Finally time to block!

The knitting was finished earlier this week, nearly the whole week ago actually! But blocking had to wait for me to have more than a few minutes to myself.

Presenting The Other Brother's Blanket.

(TDQ in for scale)

Stats:
Pattern : Umaro by Jared Flood (You might know him as Brooklyn Tweed)
Yarn : Something Acrylic from Joann Fabric...TOB picked it out himself because it was his favorite color. I have since lost the labels but it is a worsted weight and I used it doubled to get somewhere close to the size he wanted without having a bajillion stitches on my needles.
Needles : Size 15(US) Knit Picks Options.....Wowser was that like knitting with logs!
Mods : Not really a mod but I misread the pattern and stopped half a repeat too soon in this! Good thing too, even though we got 2268 yards (doubled that is still 1134) I would not have had enough to complete that last half repeat and the seed stitch edging.

We all know it isn't finished until the blocking is done and the ends are clipped....Put a gift tag on this one and call him done!

Now, if only my Back to the Garden was caught up. Chart 5 and a wonderful mitt pattern have been posted and I am still plugging away on Chart 4. Maybe tomorrow.

~M

Not where I thought I would be

I mentioned yesterday that Chart 4 for Back to the Garden had been published, in the normal way I would be jumping all over that chart and have a completed section to show you on my circular shawl...but......

I am one pattern repeat shy, now, of completing The Other Brother's blanket, and truth be told, as much as I like the way the pattern looks, and he is thrilled with the color and yarn that he picked out....knitting it is not fun. My little baby sized hands still, after all this knitting, have not figured out a comfortable way to hold the needles, so I spend a lot of time picking them up and putting them down. I look like a novice knitter working on it!

I am holding Chart 4 until I finish the blanket, bribing myself ! Finishing was supposed to happen today.

But do you see this?

There are still needles in that blanket, because it is still not done!

Why, you might ask?
You can't see it from here, but there is ice-water in the crock-pot ceramic bit, liner? What is that bit called?

A couple of weeks ago it was jam/jelly making day on a Sunday here, today....

Putting up corn.

The First Twin has decided that he prefers his corn creamed, with extra milk and butter, while The Drama Queen and The Other Brother prefer it on the cob. We now have both kernels and half sized cobs tucked away in the freezer.

But no finished blanket!

~M

How many stitches to make a blanket?

A quick check of my "on the needles" projects revealed an interesting fact to me, and certainly explained why I have not had any finished objects to share!

I seem to have a "thing" for blankets at the moment!

There is the baby blanket through time, which only had four rows worked on it this week so I didn't take a new photo, you remember it though, right?


There is TDQ's blanket that is getting closer to completion but each round is taking me forever! That little bit of border there took hours, most of them spent shuffling stitches around the extra long circular needle I am using. I got myself a set of these a while back and joined two of the longest cables I had to make a giant circular! The plan is to keep going with that color until I use an entire ball to knit 4 rounds, then switch to the lighter for 6 rounds of garter to finish her off.

The Other Brother's blanket should be moving along faster than it is, size 15 needles and only a 115 stitches wide you would think it would have just flown by. Guess it comes of having small hands but I am finding that although the pattern is still holding my interest the logs I am knitting with are not!
That is just about the half way done point, judging from both the yarn I have left and the pattern instructions. It is plenty wide, the only question is will it be long enough to suit him? Of course DS1(The Brother) wants one in red so I will have to start scoping out yarn soon.

Back to the Garden Chart 3 was released early this week, but I haven't started knitting it yet. Another side project made an appearance as well, socks in a variation of one of the stitch patterns from the shawl.

Yesterday was weeding day in my garden, today was cutting back things that had decided to take just a little too much advantage of my quick to tire body this summer.

This little guy kept an eye on me, just to make sure I didn't cut things too far!

He's awfully cute, and much less naggy than my usual "mom is using tools so we better keep an eye on her!" spotter.

Til next time....to quote Bad Cat Designs...Knit On!

~M

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

It was supposed to be a restful week of visiting, playing with kids, a little knitting and maybe even some yard projects...work had other ideas. If only I could find someone who wanted to pay me my regular salary to stay home and play with my kids, and knit!

I did get a little knitting done, not as much as I would have liked, but some at least!

The next pattern on my "baby blanket through time" has nupps!
Which are not the easiest thing to knit in a linen/silk/cotton blend and look a little wonky with the oil still on the yarn, but I have faith they will even out in the washing and blocking process. I have used most of a cone of yarn on this already and plan on two more repeats of that nupp pattern before hitting the edging. Good thing I have a cone or three more!

During one of the few hours that I stole from my job (I did manage to get a few hours on a couple of days away from work, even if for one of them I had to go back to man a table at Jazz on the Avenue ...looks like they update that link frequently, the first performance has already vanished from the calendar, if you don't see a Jazz performance schedule you are too late for this years events!) I got a few things accomplished, namely getting new mattresses for the kids who said that sleeping on their beds was like sleeping on the floor! And then Dear Son #2 (aka The Other Brother) picked out a green yarn that he wanted a blanket made out of, then he kabitized over my shoulder at patterns and picked Umaro by Jared Flood.

That is how far I got while we watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 with the monster man.

You would think that a blanket that includes, lace, texture and cables would be right up my alley, but those size 15 needles are killer on the hands. The one nice thing is that the bulky weight yarn is thick enough for my shaking hands to keep a hold of!

I also took advantage of the second pair of adult hands to get a little yard work done, not much because the monster man found it a little hot, and of course him doing my yard work while I was at the paying job was not in the cards, but I did get some of these picked!
The birds got a fair number before I got to them, but there were enough left to mash up a little...
And put on the stove with some sugar
And ladle out of the pan and into jars
I could only fit 6 jars at a time in my pasta pot....you don't need to get fancy canning equipment if you get a little creative!...so it took me three batches to process the....
13 jars of red currant jelly I made after dropping the monster man back at the airport.

If only I had checked the Back to the Garden Group first, Chart 2 was up!
I am not through knitting it yet, and still have chores to do before I can justify just a few more minutes knitting.

How was your week?

~M