So, what's on your needles?

[Melissa_W Moderator]

Everyone always asks about summer knitting. Are you knitting a winter sweater (so it's ready for sub-zero weather) or are you knitting a cool, cotton tank? Conversely, if you are anything like me, are you playing catch up with all the knitting you started in the spring?

Here's the list of things on my multiple sets of needles:

1. A Christmas stocking which was supposed to be finished for Xmas 2006
2. Two stuffed Eeyores for my nieces' first Birthdays on March 28 (yes, that was two months ago - there was a yarn supply problem)
3. Surprises for the Harry Potter release party at the BN I work for (no, I am NOT telling you what they are - you'll just have to come to Coralville on July 21 and see )
4. A shrug I started after drooling over the pattern in the Fitted Knits book. It's made in Cascade 200 yarn. That's my favorite.
5. A sock. It would look more like a sock (and less like something my cats coughed up) if the silly eastern cast-on for the toe would work. Grrr.

And there's about six more things in the Fitted Knits book I want to make after I finish all this!

[chana56]

Not fair, what are you knitting for the Harry party?

Hm.
Current projects...

1. I am actually knitting one thing for summer, a vest...using a bamboo blend (75% bamboo, 25% cotton) - with a modified rib (K2,P2 with odd # of stitches). I can't believe how beautifully it drapes. I'm seriously considering making a summer afghan from the same yarn, I'm really getting addicted to it.

2. A friend has returned a sweater I knit for her a couple of winters ago....she wants a different collar. Luckily, it was originally an open type neckline, now she wants something more covering. I'm still musing over what exactly I'm going to do with it.

3. Finishing up a hat & scarf set that I guess now will be for next winter. Hat's done, just want to add some more length to the scarf.

I don't even count how many projects I want after that......

[ciproano]

Melissa, I'm wondering what your knitted for the HP event at BN?

My (also multiple) needles:
1. the big bag next to my bed is the Quaker baby blankie started in June, last set of repeats coming up (YEAH!). Knitting it on #6 circs.

2. I love to knit socks, SIMPLE socks, using 12 in. round needles, pattern I found on web (Sockknitters forum excellent resource). Earlier in the summer I finally tried using the "magic loop" method to make some booties as gifts and loved the long circ used that way, so thought I'd try socks. All was well down the cuff, but last night I was turning the heel (using short wrap method) and I'm going to re-think how I do that, as I don't like switching needle ends in the middle of hte Sw row.

3. I always keep a 12 in round in my purse with a small ball of baby yarn and have a tiny bonnet going. I use a basic pattern in terms of size and height, and use various patterns (basket weave, waved, whatever) as I feel like depending on which yarn scraps (solid or variegated etc). When I have a couple dozen, I take them to the local NeoNatal Intensive Care Unit at the children's hospital where they use them for preemies etc. I'll soon switch to a soft red & make holiday-style caps. I think I'm too late to use orange for pumpkins. But I like keeping that tiny bag in my purse (which is not a big purse) so that always have something with me to do when I get stuck waiting for kids, Drs., trains, etc.

4. Finally, I have a lovely ribbon-yarn poncho that I finished at least a year ago but never stitched the sides together to form the neck hole. Gee, if I get that done soon, I might be able to wear it this fall. Not warm enough for cold northern winters. There's always next spring.

Happy knitting.

Cindy

[Melissa_W Moderator]

I suppose I can tell everyone about the HP surprises since the release is over. The bookseller in our kids' department was looking through the Charmed Knits book and saw the little bookscarves - she thought it would be really cool if we made some as door prizes, etc. at our Midnight Magic party. Our CRM and I agreed, but instead of the bookscarves patterns I would just design bookmarks based on Harry Potter colors (we were also limited in our choice of yarn by color). What I wound up doing was knitting bookmarks "designed" by some of the characters. We had a crazy Molly Weasley one, a huge one from Hagrid, a tiny one from Dobby, a house-elf sized scarf mascarading as a bookmark from Hermoine and SPEW, an evergreen tree patterned one from Dumbledore, and one with Harry's name and a lightning bolt.

We had some happy little kids that night.

[maxcat]

I am crocheting a rond ripple afghan and it goes so fast that I'm almost finished. I am also crocheting socks. I do have a couple of afghans I am knitting in a soft mohairy type yarn. The cats love them both and will lay on them as I'm trying to knitting. Life becomes tedious with cats on your afghan.

[katknit]

Just finishing up a lace trimmed camisole from the book Lace Style by Anne Budd and Pam Allen. Light weight yarn on size 3 needles, so I've been at it for a while and am happy that the end is in sight!

[Melissa_W Moderator]

That is a pretty camisole! Good job

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katknit wrote:
Just finishing up a lace trimmed camisole from the book Lace Style by Anne Budd and Pam Allen. Light weight yarn on size 3 needles, so I've been at it for a while and am happy that the end is in sight!

