Dishcloth Set for Grandma

So after expressing some optimism that I might actually get all of my holiday knitting done on time in the last post, I totally dropped the ball and ended up only getting 2 of the 4 gifts done on time. In fact, I haven't finished anything since that post.

Here's something that did go out on time, a set of dishcloths for my grandma.



The term set may be a little pretentious for two dishcloths, but they're coordinated. In fact, the patterns for both came from the same book, Mason Dixon Knitting.

First is the Mason Dixon Dishcloth, which has already been posted about. It's yellow Peaches n' Cream.

Next is the ball band dishcloth.



This is the same yellow Sugar n' Cream, along with Peaches n' Cream Baby Ombre. The color pooled in the most awesome way, with diagonal strips of pink, blue and white. It looks great.

Look at the texture (ignore the slightly uneven stitches, this is before washing):



This was well received, and grandma is probably going to use them as decoration. I'm ok with that.

Probably my favorite (and most unexpected gift) this year was this:



Sock yarn from my knitting group. There's a ball of Lana Grossa and some Socks That Rock. STR socks are what's in the cue as soon as I get my MIL's Jaywalkers done.

And for a last little bit of Christmas spirit:



Santa or Hagrid? You decide.

I Think I Can Make It...

It's December 21st, we have all of our Christmas shopping done, and I think I'll get all of my Christmas gifts out this year, on time even. This is only because we aren't seeing the in-laws until a week after Christmas, and I've been knitting feverishly. It also doesn't hurt that we're leaving tomorrow to see the parents

In addition to the Coriolis socks in this post there are a pair of Jaywalkers for my mother in law, two dishcloths for my Grandma, and a pair of gloves for my dad.

For a while there I was a 24-hour a day knitting machine. The Jaywalkers bag had a permanent home in my purse or hanging from my belt loop. I knit at the movies, at stoplights while I was driving, and even found out that I could knit the simple chevron pattern while in the car in the dark, as long as I counted.

This must be proof that I love them. The people, not the patterns, although I choose patterns that I want to do, or that present a challenge, because otherwise I'd let the projects stagnate and not work on them for months at a time. Case in point, Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater.

It's coming...

The OrangeBlossomKnits podcast is coming soon.

This time I mean it.

We'll be recording a promo and a short episode soon.

Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater

So, it's finally done. It may have taken six months or so, but Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater is completed. Mostly. I have to tighten up the armpit vents created by my provisional cast ons, but more on that later.

As far as pictures go, I have a few close ups, but none of the whole sweater that are worth looking at yet, as during the photoshoot the camera was set on close-up focus and Nerdy Husband was wearing superman pajama pants.

But here is the super cool thumb hole that I added at NH's request:



Pretty cool, huh. It's 2x2 ribbing, I worked back and forth on double points like I was making a muli-row buttonhole. The dpns were used as opposed to magic loop because that was the best way to keep the 40 or so stitches that I had in a somewhat natural position and not stretched out at the top and bottom of the buttonhole. This way, he won't have to tear a hole in the sleeve like he's done with almost all of his other sweaters.

Here's one of the provisional cast on's in the neck.



It's a top down raglan knit in one piece, so provisional cast on's were used at the back of the neck, and the front, and in the armholes. I couldv'e used a standard cast on and picked up or grafted the stitches, but I'm a fan of the provisional cast on. The only problem is that in the armpit, at the beginning and end of the provisional cast on, there are some really loose stitches. I'm going to tighten them up by basically duplicate stitching them.

The pattern comes from SweaterPro, but I lost the pattern during the four month break that I took from this project. I got distracted by something new and fun and not miles and miles of stockinette, big surprise. But getting it done has been part of my effort to buckle down and finish things, and since it should be getting cold here soon I have no excuse to put it off. NH was teasing me about not doing it; we'd go shopping and he'd say "Wow, those knit sweaters look awfully warm. I wish I had a sweater...". I tell him that it's not winter when the highs are still in the 80's.

The yarn is Moda Dea Washable Wool. I don't actually think the sweater is ugly, and there's enough yarn left over that I may actually make myself something. But if I do, hubby and I are going to have to coordinate, because we accidentally dress in matching clothes way too often, and usually don't notice till we leave the house.

Baby Kimono

This is what I really did over Thanksgiving.



I really like this pattern. The whole concept is pretty cool. It's worked in one piece, starting at the bottom of the back, increase for the sleeves, bind off for the neck, work the left front and then the right front separately.

The yarn is Peaches n' Cream Baby Ombre. I was using size 4 needles, but I still couldn't get gauge, and I didn't want to go any smaller, so I had to adjust the pattern. I also compensated for shrinking in the wash. That's right, not only did I swatch, I washed my swatch and even used the measured gauge. **Big pat on the back**. I think this was inspired by the class with Lily Chin, as well as the knowledge that cotton can be unpredictable.



I used a seed stitch border around the edges, and two pieces of icord for closure. The idea for the icord was to make a little bow, but I didn't make it nearly long enough, and the cord was too thick to make it the right size for such a small garment. If I could do this again I'd either use a button or some ribbon as the closure, perhaps a row of eyelets kind of like a belt.



The baby is a little girl, and I gave her daddy the sweater this week. It was such a great feeling. This is the first baby gift I've ever made. I love giving gifts, especially when they're well received, which it was in this case.


With that done, I've started the Jaywalkers for my MIL's Christmas gift. Twice now. The first time I completely messed up the short row toe (I"m doing them toe-up), and it took me until I had the whole foot done to realize that they were huge. So, I'm trying a different hold, still continental but wrapping the yarn a few more times around the finger. It seems to be working.


