Month: August 2018

August Blanket Progress

mildlygranola, 3 Comments

20180831_0903553040981253931725690.jpgThe blanket continues to grow. This is the first month the blanket has started to feel blanket sized. I still have a long way (probably about 28 months) to go. 20180831_0904034559109807813763598.jpg

Audrey insists that this is her blanket. She says it must be hers because there are green squares for her. She wanted to help me take pictures and proceeded to point out all of the squares that were for her. According to her any green square or pink square is for her.

I might have her pose next to the blanket every month. I will like seeing how the blanket and Audrey grow.

 

Scrap Yarn Blanket Organization

mildlygranola, , , 9 Comments

I love working on my scrap yarn blanket, but keeping the yarn I use for it organized can be a lot of work. For the first two years I had a bags full of yarn and pulled out whatever I could find. It was hard to find the yarn I was looking for and it was messy to look at. I’m on my third year of knitting a square every day, and I feel like I finally have a process for keeping things organized.

I thought I should share my tips for keeping yarn scrap organized for a project. I wish I would have had someone give my suggestions when I was first starting.

Please note that I tell myself several times a year that I’m going to put the yarn back where it came from. That doesn’t happen. I end up tossing the yarn in the bag and it becomes a tangled mess. Since I’ve implemented this process I no longer lie to myself about keeping the bag clean.

How I organized my scrap yarn blanket yarn

When the blanket is small I organize the yarn every time it is square. When I find the yarn is getting messed up more often I switch to whenever the blanket is square or rectangular. I can tell it is time to organize when I get twitchy looking at the bag. Today was one of those days.20180830_1404584600752328082169471.jpgStep 1 is to dump the yarn out. By the point I organize the yarn there are several balls that are roaming freely. There are also balls that are starting to unwind. 20180830_141312828090844735112279.jpgStep 2 is to ball up the yarn that is starting to unwind. This part involves getting annoyed at myself for keeping balls that might be too small to knit a square. This time I only had one ball so small I don’t know if it will knit a full square. I love the yarn though, so I’m going to chance it. 20180830_1413479074090071588585461.jpg

Step 2 involves a trip down memory lane too. Here is the yarn from my first pair of socks. 20180830_1414567019116981562801162.jpg

Step 2 also involves gratitude. How lucky am I to have a friend that deserves black socks? I hate knitting with black yarn. Making someone socks is a sign of true friendship, but black socks? That’s a bosom friend, and you don’t get many of those in a life.20180830_1416478215722457242033222.jpg

Step 3 is taking the yarn out and organizing it by color. This is the prettiest stage.20180830_1429027280458444583469109.jpg

Once the yarn is organized I fill bags with similar colors. That helps me when I’m looking for my next yarn. I usually have an idea of what color I want next, so I just grab the Ziploc bag with the right color yarn in it.20180830_1439027226545986225604983.jpgStep 5 is shoving the Ziplocs into the project bag and zipping it up.

I am much happier with the project now that I have found a way to keep my yarn organized. Have you ever struggled to keep a project organized? What steps did you take to stay organized?

WIP Wednesday: 34/52

mildlygranola, , , , , , 2 Comments

Now that I’ve finished the Study Hall Shawl I’m back to working on my caramel sweater. It’s amazing how much progress you can make when you only have one project on the needles.

20180829_1858231951081774250508025.jpg
Never ask my husband to take pictures of your knitting.

I hope to be on the sleeves by next week. I’m done with the green stripe and have about 25 rows to go until I bind off. I’m going to have a lot of ends to sew in. I know I could carry the yarn between stripes, but I think this will be a floppy front cardigan and it would really bother me to see the carried yarn. So I will just deal with ends.

After days in the 90s we are down to the 70s. It feels wonderful. The kids and I spent as much time outside as we could today. We walked with friends to a park and stopped for lunch on a patio on our way home. It is perfect out. I hope this weather sticks around.

 

Study Hall Shawl

mildlygranola, , 8 Comments

I finished my Study Hall Shawl last week. It might be the shawl that makes me a shawl person. I love it.20180823_1411068200878794325745035.jpg I’m so glad I used my Garden Wool & Dye Company yarn for this project. They are not colors I normally wear, but due to encouragement from AJ I decided to give it a shot. I think I’ll pick up a gray or black long-sleeved t-shirt and wear my shawl all winter long.

