WIP Thursday?

I tried really hard to get this post out yesterday, but it just wasn't going to happen.

I have a lot to show you.  My largest bit of progress is actually on my knit vest.

I have the whole back piece finished:

I also have a good portion of the front done:

I know this last part of my ripple has been dragging and it has for me too.  Right now I'm working on the border:

I have two rounds left to go and then I am finished!

I started a new project last week and I actually started it a bunch of times.  I just couldn't get it right at first.  The project is a shawl, the whippoorwill, to be exact.  This is all I have done right now:

I'm using my Wollmeise yarn and it is gorgeous.

Don't forget to check out everyone else's WIPs over at Tami's Amis, Small Things, and Frontier Dreams.

Sam :-)

The Yarn That I Bought :-/ .......

So, I bought yarn recently.  I kind of got obsessed with a little thing called Wollmeise.

First I bought this lovely skein:

There's a lot of purple in this skein that I just could get to show up in the pictures.

Next I bought this purple/pink skein:

Next I bought these skeins, two greens, a purple, and a teal:

The next two skeins I bought, I got from the actual Wollmeise shop.

Out of all of these skeins, I gave Heather three as an early birthday present.  I let her choose which skeins.  She took the bright green, the blue/purple, and the teal:

I've decided that I'm going to make a Whippoorwill out of these two:

So I really haven't kept with my yarn diet lately, but what are you going to do?  These skeins are just so gorgeous and I wanted to splurge on Heather.  She's been so great to me lately and she went all out on me for Christmas.

The second purchase of yarn that Dave bought me came in yesterday.  I show it to you soon.  The pictures I just took are a little dark.

Sam :-)

The Yarn that Dave Bought

I told you a couple days ago that Dave bought me a lot of yarn.  I'm going to show you one purchase of yarn that he bought me (there's more, but it isn't in yet).

Weeks ago, probably more than a month now that I think about it, Dave saw that I was looking at yarn online.  The conversation went a little like this: I told him the yarn was on sale, but that I wasn't going to get it.  He asked, "why not?"  "Yarn diet."  He asked if he bought it for me if it counted against my yarn diet.  I said, "You want to buy me yarn?!"

This is what he got me:

5 skeins of Araucania Toconao Multy in colorway Beach Flowers (402)

AND, yes there is an and, 10 skeins of Araucania Toconao Multy in colorway English Garden (426)

I think I am going to make an Abalone out of the 5 skeins of Beach Flowers.  Do you have any other suggestions?  It is an Aran weight yarn and 5 skeins is 695 yds (635.5m).

I'm not sure what I want to make out of the 10 skeins of English Garden.  A few ideas I had were:

• Every Last Yard
• Streamside - this would only use slightly over half the yarn, otherwise would be a Beach Flowers contender 
• Shellseeker
• Leaflet

Do you have any ideas for me?  Crochet or knit.  I'd love to hear some suggestions.  Sometimes the planning process is the best part.

Sam

Kitchen Towel Topper Tutorial

Hi Everyone!!

I have been asked a few times how I make my Kitchen Towel Toppers:

The crocheted top I use is fashioned after the top of Laurie Laliberte's (over at Big Girl Blog) hanging kitchen towel patterns (I have most of them), so I asked her if she minded if I created a tutorial and I use her pattern for reference.  Her idea was for me to do a guest post on her blog.  You can see it here.

I have made these using worsted weight yarn and dk weight yarn.  I think you could easily adapt it for other weights as well.

Materials needed to start:

• Yarn
• Scissors
• Towel
• Needle (I use a tapestry needle, but that means I need a thimble to push it through sometimes) 

First thing you need to do is cut the towel in half. You really only need one half of the towel and on the plus side you get more for your money!

I don’t really worry about this being perfectly straight because in the end it is going to be somewhat gathered.

After the cut is made, thread your needle with a long piece of yarn.  I now make mine really long because one time I made it too short and had to redo it and that was not fun.

Next you want to fold down the top of the towel like so:

Folding the towel down like this makes it so you don’t have any raw edge exposed.

Next we want to put the needle through so that the knot is on the edge in the back.

 Then we want to start doing the blanket stitch (youtube tutorial found here) across the top of the towel.  Make sure to continue to fold the very top down so the cut edge is not exposed.  You can pin this edge if you want to make it easier for you.

Here’s how mine looks from the back with the top folded down.

Once you have gone all the way across make sure you knot it in the back.

We are going to put one sc in each blanket stitch, so make sure to keep the stitches fairly close together.  Although the thicker the yarn you use the farther apart the stitches can be.  I am using dk yarn in this example.  If your stitches are too far apart you could always put more than one sc in each blanket stitch.

Now you can start doing sc across the blanket stitch.  I use a larger hook than recommended for the yarn with these, but it is all what you are comfortable with.

Now once you get to the end just chain one and do a few more sc rows.  For worsted weight I tend to do 4 rows, but for this example in dk I did 5 rows.

If it starts to pull in a little that is okay.  We are going to start gathering it and decreasing anyway.

This is where I start to use Laurie’s pattern (Free Big Girl Kitchen Towel).  We want to sc dec

(A sc dec is insert hook into both loops of first stitch being worked, yo, pull up a loop, insert hook into both loops of next stitch, yo, pull up a loop, yo, draw through all 3 loops on hook)

over the next few rows to get down to 6 stitches.  Now this all depends on how many stitches you have.  In this example I have 54 stitches. 

So first row I just do sc dec all the way across and I end up with 27 stitches.

Next I sc dec 7 times, 1 sc, sc dec 6 times to get to 14 stitches.

Then I did sc dec 2 twice, dec over 3 stitches twice, then sc dec twice to get down to 6 stitches.

(dec over 3 stitches is insert hook into both loops of first stitch being worked, yo, pull up a loop, insert hook into both loops of next stitch, yo, pull up a loop, insert hook into both loops of next stitch, yo, pull up a loop, yo, draw through all 4 loops on hook)

Once down to 6 stitches, chain one and sc across.

Continue making the 6 stitch rows

I did about 20 rows.

Next, once it is long enough you will do the row that will become your button hole. 

From Laurie’s pattern:

Note:  Before proceeding, you may wish to fit your hanging loop to the place where you'd like it to hang.  If worked as instructed it will fit the average drawer pull or oven door handle.  If you need to add length simply continue repeating Row 64 as necessary.

Row 82:  ch3 (counts as dc), trc in next st, dtrc in next 2 sts, trc in next st, dc in next st, turn (6 sts)

Note:  The space between the two dtrc is your buttonhole.

Next you want to chain one and sc in the first two sts, two sc in each of the next two sts, and then sc in the last two sts, do not bind off.

Next, you want to sc down the side and stop right where you started the decreases.

Fasten off, then start on the other side where the decreases started.

Fasten off and weave in ends.

Sew on a button of your choice.

So, there you have it!  Let me know if you have any questions.

Sam