Year of Projects: 500 Squares

I am making this quilt for a friend's baby and it uses 500 2.5 inch squares so I spent the Thanksgiving weekend cutting square after square. . . but it is nice that I got it all cut out!

 Here are the strips I chose to use from my jelly roll:

All done!

To go along with my Something Blue sweater, I started Something New while on my honeymoon last February. We were in Oak Island NC and the yarn reminds me of the beach. It's a simple V-neck pullover so it's easy to work on with the holidays upon us and I finished the back last weekend:

Year of Projects: Two Down

The last couple of months have been a hectic so I haven't had much time to knit or post. Thankfully one big distraction is now gone. I got married last February then we put my husband's house on the market last May. We got an offer in late September and closed on it October 31st! It's so nice be a one house family now.

I started Vodka Gimlet almost exactly a year ago and finally finished it this weekend! It's a tad big and the bottom bands draw in some but I haven't blocked it yet so maybe that will help. 

A friend of mine had a baby girl last month so I've started a baby quilt for her. This is the pattern I will be using:

with this fabric:

It's fun to see measurable progress on my projects list, even though I added another quilt project! I've finished 2 sweaters and am down to only 3 projects on needles.

Year of Projects: One Down

I finally got one UFO off the needles! I finished Allegoro on Sat and I'm fairly happy with the fit. The neck rolls a bit and the yarn was verrry splitty so I hope the ends stay woven end. . . I started this project in May 2010 so it feels good to have it done!

I decided Vodka Gimlet had been on hiatus long enough, so I picked up the stitches for the collar. I have ~3 inches of 2 x 2 ribbing so I'm trying to do a row or two a day. This is my second and hopefully last attempt at the collar. . .

I also worked some on my Housewarming Quilt:

Here is the center block:

Hourglass block:

The tulip block is cut out:

Year of Projects: Back to School

I've been struggling with what to do with my Allegoro and at this point I feel like chucking it!

I didn't have enough brown yarn to do 1x1 rib on the bottom so decided to make it like the neckband which is 1 purl row then bind off only it won't lay flat and it flares out a bit.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson with the bottom, but I went ahead and did the neckband like the bottom and surprise surprise it won't lay flat either. I'm hoping it will block out but I have my doubts. . .

Since I do have white yarn left, I decided to rip the bottom back and add the 1x1 rib border like the pattern said to do in the first place. Since I'd bound off I couldn't get the stitches to unravel, so I've had to undo 1 stitch at a time. It's very slow and painful. After working on it for several hours on Saturday, I'd only gotten about half of them back on. 

I did try it on after the bottom was done and it looks baggy and sloppy on me so I'm not sure how often I'll even wear this thing but I figure I should at least see what it looks like with the ribbing on the bottom. 

Meanwhile, I drug out another quilt UFO because it has a "fall/back to school" look to it. I've had the fabric for a few years but just hadn't gotten around to working on it. It's a wall hanging from a Better Homes and Gardens calendar from 2006 and it uses 18 different fabrics! Thankfully I made fairly good notes on which were to be used in which blocks when I bought them but it still took a while for me to sort them out. I went through and numbered them which is what I should have done in the first place. . .

I got the center star and hourglass blocks cut out:

Year of Projects: Finish Line

Cue the national anthem and the raising of the flag: I finished my Ravellenics Project and am waiting to be called to the podium! Admittedly it wasn't a very challenging project, but since I spent last week with my family, which included my 6 year old niece, I wanted something easy to work on.

 

I also finished the body of my Allegoro so now all that's left are the sleeves and neckband so I should have YoP FO #2 soon!

Year of Projects: False Starts

Opening Ceremonies started at 4pm in my area so I CO for my Ravellenic Swap Hat after I got home from work ~5pm. I was going to a friend's house that evening to watch the Ceremonies so I wanted to have the rib pattern established by the time I got there because I knew I'd be distracted. 

While I was working on the first row, my husband had a flat tire on his way home so called several times and I made a mistake but didn't catch it until I got to the party. I had to unknit the first row but eventually I did get back on track. 

Then when I was about to start the stockinette section, I realized that the hat was going to be ~2" too small! I have no idea why since I did make a swatch.... I did another small swatch then went up a needle size and added 8 more stitches and it looks like it will fit now. I'm just about to start the decreases so barring any more disasters I should be able to finish it before the end of the Olympics.

