Sunday, May 22, 2011

A Knitting Fool

I have a tendency to be obsessive/compulsive. So now that I have the knitting bug I am going crazy. I promised my daughter Trista, in England, that I would make her an afghan. We hadn't decided on a yarn, so I have involved myself in baby knitting. After I made the booties for Rupinder, I started on an afghan for her. I worked on it EVERY day and here it is.




After I had started on the afghan I made a startling and fun discovery. It seems that one of my favorite patrons in the library is a cousin. My great grandmother and her great-great grandmother were sisters! How fun is that? She is about 15 months pregnant...OK, let's call it due, and now I am going to start on some booties for her. I was going to use the same yarn I used for Rupinder, but Lee took me to the best yarn store in Roanoke to shop Trista's afghan, so I bought some great yarn there for booties and I will try a different pattern for this new pair. I found it in the same book as I had checked out last time, but they looked a little more complicated.



However, this time I am psyched up and ready for the challenge. I had to order the yarn for Trista while we were both on the internet and viewing the same page. It will take a little while to get here, so that leaves me time to finish...and even START...the booties. The afghan pattern for Trista is WAY more complicated and beautiful, but I made one years ago for my sister Robin, so I know I can do it. I'll keep you informed of my progress.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mother's Day


It's Mother's Day today and for the first time in 31 years there are no children to help me celebrate. They are all elsewhere. Fortunately Lee is here so I got my breakfast in bed! The kids all got me a Magnolia tree to plant in the front yard. I have been wanting one for years, so this is great.

Yesterday Lee and I went on an outing to buy some yarn for a new project. I am planning to knit an afghan for Trista in England, but we are still looking for the perfect yarn. So in the meantime i decided to knit something for Rupinder. She is getting very pregnant and I wanted to knit a baby something. I settled on a baby blanket and some booties. I had to get two different weights of yarn and the colors don't quite match, but they are close. We don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl so I went with a light green for each.

I finished the booties today and started on the blanket. You can get a lot done with small projects and large amounts spent lazing around the house. It's my day and I'll veg if I want to.

I used a book from the library called Simple Knits For Cherished Babies by Erika Knight. She has a very cute pattern the is knit with lots of additions and subtractions in the knitting until the whole booty is knit like a tangram.




First you knit the back up




Then knit the sole to the top.


Add some organza ribbon to tie it on and something pretty to dress it up.

How cute.



(I am aware that these look a different color in each picture. I tried to fix it and this is the best I could do. In my next life I will take a course in Photoshop. I have to decided to blame it on the different times of day when I took the pictures with different ambient light and leave it at that.)

Tara said I could knit them to sell! I don't think I could sell these for $50 a pair and it took me about 5 hours to make them. Granted I haven't knitted in years so it took awhile to get back in the swing of things, but still. At any rate, I am getting some knitting practice before I have to make booties for my own grand kids, should I ever have any. I hope Rupinder likes them.