Saturday, January 24, 2009

“Un-Hole-y” Mitred Increases

In this entry, I will respond to yarndork’s comment on my last blog entry on how I could make an increasing mitre. She made a suggestion that maybe I could do a YO, K, YO. That is true, I could. I didn’t because the practical engineer in me didn’t want my nephew’s baby fingers getting stuck in holes. For that reason too, I’m not going with a lacy background or edging; the pattern I picked is a solid texture.

Of course, then you have to figure out how frequently you have to do the corner increases – every row, every other row? Too frequently, it’ll bunch up in the corner. Not frequently enough, it’ll pull into a more circular form. The math geek in me did some calculations to figure out how many stitches to increase over the number of rows I’d be working to reach my desired blanket according to my gauge swatch. Theoretically, I should be increasing 16 stitches per side per 12 rows of pattern repeat. I say “theoretically” because even though I do a gauge swatch and calculations, the real deal always ends up being a little different.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Bordering St. George

I finally started the blanket border; unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to knit this week.
The approach I decided to take was to pick up and knit the border all the way around while mitring the corners. Don’t know how that will work. This is the first time I’m mitring up instead of down and over a considerably larger area. I have four circular needles on it right now; one per side. I could have certainly picked up and knit one side at a time but then I wouldn’t have had mitred corners. I’m not revealing the border pattern yet. We’ll see what next week brings.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Rule Britannia

I’m making a baby blanket for my new nephew. My sister requested a St. George’s Cross surrounded by navy blue. Gotta love simple knitting!
I still haven’t quite figured out how I will do the navy blue background yet, but it will comprise approximately 2/3 of the total area of the blanket.

“Why?” one might ask, would my sister make such a request? Simple, my brother-in-law is from England; it's part of my nephew's heritage.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Has Anyone Seen This Man?

Funny how a month can just slip by because of the holidays and work. They can really suck up your free knitting time. At long last, I have a finished item to show.

The hubby’s scarf is finally finished! Six days straight of working really long hours and this is how he models a scarf.

Nice to know he hasn’t lost his quirky sense of humour. Now, for some close up detail.

The scarf is so lusciously soft. I used a full two skeins for it which is quite fitting for a man his size.

It’s back to the daily grind tomorrow. For now, I’m enjoying a glass of ice wine and working on a new project (which I hope to reveal soon) desperately holding on to my last moments of the holidays and the small bit of worry free relaxation I enjoyed for a short time.