Christmas knits

I wanted to post about this earlier but did not want to give away the surprise. For Christmas this year I knit soap sacks for some people. I bought glycerin soap from the body shop on the magnificent mile in Chicago to put in the soap sacks. For other people I made a set of 2 dishcloths using basket weave pattern. I will attach the link to the soap sack pattern and some pictures.
The dish cloth pattern I got from my friend Alyce.



Basket weave dishcloth pattern
size  9 or 10 straight or circular needles
cotton yarn such as peaches n cream

cast on 32
row 1      k4, p4, k4, p4, k4, p4, k4, p4
row 2      p4, k4, p4, k4, p4, k4,p4,k4
row 3      k4, p4, k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4
row 4      p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4

now switch

row  5     p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4
row  6    k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4
row  7    p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4
row  8   k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4,k4,p4

Repeat pattern 5 times bind of
to some of he cloths I added a stripe

http://baxterknits.blogspot.com/2006/08/soap-sack-sachet-sashay-updated-with.html

Great American Afghan progress

Well, The picture of my afghan square on my last post has been ripped out I still did not have the pattern mastered. but now, We finally got all of the kinks worked out. The problems were ours not the pattern. I am about 3/4 of the way done and the afghan is knitting up quickly. I will post pictures soon!

Finally, progress on the afghan!

Where do I start? Well I originally bought Plmouth Encore worsted weight yarn for this afghan. Me and my fellow Afghan knitters started knitting square #3.  That is when we found out that the Plymouth yarn was just not going to work for this project. I think it was to thick. it did not properly showcase the pattern.
So that was stumbling block #1, so Alyce and I ordered the cascade 220 super wash and when it arrived, we all started. We ran into one problem after another. Looking back at the problems they all seem to have been beginners ignorance. I thought between the 3 of us we would have little trouble. But this has been the most troubling project I have taken on. Now that I think we have worked out the kinks, and realized it was knitter's error and  not pattern error. I have successfully knitted through the chart pattern almost twice. I can not even tell you how many times I had to rip out my stitches and cast on again since the first attempt at knitting this square. More than 10  I would assume.

I am happy to have my 2 knitting companions to help me along on this journey, and it has been quite a journey so far. But, let me list to you the things I now know how to do that I did not know how to do before trying to knit this square. Cable, bobbles, yarn over before a purl, read a chart pattern, and I am sure there is more. I am thankful for this experince and how it is helping me develop new knitting skills. So here it is, the correct beginning of my first square of The Great American Afghan square #3

Rib- a Roni hats

Here are the 2 completed Rib-a Roni hats I have made so far. The black one is the youth size and the orange is the small adult size

Kyle's hat

This is the beginning of  my 3rd hat form the rib-a-roni pattern. Knit with  size 7 dpn's I love this pattern.  It knits up very quickly. The only thing I did not like about starting this particular hat is that it is the child's size and the smallest size 7 circular needles I have is 17" which is just to big for  a small hat like this and so I had to do it on dpn's. Normally I do not mind dpn's but there are so many stitches on the dpn's and they slip off too easily. But now that the hat is taking shape is knitting almost as quickly as the other 2 that I knit on size 7 17" circular needles. Can't wait to finish this up. I would love to start my first square for the afghan today.

Cable

click here for the link to the cable swatch pattern I used

Wow, I did it. My first Cable. Not very hard at all. I was so excited when I  finished this cable swatch. This afghan , is already teaching me so much and I have yet to knit one stitch of it yet.

Afghan color plan

Ahh, the color plan. This was a lot harder than you might think. First we had to plan which squares out of 25   we would knit.
Then we had to plan where we would place them on our afghan. Which was also harder than it sounds.
  I do not want cable patterns next to each other or all of the vertical designs right next to each other either.
Then we had to plan what color each pattern would be. We needed to factor in where that square is located and  what the colors next to it will be.  Will the yarn be to dark and not show the pattern off, will it look right as a lighter color, etc. etc etc.  Then there was the trick of not having the same colors too close to each other, which made me have to re arrange my squares yet a 3rd time.  But , Finally now I believe I have a completed plan. It only took me about a week, ha. 

If the planning of squares and colors is any indicator of how difficult this project will be, well I am in for quite a learning experience!