good-natured ribbing

Yesterday I went down to the National Museum of the Marine Corps (NMMC) to help knit helmet liners for a unit of Marines that are being deployed to the Middle East in September. The goal is for 500 helmet liners. Although Marines are issued helmet liners, they are synthetic (and will melt) and can’t be worn outside the green zone. Hence, NNMC is asking knitters and crocheters to make 100% wool helmet liners. I believe there are several organizations that are soliciting wool helmet liners. If you are interested in knitting one for NMMC, here is the web address (since I can’t get the link to insert properly!)

http://www.usmcmuseum.org/SupportMarines.asp

I have to admit that I have always liked the idea of knitting socks. And I have may a few pairs of socks for babies, but I have never been able to finish a pair for myself or any other grown up. My gauge is usually too loose and I end up having socks that would fit a horse – even when knitting with size 0 needles! When I saw the snowflake socks in the new IK, however, I decided to give sock knitting another try. Since I do a lot of two color knitting I figured these might keep my attention longer. I am only on the first sock, but they seem to be working out pretty well. Here is a picture of the side.

I really like the way the gusset decrease worked out. Here is a picture of the front.

I am using a yarn from knit picks called Telemark. It is a bit heavy for socks, but since my feet are always cold, these should be fine. If I were to try another pair of two color socks, I would definitely not pick such a dense yarn, but I doubt I will be knitting another pair any time soon. Although I really like the way these socks are turning out, they take a lot longer than mittens!

I recently finished two pairs of socks from the pool of eight I’ve had in progress for months (and months). In May I finished the Victorian Diamond Lace socks in olive Regia Silk and gave them to my mom for Mother’s Day. I’d recommend this pattern to anyone who is looking for a sock with a nice design and stretchy cuff. They were really fun to knit, too — the most detail at the cuff, with less and less detail as you accelerate to the toe.

This month, I finally finished a pair of socks for Kira — a pair I started a million years ago:

Baby Cable Socks on Kira’s feet, from Sensational Knitted Socks. Gems Merino Opal, Size 2 needles.

These are Thank You Socks for a craft favor from Kira. Kira made a fantastic set of Barbie clothes for me to give to my friend Fiona, who turned 9 last November. She and her mom appreciate Barbie fashion. Here are three of the garments Kira made, the knitted ones (see the rest of the wardrobe):

Thanks, Kira!

Last weekend I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I have been trying to go for the last two years, but I have had to work. This year, I planned early and let everyone know the dates ahead of time so there were no conflicts. It was a bit of a drive (a little over an hour), but definitely worth the trouble. I don’t have photos as just about everything I got was for Christmas (mostly for a lucky sister), but imagine a fair ground filled with yarn, wool, sheep, llamas, rabbits and all of the accouterments associated with them. That’s a pretty fair picture. I went on Sunday specifically to see the sheep to shawl contest (where they shear a sheep and make a shawl out of the wool in four hours), but couldn’t find a map to see where it was being held. That’s okay, because I spent 3 1/2 hours shopping! If you are in the D.C. area, you should definitely go! The food was also good, but I must admit to feeling a bit guilty about eating lamb kabobs while being surrounded by all those sheep and their lovely wool. I got over it quickly though, because the lamb was really good!

I have been knitting a bit lately – mostly mittens again. There is something about two color knitting I just love, and mittens are so fast! Here is a pair for my sons girlfriend.

Here is a pair I started for Bonnie’s mom, Barbie.

And here is a pair that I am calling “Go Blue!” for fairly obvious reasons. Well, obvious if you’re from the Big 10 anyway!

These are done using the “sitting dog” pattern from Anna Zilboorg’s “Fancy Feet” book. Although they aren’t really wolverines, I think they are close enough! I don’t really have anything to wear them with, but I am sure I can find a Michigan fan to take them off my hands!

Although I have been knitting a bit, I have mostly been working on dolls and clothes for my niece, Lauren. Here is a picture of one of the dolls.

This one will be donated to our church’s Christmas Bazaar. I was going to give it to my niece, but my son, Ian, said it had “crazy” hair! So I made Lauren another with “normal” hair. Can’t post it here until September in case she is watching!

Well, I am off to watch some Firefly – I borrowed the complete series from a friend, and I need to watch it while the boys are off bonding! Happy knitting!

Sherry and I visited Kira in Virginia a couple of weeks ago. It’s a good thing Kira finished my mittens while we were there, because it was freakin’ cold. Almost as cold as Michigan. Almost as cold as ICE…….ummm, well, yeah.

Anyway, she made me these beautiful mittens. And they have a Cascade Pima Silk lining. My fingers have never had it so good.

The night before last, just before we fell asleep, my husband jumped up and said, “I’m such a loser!” He’s not, but he did forget until then that he had my mittens. These are the mittens that Kira knit for me, and Kristen delivered to Michigan, and, since I took the week off work, my husband was supposed to deliver to me. The last leg of that journey was delayed, but the mittens are great!

And they fit perfectly.

I love how they are done in opposite colors. Emily saw them and said, “”Ohh…” in a calculating tone, but I made it clear that they were mine, and were going to stay mine.

As a bonus, Kira sent me one of her highly-coveted needle bags. She sews, which I highly admire because I don’t at all, and made this lovely, lovely bag. I really needed a bag like this – I had no needle carrier yet.

