Knitting Dragonflies

I put down two cardigans that I was knitting, one had a small amount of lace in it, and it is more of a summer cardigan. The other is a more complicated cable cardigan. I had decided to buy some cheap acrylic yarn and try a crochet cardigan. I’ve never crocheted a cardigan. I’m not very crochet experienced, I can chain and single and double crochet, but mostly flat things. After I had tackled the cable sweater I felt fearless and started shopping around for some nice acrylic yarn. Google informed me that Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn was highly rated. The price was right. I wanted to feel like I could make it nice but if it didn’t work out I hadn’t spent a whole lot on it. I had looked at a few crochet cardigan patterns and the Staycation pattern really caught my eye! I bought some bright red yarn from Hobby Lobby and went at it. It didn’t take me too long and I didn’t have much trouble. Before I knew it I had my Holiday Sweater! With big patch pockets and an oversized fit! I have...

I seem to have a lot of UFO cardigans around the house. I haven’t blogged in a while so I’ll do a quick catch up. I started with the Berroco KAL in the summer and picked out the pattern Atwells Cardigan, a lacy cardigan made with Berroco Remix light, which is a cotton/silk/nylon/acrylic/flax blend, which is a DK weight. I would actually say it is thinner than DK. I think this is going to be a well loved cardigan when I get it finished. The pattern is fairly easy. Knit in one piece to the underarms and then spilt to the top, then pick up and knit arms to the cuff. I stopped working on this to start the next Berroco KAL which was cables! I picked Arya pattern (free pattern), and choose the Berroco Vintage to knit it up in, a wool/acrylic blend that was surprisingly soft and nice to work with. Pattern is free, and knit in pieces flat, my least favorite method of making sweaters. I think this is when I stalled out. I had knitted a sleeve and realized it was too tight for my liking. I frog...

I recently finished a sweater that had been in my knitting bag for 5 years. Whew, well it is only fitting that I frogged the ribbing around the bottom and reknit it. Good news is it only took me a day, now it was most of the day, and now I love it. The first ribbing was a k1, p1 and it was wavy and not tight enough. I was going to frog it and reknit in a tighter gauge (smaller needle size) but after I got it ripped back I thought, “what the heck!, I’m going to do a folded hem”, which I’ve never knitted. This is the after pic, notice the hem is flat! Yay! You can see the k1 p1 ribbing on the bottom was curling up. I had cast off with a knitted cast off. So I had to Cut part of the very edge off to unravel it. Then I reknit it in stockinette stitch with one purl row all around to make it fold over on itself and then tacked it down! Yay! Smooth, nice hem now. Type of ribbing and hems Ribbing I used to think all ribbing was created equal! Not so! Ribbing in knitting is a combo o...

This summer I’m participating in a number of KAL’s (knit along s). If you have never signed up for one I would encourage you to do so. The first one I did was the Berroco Lopi Sweater. It made me try new patterns and get out of my comfort zone. Plus I met so many nice people online and learned a lot. There are all kinds of KALs available to you, for practically any type of knitted project.  I’ll include more info on KALs soon. Ravelry is a great resource on finding/checking them out. Go to Ravelry, search in groups and type in KAL, and check the box (active in the last year). Browse around, if you see something that interests you click on that and the "guidelines” will be listed. The pattern may be free or need to be bought. Yarn can be your choice or sometimes from a specific company. The time it runs is stated. But along with lots of knitting comes hand/arm/finger stress, and repetitive injuries. Protect yourself by doing some of the below stretches so you can knit for many year...

This yarn was an impulse buy, I had other yarn in my cart and decided to try it, since it was on sale. I bought it from Craftsy, it is the Sprightly brand, the acrylic wool worsted ( link ) It is similar to the Lion Brand Wool ease I believe from the label info. 80% Manufactured Fibers – Acrylic, 20% Wool. I’m hoping it does not pill up and is nice and warm. It is very springy and light, but not as soft as I had hoped. I’ll review it in a later post or on Ravely after my cowl gets some wear. I used two strands held together and made up my own pattern, but looking on Ravelry I found one that was similar, so I’ll link to it also. This linked pattern is wider than mine ( link) Super simple and fast to knit, It was not boring, due to the knit, purl combo and it was so quick to keck out. I could have done it in two days easy. It took me longer because it is summer out and I wasn’t knitting steady on it. But I still had it done in 3 days. Double Moss Stitch Cowl Size of my cowl was 10...

I have a friend who wanted me to reproduce a crochet rug that she has. It was a wedding gift and was wearing out. She loves it and had someone reproduce it about 10 years ago. So I’m the 2nd person to remake it. Each rug lasts her about 10 years!  I told her OK, but don't consider myself an expert in crochet, by any means. so I held my breath with what I imagined the rug looked like. I was relieved when it turned out to look fairly simple! She wanted it duplicated, that was actually not so hard. It was hard not to tweak the pattern. I kept wanting to make it thicker or change the stitches, definitely change the fringe, I wanted more of it, thicker, denser. But no she wanted the same rug. New rug vs: Original rug, colors were picked out for me to use It was difficult for me to figure out what stitch this was, I tried a cluster (bobble) stitch, popcorn and finally found a video explaining the differences between them! I had never done the puff stitch. The difference between puff...

