Our Snowbird is back!

If you look at the second person in from the right you'll see Liz is back from her winter residence. She had a productive winter of knitting which I'll show you later in the post.

I'm on a roll with this basket weave pattern and will be finishing up this cowl in another day or so. This is yarn from my daughter who gave me her whole stash because she doesn't have time to knit and didn't want the beautiful yarns to go to waste. This is the last bit of this pretty pastel green.

Margaret is back from walking in the annual Freihofer's Run for Women which she walked with her 80 year old mother. She is back on track with the scarf she was knitting a while back.

                                           

Janna made some progress on her hat. You can see where she placed ring markers to bookmark the spots where she will be decreasing stitches to close the top of the hat.

Dorah's hat is almost to the same place where she'll be decreasing soon.

Carole started the Waffle Hat with a pretty blue yarn. This is the worsted weight yarn version but there is a pattern to make it with DK weight yarn too.

I think this is Liz's favorite pattern, The Mistake Stitch Scarf. It's a pattern which is easy to memorize and makes a thick, warm fabric.

Jan A. has come a long way on her Exordium Shawl. The neutral pallette is very calming.

As I promised earlier, this is what Liz completed over the winter while she soaked up the Florida sun. There's a cowl on the left, another Mistake Stitch Scarf at the bottom, a long triangular denim colored shawl, and some sweet baby items.

Last night I finished the second Heddle Shawl using more yarn from my daughter's gift of yarn. I am going to keep this one since I have a winter sweater which I think will go perfectly with it. I have plenty of yarn to make another when I feel inspired.

I had to make a trip to the Ocean State Job Lots store in Westgate Shopping Center in Albany and while there I saw they had those spongy, interlocking, floor mats which are perfect for blocking and pinning knits. So if you're in the market for blocking mats these were only $12.00 for a package. I forgot to see how many were in the package but I think it was at least 4 mats.

 A hummingbird visited the front bushes last week so it's time to get the feeders out of winter storage and put them out. I'm hoping my kitty will appreciate watching them from the kitchen window. I'm off to fill the feeders so until next week...keep those needles clicking!

Packing Day

Before the Chicks arrived I readied the assembly line for labeling every item to be donated with our Chicks logo label and laundering directions.

And they jumped right in on the task of attaching and sorting and counting.

We had made 59 hats, 7 shawls, 2 scarves, 5 sets of hats with matching scarves, 

a pair of fingerless mitts, 5 baby and toddler sweaters,8 cowls, 

3 blankets, 6 pairs of socks, and an adult sweater which was a gift from someone who can't wear wool.

For a whopping grand total of 97 items, if you count them as sets. If you count pairs of socks and sets as separate items we get 109! I once heard that a pair of socks contains more stitches than a whole sweater so why not count them individually?!?!

Barbara B. added to her collection of Mason Jar cozies. We couldn't decide if it was cozy or koozie. Anybody know?

Jan A. held up her Hepsi's Cowl to see if it was long enough.

It turned out it was so she bound off the stitches and it's ready for a bath.

You can tell by Barbara K.'s expression that she is not thrilled with her yarn. Here she was trying to decide if she should go on with the project.

But she and the rest of us really like the color so we'll see what she decides next week.

Janna's Morton cowl is still growing.

And Dorah didn't want me to show you her Declan's hat because she frogged it to start over. Cinzia is making an asymmetrical poncho.

Carole is adding length to her shawl made with the pretty color changing yarn.

And, after three starts and ripping out, I am on track with my Heddle shawl. I was using the written directions since I hate knitting from charts but I kept finding myself in a sea of confusion and wrong stitches. I finally relented and decided to follow the chart and it's knitting up very nicely.

I couldn't resist showing you my Fozzie, Today is his "Gotcha Day", the one year anniversary of his arrival in our family. He's been a bundle of fun, all 20 pounds of him. Yes, he's a BIG kitty as you can see yourself by the way he hangs over his bed.
 

And he's a good boy who never jumps on my knitting but waits patiently by my side as I put it away so he can cuddle. He is not familiar with the term "Keep those needles clicking!"

Hats, hats, hats

The blue hat on the left is the 1898 hat you saw me working on last week. Then I tried two sizes of the Beloved pattern that Carole sent to all of us. The more I think about it the more I want to take the pompom from the large hat and put it on the baby hat. That will be tomorrow's project.

Dancing Flames is the name of this one Barbara B. knitted. It's a purchased pattern on Ravelry.

She also made The Little Gnome Hat from a Ravelry pattern. It's partly knitted flat and partly in the round.

The Panini Beanie is another Barbara B. creation from a free Ravelry pattern.

Next up are Margaret's FO's. She was able to make these two colors go a long way.

Version 2, Broken Stripes Hat

Version 3

And now we've run out of pink and purple. Some nice neutrals in the mix.

The easy 2x2 ribbed hat is a fan favorite.

Barbara B.'s daughter asked if she could make Mason jar koozies for her breakfast cereal.

Sure! Just use a pattern for a beer koozie.

#2 on needles now.

Cinzia visited Westerly, Rhode Island last week and attended a local yarn store knit night so she had to find a library with knitting books to grab a pattern. She said their local library was like a museum, a beautiful place to visit. The scarf pattern is Arum Shawl.

Janna continued making progress on her Morton Cowl.

Margaret started a bandana style cowl in the round but the pattern was giving her a hard time so it was appropriate to frog it and make something else.

Jan A. found a pattern for a cowl/neck warmer that called for bulky yarn but she didn't like the result so she subbed worsted weight and it's working out fine.

This was her pattern from which she took the info.

Three times this pattern kept showing up in my Facebook feed so the fourth time I caved and bought it.

When I searched through the stash, I found the perfect yarn for it and started last night. I'm still having to read every pattern line but I have the feeling I'll be able to memorize it soon.

Dorah's Declan's Hat is at the start of the cables. That's her red cable needle peeking out the back of her work.

And there, surrounding the central bar you can see the cable leaning left on the left side and right on the right side.

My cousin sent us a Brooklyn Blackout Cake in the mail so the Chicks and I had a little taste of the chocolate-y goodness in between stitches. Now I feel like I need to run around the block. I think I'll sit down and knit until the feeling passes! LOL! 

Keep those needles clicking!