After much gnashing of teeth, researching, and dithering, I decided to just go for it, and buy a domain (persistentknitter.com dontcha know) and get a new web host. I will be moving the Knit Foundry over here soon once I’m feeling good about how things are going, and I am able to do a little updating so when the site moves it’s hopefully transparent to the user. (and once it’s done, you should never realize they were hosted in the same account. except I just spilled the beans here. Owell! heh) (So far so good; keep your fingers crossed!). And just to appease the knit-blog-gods, here’s a shot of some knitting!

big pink blanket of doom

Even amid unpacking chaos – I’ve completed the castle!

So how big will it be? Well, that depends.

This part measures about 29″ across. In theory, this is only half the width. How long? I have 6 balls of pink, and I’ve used not quite 2 for this much length (approx 14″). I measured before I started ball #2; and it was around 8″ long then. If I use all 6 balls; and I’m accurate with that 8″ measurement, I’ll have a 48″ x 29″ pink piece of fabric.

If I proceed with the 2nd half as planned, and cast on as many stitches on that side as this side (to make them even); then it’ll be 58″ wide. Do I want it wider than long?

I can always go buy another ball of pink (I’m pretty sure the store won’t be sold out of them yet). Or I can cast on less stitches for the other half, making it more pink than the other colors.

I also don’t know that I want to be knitting on this thing that long. I’ve got a long way to go with the pink (and if the rest of it is just basketweave… boooooooring). Any thoughts or suggestions from the crowd?

Jill demands a blanket update, so here we go.

Never one to knit a pattern just as is, I decided to add a castle to Katie’s blanket:

The castle is from one of the Barbara Walker books (I think #2) and called Gingerbread Castle. I charted it up in Knit Visualizer in about 15 minutes one night and voila – chart to knit from. I’ve only knit the bottom two rows so far; but i think it’ll look really cute when it’s done.

I don’t know why, but I’ve been wanting to knit a blanket for a while. Nothing too complex, just simple and durable. My son loves the blankie grandma knitted for him, but it’s small; and my daughter loves playing with all of her blankets + his. I decided to start with her (which really doesn’t make any sense, since she has more blankets than he does, but she keeps stealing HIS, so maybe if she has a special one of her own, she’d leave his alone? Yeah – right).

Ok, well the desire to knit a blanket was solidified when I got Sarah Dallas Knitting from the library. It’s got an easy and cute multi color blanket in it. Alison has knit one that is so adorable; I couldn’t help but want to make one too.

I needed yarn, but I didn’t wanna spend a whole lot. I headed to my local craft store (which actually has quite a good selection of yarns) to see what they had. I found this:

Lion Brand Cotton-Ease**. It’s the ‘new’ Cotton-Ease, since Lion Brand decided to discontinue the previous line. I hope this wears as well as the original, as I went ahead and bought enough for the blanket.

The colors are laid out as they will be in the final blanket – it had to be pink in some form, and unfortunately they only had ONE pink color. I had been hoping for a dark pink and a light pink. I played up the purple (yes, that’s purple) and green to make sure target daughter liked it. She said she did. This also has the advantage of me not having to work on one big blanket that’s all the same color.

I’ll probably start with the pink, as it’s my least favorite out of the colors. Target daughter asked that the purple surround the green, so we’ll have a small bit o’ purple, then a green block, then the rest purple. The gray in the middle will be the seaming color. Target daughter has already asked for a BIG pillow to go with her blanket. I looked at her and said, “Let’s just knit the blanket first, shall we?”. She seemed dissappointed, but life is SO hard, isn’t it? :)

++ Update: Target Daughter has reminded me at least three times tonite to “Mama, dont’ forget to start my blanket tonite!” I told her I couldn’t start it until she was asleep, but so far that hasn’t led to her staying in bed any better than normal.

** I’d like to point out this is the first thing I’ve ever knit with Lion Brand yarn, as I’m normally such a yarn snob I wouldn’t deign to knit with anything that wasn’t at least some natural fiber. This at least is 50% cotton, feels pretty nice, and the store had a swatch I could fondle to see if I liked how it knit up. I almost went with a 100% acrylic something or other, but am glad I didn’t give in, this should feel so much nicer.

I’m working away on a baby blanket. The Shower is Saturday, and it will NOT be done by then.  The baby isn’t due until end of May; so I’m not going to stress about it until it’s actually May.  This is the blanket I’ve started a bunch of times and couldn’t find a stitch pattern that I liked.  I finally gave up and am doing a pattern out of a book.

Being the cantankerous knitter that I am, I cannot possibly follow the pattern as written.  On this one I added an extra pattern repeat to make it slightly wider than specified in the pattern.  I’ll knit until I get tired of it and I think it’s long enough.  The pattern comes from Vogue Knitting on the Go, Baby Blankets (or Baby Blankets 2. not sure which one). It actually calls for fingering weight yarn – so I didn’t really have to do much else to it. Of course I’m not using the yarn called for (which I think was Dale’s Baby Ull), but there you go.   It’s a simple enough pattern that is over 4 rows; and very easily memorized. It’s now my carry along knitting.

First, how could you not love this kid, with this hairdo?

Kinda reminds me of an oompa loompa from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory :)

So about that blanket I’m trying to knit.  *SIGH*. I’m just not happy with what I’ve been coming up with.  My latest attempt with a different lacy pattern:

It’s a really pretty pattern, but I’m just not happy with it as a baby blanket.  I suppose you could say I’m being a touch of a perfectionist at this point, and I’d agree – but I’m just not happy with it!  This one is using BW’s Frost Flowers pattern.  Much more difficult than the first one I tried, and while it appears that it won’t have any hills and valleys, I’m just not satisfied.

