Earth to Ocean Blanket and Other New Projects
I have been hard at work, picking out some great new colors, projects and more! A couple of projects have been put on hold because I was just too excited by the Indigo Moon yarn at my LYS! Inspired by the beautiful baby blanket in Debbie Stoller’s ‘Stitch and Bitch’ book I picked up some beautiful earthy colorways to make a new couch blanket. The yarn is used doubled throughout so it knits up quicker. I’m using one strand of variegated together with one strand of a semi-solid. This way it’s a little lower key than 2 strands of variegated.
The plan is to let the blanket flow from brown to blue to green with the unifying strand of the variegated running throughout. I was so excited I couldn’t wait to get my calculator out and start designing. I decided on a seed stitch pattern for the border and some lovely cables for the middle. They alternate between seed stitch and stockinette stitch. I’m not sure that the cables will show up very much but I like them anyway. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
I also picked up some gorgeous new kits from Handmaiden. This yarn is made with merino and cashmere so it’s super soft, as well as gorgeous!
I’m stoked about making my fourth and fifth socks. I made one beautiful pair and loved it but when I got a little creative with some bright green yarn and some fuzzy cream yarn the results were less than pleasing, to say the least. While the green looked great next to an apricot yellow, a strawberry pink, and an icy blue, it looked down right electric on its own! The fuzzy cuffs, heal, and toe were no help. My big plan is to unravel the abomination and make some springy sachets with the yarn. I still like the colors but only together, not on their own!
Last but not least I’m working on another cashmere toque. My husband Gary is always telling me not to bother knitting him anything (I think he is secretly worried I will knit something ghastly or girly and then he will have to wear it!) but I decided not to head this advice and made him a cashmere toque for Christmas. Success! He absolutely loved it and so did I. After a few tiffs over who would get to wear the toque I decided a second one might be a solid investment. I chose the gorgeous woodland colorway from Fleece Artist and I making one for me!
Party Season Count Down: My Patio Projects
Lately I’ve been trying to get my house together for the summer party season with some knitted and quilted accents for both indoors and outdoors. I am lucky enough to have a great big patio to entertain on in the summer and I’m jazzed about my 2 new lounge chairs. It’s going to be a great time!
First thing first, I had to choose a color palette. Anyone who knows me will tell you: I have a little trouble in this area. While my instincts are to go too colorful I often try to combat this by going too plain. The first place I lived in with my boyfriend (now husband) was almost entirely beige. Bleh! I tried to jazz it up with throw pillows and a rug but I think it was just a lost cause. Now I find it very important to really think through my color palette. I try to find something that isn’t to constricting (I think you should always be able to put an “s” on all of the colors in your palette: yellows, blues etc.) and also not too crazy. Then it just looks like someone who can’t make up their minds (which is true but I don’t really want it to look like that’s true).
This summer I decided to build upon the table runner I made last year and the fabric I bought but never got around to doing anything with (who knew weddings were so much work?!). The theme was yellows and greys but I have now added a bit of orange as well.Last year I made a great big long table runner for the patio table and that is as far as I got. I had great intentions of making a tea cozy and some cloth napkins. People I talk to can’t seem to decide whether the tea cozy is super lame or retro/vintage cool. I suppose I will just have to change their minds with some sort of inovative design or whatever. I might make the one in ‘Last Minute Knitted Gifts’ but I think cashmere is a little over the top for a tea cozy.
Anway, I didn’t get around to making any of those things so my fabric sits and waits, washed, ironed, and ready to go.I’m not sure if I am still jazzed about the cloth napkins. I have tried several ways and it just doesn’t seem to be working out. They always turn out to be about 100 times more work than I expect and they just don’t look as perfect as I want them to.This Christmas I had to enlist the help of my mom to finish the cloth napkins I had promised my friend. Thank goodness for mom!
I do, however, really want to make some blankets for those chilly nights and some pillows for the loungers. I want my patio to be inviting morning, noon, and night. I bought some more fabric with the intentions of making some super easy quilts. I want to make something that was really funky but wasn’t too much work, as they will be going outside and you just never know. Anyhow, that’s the plan for now!
Why go organic?
So these days at the grocery store there are always about 8 choices in each food category and one or more of those choices are organic. Now that’s true at the yarn store too! There are lot’s of different types of yarn now a days, itchy wool only is a thing of the past. There is cotton, alpaca, camel, hemp, linen and many more.
First thing is first, what does organic mean? For yarn made with plant fibres it means that the plants are grown without the help of pesticides. For organic wool, alpaca, or camel it can mean different things. It could mean that the animals are fed organic grains or it could mean that no antibiotics are used.
There are many schools of thought about organic yarn. Most seem to agree that organic cotton is great. There is dyed organic cotton and some organic cotton is grown the color it comes. Blue Sky Alpaca’s organic cottons are a good example of this. Animal fibres are a topic of more debate. It seems cruel not to give a sick or suffering animal the medicines they need to get well. It is also hard to know what each yarn company means when they give their yarn the organic lable. So, in short, you just have to do your research on each yarn if organic wool is important to you!
Keeping my projects and extra yarn straight
I always find it tough to know what to do with that little bit of yarn left over from a project. I can’t throw it away, there might be a problem with the project that may need some yarn to fix it. It’s tough to remember after a while which yarn is left over from which project. It’s just plain tough to keep it all straight! So, the other day I decided to do something about it.
Step one: keeping excess yarn straight. I used a craft punch and made a bunch of tags. I then wrote the type of yarn and the project on the tag and wrapped the yarn around it. This way, if any of my knitted items get a snag or *gasp* worse, I have the right yarn and I know where it goes.
Step 2: Keeping a swatch of all my yarns. Although I, like many, am a little cheap I still think a swatch is important. I make a little stockinette stitch swatch and attach a tag with the specs of the yarn. The fiber type (cotton, wool, etc.), the needle size used for the swatch, the stitch gauge, brand and color name. It helps me to do a couple of things: keep track of what needle size I used on the last project and to remind me of what the fabric feels like when I go to choose my yarn for the next one.Best of luck keeping organized!