I started a swatch for Alexandria with seed stitch borders and am happy with the look so will knit a bit more on the swatch to make sure I have the right gauge then will cast on again. . . My husband started calling this project Alexandria the 5th since I've had to start it so many times. . .

While I was home visiting my parents last week, my mom gave me some yarn that a friend of hers bought in Nova Scotia. Her friend doesn't knit anymore and my mom didn't have a need for it so she passed it on to me.

Since my husband has been helpful with my knitting projects I'm going to make him a sweater with the yarn on the left and one for me with the yarn on the right :)

Year of Projects: 2 Swatches Forward, 1 Frog Back

This week I swatched for:

8. Ravellenic Swap Hap

and  9. Twist

Both of these yarns are beautiful and I can't wait to cast on. I'll probably wait until the fall to cast on for Twist because I'd like to get a couple of projects finished first and the yarn has a fall feel to it.

Now the bad news....

On project #6 Alexandria I had this:

but unfortunately now I have this:

I was having issues making the 3 stitch applied i-cord border (you can see one stitch is really loose) and it didn't seem to be getting any better so I decided to frog it before I got too much more done. I think I'm going to replace the i-cord border and hem with a  3-4 stitch seed stitch border. It will be easier and will look neater, but I'll swatch first and see how it looks.

Ending on a positive note though, on # 2 Allegoro, I'm about to start the last stripe/ribbing which will be brown. In pattern, the next stripe should be blue but I don't have enough left to make a full stripe and I'd rather use it on the sleeves so my husband suggested going back to brown which will also match the neck.

Year of Projects: Strips and Stripes Forever

Knitting:

# 1. Vodka Gimlet: I finished the body of the sweater and sewed down the hem and the hems on the sleeves. All that is left is the collar. I knit the collar once already but it had issues and I had to frog it so I decided to take a break from this sweater for a bit before tackling the collar again.

# 2. Allegoro: Thanks to car knitting time on our trip to Asheville, I've made quite a bit of progress on this project. I have ~3 inches left to do on the body then the sleeves/neckband which are just a few rows each. My goal is to get this project done before start of the Ravellenic Games.

#8. Ravellenic Swap Hat: I decided to make the Winter Hiking Hat for the games with the yarn I received from the Newlywed Swap. I need to swatch this week or next so I'l be ready to cast on during the Opening Ceremonies.

Quilting:

#2). I Wish I May Quilt: I'm using the paper templates Thangles (Terrific Half Square Angles) because they make making half square triangles SO easy. I need over 1000 for this quilt so I'm all for easy.  They also allow you to cut matching squares from the same strips used for the hst. To make the half squares triangles, you pin two pieces of fabric to the paper, sew on the dotted lines, cut on the solid, press with the paper on (it stabilizes the bias seam), remove the paper and voila 6 hst!

I was off for a couple of days last week so spent a morning drinking tea and cutting the print fabrics into strips then into fourths (the length needed for the thangles strip):

Next I'll cut the white background fabric strips into fourths then I'll be ready to start sewing the strips together.

Year of Projects: Increasing

Thank you so much to everyone for all of the kind comments about my YoP list! I have really enjoyed seeing what everyone else has planned for the year.

We're only on week #2 and I've already decided to add 2 new projects to my list (my list was originally only WIP):

#8) Hat - pattern tbd

I participated in a swap through Ravelry's Newlyweds group (which was a blast!) and I just got this scrumptious yarn from my swap partner:

It is sooo soft and beautiful and I can't wait to cast on with it! I was going to work on my shawl for the Ravellenic Games but I was fairly sure I wouldn't be able to get it done especially since I'll be out of town for the first week so I have decided that this will my games project instead and if I do finish early I'll work on the shawl too.

#9) Sweater - pattern also tbd

I spent this past weekend in Asheville, NC (blog post about it here) and of course we went to the lys. While there my husband picked out this gorgeous yarn for me so I am itching to cast on with it as well!

Every color of yarn that I wanted to use he pointed out that I either already had a FO or a WIP in that color (and yes I was amazed that he paid that much attention) so he chose this green (called peat) for me because it goes really well with my hair (dark brown) and eyes (hazel):

Despite adding 2 non-WIP to my list, I did make some progress on a few of the projects on my original YoP list, but since I'm already a few days late with my update I'll blog about those next week.