Then I cast on to make a more "traditional" blanket, but this time using Lily Chin’s Reversibly Cabled Afghan pattern by Fiber Trends. (see here http://www.fibertrends.com/viewer/V2_lily.html)

It’s a neat concept, and is totally reversible so the cool factor is there.  The pattern calls for Worsted weight yarn, and the stuff I’m using here is fingering weight. That’s not a huge deal, and I modified the organization of the pattern repeats to insert some stitches in the middle.  I’ve done about an inch of it (no pic, sorry), and I’m just not happy with it. *insert whining voice here*. I’ve stuffed it back in the bag with the first two blanket attempts and might have the guts to look at it again tomorrow.

I’ve been working on a baby blanket design for a little bit. I found a stitch pattern I liked, and then a blanket idea I liked (working from the center out) and put the two together.   Now I’ve done three repeats of the pattern, and wanted to see how it was going to look when not on the needle.  I’ve been concerned that some of the lace parts aren’t going to block out flat. 

Here is what it looks like blocking:

I slipped all the stitches onto some cotton yarn, and then sprayed some warm water on it while stretching it out.  According to the pattern as I’ve seen it in books and on other garments the edge will be scalloped, so I pinned it as it would sort of look once fully done.   I let it dry and poked at it a few times while it was on the blocking board. It seemed pretty flat and like blocking was doing the trick.

Then I took it off the blocking board. Here it is, sitting next to my computer, wrong side up, looking a bit like one of the aliens on the original Star Trek series:

You can see the little mountains in it.  If you flip it over, they look a bit like small valleys.  These mountains/bumps were much more pronounced before blocking. This is what I hoped blocking would solve.

*sigh*
It doesn’t appear to have fully fixed the bumpiness in the lace.

Some thoughts on why this is happening:
1) The pattern needs more horizontal room to stretch out, more than being allowed by the way the blanket is constructed.
2) The blanket needs more severe full-wet blocking, rather than the slight dampness I applied today
3) It hates me

I’ll admit, #3 is a bit of a stretch, but it’s possible!

Now I’m faced with a dilemma.  Do I stop, assume it won’t fully block the way I want it to – and be flat at the end?  Do I pick a different pattern? Do I try a swatch knitting back and forth to see if my horizontal squished-ness theory is correct?  If that’s the case, and I still want to use this stitch pattern, do I make a more ‘normal’ blanket and not a center-out one?  I have until May to finish the blanket (or whip up a quick baby quilt in it’s place if I never come to a good solution).  More thought is needed. Suggestions are welcome!

Forever ago, I got the yarn to make a baby blanket. Since I got my hands on it (two colors, one light, one dark of the same basic color) I have been contemplating what to do with it. 

My first thought was to do a cable and moss stitch blanket.  I had an idea that I would start the blanket from the center; and use some really fancy cables along each of the four corners.  I even started a swatch in the darker color for it:

While the cable was really pretty (I’m doing the smaller one on the left in the black and white picture), I decided that I was thoroughly sick of cables and moss stitch from TNS (which still isn’t done yet), I decided something else was in order.

Combing through my Barbara Walker books, I happened upon a gorgeous lace pattern called Ostrich Plumes.  I still wanted to do the blanket from the center so I didn’t have to stress about how many stitches to cast on, a particular gauge or anything like that.   This also has the added advantage of allowing me to not turn, but just keep working ’round and ’round and ’round.

The only problem with this is that as the blanket gets bigger, it’ll take longer and longer to get around each time.  I am starting with the lighter color and will most likely do a border in the darker color.

At this point it looks like a kind of mutant hat. The red in the center is the provisional cast on.  When I’m feeling brave enough I’ll pull that out and run the tail through the center stitches to close up the hole.  It’s hard to see the lace pattern because it’s all scrunched onto a needle, but I tried to stretch out the part where I’m currently knitting, at the top of the picture.

I’m very pleased with how the fabric feels and looks so far. The only decision I need to make now is do I finish it at dolly sized and do the washing/blocking test? Or do I have faith and just keep trucking along? The baby isn’t due until May.  If I were doing this "right" i would think I’ll do a dolly sized one first.  Still contemplating this question :)

A good friend of mine is having his first baby this May. Typically I make a quilt, but this time around I thought I would try my hand at knitting a baby blanket.   My Mother-in-law made a great baby blanket for Alex, and I’m going to steal the idea/pattern from that one.  What yarn am I using?

This gorgeous soft stuff:

It’s GGH Merino Soft, fingering weight.  Supposedly machine washable. I sense a swatch of this in my future to try to wash/dry with a machine to see how well it will hold up.  I ordered two different colors from my friend Judy;  and the other one is on backorder (phooey), although she got two big boxes of stuff yesterday that she hasn’t opened up yet that might have the other color in it.  This is the darker of the two (I think, I honestly can’t remember).  The other is a lighter shade of teal.  I think I will do the main part of ht blanket in one color, and then some sort of trim in the other color.  Since this color showed up first – It wins as the center, unless the other stuff shows up before I really get started :)

The color on this picture is actually fairly accurate (notice TNS hiding behind the yarn? Argh. Dark purple is just impossible to photograph!)