Category: knitting

Finished Chevron Scarf and Matching HatFinished Chevron Scarf and Matching Hat

I finished the hat to match the Chevron scarf during our snowstorm. I washed and blocked both the scarf and the hat. Since the hat is supposed to be a tam — I dried it over a large round platter:

ChevronHat2

However — once dried, the tam was too loose and too big!. So I dunked it in some water and threw it in the dryer — it’s made of superwash sock yarn. And I ended up with:

ChevronHat1

Which — when placed on the head, looks like a basic beanie hat with two-color chevron stripes. Not what I envisioned — but still a nice result. Now I need to wrap the scarf and hat and get it mailed off.

Update on Knitting ProjectsUpdate on Knitting Projects

It’s been several days since my last post. I have been busy with Christmas preparations. Finally have all the Christmas decorating done and can now concentrate on finishing up my Christmas knitting projects. I have finished the Chevron Scarf — but since I had enough yarn leftover, I decided to knit a tam to go with the scarf. Here’s a picture:

ChevronTam1

I’m almost done, however, I’m not totally certain this item is going to turn into an actual tam. I’m following the basic instructions from EZ in Knitting without Tears, adjusting for gauge,etc. But still, when I put it on my head, it doesn’t look like a tam. I’m going to trust EZ and see what it looks like when washed and dried over a large dinner plate. 🙂

That leaves the Diamond Brocade patterned scarf for my DD to finish. I haven’t knit on this at all since before Thanksgiving, so as soon as I finish the tam, I will focus on getting this done.

DS has just requested new socks for Christmas. (Sigh…) He’s going to get two balls of yarn and a promise for a hand-knitted pair from me to come after Christmas.

I have placed the SFS socks in time out. The gusset on the darn things appears to have holes where I picked up stitches even though I knit through the back loops to make the stitches tighter. I think this is probably due to the extra stretchiness of the Regia stretch yarn. I’m going to have to frog back to the heel turn and start the gusset over. 🙁 I just can’t cope with this at the moment — hence the time out. Looks like January knitting will be baby items and socks!

WIP: Cardigan & Romper for New GrandsonWIP: Cardigan & Romper for New Grandson

Okay — I swatched some more on this cardigan project. Earlier I had posted about Things Learned from a Swatch. Well, I continued to be dissatisfied with my color selections — I really just do not like that light aqua color for this sweater. So, I went back to my LYS and bought up all the teal color they had — which is the color I really wanted for the main color on the cardigan. The problem is that there isn’t enough of this color to do both a cardigan and a romper to match.

So, standing in front of the yarn bin at the store, I decided that I’d try using a combination of the teal, the red AND a darker blue. There was enough of the darker blue in one dye lot to do the romper and there was 1 ball of another dye lot left. Since I only need 1 ball of the darker color to do the alternating 3 color pattern in the cardigan, I bought this ball as well because the color variation is not that different between the two dye lots and since it will be mixed in with the other colors, it should work out okay.

Swatch_Cardigan3 Here’s my swatch with the new color scheme added. The darker blue color definitely shows up better than the lighter blue against the teal color that I want for the main color. I have started knitting the romper in the darker blue and I think I’m going to really like the coordinated outfit that will result. This project is a bit challenging because I am knitting on size 0 and size 1 needles to get the right guage. Lots and lots of small stitches…

Chevron Scarf – in ProgressChevron Scarf – in Progress

So, I spent quite a bit of time asking various folks what they thought about the chevron scarf and which patterning they liked. All of them were very supportive and all gave me their opinions — but many couched their remarks in such a way that I would not feel the need to frog what I had already knitted. (I appreciate their kind concern, but I really don’t mind frogging something if it isn’t knitting up the way I want it.)

Those who thought the 2 row change in color was best were about equal to the ones who preferred the 4 row change in color. Likewise, many suggested that I leave the initial rows of 2 row color changes as is and just continue knitting the 4 row color changes until the scarf was nearly done — then switch back to the 2 row color changes. I seriously consider doing this — but, in the end, I decided I preferred the 4 row color changes over the 2 row color changes (too busy, I found them really distracting). So I took a plunge into the frog pound, and started over.

ChevronScarf2bNow this pattern knits up rather quickly and it didn’t take me very long to get back to the original length I had knitted. This is a wonderful knitting project — it is an easy to remember 4 row pattern and I really like knitting the Cascade Heritage yarn. I am certain I will finish this Christmas present well ahead of schedule.