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.

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. 

Glenora Two

My final,  planned sweater for 2015 is my second Glenora.  This Glenora will be for my niece.  The same niece that asked for a sweater last year and at that time, I knit her a top down brown and blue raglan knit in  Cotton Tweed.

This year she only mentioned that she would like a second sweater as I was about to walk out the door for home after our Thanksgiving dinner.  That meant little time to search ravelry for pattern ideas.  I was wearing my Glenora and asked "Well, do you like this one?" 

"Oh yea," she said "and especially the buttons."

So Glenora number two it was to be.  In a maroon colour she said.  Finding Cascade Eco in maroon was a challenge and in the end had to be ordered.  That took two weeks.  Then I had to finish Snowflake which took another week, delaying the start of  Glenora #2 until November 30.

Mind you, that still was no  cause  for concern,  as my first Glenora took only  10 days to knit.    Number two however has been on the needles two weeks today and still isn't finished. 


Now the deadline looms, as my family Christmas is this coming Saturday.  Five days to finish.   Wish I could knit with crossed fingers.

Not Quite

I had hoped to have Snowflake finished by Sunday night of this past weekend.  Substitute the name of a work-in-progress and you can hear knitters around the globe uttering those same words - I had hoped....

Having leaped closer to the finish line last week by knitting the body of the sweater on the machine, then getting a further nudge to speed things up because the yarn ordered for my niece's sweater arrived, I , nonetheless, fell a few rows short of the finish line by bed time last night. 

I have one cuff to finish,

plus the button/hole band on the yoke. 

 My new goal - it pays to be flexible - is tonight. I'll let you know tomorrow how that works.

Goal Met

Goal Met.  Doesn't it feel good to be  able to say that?  Remember last week when I said  'with a quiet weekend in store, I  hoped to  knit as far as  the waist of my Snowflake sweater'?  Well, the waist has come and gone and on to the bottom border, I went.

You see, it came to me in my dreams.  Friday night.  Why don't I hang that sweater on the machine to do the miles of boring stockinet  that forms the body?  Sure it was being  knit in the round.  If,  however, I were to  divide the stitches in half to create two pieces  - a front and a back   - then I could hang them one by one  on the machine. 

Of course there were a couple of issues.  There would be a seam required and I would need a stitch from each side of each piece to do that. Casting on two extra stitches for each  piece  would solve that issue.    Then, of course there was the matter of matching gauge.  I needed to  find the carriage setting on the machine that would achieve the identical gauge to my hand knitting. 

I think I did it.  Take a look. 

 

The machine knitting starts about an inch below the dark brown, lace yoke.  No noticeable difference there.  When I finished machine knitting the front and the back I picked up the stitches across the bottom and knit,  by hand, the seed stitch border.  A good afternoon's work.

Now on to the sleeves.

Whew!

Whew!.  It appears that fourth time's the charm - or was that fifth or sixth? - when it came to the lace yoke on Snowflake.  My head finally cleared and I could 'see' the pattern. 

After that it was an easy knit.  The Yoke is finished, the body and sleeves separated, the bust darts complete and I am heading for the waist.

With a quite weekend  on the home front, I expect to see that waist before Monday.