Knitting FOs

The February Edition: Craft Book Challenge

Nicky9 Comments

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I kid you not … I have no idea where February went!  It came, I blinked, it was gone!   I don’t know why I thought I had another Sunday to go before I could post my Craft Book Challenge monthly wrap-up. 

Although I didn’t do as much crafting as I’d hoped this month, I still did stuff.  I cooked, I made bread, I made candy … oye … I did good right?  😛

I’m going to cheat with my entries this month … well kinda.  😳  The things I made this month came from my craft books.  You’ve seen them already, so I’m just going to link the posts instead of posting the pictures again.  I’m going to include the name of the craft books I used so you’ll know I’m not cheating … well … not too much.  😀

This month I worked on blanket squares for this charity effort and  I customised a basic sugar scrub recipe for my friend at work.

From my pattern/recipe library, I used:

  • Basic sugar scrub recipe from a binder of downloaded recipes from this site.  A former co-worker downloaded the binder for me in 2003.  I guess he knew my crafty potential before I did!  Thanks Tim!  😀
  • Knit & Purl.  Edited by Erika Knight.  Bought by my mom as a Valentine day gift in 2011.

For March’s effort, I’m going to roll over the projects I didn’t complete this month.   Here’s the list    …  again:

  • complete one of my spring projects
  • start Z’s blanket
  • start my circles
  • start and possibly complete my first sweater
  • start my spinning adventures — go through the Respect the Spindle DVD
  • start my surprise project/technique

The three extra days in March plus daylight savings time starting March 10th must count for something!!!  😛

Knit Bloopers: Blanket Squares

Nicky10 Comments

I visit alot of blogs where the F.O.s, even the W.I.Ps, are photographed beautifully.   There’s no talk of the agitation with some of these projects, you just get the awesome result.  Since this blog is really my electronic version of “Dear Diary” I’m going to start posting about every blooper associated with projects, be it yarny or not, simple or intricate.  Hopefully, they’ll accurately reflect the entirety of my crafty journey and maybe encourage newbie crafters to keep trying no matter what.

So … first up … my third blanket square for this project.  I kinda had an idea in my head of what it was supposed to look like.  In my head, it was beautiful!  I think it still can be.  I finished it last night and behold:

Tightening

First I missed part of a row (Downton Abbey I blame you!!!  😛 ), but I also realised after I was done that the fabric produced became less stretchy the larger the square became.  I’m still in love with the texture but from the pic above the square moved from 10 inches across to 8 inches.  Although I tried to stretch it out, tried to kill the acrylic through blocking,  it was not happening.  Whomp, whomp!

That said, I love the texture so much,

Texture

I’m going to recalculate the number of stitches I need and from this stitch with either moss stitch or garter stitch.   That means, I have to become … dun, dun, dun … a swatcher!  😛  In the meantime, I’m going to work on something else. 😛