Knitting projects galore!

Knitting has been happening behind the scenes. I was surprised at how much I had gotten done but hadn't blogged about when I set down to post this. :-)

I finished 20 mice, 5 fish, and 31 rollie ball cat toys and delivered them. That filled the toy jar nicely at my vet's office. Proceeds from the jar have been delivered to Pet Refuge.

Here's the new pair of toe up socks I started with some Regia spcl yarn. This is a real change from all the red yarn I had been knitting up recently. LOL!

Then there is a trio of scarves. The first is a shadow stitch scarf in blue and yellow knit with some mystery yarn. The yarn was a superbulky weight and there wasn't much yardage. I unplyed it. (Yes, I know I'm crazy.) That netted me about 116 yards of DK/light worsted weight. I actually liked the color better unplyed and it worked out that the yellow pooled nicely. I found out after I washed it that it has some wool in it. It felted a bit though not enough to hurt it. :-) Through Ravelry, I was able to identify the yarn as a wool/acrylic blend called Austermann Bombolo.

The second is a triangle scarf knit from handspun. If the color looks familiar, it should. I knit it with the leftovers from the blob wool. While I was spinning the huge skein from the blob, I found places in the fiber that had more mohair in it. I put those bits aside because they we so unlike the rest of the fiber. I thought about throwing it away but decided to take a chance and spin it up. I got 184 yards of fingering weight yarn (about 2.1 ounces) out of it. Cast on for a triangle scarf and knit until I was almost out of yarn. Did a crochet chain cast off to finish it off. I really like the way the yarn subtly shades from one color to the next. There were a lot of ohs and ahs from everyone who saw it Tuesday night at my fiber arts group. They also loved the lemon sugar cookies I baked. They were delish!

Scarf number three is a mini version of my Celtic Hearts shawl. I started with 112 yards of Louet Gems in red, tied on the leftover 70 yards of Kroy sock yarn from the Syrian Shawl (that makes 3 projects that yarn it is part of!), and finished the border with some dark green sock yarn. Probably about 200 yards of fingering weight total. It turned out very nice. Blocked, it measures 36" x 16". If you have my Celtic Hearts pattern, here's how to knit the scarf. Knit rows 1-48, then repeat 29-48, and finish by adding the border. This one has been sent to Scarves for the Heart.

I knitted two dishcloths and crocheted two pot scrubbers. These were part of a bridal shower gift. I made up a kitchen basket for the shower. I found a nice bread basket and tucked into it the dishcloths and pot scrubbers, a bunch of kitchen gadgets, and a stack of 55 quick and easy recipes printed out on 4" x 6" cards. I remember what it was like when I first got married, coming home from work and not having a clue what to cook for dinner. :-( It wasn't pretty!

I knit this little hooded baby sweater over the weekend. It's a top down, knit in one piece sweater pattern. I've cobbled the pattern together over the years using bits of other baby sweater patterns that I liked. This particular sweater used up about 250 yards of worsted weight. That's a little more than 1 ball of Bernat Denim Style (cotton/acrylic blend) in what they call Faded Khaki. I call it green. I gifted it to a member of my fiber arts groups on Tuesday night along with a little blanket and some socks I purchased. Anita stopped by for a few minutes so we could see the new baby boy, Vann. He's a cutie! The baby is so tiny it will be awhile before he can wear the green sweater.