Knitting Dragonflies

May this year be filled with lots of yarn!

My husband is getting a new hip, & will be in the hospital during New Year's Day! I had to pick up a new project for some hospital knitting. Wanted something that I didn't have to think about too much. I originally thought of a shawl, but found a nice looking shrug pattern on lion brand website (free pattern).  It is the harvest shrug, I'm making it with with their fisherman yarn in birch coolest. I think I might add sleeves. I did frog it once after reading the ravelry comments, it looked too large, so I am knitting on 7 needles now!

Happy Knitting! My husband is getting a total hip soon and I’m casting on a shawl, still looking for a easy pattern, looking for a long rectangular shawl. Let me know if anyone has a good idea!   I know I have been absent lately! I got a fitbit in May and got addicted to it! Let me know if anyone has one!

I’ve had some questions on my blog recently that I cannot reply to. I enjoy interacting with all of my readers. If you refer to the below linked post it will explain this. See the linked excellent article about this from Paula the Quilter,   http://www.thequilter.blogspot.com/2014/08/are-you-no-reply-blogger.html

I had been experimenting with acrylic yarns, and in the process found a series of cute crochet patterns. One thing lead to another and I started an afghan. I’m hoping to get it done for my Nieces Birthday! So everyday is a Daisy Day at our house! What is so nice about Granny Squares? Portability, stash busting, quick to make. Downside? # that I need to make a blanket, *grin*! I started reading crochet blogs, and found some cute patterns, well a lot of cute patterns. This pattern is from: Mad Blanketer and is called the Bobbly Flower Hexagon ( pattern link ). I also found a similar one at Attic 24 (who has all kinds of crochet goodness on her blog) Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Solids, Love this! I now see why people rave about this! I wouldn’t make a sweater out of it, but love it to crochet with. I also made some placemats out of it to begin with, and I did knit those, I have washed them and dried in the dryer many times, and they look as nice as the day I finished them. I was surprise...

I was reading some blogs and saw the cutest crochet owls on Karen Makes Stuff (who is a prolific creator, check her out, you want to make it, she probably already has and can show you how), of course she has just made them up without a pattern. Super Cute! They would be perfect for my niece, which I was looking for a little something to gift her to cheer her up. And then they show up in the mail! Thanks Karen, you are so sweet! Check out how small they are, love the colors! Along the way I found crochet mice patterns, which I had no intention of making, but they caught my eye, from The Green Dragonfly , she had a through tutorial, which was very easy to follow. Well they were somewhat addicting to make, LOL (look through her free crochet patterns! I’ve already found a few I’d like to try) Who us??                               ...

My husband has what we refer to as “the crazy hair”, he has cowl licks and loves to wear hats. Add those together and unless he has just gotten his hair cut, he is usually sporting “the crazy hair”. His hair likes to stick straight up, but also pushes together in a Mohawk like ridge. I don’t know how it happens, but am thankful he loves hats, and will wear them 3 out of the 4 seasons. In fact I just finished a hat for him, in 100% wool, and in Southern Indiana it is in the 80’s now, he came home from Starbucks with it on. Well I can’t complain of a husband that will wear my hand knits! I picked out this pattern The Modern Rib Hat by Susan B Anderson , but had decided to style it into a slouchy hat. The pattern is free on Ravelry and written well and super easy to follow. It has 6 sizes, from baby and toddler up to an adult size. This is great, a size for everyone. Style it from the tradition rib, or cap size to fold up brim or a slouchy hat. I will be making more of these. Any siz...

It is funny how many times a good idea comes along while looking for something else. I ran across this free pattern for Finger Less Mitts. It looked fast to knit and I really liked the pattern. Free pattern link (ravelry) http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/camp-out-fingerless-mitts   These fingerless mitts are worked in two directions. The hand portion is worked flat in garter stitch. Stitches are picked up and worked in rounds for the thumb and wrist portion. I enjoyed knitting this pattern! It was easy to understand and well written. I did add two modifications to the pattern. Even with my modifications I had this done with under 150 yards easy, I had a partial skein left over. Above is the palm done and I’m ready to start on the arm, I decided to add a “thumb”, I did this by picking up 19 stitches around the thumb hole, and k1,p1 all around for 4 rows, or until it is long enough to make you happy When finish I cast off in pattern all around. I also noticed in the pho...

  I love this bright coral color that these skeins ended up! I wound up about 2000 yards of 100% Wool yarn and decided that it was bright and sunny out, so it was time to do some solar dyeing I was going for a light pink, but after that skein looked rather wimpy, and my husband said he thought it would look good more vibrant. I decided he may be right. I like to use sun tea jars to solar dye my yarn. It is amazing how warm the sun makes the water and really bakes the dye into the skeins, I’ve used different combos of fiber mixes and 100% wool gives the most vibrant colors. I wound all of my yarn on a swift, and tied each one off in at least 5 places. I found to error on the side or more ties, to reduce tangles. But tie them very loosely, I like the little mark of lighter dye where the tie was located, it gives the skeins a more varied look. Soak the skeins, making sure all of your wool in underwater, I usually put a plate on top of them to weigh them down. Gently squeeze the ...