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[bookbug]

well i am trying to finish ascarfe i started about 4 or 5 years ago. sewing 2 quilts, and trying to figure out how to finish crochet a flower my mom started 15 yrs. ago.  but this will take a while have a lot of stuff to do.

[chana56]

This is turning out to be a poncho winter.   Made one poncho for my daughter....all the grandnieces wanted one, each chose a colour (with sparkles!!!).  Finished three of those, then their moms decided they liked them and ordered their colours.....and one of the grandmas asked for one for another grandchild on the other side of the family - three in progress there.  I switch for a while when I get tired of a certain colour.     

In the midst of poncho mania, knitted a scarf for daughter's birthday - she chose the yarn and the pattern - I love sharing the visits to the yarn shop with her.  I really liked the pattern she chose, and now I have a scarf for me halfway done, but with much larger needles so it's a much looser knit.   'Tis fun to experiment......

[ciproano]

A month ago my husband came home from the office and said he needed a baby gift for a new colleague.  I said it would be nice to make something, when was the baby due.  Two weeks!  I told him that wasn't really enough time to do much (I work full time and have lots of other activities), but I'd see what I could do.  I found a book of quick baby afghan patterns (two strands of baby yarn on #17 needles, a variety of patterns) and got to work in pink & white (expecting a girl).  The afghans are good size (about 36x48) and I didn't quite make the two weeks but it was ready when the fellow came back after the week of paternity leave.  I loved the pattern and wanted to try the other patterns in the book and happened to coincide with a sale on the big skeins of baby yarn at the local store...so now I'm on my third one, the last one having gone into our knitting ministry cupboard at church for delivery to a local family agency.  Enough yarn for three more, and five more untried patterns.  I love to see a nice result so quickly, though it's hard to drag such a big project around to volleyball tournaments and various appointments!  So I guess mine is turning out to be a baby afghan winter!

[Melissa_W Moderator]

Whoa!  Two weeks is pretty short notice.  I usually do baby booties, nothing quite so ambitious as a blanket or afghan.

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ciproano wrote:

A month ago my husband came home from the office and said he needed a baby gift for a new colleague.  I said it would be nice to make something, when was the baby due.  Two weeks!  I told him that wasn't really enough time to do much (I work full time and have lots of other activities), but I'd see what I could do.  I found a book of quick baby afghan patterns (two strands of baby yarn on #17 needles, a variety of patterns) and got to work in pink & white (expecting a girl).  The afghans are good size (about 36x48) and I didn't quite make the two weeks but it was ready when the fellow came back after the week of paternity leave.  I loved the pattern and wanted to try the other patterns in the book and happened to coincide with a sale on the big skeins of baby yarn at the local store...so now I'm on my third one, the last one having gone into our knitting ministry cupboard at church for delivery to a local family agency.  Enough yarn for three more, and five more untried patterns.  I love to see a nice result so quickly, though it's hard to drag such a big project around to volleyball tournaments and various appointments!  So I guess mine is turning out to be a baby afghan winter!

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[chana56]

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ciproano wrote:

A month ago my husband came home from the office and said he needed a baby gift for a new colleague.  I said it would be nice to make something, when was the baby due.  Two weeks!  I told him that wasn't really enough time to do much (I work full time and have lots of other activities), but I'd see what I could do.  I found a book of quick baby afghan patterns (two strands of baby yarn on #17 needles, a variety of patterns) and got to work in pink & white (expecting a girl).  The afghans are good size (about 36x48) and I didn't quite make the two weeks but it was ready when the fellow came back after the week of paternity leave.  I loved the pattern and wanted to try the other patterns in the book and happened to coincide with a sale on the big skeins of baby yarn at the local store...so now I'm on my third one, the last one having gone into our knitting ministry cupboard at church for delivery to a local family agency.  Enough yarn for three more, and five more untried patterns.  I love to see a nice result so quickly, though it's hard to drag such a big project around to volleyball tournaments and various appointments!  So I guess mine is turning out to be a baby afghan winter!

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For the scarf I'm making I'm using 15mm needles (I think that's #19???)  It's true, the work does go much more quickly, but I had to get used to working with such big needles.  I haven't found many patterns calling for that size, I would love to do more.  Any ideas where I can get the patterns?

[Melissa_W Moderator]

A scarf is just an oversized swatch, so you can search through stitch books to find a pattern you like.  The best ones for scarves are either flat or reversible (like seed stitch, moss stitch, or ribbing).  You can use a cable pattern, but make sure you have a garter stitch border at the sides to the scarf doesn't roll up at the edges.

