FO Friday 6/5/15

I may only have one small FO to share this week, but this little hat is a HUGE accomplishment for me!

I have always loved the look of fair isle and color work.  I have so many projects favorited and every time I see color work, my eyes are drawn to it.  Along with my love for it I also have a massive fear of it.  I have dabbled with it in the past and had terrible results.  My first attempt was the Dark Mark bag.  From far away it looks pretty good, however up close you notice all of the gaps from my uneven tension.

Even with the imperfections, I was proud of this bag.  However, it made me even more afraid of color work.  

Last fall, I cast on a pair of fingerless mitts.  I ended up frogging them because unlike the horribly loose tension with the bag, my tension was too tight with the mitts.  Instead of gaps, I had puckering.  

One of the class prompts in the House Cup this term is to do a craft or technique that is unfamiliar to you.  I decided that I would try color work once again.  I remember seeing LaLa of the Knitgirllls Podcast had knit a few Golden Pear baby hats for some baby showers she had to go to.   I figured this would be the perfect project to experiment with.  I went up to my craft room, dug around my scrap yarn bin trying to find 3 colors that go well together.  I finally settled on a light aqua, hot pink and red combo.  I printed out the (free) pattern and grabbed the right size needles and immediately cast on.

I got to the first section of alternating colors and you know what?  My tension was just fine!  Second section, still fine!  There is one tiny stitch where I attached the yarn that looks a little off, but you don't notice it unless you really stare.

After successfully knitting this hat I am ready to knit all the color work!  

I love the hat Jess! It is adorable, and I have had that pattern in my queue forever. I think I will have to make one sooner rather than later. I have just a few FOs this week to share myself. The first one is a pattern that I have made in the past and have loved.

I made this little Bluebird of Happiness using my own handspun! I had a little sample rolag from Roe of Purls that I had spun up a while back.  It is fun to spin up these little samples, but I am never sure what to do with them. I had just enough to make this little bird.  One of the girls in Hufflepuff mentioned that someone was collecting these birds as part of Project Happiness. They will send the birds to people who are going through a tough time and could use a little happiness. I hope to make a few more before I send this bird flying to someone who needs her.

The next project is a pair of socks that I knit up with a new to me yarn.  I bought a skein of Pagewood Farm Yukon at Conversational Threads when it was on clearance. I loved the color, but I also love that the yarn is from San Pedro, California. Let's me feel a little closer to home when I use it. I have knit with their yarn before, just not this blend. Yukon is Merino/Bamboo/Nylon and I thought may breathe better than just a wool/nylon blend.  I picked a pattern on my queue and got to knitting. These are Neville's Socks on Ravelry. They are a free pattern and I enjoyed knitting them up.  

The last project I have to share is one I just got pictures of today! I went to pick up my first CSA and decided that would be a great place for a photo shoot. On a side note I am super excited about the CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  Every week for the next 22 weeks I get to pick up a box of fruits, veggies and herbs according to my share. This week I got arugula, lettuce, spinach, bok choy, kale, broccoli, turnips, and a pint of strawberries (that I got to pick). I also bought some local cheese, beef sausages and a yogurt smoothie. I am looking forward to fresh produce every week from the farm! I think it will make me eat healthier and support local family businesses. 

So I took a little monster that I knit for an expectant Hufflepuff out to the farm. I was excited when she said she was doing a Rebecca Danger theme nursery. I chose a pattern that I have not knit in the past.

Baldwin the Bathroom Monster by Rebecca Danger

I can call him Baldwin the Berry Monster heh. He is knit up in Dancing Dog Dyeworks - "Big's Boo-tiful Blues" that I had from the Monster Mania club from a few years ago. I need to get back to work on my OWL my Hitofude is at about 30% and I need to get it to 50% by the end of the month!

FO Friday 6/6

I only have a few FOs to share, but one of them I am super excited about. Last week I shared some blanket squares that I made for a friend who will seam them together and donate the blankets to a hospital.  I was asked for a link to the chart so I wrote up the pattern and published it on Ravelry! I am offering it as a free pattern, but feel so excited to have designed something that someone else wanted to knit!  So here is a link to the pattern if you are interested in checking it out.  Here is the most recent square that I made.

Giving Hearts Blanket Square by Jen!

For quidditch, we had to knit a project that was at least 200 yards for Round 3. I decided to finally knit a pattern that I have had in my queue for awhile. I have no baby in mind for this adorable sweater, but it is ready for when the next sweet baby girl comes along.

This is the in threes: a baby cardigan knit up in Dream of Color Classy "Cool Fire." I love the colors.  This sweater was a quick and easy knit, and I see more of these in my future.

One more FO to share. We have a Puff whose son is going through chemotherapy. She is collecting chemo caps to donate to the hospital.  They have kids from age 2-18 there, so I made this cap a little on the larger size.  

They requested that the hats be made of machine washable yarn, so I knit this up in scraps of Vanna's Choice. The pattern is Scrap-happy Celebration Hat and I also see making more of these!

FO Friday 5/23/14

The deadline for the preemie hats going to our local hospital is creeping up on me. Before Jen delivers them to the hospital I wanted to knit a couple more.  This week I knit 2 preemie hats and gave them to Jen last night.  Whenever I make preemie hats, I use fingering weight yarn and follow this pattern.  Sometimes I knit the i-cord at the top, sometimes I leave it alone and just close the top.  After I knit the pink striped hat I wanted to do something a little different.  For the blue striped hat I slipped every other stitch in the first row of a new color change.  I would have liked to knit more hats, but I can always make more and either send them to a hospital that is in need or deliver them to St Luke's another time.

I also decided to finish up a few more preemie hats for our collection. I just received a box of more hats this morning from a fellow Hufflepuff so we are going to have so many hats to donate!  It is also nice that the hats will be coming from all over the country and I have one person from Sweden who is supposed to send me a few too!  So here are my latest two hats.  Both are done using Plymouth Dreambaby DK and using this pattern.

I also finally finished my socks that Jess finished a few weeks ago :-) 

Chiron Socks - Crabapple Yarns Pizzazz - Teal

It is so fun that Jess and I will have matching socks! We have both knit the same pattern before, and sometimes at the same time, but never as part of a formal KAL together heh. Even though they are not the same yarn or color, I will think of Jess whenever I wear them.