Ripple Baby Blanket

Look who's pleased with herself! A whole blanket, and in just a few days! That's crochet for you, so much speedier than knitting. This ripple blankie is for my unborn nephew, who is the product of my brother-in-law and his partner. The little guy is due to appear in June.


Pattern: somewhat based on Ripple Afghan by Mary Jane Protus, which can be found on the Coats and Clark site and on Ravelry.
Yarn details: (getting lots of mileage out of my Macedonian stash)

• the label says 'Menada'...whether that's the brand or the line, I don't know
• 100% fake
• 50 gr = 142 metres
• about 200 grams of the chocolate colour, approximately 100 grams of the others

Hook: 6mm
Measurements: 114cm x 75cm

The original pattern has rows of puff stitches in addition to the dc and sc rows. I tried the puff stitches and didn't dig them, so for each colour repeat, I worked the rows dc-sc-dc. The border left me stumped, so I experimented with a few variations and settled on 7-dc shells worked in every second dc-row end.

It tends to fold up on itself like an accordian when it hangs, even though I blocked it (seemed weird blocking this kind of yarn). I wouldn't do this pattern again, as the sc rows really slowed things down and I'm not such a huge fan of the holes that form with the increases and decreases. I did some research and dug up this pattern for a ripple afghan that I think is an improvement.

Out with the old, in with the new

After finishing the frilly cardigan, which was quite a large undertaking, I had a fabulous sense of accomplishment and achievement. That, paired with the fact that I've finally reached chart 3 of the Frost Flowers and Leaves Shawl, gave me 'permission' to start something new!

I've had my eye on the Luna Moth Shawl for some time now. I like the wavy lace pattern and the open texture. The yarn I'm using is way way way finer and the needles are correspondingly smaller and I love the effect so far. It's quite hard to see the whole shape of it while it's still on the needles, so here's a small section of it, pinned out to show the lovely lacy bits.

I haven't been able to memorise the chart completely, but I have managed to remember enough so I only need to refer to it a few times per row. Sometimes I still don't know if I'm working the stitches in the right position, though, as it's not always clear where the yo's should fall and if the double decreases should be aligned or not. I think this makes it a rather difficult pattern and means the progress is a little slower than I had anticipated.

I've also started a crochet baby blanket. My brother-in-law's girlfriend is expecting a baby, and we were informed over Easter that it's a boy! So I'm using some earthy colours for a basic ripple blanket. These days it seems that I don't do as much crochet as I used to, and whenever I get the hook out I'm reminded of how much faster crochet is compared to knitting and I wonder why I've been lured over to the knit side...

The Big Frill

Woo hoo! It's done! The striped cardigan is done, done, done! And it's so cute!

Watch out, tonnes of pics coming up!



Project: The Big Frill, published in 'The Sublime Merino Handknit Book'
Made for: mum, on request
Yarn details:

• Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino Wool DK
• 100% extra fine merino wool
  
• 50 grams = 116 metres
• colour # 015 (navy blue) - 1.7 balls
  
• colour # 006 (light brown) - 1.7 balls
• colour # 007 (light blue) - 1.2 balls
• colour # 017 (red) - 1.2 balls
• colour #011 (purple) - 1.4 balls
  
• colour # 020 (dark brown) - 1.5 balls
• colour # 008 (darker green) - 1.8 balls
• colour # 019 (lighter green) - teeniest bit more than 1 ball
  

Needles: 4mm for main body and 3.25mm for frill
Size made: 91cm bust (3rd size)

I had read from a few other accounts of this pattern that this project is a yarn eater and several people had to order extra wool, so I jumped the gun and got extra balls of a few of the colours. The only colour I ended up really needing was the red, although I did change the colour sequence of the frill in order to save some of the navy blue. The light green spilled over into the extra ball, but only by a few metres and I probably could have saved some of that on the seaming. It was a close call, though. There's enough yarn left over to make a couple of colourful hats.

I started this with the sleeves, and I was quite worried throughout the whole process that they were coming out too big and that the whole thing would end up a large colourful sack. Now that it's all together, I don't think it's a sack at all, but perhaps it will be a little too big for mum's liking. If so, I'll give it a run in the dryer to downsize it a tad.

