Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Panta Trouble




I made this adorable "panta" which apparently is Finnish for headband. There is a thread 50 some pages long on Craftster.org with many people modeling their finished products & I decided I needed to make one too. I picked this adorable yarn - Reynolds Santana - from the clearance section of the Woolie Ewe for $3.50. It was a great pattern for me because I learned how to increase & that it really wasn't as big of a deal as I was making it out to be. It went really quickly & when I finished it up last night & put it on it looked like CRAP on me. Definitely too wide, but I should have known that from the pictures I saw. It's cute though! So I modified the pattern to make it thinner & started a new one with the yarn left over from my sock class since I have no intention of making another sock..ever.

My blog was looking so sad with no pictures. So I thought I'd share my panta experience & I'll post a picture when I'm done. My next project is going to be a baby blanket and I am going to pick up my yarn on Thursday. LATER!

Monday, March 13, 2006

Come Over to the Dark Side.....

It's official. I bought Debbie Stoller's SNB The Happy Hooker & I'm learning to crochet. I'm not abandoning my knitting, I just want to be a double threat! I come across pretty open weave patterns that seem to be crochet so I want to learn. I think that's so funny since I've been reading crochet boards & they complain about the lack of cute / stylish crochet patterns. The book I bought is full of cute stuff but really I just want to make flowers. I have no idea why. I started to teach myself last night & I really must be learning challenged. I thought I was doing it right & I was so proud of myself then I read the next section & that's what I was just doing. So I skipped a whole skill (single crochet - main move) & moved straight ahead to something else (slip stitch). Much like my knitting I'm thinking pattern reading will be a real challenge for me. I need to find some videos & practice I guess.

In the meantime I have ALMOST finished Patrick's Christmas scarf. I finished up the original 3 balls of yarn that I bought for it & he informed me that he'd like it a little longer. I bought the yarn in December. It has a dye lot. Anyone want to guess on the chances of me finding any more yarn that would work? I called my LYS & they told me they didn't have that dye lot but bring it in & we'd try to match it. I packed it in there on Friday & dug through every ball of Debbie Bliss alpaca silk & guess what? They had ONE skein left. Just for me! (well, him). So I did finish the knitting on that project yesterday, I just have to work in my ends & block it. Then I started working on Kenny's scarf again yesterday. I took it to Vegas with me & got a lot done at the airport. I measured last night & it is up to 56 inches, so it's getting there. I measured a scarf he uses on a regular basis & it measured 60 inches without the fringe, so I'm thinking my original plan of around 70 inches is probably right. It's coming along much quicker now that I'm working on it again. LOL.

My next project is this baby blanket. I still have to pick yarn & the baby is due in May, so I need to hurry it up!
http://www.knitlist.com/00gift/round-baby-blanket.htm

That's it for now - I just hadn't posted in a while and my blog was looking neglected.