Long Weekends Rock!!

What do you get when you place a motivated weaver, a loom and uninterrupted weaving time? Well in my case I love, love, did I say love long weekends, because I get to start and finish a project. I warped my RH with a color exploration from Plain Weave is Anything But Plain, by Leslie Voiers, but I read the draft wrong and warp two end per instead of one and I added and extra color so I did mine with four instead of three. I really love the results and plan to recreate it with the right amount of warp for a scarf.

I hand hemmed instead of machine hemming, although the process is slower it was relaxing. I had extra warp and I wanted to experiment with the new Textures and Patterns book so I used the 5/1 pickup for window panes and used the remainder of my yarn that was on the shuttles, I made a mistake and missed one of the pick-up, leaving a extra long warp shot, so I need to practice, but I'm confident I'll turn it out and have some lovely towels to go with the mats.

I'm warping for a few more kitchen towel, but in a different sequence of solid color blocks to see if I get more definition on the patterns, as I think the pick-up's get lost in the variations. I'll also experiment with different pick up's and test how they look, that should be fun, I'll get towels, practice, and samples all in one shot.

I also got to snap a pic of the baby hat that I finished, here it is along with the cardi, which are now on their way to South Carolina. I decorated the hat with a pink bow and an ever so cute lady bug button, just perfect for a little girl.

CARDI FOR BABY

Another FO, whew, I need to pace myself. I going to set a precedence for actually posting FO's LOL. This was the cardi that I was complaining about the pattern, still not happy with the pattern but I am with the finished results. Putting it together was a snap and I found these oh so cute button, that are see through pink you can't even tell they on. I think I might knit a hat to go along with this, which would accomplish another knitting goal, using dpns.

Knitting has it's challenges

I picked up this magazine, because I really liked the cover project, I'm planning to make that particular sweater for myself. I love the look and it's knitted in one piece top down, which I haven't done and would love to try.
As I was flipping through, I found this adorable baby cardi, and thought it would be a great gift for Baby Abby, so I started knitting and everything was going great, until the pattern omitted the joining of the pieces. The pattern reads " With RS and circular needle k25 sts from the right front holder, pm 38 sts from the sleeve holder etc... til you put all the pieces on the circs, the at the end it states "DO NOT JOIN". So I thought ok why put them all on here if I don't join them. Duh, well it meant don't join the opening, I thought, that's obvious, but maybe not so, I got past that hurdle and then I get to this the part where your joining and decreasing for the sleeves and back and the pattern cuts off after you knit the back portion, you still have the other sleeve and front to do, I know I have to do the same stitching in reverse, but why not write it out? So I got out my post-it notes, which I find are invaluable for knitting notes and wrote the same stitches in reverse, since I have to do it 5 more times, I figured I'll never remember it. Is that a normal process for designer's patterns?

This is what the cardi is looking like after all the duh moments I've had. I guess I need more step by step than what seems obvious to other "more experienced" knitters, is a question for me. I picked a pattern with the skill of level intermediate, because I thought it would be challenging (which it has been) and I don't want to stick to beginner and easy all the time, so I guess I was my own instigator. But I must admit, I have learned and I guess that what knitting, weaving and using my creative outlet is for.