Sadness. I have run out of my beautiful Malabrigo Lace Yarn in color “Vaa.” And I’m only a little over halfway done.
Double sadness. Neither yarn shop in my area have any more Malabrigo in this color. And I can find only one store online that has one skein but I need two (might be able to make it with 1, but I’d rather be safe than sorry).
Now what?
If anyone has any of this yarn (Color 51 Vaa, deep bluish green, more blue than green) in their stash, please leave me a comment and let me know.
This:
is eventually supposed to be this:
Granted, it’s already been that once, but it needs to be a bigger that. I love the two yarns I’m using. One is Noro Silk Garden (45% wool, 45% mohair, 5% silk), which was a gift from a secret pal exchange, and it’s my first encounter with this yarn. It’s a bit crunchy right now, but after having been knit (several times, I might add) and I know after being washed, it will soften up beautifully. The Noro yarn is different shades of pink, a bit of purple and a touch of red, with a hint of gray and a stripe of navy blue. This yarn will be the bottom/outer diamond edge.
The stripe of blue is what inspired the second yarn to compliment it–Malabrigo Lace yarn (100% baby merino) in a color called “Vaa” but is a deep green-blue that looks like navy blue, but has that hint of green as a surprise. Not only does it win the award for most interesting color name, but Malabrigo is the softest yarn I have ever used. No joke! I’ve used the worsted weight version one time to make a scarf and it has to be the softest thing I have ever made. If I could afford it all the time (it’s rather spendy…let’s just say this one skein of lace yarn is the most I’ve ever paid for a single skein…but totally worth every penny), I would make everything with this yarn. This particular skein will make up the center/body of the shawl.
Luckily I already know the yarns look beautiful together in this pattern, so I can’t wait til I finish this shawl. For the second time.
You know what is even worse than trying to finish a lace project with a bad migraine?
Finishing the lace project (without cutting the yarn after cast-off just in case) only to find out that it’s too small and no amount of blocking will fix the fact that it’s just. too. small.
So two week’s worth of work came out in about thirty minutes. Not fun. At least I was smart enough to not cut the yarn when finished so I wouldn’t have to deal with that. But I still hate having to take out a whole completed project, especially one I’ve already had to start over three times.
This is one of two blankets I made for my niece, Violet, and the one I gave to my sister at her baby shower before said-niece was born. Unfortunately I never got a picture of it (even though we live in the same house), so I finally got around to taking a picture of it a few weeks ago.
It’s made up of basic granny squares with two baby fingering weight yarns held double throughout. The border is a simple V-stitch border, crocheted using just one strand.
I mainly wanted to post this picture because, as of last night, little Vi Vi started crawling at eight months old. Yay Vi! Since it’s just now getting down into the eighties as far as temperature, she hasn’t had a chance to use either blanket I made for her.
Luckily babies don’t outgrow blankets as fast as they do sweaters.
So the key to a good baby blanket is the texture. Softness is obviously a good choice when it comes to making blankies for wee little ones, but another thing I like to think about when I choose a pattern is what kind of textures are involved. Take this most recent one I made for my new cousin on the way:
I specifically chose this pattern because it involved both seed stitch and garter stitch, which are both bumpier in texture, but contrasting enough to be interesting to knit. The other thing I did for this blanket was use chunky yarn, worsted weight yarn double-stranded, and large needles to not only make it go faster, but also to make the textures more defined. I just loved rubbing my hands over the squares once this blanket was together to feel the differences of the stitches under my palm.
When this little boy gets older, he’s going to love feeling this blankie with his little hands too.
PS> I forgot to mention that this little beauty came almost entirely from all stash yarn. I only had to buy 2 little skeins of the variegated color to make enough multi-colored squares and do the border (technically, I would have only needed one, but since it was the yarn I used double-stranded, well, you get the picture). This makes the sixth blanket in a row that used mostly all stash yarn.
…knitting or crocheting, look at what I did to my hair today:
Did you know that Disneyland is knit/crochet friendly? What I mean by this is that the past several times my family has been there, I have noticed several window displays which feature knitting baskets, crocheted items, yarn balls, and various Disney characters partaking in these yarn activities. Most of the time they are in windows that are not on the main path, but rather tucked away in less obvious corners.
When my family was in Disneyland this past August, I was able to snatch a few photos of the ones I could find. The first one was taken of a window display on Main Street back by the lockers. I think this one has been there for awhile because I’ve seen it before, so I’m curious to know how old are the items. The blanket is a hand-crocheted granny square blanket, probably made of fingering weight wool.
