Knitting Ranger

It has been a rather busy time -- in every possible respect. So I have a lot of catching up to do. I will start with something I finished very recently.

My kids -- just like most others these days -- are extremely fond of those yellow thingis: The Minions. I came across this crocheting pattern:

http://nurnichtdenfadenverlieren.blogspot.de/2014/01/freebook-minion-mutze-aus-baumwollgarn.html

I decided to knit it instead of crocheting. I did crochet the eyes though.

This is the result:



I hope my kids will love to wear it.

I lost count how many baby blankets I have made in the past years. But here is yet another one. As I was under quite some time pressure, I kept the main part of the blanket fairly simple, hoping I will have time to do a more elaborate rim. Again, I used Austermann Merino 160 in natur and red -- it will be for a girl after all -- and size 4 needles. The size is approx. 90x90cm, but due to the pattern it is very flexible. I hope the little baby girl will love it.

The main part is made with 120 stitches and I used 8.5 skeins for it. And yes, this was the boring bit. But this allows for very fast progress. If you want to do such a blanket without the rim, just use 150 stitches. The next blanket will be more elaborate.

This is the full blanket:



And the detail of the rim and the main part:



The rim is also made with Austermann Merino 160 in red. It is crocheted and I used 4 skeins of wool and a size 3 hook. The pattern is not very specific, I just wanted to give it a bit of volume and size, and at the same time making the pattern a bit flowery, which I think worked out.

This is another Christmas Gift I wanted to share with you. It took me quite some time to prepare it and I was (still am) very proud of it. I used one of my favourite merino wool - Austerman Merino 160, color 210 and 232.

I used the double-sided knitting, as explained for example by

http://lattesandllamas.com/2014/02/06/demystifying-double-sided-knitting/

This tutorial makes the start really easy. If you are interested in this technique, give it a try.

For the pullover I used a more "wintery" pattern, that I prepared myself. It can be worn either on the "white" side or the "blue" one. It is made in size 110, so not too big, but not too small. It was a good size to prepare something like this.

It's been a bit more quiet these weeks, as I have been busy with yet another baby blanket, shown below. It has a wide rim and two squares in the middle. I decided to add a crocheted rim in three different shades of blue. Even though the blanket is supposed to be for a girl. But in art history blue used to be associated with girls and women and red was associated with boys (see here for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue).

I used Merino 160 by Austermann, colour 210 - cream white and a 3.5 size needle. The main part is in seed pattern. The squares are set apart by a simple left-right-pattern - 20 stitches. The rim is made of two rows of half-double crochets (light blue and darker blue) and the finish is made of picots (in dark blue). As these were made with left-over wool from previous projects I cannot tell, what wool or colour it was. I am not the biggest fan of crocheting, but for these projects I go through the pain. For me, crocheting is rather unsocial, because I still have to focus on where the needle goes, while when knitting I can watch a movie or read a book.

The final measurements are 86cmx99cm (34"x39").

Something I do quite regularly - and currently as well - are baby blankets. Here is just a collection of a two I did in the past. I did several others, but forgot to take pictures of them.

This is a simple blanket, with a crocheted border, which makes it a bit more elaborate:


This is a chessboard pattern, with a blue border as a contrast:

Some news. I made a pullover sevarl years back based on various patterns I had found for my kids. And they both loved it and wore it for quite some time. Now they are both slighly too big for it, so I had to do something new and I tried to do something similar - similar color and similar pattern. So here they are the original and the new - both patterns are my own. For a change I charted the pattern, but honestly I did not follow it exactly. Plus, I thought I would run out of wool, so I changed the pattern in the upper part of the pullover until I found the additional two balls of wool, but I was too lazy to undo what I had already knitted, so there it is. I'm not too happy about it, but the kids fight over who is allowed to wear it, so I guess it turned out ok.

This is the old pullover:


This is a detail of the arm of the old version:


And this is the new version:


With a detail of the arm: