Blanket Progress

 

 I've been knitting in the evenings, as well as some daytime knitting, and the blanket is coming along faster than I expected. Of course, there's still a way to go. The pattern is Thine, by Lyndieloop on Ravelry. I'm using a circular needle, which holds the many stitches better than a straight needle - 165 stitches, to be precise. 

Round 7 And Market

 

Shuttle and ball were fine for round 7. I worked on it for most of the day yesterday and got it done.  It could almost be complete like this, but I'm not done yet. 

On Saturday morning I was at a local market, sharing a stand with Di who makes soap:

The morning went well. I sold the food cover and the socks that I made last week! I also sold a couple of puppets and 5 jars of honey and jam. I had interesting conversations and bought some produce from other stands - cream, raspberry jam, pecan nuts....

Food Net

 

I have a food net ready for market. I did the edging as part of a project at the retirement home. It's just done in simple running stitch, with a bead added on every second stitch. My sewing machine really doesn't like this fine netting, so I may use this method again in future. 

Washed And Ready To Roll

 

The sun came out, so I was able to wash the wool spun for the baby blanket. I've had to put that project on hold for a bit though, to get ready for a market on Saturday, the first since December. I knitted a pair of socks:

 Now I'm tatting flowers for a food net. I've left my preparations for the market a bit late, so I'm tatting in the evenings, which I don't usually do. I have to sew jewelry bags this week too. 

Round 6

 

I've finished round 6. The blog post said the round was suitable for shuttle and ball, but I should really have used two shuttles to get the inward chains to lie correctly. 

Preparation

 I had a message recently from a lady who asked me to knit a baby blanket, using handspun wool. The baby is due at the end of April, which is not very far away, so I thought I'd better get on with it. I sent her several pictures of different patterns for her to choose from. She chose two, both of them lacy patterns. The pattern Thine by Lyndieloop was easy to download from Ravelry and is knitted on 4mm needles, which suits my spinning style well. The pattern says 1000 yards of wool are needed, so I've duly spun that. My only problem is that I'll have to wait until the rain stops before I can wash and dry it. So I've used some  wool scraps to knit samples - the blanket won't be yellow. 

I knitted one pattern repeat, complete with nupps, after watching Lyndieloop's video showing how to make nupps with a crochet hook. Nupps are those little bobbles. The crochet hook method is fine, but nonetheless, the nupps will add a lot of knitting time. Given the deadline, I've decided to leave them off. So I knitted a second sample, without nupps. I could change my mind, but I think that will be fine. 

Round 5

 

I've been working on round 5 since Friday, two repeats each day. The pattern does lend itself to doing the flowers in a different colour, so I was tempted, but in the end decided to stick with all white. 

I've also been spinning. I have an order for a receiving blanket for a baby to be born at the end of April. I know from long experience that spinning and tatting are not a good combination, but there you go, I'm doing both. Spring 2025 is likely to be a bit fuzzy, with the odd bit of wool fibre tatted into it. 

Round 4

 

I finished round 4 on Sunday. I enjoyed the round, which was easy but with enough variation to keep it interesting.  I'm ready for the next round. 

Caught Up

 After a knit'n'natter session on Friday and a day knitting at a cricket match on Saturday, I had reknitted all I'd had to unravel. One man said to me on Saturday afternoon, "You can knit all day?" I said, 'Sure, you can watch cricket all day, I can knit all day''. 

Yesterday I finished the pullover off by knitting the neck ribbing, grafting the underarm stitches and  hiding all the yarn ends. Job done.

The Hazards Of Holiday Knitting

 I hurried and scurried to put the pieces of Jack's pullover together in a hotel room, because I knew I had knitting time ahead, waiting around. Mmm. It's not a job to be hurried. I duly spent the waiting time knitting the yoke, decreasing at four points on every second round to create a raglan. The pattern said to keep decreasing until the top of the sleeves had 10 stitches. Right. Well, one sleeve top had 10 stitches and the other had 20! I put it aside until yesterday, when I had time to find the problem. Did I miss a lot of decreases in one spot? Could I fix it with a crochet hook? Not neatly, no. Could I unravel half the yoke until both sides were even? No. Eventually I discovered that on one sleeve I had simply left 10 stitches hanging unknitted and unsecured by a thread. Proof of Elizabeth Zimmerman's assurance that stitches taken off a needle won't immediately form ladders! 