I knitted a shrug pattern a bit ago, and it turned out very nicely, but I wasn’t happy with how it looked on me, or the functionality of it. The Shrug is often seen as a bridging item for beginning to intermediate knitters. An item for the “I’m tired of knitting scarves, hats and shawls etc.., but don’t feel like I’m up for a sweater yet”. It attracted me because I thought it would be easy mindless knitting for watching TV or visiting, and also a useful addition to my wardrobe. It was a lot of knitting. The pattern I picked was all stockinette stitch. Whew….really long and boring. I would recommend picking one with a simple pattern to keep it interesting. And while it looked nice, I didn’t find it to be very useful, for myself. My husband called it my buttwarmer, and that is a good description of it. It stayed open in the front, where I was cold, and bagged in the butt area, which I don't need to emphasize. I did like the shorter sleeves and  that it was large enough to put ove...

I have a girlfriend whose Mom crochets this pattern. She has so many and loves them. I made a few and they quickly became a favorite! These are great to make for gifts! Pattern is fast and fun. I use any cotton yarn, even scraps. Due to diagonal nature of the pattern and the double thickness of the hot pads they lend themselves nicely to color changes. These hot pads are very effective and almost indestructible. Hot pad pattern link Thanks mielkesfiberarts.com !! The pattern calls to chain 26, but I have made all different sizes! Smallest = chain 15, Largest = chain 45. The size I found was most useful was chain 36 for a larger potholder. Experiment!

I’m trying to get more adventurous with my knitting, well maybe that is not the word I’m looking for, although I need to be adventurous also. More fearless, I think. I hold myself back and wasn’t sure why, until I read a post (I’ll link it if I can find it here), about creativity and perfectionism. The fear of not finding the “right” pattern or it not turning out “good” keeps me from starting or finishing projects. I’ve tried to embrace the “it’s only yarn” mantra. This sounds silly but has helped me to finally bust out of a creative slump. The fear of not performing up to my expectations. Jodi gives the sweater a tail wag! Check out all of the lovely versions of this and get your own creativity going…. In that celebration of going all in and creating something, I cast on a very simple sweater, knitting flat in garter stitch. Although it looks super plain, that is the beauty of it. Oversized and cozy, it has immediate appeal. Scrolling through the Ravelry lineup of those that had ...

I had some acrylic yarn in my stash and had been knitting on a sweater, as a fast break I decided to make a sun hat. I found some video tutorials from BobWilson123, ( YouTube link ). If you are not familiar with her, she makes a lot of video tutorials on YouTube on crochet projects. She also has them written out in PDF on her website (link ) I believe all of her patterns are free, as of this writing. Her videos are excellent and I found her when I was trying to understand a crochet stitch pattern. I would highly recommend checking her out! The pattern I choose was her Mesh Sun Hat (link ). If you look at the people that have made it, there is one who used less increases than called for in the pattern to get a flatter brim. One increase every 4th Stitch instead of what is called for. I liked the look of this, and went with her suggestion. This pattern was very easy, and I’m not an advanced in my crochet.  Also I completed it in 2 hours. The  videos goes through the entire proc...

It is getting hot and muggy outside. I’ve been working in the yard a lot and enjoying spring. Now it is heating up and I’m doing more knitting inside. Going through some of my stash I found some  hand dyed yarn (my own, I’ll link here the blog post about it). I’ve been trying to knit my stash down so the search for a pattern started. After spending quite a bit of time on Ravelry and Pinterest looking at.options, and finding lots of patterns I would like to make. I started a sweater then frogged it and finally settled on this simple over sized pattern. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mammas-hjemmestrikkede-genser-skappelgenseren Written by Dorthe Skappel it is the Mammas hjemmestrikkede genser. It is a super easy garter stitch oversized sweater. Taking a look at all of the knitters that had completed it (almost 900 when I looked at it) I saw that it flattered a wide selection of body shapes and ages. From toddlers and up. I feel in love and cast on. It went so well I...

Asymmetric shawl/scarfs/wraps! Wow, all of the sudden they are everywhere. I have knit a couple and now understand the attraction. I love the added interest of the shape. A little quirky and different. Love the way the yarn, if it is self striping, patterned or hand painted, looks. The horizontal stripes will lay in a diagonal manner when you put it on. I think it is also easier to wear, the smaller end can be tucked in and make your scarf secure. This pattern is a free one from Peggy Maxheim, it is the Arlequin shawl (Pattern link ). I made my first one (link here ) extra large. I liked the way I could wrap up in it, all cozy. The small end helped everything stay where I wanted it to be. This one I wanted to be smaller, more scarf rather than blanket/wrap . (This pattern is very easy and suitable for a beginning knitter). A rather mindless knit, good for Netflix or movie watching. Or even ball games, sporting events and car knitting. I like that it has a little interest with th...

This is one of my long term projects that I just wanted to get off my needles. When these types of patterns started showing up I was interested in making one. It looked simple and fast and cozy. What more do you want? Described as a wrap, shrug, bolero, and even sweater, it is just a large rectangle, either crochet or in this case knitted. When the rectangle is large enough. Just fold it in two, sewing the sides together. . Easy concept. I picked out a free pattern, The Lion Brand, Speckled Shrug ( free pattern here ) I always like to look at the finished projects on Ravelry and read the comments everyone has made that knitted the item.  Seems like knitters were split into two camps. The make it smaller and more fitted and Bolero jacket like. The other group was to make it bigger. I noticed that the problem with this shape of this pattern is a baggy bottom after sitting. (like once). I had already made another pattern that was a bolo jacket so opted to make mine fairly large ...