green

Completed: February, 2004
Scarf: Lion Brand Yarn / Microspun
100% Microfiber Acrylic / Color: No. 153 – Ebony [1 ball]
GGH / APART – 100% Nylon / Color: No. 17 [1 ball]
Needles: 15
Garter stitch

I bought a couple balls of this GGH / Apart yarn some time ago, hoping that someday the right project would present itself. This stuff is incredibly soft and downy–as a friend of mine described, “it feels like a baby bird”

I’d previously worked with Lion Brand’s Fun Fur (a novelty eyelash yarn) on a couple of scarves, but the Apart yarn is much softer and more difficult to work with. At first, I used the suggested needle size (6), but that proved too dense and made a tighter stitch than I liked. I bumped the needles up to 10′s, but that still basically created a mat of fur. I wanted a stitch which would show off the yarn a bit more, something that would breathe a bit and have a looser drape.

Switching to size 15 needles was a definite improvement, and I doubled it up with the black microspun to give it just a little heft (the GGH is so fine that it just collapses on itself when knit by itself).

I was able to knit two scarflets out of the single balls. The first one, a straight scarf measuring about 3.5 inches wide and 36 inches long, is for my mom to wear with her v-neck blouses. The second one (for me!) is similarly sized, and also has a small hole on one end, through which the opposite end may be pulled to fasten around the neck.

Big thanks to Janis for sending me this pattern! The pattern I’d originally found for a pull-through scarflet wasmuch more complicated…

Yep. It’s official. Spring is here.

Completed: February, 2004
Scarf: Lion Brand Yarn / Polarspun
100% Polyester / Color: No. 100 – Snow white [1 ball]
Needles: 10.5
Stockinette stitch w/garter stitch borders

Last year, I made a scarf for a friend which included detatchable snow ball fringe. The snowball part of the project was small, so I had quite a lot of leftover yarn when I was done. It has such a nice, warm coziness to it when knitted that I couldn’t let it go to waste, so I put it back in my stash cabinet
for some future project.

Soon after, as I was planning for our cross country plane trip, I thought it might be nice to bring a warm fuzzy pillow along for the ride. Bingo! The pillow cozy idea was born. I already had a cylindrical buckwheat-filled pillow, and knitting a cover out of this soft fuzzy yarn was just so
appealing, I had to try it.

Sadly, I ran out of time and failed to finish it before our big trip, but I do believe it will be a welcome addition to our next long plane ride…

Completed: February, 2004
Scarf: Mission Falls / 1824 Wool
100% Merino superwash / Colors: Nos. 11, 13, 26, 27, 28, 30 [1 skein each]
Needles: 6
Seed stitch

When I started this project, two things could be said were true: I hate to waste yarn, and I really needed to get a bag to stow my knitting tools (which until this point had been shoved in a zipper-lock plastic baggie).

So the thoughts started percolating… I still had some small balls of the wool yarn I used for my baby blocks project, maybe a cylindrical bag would work…with a zipper…and with lining, so I don’t have to weave in all those darned ends! Although this bag is by no means perfectly made, it does closely resemble the idea I had in my head, and it does a swell job of holding my scissors, knit markers, embroidery needles, stitch counter, etc.

A short note about the nifty lining: a long time ago, my mother sewed herself a groovy suit made out of this electric blue tapestry material. Can you dig it? I’d been carrying around the remnants for years, not wanting to throw them out, but having no idea what I could possibly make out of them. Finally–a little project to recycle some of this wonderful fabric! Now I carry a bit of my mom’s history with me whenever I go knitting.

Completed: January, 2004
Lion Brand Yarn / Homespun
98% Acrylic, 2% Polyester / Color: No. 315 – Tudor [3 skeins]
Needles: 10.5
Garter stitch w/YO border

When one of our knitting circle members, Deb, announced she was pregnant, I knew I wanted to try knitting a little something for her new baby.

Deb is one of those extraordinary knitters, whose stitches look perfect and whose yarns and patterns are just dreamy. She knits really beautiful things, and… well… let’s face it: I was too intimidated to try experimenting with a challenging pattern beyond my current abilities. Still, I wanted to do something, so I figured–why not continue with my “swatch” motif and knit a baby blanket? It’s basically just a gigantic washcloth, right?

I once again turned to Homespun yarn for the project–it’s both machine washable and dryable, and I thought its soft nubbly texture would make a warm and comforting fabric. I found a nifty pattern on Lion’s Web site for a baby blanket which is knitted diagonally–that is, you
begin with 5 stitches and increase one stitch every row until you’re half done, after which you decrease one stitch every row until you’re back at 5 stitches. Toss in a YO stitch along the borders, and the result is a nice diagonal pattern with a simple garter stitch border.

The pattern uses just over 2 skeins for the blanket, so I also knit up a little matching hat with the remaining yarn.

The blanket measures about 27 inches square; the hat fits a large grapefruit.