Lucky Me

It was time I knit a hat again. I found a great looking cable hat and gave it a go. It is called "Lucky & Hat". I love how the cables decrease down at the top. The designer took a lot of care to get it to look just right. I love knitting cables. I was so afraid of them because they looked difficult. They just look difficult, but they are so easy. I am not fancy enough to knit them without a cable needle, but I will knit cables anytime.

So Comfy Cozy

I found yet another great free pattern for fingerless mitts on Ravelry. The pattern is called "Cozy Thermal Mitts". They were oh so easy to knit and fit great. This is another one for the "I'll make these again" list.

These are fingerless mitts #9 in the 11 fingerless mitts in 2011 challenge.

Gilly and Jacky

I am having so much fun lately with my test knitting. This in another pattern I am helping to knit and check the pattern for the designer. I haven't done a slip stitch pattern in a while and was looking forward to this one. It gives me the opportunity to do colorwork without all of the pain of stranded colorwork, like I did on the mitts You Are Here. I LOVED this pattern. It was fun to see how the variegated yarn would knit up and how the colors would present. Some yarns have long stretches of color. Others not so much. This particular yarn looked great. It changed quickly and added lots of color changes to the mitts. I have some more yarn I want to try with this pattern. You will be seeing this one again.

This are fingerless mitts #8 in the 11 fingerless mitts in 2011 challenge.

Now Anne Needs a Waffle

Kat's sister, Anne, lives way up there in Wyoming. I love Wyoming. It is so beautiful, but cold in the winter. She came down for a wedding and could not get over how it felt colder here. It is as they say "the humidity" I guess. Kat started knitting her a hat, but could not get into it. I offered to take it over and knit up a hat for her poor sister's head. This is the finished product. I love the Waffle Hat pattern. It is good and stretchy and looks interesting.

It's That Time Again !

It's time for LSU baseball! Woo hoo! I loves me some baseball. The season opener was last night and we have a 3 game series with Wake Forest. The weather was perfect. Not too hot. Not too cool. The seats were great as well. The Tigers played well and won the game. Two homers were hit by the Tigers, one by JaCoby Jones and this one by Mikie Mahtook. Mikie hit two last night, so he is on a roll. I look forward to going to more games this season. Go Tigers!

Mocking Bird

A friend is having a baby and I took this opportunity to knit a baby hat. I have not done one in so long. I forgot how quickly they went. This one had a great mock cable stitch. I hope she doesn't think it is too girly, because the hat is for her baby boy to come. I will use this pattern again in the future. It was a fun knit.

Since this was a baby hat, I am not counting it toward my 11 hats in 2011 challenge. It was too quick of a knit.

Choosing Classes for High School

Tonight the Class of 2015 registered for classes at FHS. My baby is starting high school next year. Time has sped by. She is so excited and ready for the big leagues. Having gone through the process once before with Robyn has allowed me to be much more relaxed about the process. I was talking to a couple of parents last night who will have their first/only one beginning high school. They looked a little worried and concerned about high school. It is a little scary. Freshmen look so little compared to the upperclassmen. It is hard to know where their classes are at first and which is the best way to get there. Going through the Mall to get to class can at times be the worst option. I plan to get Robyn to take Cara and some of her friends over to FHS this summer to let them look around and get their bearings a bit. That should help to ease some of the concern for the parents a tiny bit.

Unbreak My Heart

I have started checking in the Free Pattern Testers forum on Ravelry. Since starting to write some of my own patterns, I am interested in the process of getting patterns tested. To this point, I have tested my own. I found a pattern I was interested in testing. I contacted the designer and was chosen to be a tester. I enjoyed knitting the pattern and the mitts are adorable. I am still not sure if I am brave enough to put one of my patterns up for testing, but I am loving the two test knits I have participated in and look forward to doing more. This pattern is Broken Spiral Mitts by Stephanie Benning.

These mitts are #7 in my 11 fingerless mitts in 2011.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to Phillip. I still promise to be by your side in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and in good times and bad. I love you.

You Are Here

The February KAL in the Fingerless Glove Fanatics on Ravelry is colorwork. I have never done knitting that requires me to use multiple colors of yarn within a row of knitting. I thought I would give it a try. There is a designer, SpillyJane, who designs mittens that make me drool. She has a fun sense of humor and that comes out in her mitten patterns. She has mittens with cupcakes, hamburgers, pints of beer, bacon...as well as some that are just lovely to behold. I was not brave enough to give the cupcake mittens a go (those are my favorite), but I did find a pair that I was willing to try. These are from her pattern, Quo Vadis. It is a bit tricky to do stranded knitting. You carry both yarns across the back of your knitting using one or the other to make a stitch. It is hard to know how much tension you need in your yarn. Too much and the mitten is tight and puckers. Too much and the mitts don't come out the same. One will be a bit larger. I seemed to err on the too little side on the first one. It is tighter than I would prefer. The second one is just right in size, but is a bit larger than the first. It may be something only I can see, but I think I did a pretty good job for my first attempt. Am I ready for the cupcake mittens? Only if someone else makes them.

This is #6 in my 11 fingerless mitts in 2011 challenge.

Dungeons and Dragons Part I

Cara and her friends love playing role games on the computer and on the Wii. Phillip wanted to share the role play game he played growing up, Dungeons and Dragons. I never played it but I heard lots of people did back in the day. The Dungeons and Dragons "party" is so popular that Cara had to have people over on two weekends to let all of those interested play the game. I love how the girls came dressed in some sort of costume. They got all into it. Cara has great friends and they are usually game for anything. Phillip was excited to read back up on the game and to create a story line for the girls to follow. They had a wonderful time.

