Persistent Knitter

Hardangervidda. It’s a beautiful sweater. If I ever get that far!! I’m making progress on sleeve #1 – nearing the end of MC ball #1. So I’ve already ripped and switched needle size once. Once again, I measured my gauge. Guess what. No really – go ahead – guess! I’ll bet you can’t guess. I’m STILL too large on my gauge. According to the number of stitches I currently have (93), the sleeve end should measure 7.75″. Reality check – it measures 8.5″ if not a bit more. I’m getting closer to 5.5st/in now. Sometimes a bit closer to 6st/inch, but not quite. It’s obviously making a difference given the measurement of the end of the sleeve. I ripped the sleeve back this weekend (not as far as I did last time), and am going to either change needles again, or stick with the 2.75mm circular and do my decreases less often.

Surprises!
I had the best surprise this weekend. I went Sunday to go to my monthly spinning group – and my friend Rebecca had arranged to throw me a baby shower! I was totally clueless, and had NO idea until I walk into the room and see the cake, presents and food all laid out. A few people were there that aren’t spinners too, so that was a bit of a clue… it still took me a minute to figure it out.

Being a group of knitters as well as spinners, of course I got some fabulous hand knit baby sweaters! (In addition to the totally cute onsies and other items that are a prerequisite for these types of events). And I just have to share:

from Judy:

Aren’t the bear buttons on this one adorable? Judy is the queen of fair isle in our group, and I just love the colors she picked for it.

from Jenny:

Totally cute, made with Rowan Botany. This will be great for the spring/fallish weather.

and from my sneaky sneaky friend Rebecca (who arranged the surprise baby shower):

Look familiar? :) She told me she wanted the pattern I used for the snowflake sweater to make one for her son. She was very insistent that she wanted to work on it right away before my baby came, so I managed to get it done and a basic pattern put together. She had offered to “test” the pattern for me, and I was totally happy to oblige. Little did I know that she was actually making a sweater for my baby!!! What a totally sneaky person :). The hat is adapted from the Sprouts pattern at magknits, she added the border pattern onto it from the sweater.

Thank you to everyone who was there, it was so neat and wonderful of you to do this!

Shopping
Finally, I stopped by my LYS on Saturday and picked up this little gem (after exchanging and buying yet another needle for hardangervidda):

I had been toying with the idea of using crochet to make the critter blanket I bought yarn for. I learned to crochet when I was little and used to crochet fancy tablecloths out of cotton string with my mom, so crochet is a skill I have, but it’s kind of boring sometimes. This book was exactly what I was looking for. It’s a great little book – has pictures of everything, explaining all the “mysterious” crochet terms which I’ve forgotten over the years and has over 200+ patterns in it. I didn’t have any crochet books before, and I don’t know that I’ll need another now. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for basic information on crochet and needing a good stitch library for it.

I’m making good progress on the critter blanket, and will take a picture of it today or tonite for tomorrow’s entry. If you’re really lucky (and want to see it) I can drag out the tablecloth I started crocheting about 10 years ago and never finished, and I’ll show you that too.