Happy New Year

By far, my blog posts about Thursday's knit group seem to be the most popular ones I write. They certainly receive the most comments.  Readers tell me  how much they  enjoy hearing about the knitting - and the antics - of the Thursday afternoon gang of knitters.  Since tomorrow, we start a new year, I thought that on this last day of 2015,   I would give you a pictorial year-in-review of the Meaford knit group. 

 

 

Happy New Year and happy knitting to all my readers.

Thursdays Are For Knit Group

It is our last knit group until 2016 and we marked the occasion by going  out to lunch before going to  the library to knit.  Dolls were on the agenda today.  Both the well-dressed knitters -  dolls for sure - and the little knitted ones, destined for  refugee children.

Sandy is back from Florida.  With a gorgeous Hornshaw swift -  a gift from her sister  in honour of Sandy's impending  'Big -O'  birthday.

 The Hornshaw swift is hand carved of beautiful wood and has the added benefit of not needing to be screwed to a table top. We are all jealous Sandy. Of both the swift and your sister.

There were magazines to peruse and candy to eat.

Little Ruth joined us and showed off the dog coat she designed and knit for her little dog. Very clever, Ruth.

 Gail has a good start on a beautiful, Noro, directional scarf.  Knit with yarn she scoffed from the table filled with Sandy's sister Sue's cast offs, a few months back. 

Look at those cute American Doll outfits Gail knit.  She has been all about the dolls this fall.  Barbie, American and  Izzy.  Gail has knit for all of them.

 
From all the 'dolls' in Meaford, Merry Christmas to you all.  And happy knitting.

Look Who came To Visit

Look who is sitting in my living room today.

Ready to go to knit group on Thursday for the great doll collection.

All knit from the same pattern, with the same stitch counts, these Comfort Dolls are a perfect example of how different colours, different 'accessories', different creative touches can change a pattern.  The one on the right even has what I'm calling 'diaper rash'.  Her bottom is a little rough.

Three of them had bodies  knit on the machine while  the other two were hand knit.  All of them were decorated by hand.  That's the fun part.

Soon to be in the hands of some new-to-Canada children. 

Glamorous in Glenora

Glenora #2.  My last completed sweater of 2015.

At Thanksgiving time, my niece - A -  asked if I would knit her another sweater. This would be her  second  sweater request  because last year I knit her Hippie Blue.  Apparently it was enough of a success to warrant asking for this second sweater.  Yippee for me!

She asked for a maroon Glenora - it probably helped that I was wearing my Glenora at the time.  Since my Glenora only took ten days to knit, I set a goal of December 12 to finish this second one.  For some reason this one took longer.  Closer to 20 days.  But after a bit of a marathon last week, it was nonetheless ready to gift by our family get-together on Saturday.

Pattern:  Glenora by Elizabbeth McCarten
Yarn:  Cascade Eco +
Needles: 6.5 mm
Details & Mods:  This version of Glenora, I made using two different sizes. When A tried mine on, I could see that it  fit   through the bust and shoulders but looked a bit skimpy through the hips and in length.  With this in mind, I started the bottom-up pattern in one size larger than mine.  Since all sizes  of this pattern are wider in the hips than through the bust, I just kept decreasing down to the next smallest size to get the upper body width I wanted. 
With a mostly, open front, Glenora,  without short-rows, tends to ride up a bit in the back - the fate of all open-front styles.  The designer accommodates for this, in the pattern,  by a series of short rows.  I felt, though that a few more would really solve the problem.  So I added a couple more short rows et voila!

Other than these specific sizing issues, this second Glenora was knit exactly like my first.

The buttons I should tell you

 were a gift from my knitting buddy Wilma's,  husband.  He is a wood carver of great talent but has only  recently begun to carve buttons.  These  ones are carved from Cherry.  A loved them as did I.  

A second success in gifted sweaters.  Not every knitter can say that!