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chana56 wrote:

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ciproano wrote:

A month ago my husband came home from the office and said he needed a baby gift for a new colleague.  I said it would be nice to make something, when was the baby due.  Two weeks!  I told him that wasn't really enough time to do much (I work full time and have lots of other activities), but I'd see what I could do.  I found a book of quick baby afghan patterns (two strands of baby yarn on #17 needles, a variety of patterns) and got to work in pink & white (expecting a girl).  The afghans are good size (about 36x48) and I didn't quite make the two weeks but it was ready when the fellow came back after the week of paternity leave.  I loved the pattern and wanted to try the other patterns in the book and happened to coincide with a sale on the big skeins of baby yarn at the local store...so now I'm on my third one, the last one having gone into our knitting ministry cupboard at church for delivery to a local family agency.  Enough yarn for three more, and five more untried patterns.  I love to see a nice result so quickly, though it's hard to drag such a big project around to volleyball tournaments and various appointments!  So I guess mine is turning out to be a baby afghan winter!

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For the scarf I'm making I'm using 15mm needles (I think that's #19???)  It's true, the work does go much more quickly, but I had to get used to working with such big needles.  I haven't found many patterns calling for that size, I would love to do more.  Any ideas where I can get the patterns?

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[ciproano]

Chana, when the fuzzy scarves were the rage a couple years ago, I remember finding a pattern website that let you search by needle size, but I can't find it.  When you're using needles that big (16mm=US #19), you can also use multiple strands of different yarns to create a very funky look.  I made some "shawlettes" using a strand of ribbony type and a strand of a mohair that had a hint of glitter in it.  It made for a very interesting combo that neither could have carried alone.  It was done on 25mm needles, kind of like knitting with broom handles. 

I went back to my baby afghan pattern today to check something and discovered the needles are #15 (not 17s as I thought).  But I made a baby afghan last summer on size 6, a darling Quaker stitch pattern, but it took months.  Using the 15s and two strands made up a much bigger afghan in a fraction of the time, great for me as between working, volunteer work, house stuff, mom stuff, not much time for knitting stuff, so getting a project done before I run out of interest and steam is important.

Cindy

[chana56]

I hear that, I also did a baby afghan last year with 7mm needles, and it took forever!  That's why I would be excited to find patterns for the bigger needles.   I'll see if I can find a website like that.

I love mixing yarns in patterns. One of the ponchos I'm working on is with a soft chocolate-coloured thick yarn worked together with a darker almost-black thin ribbon type yarn.    And the scarf I'm doing is with a chunky multicoloured yarn together with thin white silk.  The bigger needles keep the chunky yarn from making a scarf that's too stiff. 

[ciproano]

Chana, yipee, I just found a site that lists patterns by needle size.  I was actually looking for something else and stumbled across this.  Lots of free patterns and advice too!

www.dailyknitter.com/freepatterns

You are much more experimental than I've dared to get.  I've mixed things together but usually with instructions.  The shawlettes were one I dared on my own.

I have a bunch of LionBrand Homespun that I bought to make prayer shawls and now that I've finally gotten around to it, I am too spoiled with big needles to go back to smaller ones (homespun calls for 10s).  I was looking at a fun scarf book from the library that used slip stitch both for a scarf knitting horizontally on a long circular and for one knitted on normal short needles.  They recommend that because the slip stitch compacts the knitting, you should use a needle larger than normal.  They just don't define "larger than normal".  So I thought I would try using that simple slip stitch pattern and go up to a size 13 needle.  What do you think?  Then, rather than do a long skinny scarf on the horizontal, I could do a shawl (just a wider scarf, really) and use the homespun where I have several partial skeins of jewel tone colors and just make them as stripes (leave the ends for fringe).  Changing colors using slip stitch makes a very nice horizontal pattern effect.  Maybe I will try a little bit, if I hate it, I'll make it six inches and call it a scarf!.

Good luck!

Cindy

[chana56]

Yipee, indeed!  What a great site, thanks for the link.  

Your idea with the slip stitch sounds good...a great advantage of doing it horizontally is that you can stop at a scarf or continue to a shawl... 

And you're right, now that I've been using the larger needles, I just look at the patterns with smaller needles and think "nah...." 

[ciproano]

Chana, Funny how quickly we can get spoiled!  For most of the last couple years, I've been making socks and baby caps & booties, nothing bigger than 4s.  Last summer I made a blanket with 6s and they seemed so big, still, it took months.  Now after using 15s for a month, the bootie needles look like wire.  On some knitting website I saw a picture of two backhoes with flagpoles aloft knitting a huge American flag..now THOSE are big needles!

Cindy

[Oldesq]

Has anyone gone to a "knit in" at a B&N?  There is one listed on the events for my local store tonight and I would like to go but wanted an idea of what it would be like first.

Oldesq

[Melissa_W Moderator]

When we had one at my store, we just sat around and talked, knitted, and drank coffee.  You might call your local store and find out what there plans are for the evening.

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Oldesq wrote:

Has anyone gone to a "knit in" at a B&N?  There is one listed on the events for my local store tonight and I would like to go but wanted an idea of what it would be like first.

Oldesq

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