Robyn

The pattern is done and I am happy with this one. It was fun to create and easy to knit. I have uploaded it on Ravelry and the link for it will be at the bottom of the post.

I present to you...Robyn

Needles- US size 8
Yarn- Worsted weight (pictured hat knit in Loops & Threads Impeccable)
Stitch marker
Needle or crochet hook for weaving in yarn ends

Abbreviations:

YO- yarn over
k2tog- knit two stitches together

Cast on 90 stitches. Place a marker to denote the beginning of the row. Be careful not to twist the stitches.

Knit 3, purl 3 rib for 1 inch.

Row 1- *YO, k2tog, k13; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 2, 3, 12 & 21- *k10, p2, k1, p2; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 4, 13 & 22 - *k5, YO, k2tog, k3, p2, k1, p2; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 5, 14 & 23- *p2, k1, p2, k3, YO, k2tog, k5; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 6, 15, & 24- *k10, p2, k1, p2; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 7, 16 & 25- *p2, k1, p2, k5, YO, k2tog, k3; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 8, 17 & 26- *k5, p2 k1, p2, k3, YO, k2tog; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 9, 18 & 27- *k10, p2, k1, p2; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 10, 19 & 28- *YO, k2tog, k3, p2, k1, p2, k5; repeat to the end of the row.

Row 11, 20 & 29- *k3, YO, k2tog, k5, p2, k1, p2; repeat to the end of the row.

Repeat rows 3-11 two more times. The row number for the repeats is listed above. The next three rows will set you up to begin the decreases.

*k10, p2, k1, p2; repeat to the end of the row.

*k5, YO, k2tog, k3, p2, k1, p2; repeat to the end of the row.

*k13, YO, k2tog; repeat to the end of the row.


Begin the decrease for the crown-

Row 1- *k8, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 2- knit

Row 3- *k7, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 4- knit

Row 5- *k6, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 6- knit

Row 7- *k5, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 8- knit

Row 9- *k4, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 10- knit

Row 11- *k3, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 12- *k2, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 13- *k1, k2tog; repeat to end of row

Row 14- *k2tog; repeat to end of row


Cut yarn and run through the remaining stitches to close top.

Weave ends in.


Download here


This hat is hat #11 in my 11 hats in 2011 knitting challenge. I have completed the challenge, but will continue knitting hats.

Watching Out for You

One more hat coming off of the needles for Ken. This is a pattern I saved about a year ago. I love how it is knit to a point and then turned inside out and finished so that when you turn up the brim, the ribbing looks the same. The decreases at the top at a great design feature too. The pattern is called Marsan Watchcap.

Hat #10 in my 11 hats in 2011 challenge.

Square On

I decided to make a couple of more hats for Ken before he starts chemo. He seems to like the previous hat I knit for him. This pattern, Turn a Square, is very popular on Ravelry. It was a fun knit. It was the first time I knit using two colors with out cutting and tying on a new color. Learning how to carry the yarn not in use up the back was easy to learn, but I need to play with my tension some. I love how the hat pattern looks like squares once you start the decreases. I can see why this pattern is popular.

Hat #9 in my 11 hats in 2011 challenge.

The Rob

I am still test knitting this pattern, Robyn. I think I almost have it where I want it. I want to try it once more moving up one needle size to check the sizing.

Hat #8 in my 11 hats in 2011 challenge.

Super Bowl Sunday

We had a couple of people over to watch the Super Bowl. Gary, Kathy, and Ken were invited. Ken was feeling a little under the weather and didn't come. We really missed having him here. We had seafood, gumbo, and yummy chocolate treats. Kat and I knit most of the time. I didn't really pay attention to the game much. I enjoyed having the company of friends more.

Be My Sweetheart

I had the opportunity to test knit a newly created pattern. There is a group on Ravelry, Free Pattern Testers, that tests new patterns. I signed up to knit the "Sweetheart" hat. It was fun to knit a new hat and make suggestions you feel would improve the pattern. It is hard to get into a testing group. Lots of knitters scope out the forum and usually the tester slots are already gone by the time I check in. I learned some things about writing my patterns through this process. I will do this again.

Hat #7 in my 11 hats in 2011 challenge.

Robarooney

Robyn asked to have a pattern named after her. This is a pattern I had previous written, but had not tested it out. Here is the first test run.

Hat #6 in my 11 hats in 2011 challenge.

La Mia Bellezza

For Christmas, I knit Robyn's roommate, Alyce, a pair of fingerless mitts inspired by the more "Twilight". I am not a fan and I don't know if she is either. I just liked the way the mittens looked. I decided to knit another pair, this time making them shorter. One of the wonderful things about Ravelry is that the knitters will often take the time to put into their project pages information on how they modified a pattern. You can see what they did and then take that information to use in your project. I used two modifications on these mitts. One to change them from mittens to fingerless mitts. With the cable pattern, I wanted to see what was a good point in the pattern to stop and bind off. The other was to make them shorter. The original pattern has the mittens going 3/4 of the way to the elbow. I wanted them around 1 1/2 inch past the wrist. Both of the mods worked great. I made my own additional mod by making the palm in seed stitch. I like how the palm area turned out. If I make them again, I will play with the palm area a little, just to center it a bit more. I think they turned out great.

This is #5 in my 11 fingerless mitts in 2011.