Wednesday, June 22, 2011

It's summer so I'm knitting!

For some reason, this past weekend I just wanted to knit! It's hot so go figure. I've found that if I limit the time on one project and swap with embroidery, my hands last longer. Here's the progress on my felted diamond tote bag. It's about half-way there. I'm trying to knit one entrelac square per night.While I was cleaning I found a small (knit and felted entrelac) bag with two skeins of yarn, some needles and a hat pattern. The pattern is the Lotus Hat by Third Base Line. I sat down and swatched (what cleaning?--there's knitting to do!), figured out which yarn would work, and cast on for the hat. I knit two rows to get it going.

My circular needles in this size are too long for the number of stitches, but the stitches don't want to stay on the double pointed needles, hence the rubber bands. At a series of doctor appointments with hubby this morning, I completed three more rounds of ribbing. The rubber bands work well. The yarn is Lily Sugar 'n Cream.Not knitting, here, but crochet is close (at least in my way of thinking--string into fabric). I went hunting for acrylic yarn leftovers--the Legal Loopers are at it again. This is a small group of crocheters from my office. Previously we did afghan squares for charity. This time we plan to make a whole afghan for Warm Up America. So I began crocheting my first 7" wide square. It will be 9" long which should be 12 rows. I have four rows (and 3") done here. The yarn is Lion Brand, Homespun I think.
And, last, more clearing up. I have (had) a whole bunch of t-shirts from concerts (mostly Johnny Clegg and Kodo) that I liked--but don't wear any more. (I realized a while back I rarely wear t-shirts with pictures on them.) So I decided to make an afghan. I used a rotary cutter to cut rectangles with the pretty t-shirt designs centered in them (fronts and some backs, too). Later on I will measure them and pick a "standard rectangle size" and then add fabrics to make them all the same size and make up a quilt.

I tossed the shoulders-sleeves parts. (Hubby was fall-down amazed that I'd throw away fabric, but I've finally realized I just can't keep every scrap.)

I set aside the shirt bottoms to make "yarn." I'm cutting them into strips, approximately 1-1/2" wide, in a spiral fashion from the cut edge to the hem (those get tossed, too!) I plan to use my "yarn" for a tote bag. This big ball is just from three t-shirts!

(I'm glad the trash has gone out this week--it was very hard to let go of all of that perfectly good, nice knit fabric!)

And no photos yet but in my efforts to do short stints at one task at a time, I also completed two more "woven" bookmarks, originally shown here, at hubby's doctor appointments this week (it was a long morning--preparation for some outpatient surgery coming up in July). My tote was larger than I usually carry, but it worked well to keep changing projects each time we moved to another waiting room or office.

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