Projects I've worked on in March and April (so far)

Been a little busy with family and friends this last week...one really nice thing was dear hubby & I got to go to the city for a wedding reception for friends of ours...son! Plus got to spend the night in a nice hotel...and sleep in for a change. Much needed rest & relaxation...and the party was great!

I thought I should let you know what I have been working on most recently. The main thing that I finished up was my daughter's afghan that I made on the infinity (of S-Loom) in brown colors. I made one earlier for my son for Christmas and also entered the pattern in DA's Fall Contest. I was soooo lucky to win a $100 to spend on merchandise from Decor Accents Inc. I had so much fun figuring out what to order (and then spending some of my money too!), I ordered the prayer shawl loom, the 30" adjust-a-loom & end pieces, a new pick, two of the new books that are out "Learn To Knit Cables on Looms" and "More Knitting Wheel Fashions". But I show you those some other day!

Anyway the 1st one I made for my son I used Caron yarn One Pound (Black #503) and (Claret #562). This yarn has no dye lot and is 100% Acrylic and is Worsted Weight, 4 ply/16 oz. or 453.6g.

The 2nd one I’m making is for my daughter with the yarn from Bernat Camouflage Ombres in the color called "Outback" (it's variegated brown & tans) and then also another One Pound skein of Expresso. I used between 3-4 skeins of the Bernat yarn and 1 skein and part of another skein of the One Pound Expresso yarn. It also seems like that the 2nd one is a little bigger...I guess I must've loosened up a little more on my knitting the second time around.

Both of these afghans are over 5 foot long as you can see from the pictures and they are around 43-46 inches wide. It takes me awhile to knit these on a loom, but you got to remember that I don't just sit and loom all day...and sometimes I don't have time to loom at all for several days. So it might not take you as long to make one as it did me. ;o)

I've also started working on another prayer shawl, with my new prayer shawl loom. I'm using the pattern that came with the loom (and it's also on her website). The only thing that's different is I'm using a small thickness type yarn, so I'm sure it's going to take a little while to actually finish it up. But I didn't want anything too heavy, something that I could wear during spring or on a cool summer night. The yarn I'm using I got from my scarfette pal at Christmas, it is Moda-Dea Dream Solid...Color is Nutmeg. It feels so soft and dreamy...must be how it got it's name!

Then in Loom Class at least two of the ladies are going to teach us different stitches in the next upcoming months and then towards the end of November, early December they will tell us how to put them all together. So far I have finished block #1, which was a diagonal rib block and they have started block #2, which is the basket weave block and you can also add many different embellishments to it if you'd like. You can also look at the blog that tells you all about it with links for the patterns as well. Each block is supposed to be 12" X 12" and so far we use 2 strands of yarn as one, and they are using the red round knifty knitter loom to make each block. I have also learned that I do like using the knitting charts when working on projects like this and it helps to have a magnetic board and magnifying line tracker to keep track of the rows.

I'm also working on the Aspen Baguette purse by Isela Phelps which has made me learn how to do cables! That has been a little hard since I had never done any pattern's with YO's (yarn overs) before. And for some reason my brain just kept trying to make them hard, but they are not. Luckily I’m on the DA’s eloop and asked about the stitch that I was having problems with….and thankfully Isela saw my question and was able to answer it.

This is for the 6 peg stitch cable or C3F. What I did was knitted the flat stitch, then e-wrapped the 1st peg. Then knitted the flat stitch, then e-wrapped twice on the 2nd peg, and then
repeated what I did on the 2nd peg on pegs 3-4-5 and then knitted the flat stitch and e-wrapped (once) the 6th peg (the last one), then I went ahead and did the next stitch so that the ewrap on the 6th peg would stay on…it was a purl stitch (the 7th peg with the purl stitch).

Then I went back and took each of the e-wraps off of each peg, one at a time. But I did NOT knit the ewrap stitches (I didn’t take the bottom loop over the top loop or loops). You can look at my loops, that are rather big behind the other knitted stitches, this is before you move the stitches around to make the cable.

My cables may be a little too loose, I won’t be able to tell until I’m finished. The pattern says you can adjust them with a crochet hook and weaving them in secure, tying a knot if necessary, because you would make the knot on the inside. As you can see I'm using the green round knifty knitter, but be sure and follow the pattern closely because I've noticed it's easy to forget if you need to knit or purl on a stitch...especially if you get interrupted when working a row.

If you are on Ravelry.com you can look me up, my id there is "ilove2craft". I'm still figuring out how to use the many options on there, but I want to highly recommend their site if you like to do looming, knitting or crocheting. They have a tour that you can check out before you get signed in as a member...it's FREE! But you do have to sign up and wait for them to send you an invitation, but it usually doesn't take long...they even have a place you can check to see how long you might have to wait.


Well...it's getting late and I need to finish up for today. Wishing you all "Happy Looming"!