First day of the season on the deck

Kathleen's daughter, Pat, visited us this week. We always love it when she joins us because she is so creative and has so many wonderful projects to show us. That's Pat in the pink shirt on the right.

 The first thing she showed us is a skirt she is knitting for herself that she saw at the Vogue Show in NYC. It's knitted with hemp fiber and uses short rows to shape it. Since the stitches are loose, she's going to make different colored slips to wear with it.

 Next up is a project she's making from this book. The author has kits available for a tidy sum that includes the stencils and fabric for the items you wish to make. 

 Pat figured out how to make her own stencils and deconstructed T-shirts to use the fabric for a shirt she's making for herself. This is the photo in the book.

 Here is the stencil Pat made which took 4 hours to cut out with an X-acto knife.

 And here is the back piece of the shirt. It's a double layer of fabric so the petals can be painted and then cut showing the applique.

 This represents hours of detailed work. And it's not finished yet.

 Liz brought in a Christmas tree hat that needed to be finished along with...

 this sweet layette set and...

 cute little hats....

 and another little sweater. Some little babies will be very well dressed!

 Kathleen said that this week all she made was a little hat to match her sweater from last week's donation. It's ok Kathleen, we don't have knitting quotas! LOL!

 Barbara's pretty pink scarf shows some of the color changes going on.

 One day I was browsing Ravelry to find inspiration and someone had designed a baby hat that looked exactly like the one Princess Charlotte wore home from her birth. It took only two days to knit. I think it's precious!

 I finished the Baby Surprise Jacket last week, adding a collar and cuffs to lengthen the sleeves.

 I used the last three buttons in my stash that would go with the colors.

Now it's time for me to find more inspiring patterns. Gotta run!

Mostly Sweaters

Most of us are working on sweaters this week. They are tiny enough to knit up quickly but still interesting enough to keep one from getting bored.

My Sunnyside Cardigan started to look like a sweater tonight. A few more inches to go on the body and then I'll work the sleeves. 

 Dorah's baby hoodie started out with just a hood but by the time we finished tonight she was...

 this far along. You can see the raglan shaping and the button band front.

 Carole's Sunnyside Cardigan has only an inch or so to go before she binds off the body stitches and then it's on to the sleeves. The cables are looking nice!

 Elaine made progress on this little shrug sweater today.

 It's going to be so cute in this pretty rose colored yarn.

 Kathleen and Cinzia conferred on the Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern for the Baby Surprise Jacket. Then Cinzia spent the better part of the next half hour trying to untangle the ball of yarn so she could knit. Sometimes a center pull skein is just a big knot!
See that pretty scarf Cinzia is wearing?

 Her friend made it for her birthday last week. Such a pretty lace edge!

 Kathleen came armed with a big inventory of her latest accomplishments. That's the great thing about baby clothes, they are small enough to crank out a bunch in a week, if you have the time to knit.

And this cute little Baby Sophisticate shawl colored sweater was a hit with it's little square buttons. Kathleen ran out of light blue yarn to finish the collar so on to Plan B and it looks great.

Kathleen started her Baby Surprise Jacket with a pretty variegated yarn. She went home with 3 more skeins of yarn to start a striped one for next week.

And Elaine finished her Seed Stitch edged cardigan with lime green buttons. So cute!

And lastly Barbara accomplished a lot of knitting during the week. This lovely Feather and Fan blanket is from the Plymouth Eight Hour Baby Blankets book. The patterns in the book call for using two strands of worsted weight yarn but she is adjusting the pattern for a single strand of worsted.

                                      

Another week of beautiful knitting! Now it's back to the needles so I can show you something new next week. Have a great week and keep those needles clicking!

Busy Chicks

Kathleen's fingers have been very busy the last two weeks. She finished three scarves for donation to the homeless female veterans.

This scarf was knitted with a fiber that looks like a band of lace which you thread onto the knitting needles and gather as you knit. This one looks like a graceful seaweed.

This copper colored scarf has sequins already threaded onto the fibers, so it's a little dressier. So pretty.

Then there was a basic "mistake stitch" scarf for good, old fashioned warmth.

Kathleen is working on a stole for her granddaughter using a pretty brown tweed (the beauty of the color doesn't show up at all in this photo). It's a nice yarnover lace pattern.

Liz finished another "mistake stitch" scarf as well.

And a cute little pixie hat for a preemie that will go into inventory for our next project.

She is also working on a simple diagonal baby blanket for our next project.

The ladies wanted me to model my latest finished project, the Landscape Shawl from Fiber Trends. I'll tell you about the sweater on the floor later in the post.

Beth and Maureen joined me tonight.

Beth finished a beautiful pair of mitts which will become a Christmas gift. For those of you who are members of Ravelry the pattern is available for purchase and called "Green Thumb".

I bought the Elizabeth Zimmermann book "Knitting Almanac" for my knitting library and the three of us were having a good laugh at the descriptions of the pattern directions. To knit a Zimmermann pattern you have to suspend all your understanding of knitting and just follow her directions and somehow you get a beautiful finished garment.

Here is the sweater that you saw earlier on my floor. It's blocking and waiting for the button bands down the front. I'm not sure if I'm going to like this one. We'll see....

But right now I'm going to concentrate on some Christmas gift knitting. Have you started knitting gifts yet?

Deckside and Memorial Day Parade

This was the first time this season we got to knit outside. With the fans running it was a tolerable 85 degrees or so until the sun came around the corner. By then it was time to call it quits anyway. But it felt good to get outside and listen to nature as we knitted. Amanda and Moose are still visiting so she was able to join us and even finished a hat which will go into our inventory.

Kathleen finished another Baby Sophisticate cardigan and showed Liz the

Elizabeth Zimmerman sewn bindoff technique.

Liz finished three baby caps and is working on an eyelet baby cardigan.

Amanda finished the spiral eyelets hat she designed and wrangled Moose long enough to see how it looks. He thought it was pretty silly.

Our evening group showed Maureen and her daughter Cate working tandem on a baby blanket for one of Cate's friends who is expecting.

Beth finished a pair of cute little socks and .....

brought along the Daybreak scarf/shawl to show us the progress she is making.

Yesterday Amanda and I took Moose to the Memorial Day Parade in Delmar, New York. He was too young to remember last year's parade but this year he had a great time. He was so excited as he heard the bands approaching.

We saw the band from Mommy's high school....

And their mascot the Eagle rode along on a truck.

There were hot cars, and

old cars, and

small cars and

friends. There goes our friend, Pastor Sandy from the Journey United Church of Christ .

The people in the parade were throwing lots of candy to the spectators and Moose didn't want to miss any of it.

He brought home a bigger haul than at Halloween!

And he waved enthusiastically when the fire trucks drove by.

He also had a great time flirting with the teenage girls that were sitting beside us.

They enjoyed his company so much that they gave Moose even more candy.

It was a great day to thank the heroes who protected and are still protecting our freedom.