On the left of the photo above are the stitches for the underarm, secured with a green thread. In the centre of the picture are the hanging stitches. There was nothing for it but to unravel the whole yoke and get back to armhole level. Being at home with my supplies handy, I could put each of the four sections onto a separate circular needle, which made joining the sections a little easier. There was a lot of counting and recounting involved. 

I hope I'm now on course! 

Round 3

 

I've finished round 3.  I had to open the last ring twice to get it right, but that was just my stupidity. The doily is expanding rapidly. Each round is so pretty I could happily leave it like that. 

Slow Off The Starting Blocks

 

Renulek's Spring Doily 2025 started while I was away, so I had some catching up to do. I'm now half way through round 3, so I should be ready by the time round 4 comes out on Thursday. 

This is the thread I'm using. I had planned to use some ecru thread that I was given recently, but it's size 20. I'd rather use size 40, so I was happy to find this thread in my stash. 

I'm not committing to tatting the whole doily. I might do as I did last year and finish early. I'll continue until it's big enough for me, or I run out of time or thread. 

Just In Time

 

My flame lily food cover has taken way longer than I intended, but is now done. Just in time, because I'm going away tomorrow and needed to get it done before I left. 

To do the machine edging, I put red thread on the  top and yellow thread in the bottom bobbin. It worked pretty well, to give me red with just a touch of yellow. 

Of course, the bottom is mainly yellow, with a little bit of red:

I'll be off line for a week or so. Will catch up when I get back.

Making Slow Progress

 

I'm making slow progress on the flame lilies. I thought I'd be finished by now, but things crop up. I put an extra  yellow stitch at the bottom of the petals on the second flower, which was a mistake, as the petals are now too spread out. I'm sure I can correct it when I sew the flower on. 

I have made progress on the pullover too. I'm up to the armhole level and must start on the sleeves.

WIP

 

I'm working on flame lilies for a food cover. I never did write my pattern for the flame lily out properly as I planned, but luckily I found my scribbled notes. I've tweaked it a bit, so perhaps it's as well to tat a few more before I type it out. I'm adding leaves this time too. I haven't got them absolutely right yet, though I think these ones will pass muster.  We're back to the retirement home craft group tomorrow, preparation today, so there's less time to tat, but I'll get there.  Real flame lilies are emerging after rain, so there's plenty of inspiration. 

Easy Knitting

 

 I like to have an easy  knitting project on the go, to work on when I'm waiting or chatting, or just have low concentration levels. I thought I'd make Jack another pullover. The one I knitted him a couple of years ago, using a Drops pattern, was very successful. I had a look at using it again, but the yarn I have on hand is too thick for that pattern to work. Luckily, I was rereading Elizabeth Zimmerman's book, Knitting Without Tears and came across a very similar pullover, though it's knitted from the bottom up, rather than top down. It uses Elizabeth's percentage method, so I could just knit a swatch and then work out the figures for this yarn and suitable circular needle. Neat! At the moment I'm just knitting round and round until I get to underarm level. 

Strawberries

 

No cream, but the food cover could well be used to keep flies out of a cream jug! The strawberry pattern is Ninetta's, links in the previous post. The butterfly is Jane Eborall's. 

On Ninetta's Diet Again

 

Ninetta used her Mediterranean Diet pattern as a bookmark, but it's also perfect for a food cover. I used it as such in 2016.  My printed version of Ninetta's diagrams were still in my file, so it was easy enough to begin, after gathering all the colours of thread I'll need. It's a diet that is certainly no hardship to follow!