy bun hat. That would be genius but I don’t have enough hair for a messy bun!

Happy Knitting!!

Blowing The Dust Off

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I managed to make it to work one day this week and forgot half my brain at home. I had a lunch box with an empty Tupperware container and an apple and then no knitting in my purse. It was a very rough day. Sleep deprivation is real yo!

I managed to scrounge a can of soup from my desk drawer so as not to starve. And I also remembered way back in August I had tucked some knitting away in my desk for just such days as this.

I pulled out my Cheery Vanilla Socks and added two whole stripes during my weekly conference call on my big work project. Sometimes it is good to stash knitting around like a squirrel stashes nuts! I may need to add a car project…..

Happy Knitting!!

And Then Stripes Appeared

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I kinda feel silly. I was knitting in a waiting room yesterday (I had my dad’s sock in my bag for purse knitting). As I happily went round and round I thought to myself “oh these are going to be striped!”

This really shouldn’t haven been a surprise to me. The yarn skein CLEARLY shows itself to be self striping. Chalk one up for mommy brain!

They are nice thick stripes on 72 stitches. I can’t even imagine how much bigger these would have been if they had been socks on a stitch count for me! I do like the blend of blues, purples and grey. It’s pleasing yet still “dude” appropriate. But I’m pretty sure if I knit my dad bright pink socks he would proudly wear them, he’s that awesome.

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Charlotte Winter

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Over the Christmas Holiday we spent several days at my parents house and off of work. Hooray! For this I had a goal, I wanted to work on something for myself in the day leading up to Christmas. I had my birthday yarn all wound up and waiting. And I had also swatched and done my sweater math for the Charlotte Winter. THIS was going to be my “my parents can babysit so I can breathe and knit a bit” project.

This was the first day’s progress. Gotta love bulky weight yarn and big needles right? I worked out my color work plan started cruising through the raglan increases. I had a bit of trouble keeping track of right side and wrong side since I wanted the “wrong” side of the garter ridges to show. And I may have made a few mistakes but garter stitch is very forgiving and no one will ever know.

Stay tuned for more progress tomorrow!

Happy Knitting

Re-Swatching Because Swatches Lie

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Earlier this week I had talked about making a second gauge swatch but this time with stripes. Seriously glad I did…because my tension changed while working stripes!! Using this yarn and my needles and making stripes got me a LOT closer to pattern gauge. This means my first spreadsheet math would have had me make a WAAAY to big of a sweater. This washed and blocked swatch only has me go up 1/2 to a whole pattern size. Glad I checked before I had most of a sweater done.

This time I had some better light so I took some better pictures. I am still leaning towards the wrong side of the striping. And I think I’m going to mix and match the single and double garter ridge stripes in some sort of pattern. Stay tuned…

Happy Knitting!!

Sweater Math and Color Options

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I was a good knitter and made a gauge swatch for an upcoming sweater.  I off course was not happy with either the gauge at the recommended needle size or actually achieve pattern gauge. I just had to like my gauge at a different needle size. So taking my gauge I popped open excel and did some maths to figure out what size I needed to make to fit my upper bust at my gauge. And boy howdy did that stretch my brain. But I persevered.

So then I checked the pattern to see how much yarn I would need for the size I was going to make….and I didn’t have enough of the grey. But I know I had some more Berroco Chunky in my stash from some old sweaters.  I dug and found a blue and a purple…see below.

I made a WHOLE NEW SWATCH to see how the colors would play out. I am going full bore responsible knitter here guys. This is what my swatch looks like with stripes…

And here is a blown out photo of the wrong side of my stripes. Am I crazy (the answer is yes btw) but I like the wrong side better. It makes it look like poor woman’s colorwork ala the Playful Stripes Cardigan by Alana Dakos.

I need to wash this swatch version and mull over my options. I am really leaning towards the wrong side. But now….do I work single garter ridge stripes or double ridge garter stripes?

Happy Knitting!!!

FO Friday: Leksak

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As promised yesterday my Leksak is blocked and all ready for Fall in Kansas.

Pattern: Leksak by Yarn-Madness

Yarn: Berroco Comfort DK in Menthe and Primary Blue. I used 233 yards of the Menthe and 85 yards of the Primary Blue. So all in all that’s about 94 grams of yarn.

Needles: US 4 (the pattern calls for 6s and I oopsed) My gauge ended up being 5.5 stitches and 8 rows to 1 inch.

Size: 12 months

 

Sorry no finished photos with PB. She is in the middle of a developmental leap and just kind of a crabby mess after we get home from work. Her little brain is really growing up a storm. But bottom line is that I loved this pattern and will most likely re-knit this again as PB gets bigger.

Happy Knitting!!

A Block Away

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My Leksak is completely knitted and awaiting a good blocking!

I slept on my wonky button band issue and decided I couldn’t live with it. And I had the yarn to reknit the bands, so why not? So I pulled back the band and re-knit them being careful to count my stitches on each side. And they were equal. Well…..I think I picked up too many stitches on each side. So they now match…but they are kinda huge. But I’m definitely rolling with this one. I’m not doing that a third time! It’s good enough for and it’s good enough for PB, lol.

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As you can also see, I made the sleeves match. I started my round at the back of the sleeves so the job is only visible from the back. I kinda dig it. This baby is now soaking gently and I hope to have it dry for FO photos tomorrow!!

Happy Knitting!