Welcome Home

There are a few words that give most people that warm, fuzzy, feeling.  "I love you" or "Let me help" or even better, after you have been away from familiar surroundings for a while "Welcome home."  Which is why I named this blanket Welcome Home. 

 Stats:  Welcome Home, my own madness so no one can be blamed for the pattern but me!
ColourMart 2/15 Cashmere/Merino in Natural (yeah, that will be one special baby!) almost the whole cone.
Size 5 (US) needles
Finished size 46 inches across.
Techniques used, knitting flat, knitting in the round, nupps, lace, twisted garter stitch.


Want a closer look at any of it?

Here is some lace and nupps forming hearts and diamonds and some knit twice into the same two stitches making a lattice.

And another overall view showing the twisted garter in the middle.

Not my best blocking job, I kept stabbing myself with the pins and didn't want to bleed all over it!

In other knitting news, SPF got shoved in a corner again, stabbing yourself with a size 16 crochet hook is just as bad as stabbing yourself with pins.  Hopefully the next round of medication adjustments will help with that!

~m

Teaser Shots

Details to follow, hopefully soon with finished object shots (although Sugar Plum Fairy still has an awful lot of knitting to do!)

As an aside, there are 279 pattern rows before the cast off for SPF so we could call it about 66 more rows to go before blocking!!  Yippee!!!  Of course those rounds are awfully long now.  And, the baby blanket has two more rounds of pattern before I have to make the hard choice of how many garter rows before cast off, 1, 2 maybe 3???  We will see how much yarn is left on that cone when I finish the next 2 rounds.

Autumn, it was great to see your comment on my blog, between work and kids I have been so busy I have been having a hard time keeping up with myself and feel just awful I haven't checked in with you to see how the hobby search is going.

Speaking of which, gotta run!  Garbage collection, dishes and helping with homework will fill the rest of my evening!

~M

Nothing Knitting Related, just cool stuff for me

I got home from work REALLY late last night.

Stuffed to the gills and feeling very proud of myself and my team.

I was at an award dinner, where I got not one, but two, awards for my leadership last year.

Even with all the (excuse the language) crap that I went through, the ups and downs of medications that still don't agree with me being just one, I managed to hold things together at work.  Some days I felt like I was just holding things together a little bit, others that I had a handle on things, but it resulted in a fabulous dinner out with adults. Salmon and steak, apple cake, truly wined and dined at a very beautiful location on the river in Columbus Ohio.

Here are the things I walked out with, other than a very full stomach!

Close up views too!

An Achievement Award, I suppose over time I need to collect five of them as we measure everything on a star basis and the best is Five Star!

And even more exciting, an award that wasn't just from my employer....Gallup measures many things, who is ahead in political polls, where the best places for employees to work are along with those few they call Great Workplace Managers.

The flowers were the icing on the cake, some of my favorites and oranges in the vase to give it that little extra something!  The roses smell wonderful!

Of course those wonderful things come at a price........My team and I have set the bar very high and now we have to top it this year!

Knitting content will resume later in the week.

~M

Spring Greens

Spring greens are some of my favorites, the greens of spring flowers starting to pop up out of the ground,
 
(Ignore the old leaves that were serving as mulch, really I am working on getting them out of my flower beds!)
Early spring veggies with their crisp crunch and deep flavors, sun flower micro greens growing in my window green house

 (You can just see it peeking around Girasole there!)

...and yarn from Lara's Creations!
I tried to be faithful to the other knits I have on the go, but that green yarn just whispered to me until I couldn't take it any more! 

Presenting Spring Greens, or It's Lara's Fault!
One morsel sized skein of ColourWave Basic in Spring Greens
Size 6 needles (US)
Knit until I ran out of yarn in variations of a lace pattern, if you look closely you will see that all the motifs are the same, but different heights!
When I finished it I was a little worried, had I just knit the worlds largest swatch or did I actually make "something"?
 
TDQ says it is definitely "something", something to wear over your ears when the morning breeze is just enough to want "something" but not a hat...
 
And, something to drape around your neck when your ears are fine.

Now I have to run, I have some other things to work on that will soon be green!

In case you were desperately wondering, the baby blanket is up to the edging (no photo's today, maybe during the week although I have to tell you, while I was killing an hour at the library I did a little knitting on it, and for some reason best known to myself  in my half asleep state I knit an entire row that was actually in the pattern of something else I am working on!  That is what happens when you let your fingers work on automatic while you doze!) and SPF has quieted down a little, I am onto Chart 5 but man-o-man are those rows long now!  One more chart after this one and she will be done, maybe by June????

Happy Easter!

~M

Blame it on Lara

Can you hear that horrible crying coming from the corner of my desk?  Isn't it a pitiful sound?  Almost hurts your ears, doesn't it?

Blame Lara.

Do you remember that yarn that I got from her Etsy Shop?  It whispers.

It whispers sweet little nothings into your ears while you are not paying it any attention.  Those whispers are barely noticeable, that is until you suddenly find yourself winding a pretty little green, center pull ball of yarn. While you are winding it you notice that this yarn feels fantastic, all sproingy* and delicious.  Then before you realize what you have done there are stitches on needles to match!

A little large, already, to be called a swatch, but really that is all I am doing here. Honest, just swatching!

Can you tell my SPF that you believe me?  I haven't abandoned her, just needed to swatch a few rows with this new yarn!!**

~M

*sproingy is a very technical knitting term, not sure how to define it, but I know it when I feel it.
** That would be a Basic ColourWave Morsel, so only enough to swatch, not like it has enough yardage to be a shawl! (Just don't tell SPF I have more, in the Entree size!!!)

I swear the edging was three miles long!

Finally all my lunchtime, waiting for conference calls to start, watching movies with the kids and hanging out at the library knitting has paid off!

A Finished Object to show....


Girasole by Jared Flood
US 9 needles
Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Superwash in Creme
Mods :  Didn't have enough pins to pull each of the points of the edging so I did every third.

I think it turned out big enough to wrap at least two people up while watching movies!

The center is my favorite bit!

In other news, one of my favorite designers has a pattern in Knitscene Summer 2012.  I got to test knit the piece a few months ago, and finally I can share it with you!

Filigreen Shawl is a super fast knit, fingering weight yarn, size 7 needles and you get to use a really big bead with the tassel. I used Knitted to a T Sensational Sock Yarn that I got at Wool Gathering last year.  The blocking photo is above, some detail pictures below.

The design my own baby blanket is starting to take shape, sorry no photo's, and SPF is crying in the corner for lack of attention!  Maybe I should go rectify that as I got one project off the needles....but then there is that fabulous yarn I got from Lara's Creations just begging to be turned into something wonderful!

I wonder which I will really work on???