Fearless Tobogganers

Sadly, my very busy work schedule has infringed upon my precious free knitting time. I’ve only managed to knit one day this past week and not much the week before and boy does my overall mood show it. I get pretty cranky when I don’t get my knitting stress relief. So today, I’m going to share a couple of shots of the recent past.

All hats in these pictures were hand knitted by me. Unfortunately, you can’t see the details in my hubby’s hat but it’s from Elsebeth Lavold’s Viking Patterns for Knitting. The pattern is called Harald.

The hats my daughter and I are wearing were inspired by Anna Zilboorg’s 45 Fine & Fanciful Hats to Knit. Mine is the Egyptian style but I put in my own motifs. On my daughter’s, I used the motif that was in the book for cone hats, but I added earflaps with I-cord ties, which none of the hats in the book have.

My son’s hat is my own original design which I covered in previous blog posts under the labels “dragon” and “dragon scarf”.

Over the past couple of weeks, virtually all our snow has melted, although I hear we will have a snowstorm on Wednesday. Winter is far from over.

And the Mitre Goes On

So far so good. The pattern I chose for the border is called the Inverness Diamond from my 365 Knitting Stitches a Year Perpetual Calendar. The pattern can be found on the December 13 page.

I’m doing directional increases to make the mitre while avoiding creating any holes or gaps. Translation: the increased stitch on the right corner will slant to the right, the increased stitch on the left corner will slant to the left.

To make the right slanting increase, I brought the tip of the left hand needle under the strand between the stitches on the left hand and right hand needles, from back to front. Then I knit this loop (that I created by picking up the strand) through the front.

To make the left slanting increase, I brought the tip of the left hand needle under the strand between the stitches on the left hand and right hand needles, from front to back. Then I knit this loop (that I created by picking up the strand) through the back.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

Dinosaur Village

The next week in Christmas Village Oakville, something astonishing happened. A stegosaurus showed up. Her name was Didi Honey Mommy. Peanut Butter was so happy to have a new friend. It was hard for Peanut Butter to find playmates in the village because of his size.

Together, the new friends built giant snow-people (see snow-people behind dinosaurs). This was great because they removed a ton of snow from the streets to build the snow-people thus clearing the roads for the cars to drive on. The village was very happy, too.