Wooly update

The Republic hat from my last post. Here's the pic. Cute hat, huh? It is not too tight, so it doesn't smash my hairdo, but it sure is warm.

Update on my WIPs...

Summer Sampler Stole: here's what I finally did. I looked in many of my great books for a narrower knit edging that would take up half as much yarn. Like this:


or one of these:

From this library book:


This is not my preference though, as it would require frogging the many hours of knitting I've already done on the original edging. I'm extremely reluctant to rip out all that effort. So yesterday, I went instead to Yubina.com, where I had purchased my original yarn from, and ordered the same item number that I'd gotten before. It should be here in short order. And if the yarn doesn't match, I'll have to follow my backup plan of frogging and re-knitting a narrower edge. I'll cry if I have to do that though!

My newest WIP is my Bird in Hand mittens from Kate Gilbert. First cuff:

I'm loving the colorwork, and I'm actually getting gauge with this. However, I'm not a big fan of knitting with worsted weight yarn on size 1 needles! I will most certainly have tendonitis when I'm done. Next time I use this pattern, it will be DK or sport weight on 4's or 5's. But this is making an ironclad fabric! Your hands won't be cold in these mittens.

Next up is: Junie Moon's bandage drive--knit or crochet a cotton bandage (4 feet by 3 inches) to send to lepers in Vietnam. There are links regarding this story at her blog--it seems a touching thing to knit.

If I had a knitting machine, I'd crank out lots of these for charity. Seems like that would be more efficient. But I don't have a knitting machine. So I'm knitting one "prayer bandage" for someone who I hope it will comfort. If you want to participate in Junie's bandage drive, better hurry. She needs your bandages by Feb 14.... I'm thinking superbowl knitting!

That's all the yarny news for now, folks.

Puppies and Knitting

My puppy talks to the mailman. He is so funny--the same mailman comes everyday around noon, you'd think my puppy would be used to him! But when the guy is across the street, Fizz starts moaning, and singing, and it escalates the closer the guy gets! He gets really agitated, and runs from window to window, looking out and talking all the time, "Row. Woof. Arr. Oooh raar." And then when the mailman finally steps onto our porch, all hell breaks loose and he starts barking like the guy is breaking into the house! It's enough to scare away ANY intruder, but of course, when the puppy is part of your own family, you think it is funny and cute (well, all the build-up is, but the barking at the top of his lungs is a bit much!) He makes the funniest little O-shape with his mouth during all the verbalizations, when he says, "Roor" and pauses, looking at you. Hee hee hee.

Doggies are a blast :) I always think what trouble they could get into if they had fingers and hands...they would be going through the cupboards, eating everything in sight until they got sick, opening doors and going outside to chase everything that caught their fancy! That could be bad :)

Okay, enough about dogs. I want to show you some neat knitting sites I found:

This is a website devoted to sweaters in the book "Poetry in Stitches." I believe the book is of norwegian fair-isle patterns. The pattern on the cover of the book is completely intriguing to me, and I see that book in my future...! Anyway, you can see the progress of some knitters doing these impressive sweaters on the website :)

What the?!!! Ha ha haaaaaaa! There must be a story behind this!

Here's a knit Christmas garland! Kind of a neat idea if you have some novelty yarns in your stash.... you know, for next year!

And this looks like a good resource for anyone interested in trying their hand at their first fair-isle project--lots of references to videos, and yarn lists, and other resources. This is going in my side-bar....

I like this website for inspiration knitting from Japanese knit books! Really great stuff going on over there.