Hallelujah I Finished The Prayer Shawl

I finished it!

Praise the Lord!!!

I've been working on it for about a month, trying to find the right pattern to do. Once I did, I finished it in 2 weeks. Tonight I worked in bated breath. Would dropping stitches do what I wanted it to do? I had heard from the pattern designer, "No pressure on the shawl! It's a fun technique to try. It's so counter-intuitive: Knitting something up only to drop stitches at the end. Are you kidding me? But it's so fun to see things unravel but not come undone. Have fun with it." - Jennifer Worick. That was some what reassuring, but I still was a little worried, but when it came out I was so happy with my results.

Here is the before and after shots. The shawl measured out to 9 inches before dropping the stitches. I had a fairly even gauge for my garter stitch. (This is not always the case.)

And now the full length after shot. It increased between 4 to 5 inches. I really loved the way it came out. I used my iron to give it a quick steam blocking. The unraveled stitches were a little wavy and the steam took care of that. (Pardon my messy work table. I really need to recover it!)

Malorie, who has been sick today, watched me as I finished up the unraveling part. "That looks pretty cool," said the stuffed up, feverish 11-year-old. I consider this a really impressive comment, since she is turning preteen on me and I am getting kind of dorky to her. Tomorrow, I'm going to start work on my new bag. I can already feel the excitement of cutting through fabric and fusing!! I'll post another shot of the shawl once it has blocked and is ready to be modeled.

Only 14 More Inches To Go!!!

That's right, only 14 more inches! Now if I would just pull out my shawl and just finish it. I mean really all it would take is 7 inches in 2 days.

This weekend I knitted on our way to Emporia to check out golf clubs for Malorie. I mean really, a 2 hour drive there and a 2 hour drive back to buy golf clubs for an 11 year-old? Well, my DH wanted to go to this golf shop, he works with the owner, so off we went. I know the trip was to get Malorie clubs, but why did Kevin have to get a new wood? I'm beginning to wonder if the trip wasn't more for him than her. Yet, Malorie has gone out with Kevin the last 2 out of 3 days to the driving range to hit balls.

I couldn't believe it when the author of the pattern, Jennifer Worick, posted a comment on my blog. Wow, I was so surprised. Now I feel pressure to make sure it looks really good. At least my gauge is staying the same throughout the project. I went to her blog and what a fun blog. You can check it out here. I wish I could be as devoted as that to blogging.

Well, I'd best get back to the needles, this project isn't going to get done on its own and I really want my new bag!!!

That's My Plan And I'm Sticking To It!!

Where did the month of March go? I feel horrible for not blogging. I had a lot go on last month, so I guess blogging took a back seat. My knitting didn't fall too far behind. I finished my first prayer shawl and a pair of cargo pants for my friend Jodi's brand new nephew. His Aunt Jodi thought they were super cute, but he had a growth spurt and didn't fit them. I plan on making a pair for my sister's new baby when the baby comes in June. The first prayer shawl that I made was from the pattern Wisp. I did this same pattern for my sister, but this time I kept out the button holes and buttons.

I have started my next prayer shawl, but it is really slow going. It's all garter stitch, so I'm really getting tired of it. I checked out a Knitting book at the Library and found a pattern called Fast Favorite Wrap. It's from the book Getting Started Knitting by Jennifer Worick. The pattern has you work garter stitch for 52 inches then when it's time to bind off you drop so many stitches to create open ladder work. I did a test gauge and it turned out fairly nice, now I just need to finish it by the end of the month.

My incentive for finishing the prayer shawl is making this bag. I figured once I finished the bag, it would be big enough for me to take my knitting with me. (See it all comes back around to knitting!) I bought the material and pattern with an April Fool's Day sale at Hancocks of Paducah. It was 20% off all items. I love this fabric store and get stuff from them often.

I've got my plan and now I just need to stick to it. Fortunately I've been booked to substitute teach during this month, so I'll have some extra time to work on the shawl.

Scarf, Shawl and Mittens oh my!

Finally I have finished Nancy's birthday scarf. It was just 29 days past her birthday, but it is finished. I didn't take a pix of it. I plan on trying to catch Nancy with it on and then post it.

