A good day to write a blog post....

....because this is the view out my front door:

I apologize for the photo quality - I am having issues with my camera.

For example, even after consulting my photographer daughter I couldn't figure out how to deal with all the whiteness of snow.

The next two photos were taken with my camera phone because that day I couldn't get the digital camera to work at all and I needed to get these gifts wrapped.

Katie's Scarves
Two scarves for Katie (son's very sweet girlfriend):
First is another pompom ( Gnocchi by Lana Grossa) scarf in turqoise;

Second is a scarf knit in fisherman's rib with a ruffle at the edge. The yarn is Kollage's Glisten (although you can't see the 'glisten' in this photo) purchased at Kirkwood Knittery.

During my last blog photoshoot I managed to break the tripod, so the rest of these photos are not as clear as they could have been and obviously it's too snowy and cold outside to shoot in natural light.

Isager's "The Fan"
This is Marianne Isager's "Viften [the Fan]" from Japanese Inspired Knits

This sweater is knit in Southwest Trading Company's "Optimum DK"purchased from Flying Fingers. Other than the sleeves being way too long it was a satisfying project and a sweater that I might actually wear.

Rona Lace Shawl
Next up is "Rona Lace Shawl" by Anna Marie Jensen, knit in Jade Sapphire Lacey Lamb from Kirkwood Knittery.
I really like knitting with this yarn although I had to take care not to snag it, especially withe tiny crochet hook that I used for beading.

The yarn is really fine and I'm a loose knitter so I used a Size 4 needle even though the pattern called for Size 5 for a 52" diameter shawl. I admit that I didn't swatch. It was a fun knit and the first shawl I have done that I added beads. It is gorgeous; however - it seems too small even though it blocked to 56" before I unpinned it, which is larger than noted in the pattern. I plan to undo the bind off and enlarge it somehow, there is plenty of yarn left on the second skein.

A gift for me...

I received a lovely pair of hand knit mittens from Fran and she even knit them in my favorite color: Pink. Luckily she takes better photos than I do (photo swiped from Fran's blog).

Barb and I modelling our new mittens:

Poor Neglected Blog

....it was a busy summer; that's my excuse for neglecting this blog for so long.

It was also the best summer ever in St. Louis for gorgeous weather.

Most of our summers are excessively hot, humid and miserable.

This year there was only one week in June that was miserable.

Other than that week the rest of the summer we have had the most gorgeous tolerable summer weather anyone can remember.

So to pick up where I left off.......our daughter was married on July 11, 2009:

 

They are so cute together! I think they both look so very young.

It's hard to fathom that we have a married daughter.

Her husband is a U.S. Marine and returned to duty in Iraq shortly after the wedding,

so our daughter continues to live with us until he returns to the States (could be October).

She has started her own blog and is working on making jewelry (including stitch markers!) and fimo clay characters (trying to convince her to do buttons!)

My friend Fran is not only a knitter but a spinner and weaver.

She wove this lovely dishtowel and dishcloth for me: 

My friend Barb is an amazing knitter, quilter, embroider.
For my birthday last week she made this darling tote bag for me,
it even has my name embroidered on it:

It's a very cool turnabout to have hand-crafted objects made for me!

Finally finished the second entrelac sock.  But there was not enough yarn to finish the toe so I substituted a plain off white sock yarn which is why the toes look different color-wise than the rest of the foot.

This sweater is really comfortable, I'm very pleased with the way it turned out.

It hangs better on me than my mannequin since she is way smaller than I am.

The yarn is Southwest Optimum DK purchased from Flying Fingers.  It is so soft
and drapey that it feels more like cashmere than 100% wool.

I began at the bottom and by the time I had knitted to the waistline I had tired of
knitting the German Herringbone stitch pattern (First Treasury of Knitting Patterns
by Barbara Walker) even though it is one of my favorites.

So I chose a coordinating stitch pattern and worked the bodice in two pieces:

left wrist to center back/front and right wrist to center back/front, joining at the center back.

This meant that unblocked there were little poofs of stitches at center back, but they blocked out flat (yay!)

The bodice stitch pattern is Reverse Fern Stitch (Charted Knitting Designs; a Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns, also by Barbara Walker

I started a lace sweater design using stitch patterns from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush, and cashmere laceweight yarn from Colourmart, but so far only one sleeve is complete:

I saw these these darling slippers here on Ravelry. 

The pattern is written in several languages (including English) and was actually quite easy.

The heel is worked first, then stitches are cast on for the foot and the rest is worked in round ending at the toe.

The pattern begins by casting on at the top of the heel section, working decreases to the center of the heel, then increases to the bottom of the heel, and finally seaming the heel along the sides before casting on additional stitches for the foot.

I worked it a bit differently casting on at the base of the heel and working increases
in the round.

I was a little disappointed that the gray yarn in the kit is several shades lighter than what is pictured above, therefore the fair isle detail does not show as well since there is not enough contrast between the two yarn colors.

There are often projects that are unsuccessful which I have not included in this blog.

Last spring I did a tank top that was just awful and now I can't find it so I'm not sure if I ripped it out and hid the yarn or simply trashed it.

Now here's another work in progress tank top and I'm not sure if I want to finish it or not.  I would need to rework the bottom of the skirt for a few inches.  The yarn is bamboo that I bought from the mark down bin at Kirkwood Knittery.  There were several skeins of  turqoise and two skeins of multi blue/white color.  The crossover portion is inspired by a design that was in Knitter's magazine.  The top is knit in a slip stitch rib and the skirt is the 'wrong' side of Half-fisherman's Rib.

This sock is for my favorite son-in-law, David.
Hopefully he will like them.
Hopefully they will fit.
Hopefully I am motivated to knit the second sock.

The yarn is by Universal Yarns purchased at Kirkwood Knittery.

My friend Gerta shared this book with me, which is written in German.  I'm in love with several stitch patterns from this book, especially a version of the candle flame pattern done in twisted stitches.

In my stash I had 16 skeins of Alexa (a tape yarn by Adrienne Vittadini).  This Twisted Candle Flame sweater is my current work in progress.  I've completed the fronts and the back and have begun the sleeves.

And that concludes the synopsis of MakeOne's 2009 summer knitting......

Inspiring Retail Designs

I can spend hours on the internet looking for inspiration and noting current knitwear trends on the websites of retailers (Dillards, Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom's, Bloomingdales, Ralph Lauren, Spiegel, Victoria's Secret, etc. etc.)

I had so much fun creating (knitting a knock off) of this sweater:

Here is my version:

Recently I noticed this sweater on the Victoria's Secret website:

The last few days I have been working on knitting something similar for myself not necessarily as a pattern to publish.  I'm using a yarn that I am "re-purposing" (that's a new term I keep hearing on HGTV - it seems to have replaced their catch phrase from last year "makes it pop") from an unfinished sweater that I frogged last week. Not my favorite yarn (Reynolds Mandalay, 100% silk) - if it doesn't work out I'll send it back to the bottom of the frog pond permanently.

Then coincidentally, yesterday I came across this blog of someone else admiring this type of design: Olgajazzy.