The second display I found was in a princess store right inside the castle area. Of course the mice from Cinderella would appropriately be found by knitting baskets, because knitting is just as fun as sewing.
These displays make me love Disneyland just that much more.
Today is officially the first day of Fall. In Arizona, the only way we know this is because the calendar tell us so. We’ve been experiencing a cooling trend, which means the high for today is only supposed to be 98 degrees, and the rest of September will round off in the low hundreds, high nineties. Oh well….maybe next month it will be sweater weather?
Speaking of sweaters, I’m about to finishing knitting my first one of the year. Just working on the second sleeve, then need to add three buttons and sew in ends and I’m done. I’ve really come to love working sweaters in one piece from the neck down; it makes finishing so much more enjoyable because there is none.
Have I ever mentioned before that making blankets is probably my favorite thing? Yes? Oh yeah, only about a gazillion times. Well, since summer is almost over, I figured I would post about some more blankets that I made this summer that I haven’t posted about yet…
At the beginning of summer, a friend of the family asked if I would finish a knit chevron blanket that her mother had started back in the 70s but never got around to finishing. She then brought me a bunch of extra yarn and asked me to make blankets with the remainder. So here are the three blankets that resulted.
Although the colors are very, let’s just say, retro, I ended up loving the color scheme of the chevron blanket, because these colors are actually kinda popular right now; except they call it “natural” or “organic” colors.
I love the one blue square in the middle. It was my way of making this a more modern blanket. Plus, I needed one more square and blue was the only color left.
After these three blankets, I was able to finish a work-in-progress that I had had for awhile. It was another ripple bobble blanket, and this one went to my new baby cousin, Riley.
I knit this blanket, “Red Hot Sampler,” right after I finished my third Cable Comfort Throw. I liked making blankets in strips so much that I decided to do the same for this one, only use different stitch patterns to make it a sampler. Plus, working with something the size of a scarf in Arizona summer heat is much better than working with something the size of a bedspread. This blanket went to my friend, who loves red.
And of course, my friend’s sister had to have a blanket too, so I dug up this green variegated yarn that I had been saving, but had no idea what I was going to do with it. It has kind of an unusual combination of greens that’s not quite camo, but doesn’t really match other greens. But since I knew of someone who happened to be kinda tomboyish, and also loved green, I knew it would be a perfect fit. I added the creme, partly because I didn’t have quite enough green for the whole afghan, and partly because it made it a little bit more feminine.
This last blanket is kind of a funny story. So I was at work (Michael’s craft store), and I just happened to be working in the yarn section (imagine that). This elderly lady came up to me and asked me to help her pick out an easy baby blanket pattern that she could use. I tried to find a book with some easy patterns, and when I asked her what she knew how to do, she said she didn’t really know how to crochet. Before I could guide her to books to learn, she asked me if I knew how to crochet. I told her yes, and she very promptly asked, “Will you make this blanket for me, then?” It was so sweet, how could I resist? So of course I said yes, and she handed over the yarn. I finished this log cabin blanket in a couple of days, and the lady was so happy with the results.
So I counted, and I made a total of twelve blankets this summer. Wow. I’m really crazy but for some reason, I do most of my blanket-making in the hottest part of the year. Summer in Arizona. And I don’t really know why this is…perhaps it’s wishful thinking that if I make warm things, it will miraculously turn cold?
That wishful thinking has me working on a sweater now for the same reason.
…for awhile, at least.
I’m talking about my new favorite pattern, Cable Comfort Throw. I said I made one more with three colors, and here’s how it turned out:
This one went to a friend of mine who, obviously, likes these colors. I call this one “Classic Comfort Throw,” because it has a very classy look about it, just like the recipient.
I will admit, though, that by the third blanket I was ready to move on to a different pattern. I typically have a policy of not making the same pattern more than once, just because I have so many patterns that I want to try, I’ll never get to all of them if I keep doing the same things over and over again. Now, obviously there are a few exceptions to this policy–like granny squares, log cabin (although I usually do different color repeats), and now, this throw pattern.
I can’t decide which of the three was my favorite–one color, two colors or three colors. They all ended up fitting the recipients perfectly and the color combos worked out for the best in each afghan. I don’t know, maybe I’ll try one with five different colors?
Kountingsheep 