Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Legwarmies

I'm at the point in life where nearly everyone I know is having babies. So, I'm always looking for baby gift ideas. I've been excited to try out Legwarmies by Alana Dakos. I finally did and I love them!


I used some of the extra yarn to make a "Spring" Baby Headband to match...

...and still had enough yarn to make a pair for my 6 year old's Birthday. She was so excited to have a pair in time for crazy sock day at school.
(I might even have enough yarn left over for one more pair!)

Thursday, April 15, 2010

"Mason" Cabled Baby Blanket


Whew, I’m glad to be done with this blanket. It’s been an extremely frustrating project. (but I did learn a lot!)
First of all, I ordered the yarn online for the first time. I didn’t love it. Even after researching a lot of projects made with this color, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. You can tell by the pictures that it looks very different in different light settings. But I was making it for a baby due in June and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of returning and re-ordering and knitting a gift last minute… so I stuck with it. I really didn’t love knitting with this yarn either. It was splitty and I didn’t like the way it knit up. I choose the yarn based on other comments, and for washability, but I wish I’d used a blend or a washable wool.
I really wanted to make a simple stockinette blanket with cables down the sides but the curse of the stockinette curl haunted me. After several swatches I thought I’d be safe with a small garter stitch boarder that I could attach an I cord boarder to. At first it seemed to be working, but after I was a substantial way though the blanket, it became clear to me that the edges were going to curl… border or not.
I kept knitting anyway, hoping it would be fixable in the end. When I finished, I pretty much hated the blanket and told my husband to throw it out while I was at work. He asked, “Can’t you block it or something?” (Bless his heart, he's learning knitting terms!) I decided to give it a try, but I know acrylic doesn’t really block in the traditional sense, so I used an iron on steam setting and placed a cloth between the blanket and the iron and killed the border until it stayed flat. I've never killed anything before, but I have to say, I kind of liked it.
Done. And Done.