This and that

I have not started any large projects again yet, but I do have the yarn to make some more baby items. Bernat finally got back to me about the problem I had about a month ago. The normal procedure when there is a flaw in their yarn is to return it to the store that you got it from, like all other things I suppose. But, since it took them so long to respond to me, and 2 emails expressing my disappointment, they sent a box of yarn today with 2 of the large balls of the Baby Sport Sparkle! Both white. I may make a fancy blanket out of them .... we shall see. I also made some dishcloths for my family for Easter, and my husband wondered yesterday if that idea would make a good bath mitt for him. He likes to use the liquid soap but does not have good luck with the plastic puff things. It took a surprising amount of hunting to find a pattern for men's mitts, but I did find one. I used the Handcrafter cotton to knit one up for him, the same as I used for the dishcloths (if you are reading this and you are one of the recipients of the dishcloths, please start to use them for the purpose for which they were made! They are not too pretty to use!) I will let you know what he thinks of his new bath mitt after he uses it for a while! To me, the mitt looks very large, but it will shrink with washing as it is cotton.

Mother's day sweater is finished

Here is the finished sweater. I will keep this pattern to make again!

It fits her very well, the front is just long enough when she is sitting in the wheelchair, the sleeves are perfect, and the back is both wide enough and long enough that it covers her back but not so long that it makes an uncomfortable lump. I am glad I got it ready in time for her.

Hopefully finished for Mother's Day

I hope I can get this done in time for Mother's Day. I have about 2 weeks so it should be okay. My mother will only wear white sweaters now, and those that she has do not fit her very well as her body has changed so much over the last few years due to both osteoporosis and Alzheimers Disease. So, I thought perhaps I could custom make a sweater that gives her a little more room across the back that is not so big in the front that it looks baggy. I spent several hours looking over patterns to find one that I could alter the way I have in mind and found one on Sunday evening that I think will work. It is from Lion Brand, pattern number 81016AD and it is called Recycled Cotton Weekend Retreat Cardi. The pattern and a picture are here

Stripes Anyone?

Another project finished! I was so inspired after browsing so many patterns that people had created I wanted to try designing my own as well, and this is the result! I am pleased with the finished sweater, and learned many things along the way. I do have a record of what I did, but that is more for my own education than that anyone would want to make it, given the abundance of awesome patterns available. It is for a little boy, size 4. The chest measures 28 inches around, and the length is 16 inches. The sleeves are 13 inches long. I used size 5.5 mm needles for the ribbing and 6 mm needles for the body. They yarn is Bernat worsted weight, with rouge for the main colour and medium navy for the wide stripes. Cream is the other stripe colour. It required most of a 197 gm ball of the main colour, with some left over. This yarn is machine washable and dryable, according to the label.


Things I learned .... I did not attempt any fancy stitches on this one, but relied on colour for the pattern. That worked fine, but a drawback of using several colours, as fellow knitters will attest to, is that when you are finished, you have a multitude of yarn ends to weave in. I stopped counting ends at 56! For some reason, knitters like to knit and don't like to sew seams and weave in ends, and I am no different. And yet, I also do embroidery and cross stitch and that does not bother me at all to do all that fine work. Give me a bunch of yarn ends to weave in and it is an unpleasant but necessary job to finish things off!

In my enthusiasm I sewed both shoulders together before doing the neckband. That was a mistake. I now understand completely why patterns have you just sew one shoulder seam, knit the neckband, and then join the other shoulder seam. It was so hard to use both the circular needles and double ended needles to do this. I thought of actually taking one of the shoulders apart to do it again, but I did such a good job of weaving in the ends that taking them out again became another nightmare! And so I struggled through with the neckband.