It's been awhile

So this blog has been ignored for quite some time. Part of the problem is that I really haven't been knitting that much this summer. The only knitting that I have really done this summer is dish towels for my brother and now a bath mat from Mason Dixon knitting for Brigid-Ann. Brigid-Ann's new home proved somewhat of a difficult knitting challenge for me. She and Matt don't use cloth towels because they prefers paper towels. They have a formal dinning area so knitted place mats didn't seem like a good idea. I chose the bath mat because I have had the yarn and the needles to make this thing forever and I finally had what seemed like the perfect person for it. The reason I was pulled to this specific bath mat is that it uses a log cabin technique where you bind off stitches and then pick new ones up on the other side. This is a take on a quilting technique of the same name. I had some issues with figuring out how many stitches to pick up on each side and I had to frog quite a bit of it. Take a look at the picture - very fun and very easy (once you figure out the picking up thing). You can see I start with a center block and then the strips get added as you go. This is why none of the strips are the same size.

So Many Cables

I'm done! I'm done! I don't have to cable again unless I forget how endless this was and try something new. As you can see, we're now at the blocking stage of the endless cables. This is really a great simple pattern though. It's from Annelie Wallbom (Reversible Multi-Cable Scarf, 2006) who teaches at my local knitting store in Bellevue, WA, Hilltop Yarns East. It duplicates the cables on both sides making a lovely and thicker scarf (about 6" wide and 72" long). I used three balls of Classic Elite Princess which is a yarn I will definitely do again. I originally bought the pattern and yarn because I thought it would be something super portable to take with me to Hawaii in January. As you can see, it's now June and we're finally finishing. It's for Phoebe for Christmas and (although the color doesn't come across great here) is a lovely bright blue that I think will look great on her.

Fingless Gloves and Ravelry.com

Well, it's been some time, but I have actually finished a few projects. Just haven't taken any pics, so I'm going to address this one at a time most likely. I'm really excited to share these fingerless gloves as they're utterly ridiculous and I love them, and the Yarn I used. They're from a Blue Sky pattern that I picked out at Hilltop Yarn East, but rather than breaking the bank on Blue Sky yarn, I went with Rowan Classic Yarn in a 4 ply. This did make for smaller needles as I knit these on US 3 double pointed. It was a really fun project and perfect for my trip to Hawaii in January as it was small and portable. And the 6 row repeat in the pattern made it easy to keep in my head. I also nixed the stitch marker as it was pretty easy to keep track of the rows by following the tail from the cast on.

I also wanted to tell you about Ravelry.com which I recently joined. It's an interesting site and I've yet to explore all of it, but basically a knitting social networking site with groups and forums for different intersts and a great way to catalogue and link your projects and stash yarn. Check it out if you get a moment.