Most of the knitting was fairly rudimentary and there were no dramas and the instructions were very clear. I used a cable cast on to create a nice edge for picking up the frill stitches later. Actually, picking up the stitches was very easy. I usually don't like picking up lots of stitches, as the pattern normally states something like 'pick up 280 stitches along the front'...and then you have to figure out how many rows there are and do all the calculations to determine how many stitches per row, etc., and it almost never turns out to be even on the first go. This pattern was very clear and worked the picked up stitches in small batches (between about 20 and 50) between markers that were placed during the main knitting process. Much better!

Still on frills - they make such a difference to this project. The colours themselves are great, but the pattern is so much more interesting and fun because of those cool frills hanging off all over the place. They were a hard slog to finish, though! The main frills across the front had so many stitches that I had to use two pairs of circular needles (one 80cm, one 100cm) for the last couple of rows.

At this stage, I don't have any modelled pictures of the cardigan, however mum will be here in person soon to be our supermodel. :-)

Happy Purchase

Oooooh! Look what I found the other day!

It's a little cushion cover, about 30cm square. I bought it from the local 2nd hand shop. I had actually gone in there to find some old pillowcases to use as knitting bags, but this was much more beautiful!

It appears to be handmade, although I could be mistaken. There are yarn ends hanging out on the inside and I can see the difference between the k2togs and ssks. There was another one at the shop, same design but slightly smaller. I just wonder about who made it and all of those hours that must have gone into it. And how I paid just a few euros for it.

I bought a little zip for it and it's now a sweet little knitting bag all of my own.

Recent pics from around town

I've spent all week working on the frills for the stripey (and now frilly) cardigan and boy they're not as easy as they look! Seeing as I don't have much to show for a week's worth of work, I thought I'd share some recent fotos.

Let's start with some action! A snowmobile in full flight during a race.


And some more action (a little less exciting but much more necessary), the husband doing a nice job of blowing snow around.


Now for something more peaceful:

This one was taken last weekend during a short period of time when the northern lights came out to play. It's only the second time I've seen them and the sky seems to have been quite quiet this year. I love watching the way the light moves and dances and ripples across the sky.

Stripes Aplenty

The main parts of the frilly, stripey cardigan are done! Here's a picture of how the pieces are at this stage.

Two sleeves, the back and two small front parts. Now we need some blocking, some frills and some seams! Sounds easy, eh?

I'm really glad that I checked out this pattern on Ravelry, as quite a few people mentioned that they ran out of yarn on a few colours, so I got an extra ball of a few colours and I'm already very close to needing the extra ball of red.

I would love to say that this will be finished by the end of the week...but...we'll see!

The Candle Flame Shawl

Oooooohh! It's done! The Candle Flame Shawl is finished and looking fabulous!


Blocking really changed the look of it, and for the better, I feel. It's definitely a spring shawl, as the material is too thin for winter-time.

Pattern: Candle Flame Shawl by Dean Crane
Yarn Details:

• Ohut Pirkkalanka by Pirkanmaan kotityo Oy
  
• 100% Pure New Wool
• 100gr = 400m
• abour 180 grams used
  

Needles: 3.5mm
Measurements: about 170cm at widest point

This is going to be used constantly as the weather warms up. I just love how it turned out! I highly recommend this pattern to everybody. It's simple enough to memorise quite quickly, but is interesting and speedy enough to keep advanced knitters going.

Back from the snow-covered mountain

Well, can't really call it a mountain. Let's call it a big hill instead. After four or so days up north on the slopes with some weird long straight things attached to my feet, it's back to the real world now, where the shoes are easy to walk in and the ground is flat. I'm quite proud to say that my skiing skills have improved rather a lot. Not quite so proud to say that I'm an absolute wimp when it comes to any slope even bordering on steep. Even though my legs could have most likely handled it, my head couldn't seem to allow it. No doubt this pissed my husband off royally, although he did a very good job of acting like we had all the time in the world while I snailed down the steeper hills.

And of course in the evenings I found time to knit whilst resting my weary legs and enjoying a sip or two of some of the finer liquids there are. I finished the candle-flame shawl and now just need to block it. Also worked a lot on mum's stripey cardi, now that the final colour arrived in the mail. The sleeves are done and I'm a good chunk of the way through the back section. And despite my inner-whinger, I'm still pressing on with the frost flowers and leaves as written. No cheating. Yet.

No pictures of anything at all today, however I will try my best to present the candle-flame shawl tomorrow and perhaps a snap or two of the very funky stripey cardi that mum is going to love!!!

As a side note, the length of the day here is ten and a half hours. Pretty soon we'll be getting more daylight than nightlight!