All in all, I scored big time. Thanks, Kira!

As you may know from several recent blogs, Sherry and I are swapping mittens for socks. I have received my socks and they are fabulous! They came in this great little bag:

And they fit perfectly!

And the best part is, it is finally cold enough to wear them! They are “Lichen Ribbed Socks” and have a Welsh heel and Star Toe of Three Points. Fancy! They are made from Cherry Tree Hill “Earth.” I am wearing them to work today to show them off! Thanks again for my wonderful socks, Sherry!

Well, I have finished Sherry’s mittens. I would have had them done a week ago, but I made the mistake of watching a movie while I finished the last bit and got so into the movie (Sci -Fi thriller “Serenity”) I forgot to switch needle sizes at the wrist! Since I knitted them in the Eastern style – from the top down – I didn’t have too much to rip out. In any case, just a little gentle blocking and they will be ready for Kris to hand deliver next week. Now on to the barbie clothes for the church bazaar!

I finally had a chance to block Lauren’s shawl. It really only took about a hour and a half. I just had to talk Max into letting me use the bed to block it! He has an aversion to pins on the bed – silly man! Here are a couple of pictures:

I used two patterns from my new favorite pattern book:

The shawl was made using the Orenburg Shawl construction and has no cast off edges. It’s really quite an interesting way to do a shawl.

Here’s a link to the book I used for the construction method.

I hope Lauren is tall because the shawl is a little longer than I had planned – about 80″. I guess I underestimated the stretch!

Well, I’m off to finish dinner. Then to knit, of course!

I finally finshed Lauren’s wedding shawl – actually I finished it last week. I haven’t had a chance to block it yet, and I’m not exactly sure where I’m going to block it yet. I believe it will be about 70″ x 25″ or so when it’s blocked. Which is a good thing as I believe Lauren will be tall like her parents. I’ll post a picture as soon as I get it blocked – hopefully this weekend!

I also finished a wedding shawl for Ian’s girlfriend, Bonnie. She saw me working on a shawl for myself and decided I needed to knit her one, too. It had to be square, white, and holey (I took that to mean lace!). When I gave it to her she was very impressed until she realized that she didn’t have a wedding dress. You can imagine what the next words out of her mouth were, so I rustled up an old slip for her to wear. She also insisted on being married to Ian that very night, so Max officiated as her mom and I witnessed. Here is a picture of Bonnie in all her wedding finery!

I started a new shawl out of sock yarn from Knitpicks. I bought several skeins when it was on sale (heaven knows why as I don’t do big people socks), but I only bought two skeins of each color. So I am using one colorway for the borders and one for the center. So far it is looking pretty good. I’ll post a picture soon.

Kris says I should blog more, so here it goes. Since I do a lot of shawls, I don’t have finished projects very often. Here’s what one of my current projects looks like.

Looks like the blob, doesn’t it! Not very attractive right now, but it should be a lovely circular shawl once it is blocked. I still have a lot of rows left to do, though. Expect a finished shawl in a few months.

While I was visiting my family last week, I stopped by Threadbear and picked up two things – yarn for a wedding shawl for my niece, and a book. Here is the shawl after a week’s progress.

I realise Lauren is only two, but I needed a new project and I figured it is stashable until she’s older. And it was an excuse to buy a new book – I really did end up using a pattern from the book.

This is a great book, but be warned that there are no charts in this book. Since I prefer to work from charts for lace knitting, I am having to chart the patterns as I go. This can be tricky as many of them change the number of stitches in each row. I hope I get better at this as I go since charting the pattern for Lauren’s shawl took me two hours, and there were only 16 rows!

I’m off to add another couple of rows to Lauren’s shawl before the guys get back from gymnastics. Happy knitting!

I finally finished another shawl (I think I have a least three more on the needles!). This one is for my Grandmother’s birthday. It’s a bit late, but I wanted to get a picture of it before it heads to it’s new home. I used two strands of knitpicks lace weight merino held together and the Ostritch Plume lace stitch.

Here’s a close up.

Check out this great sock yarn Ian dyed for Grandma!

Encouraged by the array of socks on this blog, I decided to post a pair of mine. I mostly do baby socks so I included a quarter so you can get an idea of the size.

By the way, that cashmere blend I got from knitpicks is very nice to knit with. I am currently blocking the neck warmer I finished and shall post it here soon. I highly recommend the yarn (Panache). I also started a pair of handwarmers (one and a half down, half to go!) with the black wool/alpaca blend (Sierra). A bit too itchy for the neck, but the warmers will be perfect for work and I think a sweater (if I ever knit one) would be great out of it!

Since this is my first post, I thought I would show some of my recently finished projects. At the moment, I am obsessed with shawls. I have finished ten since last july, and still have two on the needles (one of which just won’t end.) Here is the circular shawl I was working on when Kristen came to visit last month.

I used the Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi shawl directions and inserted various lace patterns inbetween the increases. Here is a close up.

This next one is the shawl that would never end. I used size 5 needles and lace weight alpaca/silk yarn from KnitPicks. I should have used bigger needles! Because of the pattern (fir cones) it was a shrivled up wad of lace and never seemed to grow. Out of desperation I cast it off and turned it into a neck scarf. Far more practical for me!

Here is a close up. I really had to stretch it to get the shawl to lie flat.

That should be enough for my first post. Good luck with the knitting olympics!