I wanted to block it in the sun, as it would dry in a few hours. After ruling out the back yard (Wrigley would run over it), the front yard (I didn’t want my neighbors to think I was crazy), and my driveway (I was hoping to leave the house that morning) I decided to use our small storage shed on the patio. 20180823_1102495466156871231205118.jpg

The shawl is bigger than the shed making it difficult to pin the shawl in place to block. Feeling lazy, I decided to try weighing down the corners with binder clips and hoping for the best. 20180823_1102201510565182295827340.jpg

It worked, and I’ll probably try that technique again. The corners weren’t as perfect as they would have been if I pinned them in place, but they are close enough not to bug me.

I had so much fun knitting this shawl. I might have to knit another shawl to see if the fun can be repeated.

More Craft Q & A

mildlygranola, 1 Comment

Karen over at NothingButKnit has another round of questions for crafters. These questions are not knitting specific, so feel free to share your answers for your favorite craft. I would love to hear from you.

The questions are:

  1. Do you have a favorite crafting tool?
  2. Which do you prefer when you craft: listening to a podcast or music, watching something on tv or silence?
  3. Do you have a favorite designer that you’d like to recommend?
  4. Most people have a favorite color, do you find you use it more than other colors? Is there a color you avoid? Why?
  5. Have you experienced a crafting injury? If yes, what

My Answers:

  1. Do you have a favorite crafting tool? I have lots of knitting tools I don’t want to live without. A tool that I’ve been using for about 18 months and I don’t know how I lived without is my sock ruler. It makes measuring for socks much easier. I use the back of it, which is blank, to keep track of names and foot lengths.20180823_1442584600606097237882365.jpg
  2. Which do you prefer when you craft: listening to a podcast or music, watching something on tv or silence? I watch TV while I knit – the news and public television mostly. In rare moments where I’m hiding from my family and knitting on my bed I watch knitting podcasts on YouTube.
  3. Do you have a favorite designer that you’d like to recommend? For simple socks I love Meanest Mommy Knits. Her patterns are easy to memorize and fun to knit. She is also one of my favorite people to knit with.
  4. Most people have a favorite color, do you find you use it more than other colors? I knit with blues and greens a lot. I find working with them calming. Most of my stash is blue yarn, so I might like to buy blue yarn even more than I like to knit with it..Is there a color you avoid? BLACK Why? I have such a hard time seeing it, so it makes me angry, which leads me to hate the project.
  5. Have you experienced a crafting injury? Yes, I have eczema on my thumb tips, and in the winter they crack. I keep knitting and occasionally snag them and make them worse.

I would love to hear your answers.

WIP Wednesday: 33/52

mildlygranola, , 1 Comment

I spent another week ignoring my sweater and working away on my Study Hall Shawl. I’m getting close to finishing it. It is now at the point where it is very difficult to photograph because the fabric is larger than the needles, so I can’t give you a good picture of it.20180822_1326301335615502415072281.jpg

I love the shawl, but I have had a couple of issues with it. Please note that the issues don’t actually bother me, which I assume is because this shawl is so much fun to knit.

The first issue is the yarn: I am using two 100 g skeins of Garden Wool & Dye Company yarn. The yardage 437 yards – 23 yards shorter than the yarn called for in the pattern. The 23 yards make a difference – I do not have enough pink for the final stripe and bind off. I might run out of the blue, so I’ll have to end the shawl early. I should have enough for three full basketweave sections, so it won’t look awkward.

The second issue is reading the chart. I blame this fully on taking cold medicine. The chart is clear. It is standard. It is not a funky chart. Yet I totally misread it and in the sanquar check sections am purling and knitting in the wrong spot on the wrong side of the shawl. I like how it looks though, so it doesn’t bother me.

With any luck I’ll finish the shawl and have it blocked before the end of the week. As soon as that happens it is back to the sweater. I might start a pair of socks too.

Or, instead of knitting, I’ll get around to picking the tomatoes that are suddenly abundant on our volunteer grape tomato plant. 20180822_1327321510331404899824685.jpg

I hope you had a productive week!