I am working on a prayer shawl for church. Our church is planning on making 20 prayer shawls to take to our district conference. I tried the knit 3, purl 3 pattern for the shawl. It didn't hold my attention for too long. So I decided to knit the Wisp pattern again. I have made a few modifications to the pattern. I'm not adding buttons to it, therefore the need to make a button hole every 5 rows is not necessary. This pattern goes so quickly and I am truly enjoying just thinking and praying for the person who will use it.

I also whipped up some mittens for Miller. He had lost one of his waterproof mittens and his gloves weren't cutting it. The total time for the mittens was about 3 days. It was so easy to do while I was substitute teaching. During recess, I'd whip them out and start knitting on them. They were a great small project to take. I may have to do some socks for my subbing days so I have something small to take instead of my huge prayer shawl.

Audrey's fixation with purple continues

For about the last year and a half I have promised Audrey that I would paint her room. Well, we finally got the paint on the day after Christmas. (DH had a Lowes gift card to spend.) We take her to the paint section, and she tells us she wants a purple room with red polka dots. Just so you know she has green carpet that is really ugly, so I wasn't so sure about purple with red dots on the wall. She was adamant that she have purple walls. She chose a color called Grapalicious. At least we talked her out of the red polka dots.

As you know from my blog I'm a bit of a procrastinator, so I just started painting today. My kid has color sense. I was still a little worried about the purple with the green carpet, but I painted the accent wall in the dressing room of her room. I was amazed how well it warmed up the room. It looks great. DH came in and was amazed on how just painting that one wall made such a difference to the room. I should have taken pictures of before and after, but hindsight is always 20/20. Her bedroom has two walls that are mostly windows, so I have decided to do her entire room in the purple. It's a bright room and can handle a strong color. When she gets home from school today she will be so psyched!

Now I just have to paint the bedroom, find fabric for curtains and duvet covers and sew those right up. What have I gotten myself into.

The first blog of the New Year

Okay I am trying to keep my resolution for the New Year. It maybe 6 days into the New Year, but at least I'm blogging! I finally got the kids to pose for their socks picture. It was an adventure trying to find all the socks. Miller and Malorie's were easy to find. I had washed them earlier so I knew where they were. Audrey's not so much. I had to search under her bed and did find it, but was so grossed out that I'm going to have to wash in Clorox tonight with all the germs under that bed. Plus I could only find one, that's why I just had the kids show a single sock.

This sock adventure started out as Audrey wanting a pair of socks. So I decided to make a pair for her. Well my math isn't the greatest and I messed up on the math formula for the Universal Toe-Up pattern. So that pair became Miller's, then I did another pair in a really cute pink and purple, but again I was off on my math. That became Audrey's friend Maceyn's pair. Then I did Malorie's and finally I did Audrey's. I can definitely tell how much more comfortable I became with the pattern by the time I got to my last pair.

I'm still working on my sister's scarf. Slowly but surely I'll get it done!

How many "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys" do I owe for not blogging?

Oooooooooooooooooohhhhh, I've been so bad about not blogging. Nothing like going 3 months without putting some info on what I've been knitting.

Well, I've given up on the Skinny Scarf. It was just too much for me to comprehend doing. So now my sister is getting a skinny garter stitched scarf. I love the look of the Skinny Scarf, but I'm just not into 400 stitches per row.

But I've done some projects on the side. I knitted the kids some great lounge around socks out of Sugar and Spice yarn. All cotton, super comfy and very bright, lime green. I used a great toe-up pattern by Amy Swenson. The directions were fairly easy and now I can make toe up socks without looking at a pattern, unless I want a fancy stitch. I also had to get a quick scarf out to my friend Jodi's little girl and some mittens for her son. I had never made mittens before, but they were so easy with the pattern I found. I think that I may make some for myself. Jodi's daughter got a pair of the toe-up socks too, I had made them for Audrey, but they were too small for her and pink so Miller couldn't wear them.

In January I will start on my first prayer shawl. My church is doing them for the Annual conference of our denomination. I have to knit 2, but the pattern is super easy and quite relaxing, that I don't think it will take me much time to do it.

I'll post a picture of the kids in their lime green socks. My New Year's resolution is to be better about my blogging. Maybe I'll add more than just knitting to my blog.