Monday, December 10, 2007

Catching up

The Christmas knitting continues.

Did I ever mention the Linen Bath Set I was making? Well, I finished it. I even wove in the ends right after casting off the final cloth. There's one for the history books! The only problem is, it may not qualify as Christmas knitting because I still don't know who the recipient might be.

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Pattern: Linen Bath Set.
Yarn: Louet Euroflax, 2 skeins in Ginger.
Cat: Large, nosy, perpetually hungry, highly determined, and unfortunately clever neutered male tabby.

I also made a couple of Christmas stockings. The first one was Christmas in Tallinn from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road. I had made this last year but used bigger yarn (red and white Dale Heilo, with doubled strands of leftover green Dale Baby Ull) for the 2007 version so that the stocking matched the size in the pattern.

The second one was supposed to be the Giant Jester Stocking from Interweave Knits' 2006 holiday issue, but it got a bit out of control.

I tried to follow the pattern, I really did. For attempt #1 I decided to stashbust and use some leftover yarn that technically belonged to the same colour families as the yarn in the photo, but the yarn was so dark that the result, quite frankly, could have inspired permanent fear of both Christmas and jesters in the recipient. So I frogged that and tried again with (new) yarn in shades like those in the magazine photo, but then decided I just didn't like the colours themselves. For attempt #3 I went traditional and used green for the cuff and red and white for the stocking, but the stripes looked too much like something from an antique bathing suit. Finally I said to heck with this and (at M's suggestion) changed the stripes to a candy-cane pattern.
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Yarn: Cascade 220

In hindsight, I probably should have included some narrow stripes...this seems slightly on the loud side. Oh well.

Things have been going better with the baby sweater. I just need to weave in the ends, block, and add buttons and ribbon.
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Pattern: Swing Thing by Theresa Belville
Yarn: Plymouth Encore worsted

Last week I went to the Urban Craft Uprising show and picked up some sock yarn (not shown) and some roving from Actual Size Creations. The one with lime green is merino, while the other is Blue-Faced Leicester.
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And in non-fiber related activities, I made a pie! Actually, I made two because we didn't have any bakeware big enough to hold all of the fruit. It turned out pretty well for a first pie attempt. I used the deep-dish pie recipe from Joy of Cooking so I only had to worry about a top crust.
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4 comments:

Theresa said...

I think the stocking turned out very well, even after all those false starts.

Anonymous said...

I admire your persistence and like your choice of candy cane stripes. Ah, the good old dependable Joy of Cooking. I received it nearly 25 years ago when first married, and it gets a lot of use. Kristen (audioknits)

Rachel said...

I agree, the stocking looks wonderful! The bold stripes make it festive and cheery. I'm impressed you persisted to finish it after all those false starts, though.

What are all the elements of a linen bath set?

knitseashore said...

The stocking looks great; you made me laugh with "antique bathing suit." Now I'm wondering what the original looked like?

The linen set looks pretty. Maybe you should keep it and enjoy it yourself, but if not, it would make a great bridal shower gift to stash away.