Have some yarn from a forgotten project? So did I. I found a skein of Fisherman’s Wool from Lion brand yarns, in Maple Tweed. Each skein has a hefty 465 yards or so and it is Worsted weight yarn. After some trolling around on Ravelry I found a super simple wrap, a rectangle with rows of knit on the top and bottom and k2, p2* until end of row for 2 rows  and then p2 k2 next row for 2 rows, repeat until you are ready to end it, and then knit your heart out for the ending rows. See the photo in the link here , it is the Shawl by Melanie on Ravelry. I used needles size 13 US, also cast on 132 stitches instead of the 110 called for. I just knitted until my skein was over. Then couldn’t decide if I needed another one. There is a fine line between wrap so big you don’t want to take it anywhere, and wrap just right. So I stopped at one skein, I like the longer length, I can wrap it over my shoulder to stay on, or wrap it backwards. It can also be used as a cowl/doubled scarf, due to the...

Knitting always sooths me, I was stressed and needed a small project, out of town with little resources. I had one knitting book and found a Joanns store. After much looking around and dithering, some yarn was found that I fell in love with a wool, mohair, acrylic mix!  Patons North America Lace ,I decided to buy two balls, because, well who knows what it would become? Only having one knitting book gave me few options, Greetings from the Knit Café , so I picked out the Lale shawl and started in. The pattern is super simple and goes fast due to the yo’s and then drop them the next row! This would be a good first shawl for a beginning knitter! Love how the yarn is giving the color change and lacy look with a slight halo. Pattern is very easy to follow, once you knit one repetition of it, you can go on auto pilot with it.I knitted most of it during visiting friends for a music festival. So little attention to detail, and lots of talking involved. I’m always surprised at how many ...

Winter winds, snow and ice? That translates to lots of knitting. I had a birthday to knit for and a couple of skeins of Hometown USA by Lion Brand. I was drawn to this yarn due to the extreme softness, it just made me squeeze the skeins and the vibrant colors, and then noticed that it was 100% Acrylic. I’ll be the first one to tell you, I hardly ever knit with a yarn that does not have some natural fiber in it, but this felt so tempting I couldn’t resist. I usually buy Wool Ease Chunky with a fiber content of 20% Wool and 80% Acrylic, but kept going back to this one. I just couldn’t stop touching it. It is a super bulky yarn at 9 sts x 12 rows per 4 square inches. Available in 63 colors, the solids and multis are 100% acrylic, and the Tweeds are 94% acrylic and 6% Rayon (due to the tweed bits). I decided to try it out, as I had fallen in love with the Tampa Spice color, I thought it would  be perfect for my birthday gal. I wanted a Cowl pattern, and loved the look of the see...

Winter weather has been crazy this year! Seems like warm to cold temps. Coldest temps I’ve seen in a long time. What better to get everyone in a great knitting mood! I wanted an easy shawl pattern to high light the handspun yarn. It was my first time that I spun a pound of fiber, I picked out an unlikely color (for me) because I tend to look at my stash and it is all blue. Pumpkin or persimmon colored Blue Faced Leicester fleece ! I splurged on a pound and wanted to see how much yardage I would get from it. I spun it up and plied it, It ended up giving me approximately 700-800 yards or so. It looked a little matt or dull to me, so my girlfriend suggested that I added a strand of something else. I picked out a spool of Sulky thread in the blendable colors, it did take 3 spools, I ran my plied yarn back through the wheel and loosely added the thread. The result gave it just enough dimension to make me happy. Large enough to wrap around your body in the house, in a chilly office. Yet ...

I was searching for the perfect cowl that I had in my mind to knit. Trawling on Ravelry, I wanted one, just the right size around, only once around my neck and not too tight, loose enough to pull up around my face and tall enough to get it around my ears during a windy dog walk, but able to squish it down into my collar of my coat and not be too thick and bulky. About a third of the way into the pattern I decided to make it long enough to pull up as a hood also.  I finally just un-vented this one, as Elizabeth Zimmerman would say. Add caption This is a simple stitch textured cowl/hood (you decide the length). Suitable for beginning knitters. Purl ridges make the cowl easy to scrunchy down or pull up. You can wear the ribbed end on top if you are wearing it as a cowl to make it snuggie around your neck or, wear the purl ridges on top if you are pulling it up as a hood. If you have any questions or find an error please let me know so I can correct it!  I’ve added some tuto...

It was –4 degrees out, I had a day off and was just trying to stay warm. This was a perfect knitting day. I was on Ravelry looking around for a fast project, and found this Dropped Stitch Cowl . Pretty pattern, I was off to my stash to see if I had a bulky yarn to use. I found a super bulky yarn from Brown Sheep that I had never used. Got my needles and turned on Netflix and started knitting. Pattern available on Ravelry thanks to Abi Gregorio! I did modify the pattern, I wanted it to be larger at the bottom so It would lay on top of my coat. Modifications were: On the 3rd and 4th repeat of the pattern on row 2 I increased 5 stitches evenly all around, this allowed my cowl to lay nicely on top of a coat. I would like to make another one with the recommended yarn and pattern to see how it falls. Pattern only took 1 skein of the Super Bulky Yarn which was approx. 125 yds. I used a #13 size needle. Photos taken down by the river on a cold day! Burrrr, love this cowl it is super...