Friday, May 15, 2009

Girasole blanket started


Friends of ours have an alpaca farm and offer 5 ply and 8 ply yarn professionally spun in 2 natural colors, fawn and cream which is 80% alpaca and 20% super fine Merino wool. Fred discovered this at a recent visit to this farm where the alpacas graze next to Noel's private air strip and brought back some "samples" (~300 gm skeins) of each weight and color for me to explore. I became enchanted with all of it and have since fallen in love with this yarn. I started Jared Flood's Girasole blanket in the 8 ply fawn yarn. Fred built me a skein holder so that I don't have to cut any of the yarn or wind into a ball. The yarn was up to the top of the dowels when I started. I just got some more of the yarn since I don't know how much this will take. Pattern calls for 1800 yds of aran wt yarn on 6mm needles. What a joy to knit this pattern which is beautifully written with large charts that are easy to follow. It is logical, interesting and my hands don't hurt even when making 5 sts out of 1 since this follows a previous yarnover and there is room for the new sts without a struggle. While missing out on having a LYS here, knowing these friends and getting the yarn directly from them in an unlimited supply which always matches is magic. I will dye the cream for future blankets or vests planned soon when I have a better idea of how much to dye.

52 Week Challange - Debbie (Grandma 07)

Here are my finished socks for May. The pattern is Glynis by Cookie A. and the yarn is Panda Silk in color 3010. This was a fun pattern to knit...detailed enough that I had to keep an eye on the pattern, but overall not really difficult once I got the hang of SSSK and K3tog.



socks in progress



It is starting to look nice, this sock... and I have decided to knit them up for Jouke. We discussed the foot size yesterday... his foot is 1 inch shorter than mine. But he was clear about his preference: rather a tiny bit bigger as he can grow into it... than perfect size and outgrown within a year or so. LOL!

The yarn, by the way is one I recently bought in Zoetermeer: Gründl Wolle Yale. It is a bit rough, compared to other sock yarns (less flexible), but for socks without patterns it works perfect. He will have warm feet when they are ready for sure.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Round 5

Round 5 of Sock Madness came out. The pattern is Dimpled Diamonds. I knitted these in fibranatura's Yummy yarn.


I was happy to finish these while my DH was still up. So he had the pleasure of snapping the finished picture.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

52-week for May


Hi, I am doing a Palindrome scarf that I got on Ravelry. I will definately make it longer though. I like the cables because it is reversable and looks great on both sides. I am using some leftover yarn that I got at the Portland Knit and Crochet show last year. Will write later on other projects I have started and the never ending traveling scarves. It has been a busy last three weeks and I am almost recovered and ready to go again.

Jody

Monday, May 11, 2009

52 weeks KAL May update - progress and finished





First part for May is this little hat, that I did yesterday when I had to wait for a very long time.

It is made from a pattern by Ruth Sorensen, who does cool things I love and I had some Estonian wool laying around, very much like Kauni or Evilla, same producer. Estonians seem to prefer woolen to worsted.

There will be a picture again, when the hat is blocked and looks far better than now. I think now it resembles my legs. If I could block them too?

42g = 336m, for a start.

One day later:

O my, correction on this: .42 x NM8/2 =168 m .

The yarn yields 400m/100g, not 800. I couldn´t imagine to have knit so many meters in that time and had a more closely look at my figures. So sorry,but there will be enough meters to show for this month :-)