What do knitters do when one of their kind is pregnant? Well, they knit! Last month, I decided to organize a little square-along for a fellow stitch and bitch-er, Sharron.

These are my squares! We knit everything in Berroco Comfort in the Lavendar Frost colorway. The full-blanket photos show the color best. The good: Soft and machine washable and dryable. The bad: it’s splitty as hell. So, so splitty.

Then my two lonely squares were then joined by 14 others. Square party! In alphabetical order, the hip to be square knitters were: Amy, Esther, Jenny, Katharine, Laura, Liz, Maya, Mo, Meredith, Sarah, and Susan. A few of these fine ladies knit two squares so that the blanket could be a beautiful 4×4 square.

There were a few requirements - the squares had to be 9 inches square, it had to be bordered by one stockinette stitch on all sides, and the ends were to be unwoven for seaming. After that, anything goes. Isn’t this a pretty awesome mix of textures? Yes!

The disadvantage of organizing something like this is that the organizer is in charge of seaming. First, I arranged the squares into columns based on width, seamed them into strips, and then mattress stitched the strips together. The biggest challenge was that each square was a different gauge, so I had to get the maths involved for perfect seaming. Lastly, I picked up stitches around the blanket and did a single crochet border.

Fin! The crochet border curled when I first worked it, but eventually flattened out after the blanket was washed. Sharron is very allergic to cats, so the blanket went into the washing machine and directly into a gift bag, without passing Go or returning into the fur-infested house.

I think she liked it!

I have declared this the Summer of Finishing. I have a number of teeny little projects that have been sitting around, taunting me at the top of my Ravelry project list, and they need to go! First on the list:

Pattern: Jacket in Alpaca, from Drops Design
Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft 4 ply in Forest and Fennel

This sweater has been ABB (all but buttons) for a couple of months now. I had dreams of finding the perfect kicky light-light turquoise buttons for it, but my dreams were crushed by my local button sources. I definitely should have searched for buttons while in NYC, but alas. I purchased a number of contenders (including these adorable flounders, but they weren’t high-contrast enough) and wound up going with some traditional shell buttons. So much for kicky.

The pattern had all the potential to be boring garter stitch, but I quite enjoyed it. The short rows added some interest, and the sweater really flew by.

I made two modifications to the pattern:

1. Wrapped my turns. The pattern says to just turn and tug the yarn tightly, but that still left me with holes. The wraps aren’t noticeable.

2. I didn’t bind off the arm stitches as called for - I instead placed them on waste yarn, and later cast on provisionally. At the end, I flipped the sleeves inside out and kitchenered the live stitches together, which created a line of bumps that does not disrupt the patterning. I am planning on redoing the grafting before I send this off, because my sloppy finishing is pretty obvious (so much for blocking out the wonkiness).

This is the first time I’ve used Rowan Cashsoft yarns, and they are extremely soft. Better yet, they’re machine washable, so they’re perfect (albeit a bit pricey) for baby wear. Unfortunately, the yarn is a bit splitty - I can see a couple of blips in the pattern where I only knit with one ply and the contrast color shows through. The sweater calls for two balls of each color - I used almost all of the dark green and about 1.5 balls of the light green.

I love the shape and construction of this sweater - such a simple idea, and the result is so cute. I was pondering making an adult-sized version of it, and ran into this version at Anthropologie. It’s the same exact construction in stockinette stitch with some garter eyelet rows in the blue yarn.

I had some leftovers from the sweater, so I decided to make some Saartje’s Booties:

These are teeny tiny. So, so wee! Baby-in-law won’t be wearing these with the 6-month sized sweater, since I made the newborn size. Do babies wear booties in August? Regardless, this is a cute-as-pie pattern.

I’d like to send a couple of other things to baby-in-law - my sister-in-law’s due date has indeed spurred my Summer of Finishing. I finally started sewing the Big Footed Bunny, after cutting out the pattern pieces months ago.

I am endlessly amused by bunny pants. These pants were hard, people, definitely out of my newbie sewing skills league. Easing in the ass of these pants is easily the hardest sewing I’ve ever done, followed closely by hemming the teeniest leg holes around.

Good thing that Blackie’s on hand to help.

Whoo, I didn’t mean to be so Debbie Downer in the last post. Looking ahead, things are much greener and happier!

Sockpalooza

You know, knitting from stash isn’t so bad when your stash ROCKS! Rock on, little yarnys! I’m trying to decide on what yarn to use for my Sockpalooza socks, and I’m working my gemini indecisiveness to the max here. Top to bottom: Spirit Trail sock yarn, Yarn Pirate BFL in Merlot, and Brooks Farm Acero. I had originally purchased the Spirit Trail yarn for my sockpal, but I can see from her blog that she digs brights, so the Yarn Pirate might be a better choice. I plan designing something textured for these socks, where designing means pulling a stitch pattern from a book and knitting it in the round. I see lots of swatching in my future.

