Infant Wear

This is an infant sweater and bonnet I knit on size 0 needles. For those of you unfamiliar with knitting, that size of needle is smaller in circumference than a toothpick.

I knit it from a booklet from Dale of Norway and it is delicately knit in basketweave pattern throughout the back and front three quarters of the way up and then changes stitches to inset V's and eyelet repeats.

It is knit with fingerweight off white wool. The embroidery details are worked in pearl cotton bullion knot roses. The buttons are pink glass.

This was my first effort in knitting on such small needles with this type of intricate workmanship.

Now I don't even think about using small needles, rather it's the big ones that I think feel funny in my hands. I have always preferred more detailed work whether I am crocheting doilies, embroidering on linen or what have you. The more detail the more I can get into it.

Feb 1, 2011

This knit scarf is an example of Estonia Lace which I got out of the book I purchased with the same name.

It's knit with white wool fingering yarn and is called the Lily of the Valley Pattern.

I found the bobbles quite tricky in that to knit 5 to 7 stitches together at one time was a strain and I ended up using my crochet hook to help me with that process because although I am not a tight knitter, I also apparently do not knit loose enough to create the bobbles without trepidation!

Other than mittens, I had not knit much lace before but after completing a dresser scarf and a sampler scarf, I then tacked this little item.

I have fallen in love with knitting lace patterns because of the concentration and intricacy involved. I get very bored knitting simple stitches over and over and over again. I always enjoy challenging my skills by tackling what looks impossible. I figure the worse that can happen is that I frog it all out and start all over again or move to another project.

It's Been A Long Time

It's been a long time since I have done any posting on my blog here, mostly because I forgot I had signed up here and then when I was reminded I had started here I couldn't find my info.

So despite my forgetfulness, senior moment or what have you, I hope to be better at it.

This is a photo of the round afghan I made late last summer for my Victorian flavored home and also entered it in our local county fair.

It's an English design and was found in two separate issues of Simply Knitting which is published in the UK but can be found in some craft stores in the U.S.

Knitting in the round can be intimidating the first time you try it but like any art form, the more you do it, the easier it will become. The first item I ever knit in the round was a pair of over the knee cabled socks from Debbie Bliss' first issue of her magazine. I love those socks and have knit hundreds of pair since that first one.

This afghan is knit with Fisherman's Wool from Lion Brand. I would say it is an intermediate skill pattern. The center of the design is knit in the round, then cast off. The outer edging is knit back and forth and then sewn on when completed.

I think it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever made.

Socks

I have been knitting off and on since I was eleven years old. I have always found it to be a past time that relaxes, challenges, frustrates, exhilerates and never bores.

For decades, I believed socks were difficult to knit; I was wrong. I can easily do a pair every other day even when busy out in the garden during the day.

Pictured here is a selection six adult and one baby sized socks. They range from a very basic sock pattern in which you let the self striping yarn add the interest to the off white lace socks.

Yarn has advanced so much over the past decade and the designers are coming up with all the new self striping or self patterning yarns which makes even a novice knitter come off looking like a pro.