Knitting Dragonflies

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