Babies, Everywhere! Project Updates

So I spent most of today knitting, which is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday. I have made good progress on the Eyelet and Wavy-Cables Blanket for my assistant's baby:

It is a fun project to work on and I think it looks lovely so far!

Also, I found out Friday my hair dresser is having a baby in May too, so I thought I would make a hat and little socks for her. She is fairly certain the baby is a girl, but not 100%, so I went with green again (just to be safe) and got the Debbie Bliss cashmerino, which is really nice to work with:

This yarn is actually lighter than it looks in this picture (I have terrible lightening in my living room) and the cuff looks so much smaller in person. It works up super fast though, so this should be a fun project with quick satisfaction!

As you can see I am doing the baby socks in magic loop. My adult size socks are coming along quite nicely. I am finishing the gusset decreases and hope to do the foot on the plane to Florida on Wednesday!

Eyelet & Wavy-Cables Blanket

My assistant in Michigan is having a baby in May and I decided to make her a blanket. Actually that isn't quite right... I bought the latest Creative Knitting and there was a cool blanket and I thought, who can I make that for? The pattern is sized as a lap/baby blanket, so I thought of Katy's baby.

It is a cool pattern repeat:


that makes a pretty cable and eyelet pattern. It is interesting to knit, but not too hard.

The color is slightly darker than it looks here. The bedding for the "unknown gender" baby is brown, cream and sage green. I am using acrylic yarn so the new mommy can wash and dry the blanket when needed.

I am excited for my first blanket!

A Learning Process

One of the things I really love about knitting is that it is a learning process, with new things to uncover at every turn. With that comes mistakes though and I made a big one in my first magic loop project.

I was trucking along, as you can tell by my last couple posts. I had gotten down the leg, through the heel flap and turn, picked up the stitches for the gusset and was working the gusset decrease and the beginning of the instep when I noticed something odd...

I have tried to take pictures of my conundrum, but they do not show the stitch pattern clearly enough.

Long story short: I had knit the leg of the sock on the wrong side. The stitch pattern (a waterfall rib) was so pretty that even the wrong side looked nice and I didn't really notice my mistake, until I turned the work somehow in the gusset decrease and the instep pattern was correct (and different).

I debated leaving it as it was and having a cool transition look from leg to foot, it kind of flowed and twisted at the heel. Then I realized I was making these socks for myself on no time line with really nice yarn and should do it right. I also didn't want to learn a wrong behavior.

So I frogged a week's worth of knitting and started over. To date I am back to the heel flap and hope to turn the heel and work the gusset tonight. Lesson learned. I still love magic loop!

In other knitting news, I cast on and have done about 11 rows of a baby blanket for my assistant who is due in May. More on that (including photos) to come soon!