Speaking of swatches, I was looking for a flickr group to display all of my swatchy madness, and I couldn’t find one. Well, now there is. Show off your 4×4 inch squares of love!

Petal

So Petal has these beads. Lots of beads. I’m not much of an everyday bead wearer, so I’m going to replace them with purl stitches. However, the bead stitch in pattern takes up two stitches, and the purl bumps only take up one, so I have to regigger the chart a bit to make things line up correctly. The swatch has a sparser pattern at the top (one stitch wider than the original chart), and denser (one stitch smaller than the original) at the bottom. I think I like the sparser patterning better. I’m all ready to start the sweater - I decided to hold off until the big birthday since this is a gift from me to me. My 20’s are gone as of today, I bid them a fond farewell!

Garnstudio baby jacket

So. cute. I even love the waste yarn color with the greens, so I plan on buying sky blue buttons for the sweater. And also for Saarjte’s Booties, which are next on the list.

Ugh, have you seen that Destash has closed in the bitchiest way ever - no warning, no discussion about having someone else maintain it, all user info is deleted, nothing? So, so lame. I see that someone’s registered a new Destash on wordpress, hopefully this really useful resource can continue to exist.

I have received the most kickass mail this week!

First up, remember me begging for some of the discontinued Rowan 4 ply cotton? Well Caro heard my cries and we did a little swappy action for these 5+ balls. How cool is that? Answer: Very! I think this yarn is going to become a Phyllo Yoked Pullover from Knitting Nature, with (hopefully) a shorter yoke so I can wear it sans cami.

Then, Ashley offered to take some unexpectedly-variegated Koigu off my hands (I swear, the Yarnzilla photo made it look like a semisolid) in exchange for this lovely box bag. How cool is that? You already know the answer. The box bag is the perfect size for two balls of yarn and my in-progress Garnstudio baby jacket.

The baby jacket is such an awesome pattern - simple to execute, yet very cool looking. I never thought I could love garter stitch so much, but in the RYC Cashsoft, it’s downright delicious. Baby-in-law is going to be one pampered boy. However, I’m feeling a bit eh about the colors of this - I’ve had the olive yarn for a while, and just purchased the celery color last week. I was going for a tonal color scheme for the sweater, but I’m afraid that I’m imparting my drab color scheme on sister-in-law’s unborn child. Well, at least it will be a cushy, soft, and luxurious drab sweater.

I also have a swap in progress with NanC, for a subset of my oodles of Lang Fantomas. I really need to complain about my yarn more often, these swaps have been great.

Lastly, I got my Petal package in the mail yesterday. Happy early birthday to me! Yes, I already own that color of 4 ply cotton. I’m warming up my size 2 needles for this puppy!

It’s strewn awkwardly over my mother’s couch, but at least it’s blocked. I finally gave the blanket away last weekend to my friend Denise. Every time we go to Buffalo, it winds up being a weekend of excess. Too much drinking, staying out late, and eating terrible, terrible food. But yum, I heart the pierogis!

The pretty yarn below is Socks that Rock. The yarn does rock. The color looks much different from the website - it is color Pebble Beach. I bought 3 skeins because Mo has made some lovely lightweight Clapotis out of this stuff, but I feel very eh about the brightness of this stuff. I think I’m going to try to return 2 skeins and make socks out of the third.

Lately at work, I have been listening to podcasts. Knitting podcasts. That’s hardcore, man. I blame Staci, who introduced me to Cast On. Brenda has the most lovely voice, and the show makes me want to knit. At work! Shhh, don’t tell anyone I’m listening at work. Also very good - Knitcast and Craftypod.

Ugh - knitting this damn baby blanket!

Never, never, never will I knit another baby blanket out of dk weight yarn. It feels like I’ve been working on this thing for years. Pattern is the Oat Couture Prairie Blanket, made out of Classic Elite Provence in colors that are way different than the photo. I bought the yarn years ago, and some of it has been reknit 3 times. I must say, the reknit parts were very soft…

The lighter pink border was my effort to save yarn - I knew that I had about 200 yards less of the dark purple than the pattern called for, but I feared that I wouldn’t be able to find a matching dye lot. Turns out that (even with the $#@! intarsia-attached light purple border) I was way short anyway, and I did successfully find an exact match in a different dye lot. Whew!

Last weekend we were going to Clear Lake City in the evening and were looking for something to do, so we visited Space Center Houston during the day. We took the tram tour and saw the lovely engine that’s pictured here.

Also been watching Project Runway - I finally saw the 2nd last episode tonight. Love the show, and Santino’s collection looks pretty kickass. But, um, Debra Messing as a judge on the final episode?