Andy's scarf

I started this blog long after I'd knit and given away lots of things. So about two weeks ago I asked everyone who's received knitables from me to send me pictures of them (preferably being worn). The first person to respond was Jan's brother, Andy, who sent this PG-13 rated picture of himself demonstrating a novel way to wear a scarf. I sure hope that wool isn't too itchy!

More baby hats

Most recently, I've been having fun with the jester hat in
The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits: Patterns for Babies and Toddlers by Julie Carles and Jordana Jacobs.



All of the hats here will be Christmas gifts for friends' babies (I am planning ahead!). And all of those babies are older than Sylvia, which is why these hats look so huge on her.

Baby hats

I've given away lots of the stuff I've knit: baby hats, scarves, baby sweaters. I'll see if I can get the recipients to send me photos of the items, so I can have a somewhere complete record here.

I've recently completed a whole gob of baby hats. Sylvia will wear some of them, but some are destined as gifts.



Here she is modeling a few of the many hats I've made from the pattern in Debbie Bliss's Baby Knits for Beginners.

Knitting beginnings

I started knitting in February 2004. My first project was a red scarf in Lamb's Pride Prairie Fire bulky yarn in knit stitch. It was a birthday present for my friend Valerye, my pen pal of twelve and a half years and someone I've never met in person.

I followed that up with two more scarves in knit stitch: one in Lamb's Pride Spruce bulky yarn for my brother, Mark, and one in Lamb's Pride Fuschia bulky yarn for my friend Minjoo.

At this point I realized I needed to do something that (1) wasn't a scarf and (2) used a different yarn. So I embarked on the three-scarf ruana from Sally Melville's Knit Stitch . . . and over a year and a half later, I'm still working on it. It's a lot of knitting in a small yarn with small needles--definitely not something that gets finished quickly.

I decided I needed to feel the sense of satisfaction that comes from finishing a project. So I chose a little project to work on: baby stuff. I bought Debbie Bliss's Baby Knits for Beginners and got to work on the patchwork baby quilt. This item required a LOT of seaming, which I didn't finish until a year later, when I was expecting my daughter, Sylvia. I discovered that seaming is not my forte. I call this blanket the "Frankenblanket" for a reason. Fortunately, she doesn't care.