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...