Summer Knitting Had Me a Blast...Summer Knitting Happened So Fa-a-ast...

Every summer we all hear about knitters that put their needles aside as soon as the days begin to grow longer and the temperature starts to rise. These people rarely, if ever, pick up their knitting until we begin to see the days shortening and the temperatures decline. I, however, am not one of those. I can totally understand doing whatever it takes to stay as cool as possible!! (I live in Texas!) But I cannot stand to have nothing in my hands to work on. And the thing that makes my hands the happiest is knitting!

So...What kinds of things do people knit in this kind of weather? I really knit pretty much anything. For example, last summer I finally finished a blanket I'd been working on for my younger son. I started that blanket in either 2004 or 2005. I finished it after my Italy trip, assembled all the blocks, and took a picture of the final project on August 1. I don't something this big out of the house to work on. So I can control the temperature!!

Here's Kelby's blanket.

Here's Kelby enjoying his blanket and faking sleep:


I knit it out of Knit Picks Crayon. A really nice boucle' cotton. Kelby had picked out red, blue, and purple. I did it some different than the pattern. I doubled the yarn and increased my needle size to make the squares the size they needed to be. It's got a lot of imperfections because I was a fairly new knitter when I started. I got much improved as I went along. But Kelby loves it ans uses it all the time at home and takes it whenever he's away from home.



This summer it seems like I've been working on smaller projects. I didn't do this intentionally, it's just worked out this way. For this particular blog I'm going to focus on the one small project that took me the longest. It's the Skull Isle hat from Son of SnB. I actually said something about this nearly a year ago. I had bought the yarn to knit it but got frustrated and gave up. It's a fair isle hat knit in fingering weight yarn. I used Knit Picks Pallette in red and black. Those are colors used in the book but they're also Logan's favorite colors, so...


It took me nearly a month to knit it. The problems I had were
1. Teeny yarn and on size 2 needles and over 200 stitches per round.
2. Too many stitches for my 4 needles. I finally had to add in another set of size 2s. I had both sets of Knit Picks DPNs (wood and metal) and I ended up using ALL of those needles!! it really made it so difficult. It kept rolling back on itself. However, it was worth all the work and problems because Logan likes it!!!

This weekend I'll talk about some of my other summer knitting!
Let me know what you've been working on...(If I have any readers!! LOL!!)

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D
Jessiesgrl on Ravelry

What in the World Happened??

I just looked at my last post and realized that for some reason or another, not all of it posted!! I don't have a clue what happened! So let me see if I can remember what I said...
I love casting on for a new project (except for knitting the first row). I love the feel of the yarn gliding through my fingers. I love watching the fabric grow as I make loops with the yarn and pul another loop through with a stick!! It's magical! I love challenging myself with new stitches and projects! I even like finishing - weaving in ends and seaming up!! I find seaming a challenge, but once I work it out, I have a completed project that I made!!

Right now I'm working on a hermit crab from the Amigurumi Knits book by Hansi Singh.
I love this book!! I always see the cutest little amigurumi animals and I want to make them but I don't crochet. When I found this book full of the cutest little knitted amigurumis I had to get it!! It's divided up into 5 sections:
Before the first official section she tells what amigurumi is and then a top 10 list of reasons why you will love knitting it!
1) Techniques: I haven't read this through because I always get too anxious to knit. But she gives you lots of hints, tips, and techniques.
2) Five Servings a Da: the Vegetable Basket - Six cute vegetables. I'd like to knit them and put them in a bowl on my table!
3) Get Your Barnacle On: Underwater Creatures - Six underwater creatures. I'm working on the hermit crab right now. It's quite a challenge but I'm loving it!! Hopefully pictures will be up later this week.
4) Garden Variety: Backyard Critters - Just creatures you'd see in your yard! But much cuter knitted up than in real life!!
5) Revenge of the Cryptids: Strange, Mythical, Cryptozoological Specimens - Three real or imagained creatures. My favorite is Nessie! I definitely plan to knit him in the not too distant future!
Hansi Singh is brilliant in her constrution of these knits! I highly recommend this book!!

Let me finish up with a project that I recently finished:
I decided to knit a shawl for my Mom for Mother's Day. I had wanted to knit her one for Christmas but for some reason I didn't get any knitting done then. Mother's Day was the weekend after Logan's graduation, so I knew I couldn't finish it in time. I started it about 3 days before. The day before Mother's Day I looked down at it and noticed a big hole in the lace edging!! I had apparently dropped a stitch that stayed in place for a couple of days before it let go!! So I had to frog the whole thing in front of my Mom. I just told her "Happy Mother's Day!" She laughed and said she was so glad it was for her because she loved it!! That spurred me on to turn right around and cast back on. It went pretty quickly and I got it to her a couple of weeks later! Here it is:





Knit On and more later,
Shama D

I Need to Blog again!!

I haven't blogged at all since January. At that time I promised to blog at least twice a week. My excuse??? I think it's a valid one. This was the last year for me to homeschool my older son. It seemed like I worked my butt off from January 'til the day we had the graduation reception. I barely had time to sleep, muchless blog! I could write for 2 weeks about all that I did during that time but I'll give you the abbreviated version. I painted the trim in the game room, painted my bedroom, painted the stairwell (a much harder job than I'd thought), and finally I pulled down wallpaper in the kitchen, dining room, and entry, textured the walls, and painted! Thankfully, Logan was there to help me, especially with taking down the wallpaper!!
Also during that time I started a big special project for Logan's graduation project. He loves Harry Potter so I decided to use all the dishcloth, scarf, and other patterns online to make squares for a Harry Potter blanket. I knit it in strips, like scarves, and attached each strip together. The night before graduation I think I slept about 3 hours trying to put the strips together. I got up and worked on it for several more hours. I got it all put together, but it didn't have a border. I have since put on a border, but it's still curling really badly! I will probably cut it off and try something different - eventually.
Here are a couple of pictures:


Here's Logan relaxing on the couch with his blanket and a Route 44 Vanilla Dr Pepper.

Recently a girl on my online knitting group asked if we were process or project knitters. It got me thinking about a few things. I honestly can't decide which I am. I love everything about it!! I love casting on for a new project