In the non-knitting world, the other day and I went to the Cummer, the Fine Art and Garden museum here in town. After walking through the exhibits inside, we took a stroll in the gardens outside. It was a gorgeous day (there were people painting), and they're gorgeous gardens.





The rest of the photos can be found on my flickr page, with the tag "Museum".

Back Home... Coriolis Socks

The Coriolis socks for my father-in-law are all done. Here they are:



Husband was kind enough to model them:



I really like these socks. The thickness (due to double stranding) will make them perfect walk around the house socks, which is perfect for the recipient. I may make a pair for myself. This pattern is totally appropriate for hand-dyed, highly varigated yarn, here is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Pinstripe. These socks took about two skeins on number 5 needles, cuz I'm super loose. I'm not worried about them not fitting, because if they don't, they'll go to NH, as they obviously fit him.

A pair of Jaywalkers in the same yarn will be going to my mother in law. However, I couldn't start them this week for two reasons. One, I don't want the inlaws to see their presents early, even though they know what they're getting. Secondly, I had to finish the Baby Kimono for a coworkers newborn. That got done, with pictures to follow after it's washed. I also got a little bit of Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater done, and hopefully will have it done within the week.

So, for all my good intentions, I didn't get a chance to visit any yarn shops while in South Carolina, or even to take a decent picture of the absolutely gorgeous trees. These are the only pictures I have, they were taken on the way out there.





We had 8 people for Thanksgiving dinner, which is a lot for Nerdy Husband's family, but a lot less than would be expected from my family, (our holiday get-togethers are closer to 20 or 30 people). We also had 4 dogs, all very cute.

Here they are being wrangled by my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. The dogs (from left to right) are Indy, Snowball, Bosley, and Nico:



We even managed to get three of them without people to hold them down. Snowball is a proper lady, and doesn't play too much with all the boy dogs and she opted out of this one. Nico's wearing a cute blue hoody.



We ended up leaving a day early, so I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the trees or visit the lys which I have been trying to visit for over a year. It was a good thing we left when we did, because when we got back I had a call about a family emergency down South, so we got to pack up and head out again.

Now we're back home, and I'm listening to Christmas music on Pandora, and there's chili in the slow cooker. This time of year is great, even though it's still in the 70's here.

Victory in the Giant Dishcloth Campaign

Well, not complete victory, not yet anyways. But a step in the right direction.

I ran out of yarn shortly after joining the petals to knit the center of the flower, which will be of considerable size. The yarn used is LionBrand VelvetSpun in pastel yellow. It's a bulky polyester chenille in light pastel colors. It couldn't be less desirable. I had originally picked up the yarn as a filler in Grandma's afghan, which was going to be pink on one side and yellow on the other. I wanted big big stitches to make the afghan go fast and have that squishy feel.

However, when I found out that I had more than enough pink yarn for a blanket, I scrapped the yellow idea and faded from pink to white rather than from pink to white to yellow. The result is a lot of yellow yarn, some nice and bought from KnitWitz, the first yarn store I visited in Jax (the first trip there I bought several single skeins in yellow and pink), the rest was not as nice yarn from big box stores. Yellow is not my color. I'm more of a gray, brown, dark blue person, so this yarn has been "marinating", waiting to be used.

Anyways, when we chose the daisy dishcloth pattern for our first Knit-a-Long, I thought the VelvetSpun would be perfect, because Brenda had made them out of chenille and they turned out great.

But, as we all know by now, I didn't check gauge and ended up with this.



And I ran out of yarn.

I thought that since it was big craft store yarn it would be no problem finding it. So I go to the Micheal's where I'd bought it, and there was no VelvetSpun to be found. Same story at Joann's. In a panic, I checked LionBrand's site and Yarndex to see if it was discontinued. Thankfully it wasn't. Then I checked Micheal's and Joann's websites to see if they still sold the yarn. Yep, it just wasn't at my stores here. No vendors on ebay were selling it at a cheap price with low shipping. And I wasn't going to spend like $10 on this yarn. Heck no.

So, while in Orlando for the ONS, I stopped at the Micheal's near our friend's house where we were staying. The woman there knew exactly where it was, and pointed me straight to it. I let out a little pirate-like "Ya-har!" (an affectation picked up from the Nerdy Husband), which startled the prim little old ladies that were shopping. I didn't care, it was a victory!



I still can't believe that this was my real find for the show weekend. Not the best yarn I got by any means - what was there was gorgeous - but this was my most highly anticipated yarn of the weekend.

When I returned, I also found this in our mailbox:



It's cotton baby yarn (Peaches and Cream Baby Ombre). Someone at work just had a baby, and I'm at that age where supposedly all of our friends start having kids, so I want to be prepared to do some baby knitting. The thing is, though, none of my friends or family has little babies. So this guy at work is getting a Baby Kimono for his new daughter even if work isn't having a shower. Congratulations, here's a gift whether you expect it or not!

That, finishing Nerdy Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater, and maybe finding a glove pattern for my dad are in the line up for our trip to the Carolina's for Thanksgiving. It's always prime knitting time, and I'll probably post some, because it's prime online time as well. Nerdy Husband and his Techie Father usually get the internet on our laptop before all the bags are unpacked from the car, so access is never an issue. Maybe visiting a yarn shop with mother in law (who used to knit) and her daughter. My SIL started learning to knit last Christmas when I showed her a few stitches and lent her my copy of SnB. This year, she's making her mom a sweater. It's great!