Author: LDSVenus

Cowl is an FO, Won a Fiber Package from a Spinner on YouTube!

/ LDSVenus / 11 Comments

First is the cowl I finished for my son’s mother-in-law for Christmas. She and I exchange gifts every year and last year I made her a headband so her ears would be warm when she went walking and I wanted the cowl to match. I used the dandelion design from the headband pattern and designed where to put it, how many stitches to make the cowl, how many stitches before starting each pattern and between so the pattern ended up right at the end and staggering them. I’m not really a math person so it always takes me a while to design where to put designs, so I don’t do them very often. I had to frog this several times until I got the count and placement right.

The bottom picture is a package from Fiber Love Diary on YouTube. She gets a spinning package from Paradise Fibers free for their Fiber of the month club to show to her followers and then she buys one to give away. I won the drawing this month from last month’s package, woo hoo!! It was a nice one. I really like the fiber that Paradise Fibers sells. For fiber there were 3 2oz bags of their new chunky multi merino blends (and the card shows all the colors that they have), 1 oz of autumnal chunky merino blend and a sample of their whitest white merino (most “white” wool tends to be a little on the creamy color scale), plus a purple bent nose darning needle, 3 harvest inspired progress keepers, a stash tea and a sticker of their ewe mascot. The fiber colors are very pretty. Lots of merino to spin and I can always use another darning needle for weaving in the ends of my knitting.

I’ve started another hat for my son in law, the one I made him is just a tad tight. I’ll post progress as I go.

My fiber optic Christmas tree quit working so I had to order a new one, I bought it used in 2005, so I can’t complain, it lasted a long time. I wasn’t sure they still made fiber optic Christmas trees but happily they do!!!

OK, Catch Up Time Again, or Accountability Time, Which Ever :)

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

On Sunday we woke up to snow! Was only suppose to be about 1/2 inch to maybe 1 inch, however we got about 2 inches. At least here, in the midwest, the city street crews are on top of clearing the snow on the streets. There was some slush but as you can see it had already been plowed before 7:30 am. Looks so pretty for the first snow, but later as the cars splash dirty street water on the sides and it looks dirty until the next snow. It should all be melted off by later this week as we get into the upper 30’s.

Finished another hat, they go pretty fast as they are only a 2X2 ribbing knit about 9 3/4 inches long and then do the crown. I like them long so the bottom gives double coverage to the ears when folded up.

I did something I don’t do often, set Christmas stuff out before Dec. But I had already started listening to Christmas music, it brings such peace, so why not set up my Christmas decorations. My son’s mother in law and I exchange a gift each year at Thanksgiving (which we all celebrate together) and last year she got me that lovely Christmas scene that lights up and this year she gave me those huge gnomes, so cute. Last year I knit her headband from a purchased pattern that goes over the ears to keep them warm that had a dandelion design, I forgot to put a picture up, sigh. I didn’t get the cowl to match finished because I was having to design it myself (not something I do often, I’m not a mathematician, :P, so planing the placement is not terribly easy.) So I thought I had it planned out, but it was off, so frog part of it back to the top of the first design. Start again, nope, frog one more time to the 1st design again and played it by ear eyeballing it rather than counting stitches, and it’s ok now. I probably won’t write a pattern for it because I didn’t write anything down as I went but I used the same dandelion design from the headband. For the cowl itself without a pattern on it just cast on 104 and knit a 2×2 rib for top and bottom of the cowl for 1 & 1/2 inches. You can use any pattern on the cowl you like, but the 104 cast on, on worsted weight yarn, gave me a loose but not a super loose neck fit and I knit enough patterns and rounds vertically with the ribbing top and bottom to make it about 9 or 10 inches high, I’ll check it when I’m done and give better measurements.

You can see a row counter, on the cowl I’m knitting, I bought from Twice Sheared Sheep . They are pretty cool. She had a Thanksgiving gift of buy one get one for those row counters with both as mysteries so I bought another and got another one. One is a round one and the other another long one with a different needle size and different ending pieces, I really like them, I’ve enjoyed using it on the cowl to keep rows between the vertical patterns without having to go back and recount them, the end piece on it is a cute little dragonfly :). You should check them out.