Not Afraid to Frog

Friday, September 08, 2006

Little things are growing.

As my sister-in-law's belly grows, I'm cranking out more baby stuff. Whipped up the first of these baby socks on the five hour flight from Cleveland to LA, what a fast project! Finished up the second a few days ago. While I knew right away this stitch pattern couldn't even pass as poser cables (I was following the cabled rib pattern, with an added ruffle at the top), I only had a chicken scratch version of the pattern with me and no brain cells alert enough to question it. It wasn't until the last patterned row of the second leg that it occured to me that I could probably figure out where I had gone wrong. So, while "k2tog, k 1st st again, slip both sts off needle" will give you a cute little two-stitch cable, "k2tog, k 2nd st again, slip both sts off needle" gets you what you see below. Right, then.



I figure the ruffles and bright colors obscure the fact that I screwed up (it just looks like a unique stitch pattern, that's all). Also, as I've got a bunch of this yarn left over, I'm going to make a little matching hat, with correctly executed cables.

Coming along well on the baby blanket. The center panel is finished and blocked (to 28" by 28"), and I'm onto the border pieces now. After a good soak in Eucalan, the center panel is still soft and cuddly as ever. It may be San Diego, but nearly-mom is still considering her little girl to be a "winter baby", so I know the warmth will be doubly appreciated.


I did also make a good deal of progress on the pink cotton tee for me, but didn't take a picture and left it in Ohio to be picked up again in October. I've got maybe 8" of the back done. Not so exciting when you can't see it.

To distract me further from recover my motivation for the baby blanket, I also started and finished a drop-stitch scarf for myself. I made it on size large needles (I don't remember...9s?), using an all nylon brand that I picked up on the graduation celebration yarn-crawl with Emily in April. (I also got some SOFT black and white bamboo yarn.) It's wonderfully colorful, and I clearly got it for this reason rather than illusions of softness or warmth, but my biggest issue with it is its snag-gerific nature. So, I have to be a little more careful than anticipated when wearing it.


Once the baby blanket is done, and I get a chance to mess with color combinations in person, I'll be casting on for this little guy:

I smile every time I look at it. I'll make the pullover version, and I'm thinking a yellow, pink/red, brown, and green. But it totally depends on the shades, so we'll have to see.