Gotta figure out how to take better pictures...

In the meantime, here are some WIP photos, just to prove that I did get a bit of knitting done this week.

The impending May 14th deadline for completion of the Alphabet Block Baby Blanket did spur me to complete a good sized chunk. Allowing for the curling in the photo, I have only 1.5 rows of blocks left to complete. (That is, I am just over 200 rows into a 268 row chart!) Hopefully, picking up the top, bottom and side stitches and knitting the decorative edging will be fairly straight forward. (yeah, right)



And here is the back of the Rowan Cotton Tape Tank Top. Funny thing, I swore off working on the ABBB late at night because it was too easy to misread the teeny chart and make frustratingly frog-resistant errors, so I have been working on the Tank Top at night. I dropped a stitch on the armhole and didn't notice that I had done it until MANY rows later when I shook out my work and the whole thing fell apart in my lap!! LOL Maybe I should just wind balls of yarn at night.

Some WIPs....warning, lousy pictures

It's been a busy week, not much time for the WIPs!

Dh has left town to finish emptying his late mother's house in preparation for its new owners who will be moving in next month, so, I'm doing the single mum thing, but also had to scramble to locate all the baby paraphenalia that I had packed away for SIL, of course this was complicated by a minor basement flood and an all-morning psychological assessment downtown for Gillian. (Whew!) (deliberate run on sentence, please don't flame me for grammar!)

Geez, hard to fit in any knitting.

Especially when "frogging" seems to be the technique preferred by the Alphabet blanket!



Here is the miserable amount of progress that I've made to date on the blanket. I've been invited to a Baby Shower for SIL on the 14th of May, so maybe that will build a fire under my backside to hurry up with this thing!

I have made one important discovery about the Alphabet Blanket. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WORK ON IT AFTER 10PM! Not surprisingly, most of my errors occur when I'm a bit tired and too boggle-eyed to read the chart correctly. This is an early in the day project only!

I am also working on one of these...



Minus of course, the braless, nipple-interest features! I'm using Rowan Cotton tape in a luscious terra-cotta rose colour, which is completely distorted by my camera. Trust me, the colour is much nicer than the picture.



And finally, a child sized version of the cloche hat, using a very kid-friendly shade of Cascade Fixation!



So that's it, that's all for now. I should log off the computer and whip out a couple rows of that nasty blanket while it's daylight!

A Knitted Cloche

Is that what you call this kind of hat? It's Aura from the Rowan Calmer Collection, knitted in Cascade Fixation. It's intended as an adult's hat (knit for my fabulous babysitter, Zelda), but modelled by Clare, who is almost 6, so it is a bit large.




I deviated from the pattern slightly by knitting the hat on my 12 inch circulars, mostly to avoid having to make a seam on a lacy hat.



I'm going to make some for the girls and possibly give a couple to our junior school fundraiser for the craft table. I think I should be able to scale it down for kids by sneaking about 15 stitches out of the cast on (currently 90 stitches) and shortening the hat from 6 inches pre decrease rounds to 5 inches pre decrease rounds.

With luck, this will allow me to squeak two hats out of a single ball of Fixation. The adult size will yield three hats from two balls.

My Alphabet Blanket continues in the oatmeal coloured merino. I still am frogging at least one row for every 5 that I knit!

A Hat Question

Yesterday I was approached by an acquaintance with an unusal request. She had received a hand-knitted hat, mitt and scarf set as a gift and the hat didn't fit. It is too small and no amount of stretching and pulling can keep it from wriggling up to the top of her head, like a yamulka. The hat was "fixed" once by the original knitter, but it still didn't fit properly. The original knitter had washed her hands of the situation (I didn't pursue that) and the hat recipient didn't know what to do.

Oridinarily, I wouldn't tinker with someone else's knitting, but since this hat is otherwise destined to be felted down for its owner's seven year old, I don't feel like I'm overstepping myself here.

For reference, here is the hat.




I'm planning to take some measurements and do stitch and row counts of the hat tonight. I have a couple initial thoughts about how to reknit it a bit larger:

1) Gauge - The yarn used for the hat is very thick. I think that I could increase the size of the needles and reduce the number of cast-on stitches to make the hat a bit larger and still have an acceptable fabric.

2) Brim - The brim of the hat is knit in reverse stockingette stitch. If I replaced this with ribbing, even a p2k1 or p3k1 to maintain the look of purl stitches on the outside of the hat, the resulting hat might resist sliding up the wearer's head better than the original.

3) Seam - The original hat has a rather unsightly seam running up the back. While I appreciate that it is difficult to make a tidy seam with chunky yarn, big needles and a small garment, this one is pretty noticable. Also, I think that using DPNs will let me save a stitch or two that were eaten up by the edges.

Ok, that's the plan. Am I missing anything? Where is my logic lacking?

Knitting Find of the Week!

Look at the surprise hit of the most recent Scarborough Stitch N Bitch...



What is it? It's a jewellery making toggle. The circular half is also an excellent, inexpensive and virtually indestructable stitch marker.

For anyone interested, it's a "Create-A-Craft" Jewellery toggle and a package of 16 is available at Walmart (and other craft stores) for about $2!

The BBBB (Big Bad Baby Blanket) has just fallen off the needles and I will snap a picture before I block it!

My next venture (also to be photographed later today) is Aura, a Rowan Calmer knitted cap that I'm making out of Cascade Fixation to give it a bit of spring! I'm also translating the pattern to be knit on my 12" Addi circulars. (I dislike seams on hats, particularly lacy caps)