Sunday, June 7, 2009

Baby Surprise Sweater

That little Baby Surpise Sweater is completed. It turned out smaller than I had hoped, but it gives me a reason to knit another in a larger size. The pattern is available from Schoolhouse Press.

Its dimensions on a size 6 circular needle are: body width at middle: 8.5 inches; length 11.5 inches.

An applied I cord was attached around the edges, a single crochet edging was used for the sleeves, and three purchased buttons in accompanying colors to the yarn (Tuscany Colorway, hand dyed 100% superwash Merino Wool, 330 yr/skein, approx. 4 oz) completed the project.

Thanks, Marie at KnittedGems, for your help in pattern interpretation, as well as from the Ravelry Forum group!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Indian Rope or Indian Hoya Plant

Last year, this post had a topic of the Indian Hoya Plant. Ten comments from readers over past months showed this was a fun plant to display on a blog posting.

Dave says this house plant can grow to 4-6 feet in height. However, this elderly plant has never grown over about 3 inches tall. Its weight does cause it to drape attractively.

This year, sure enough, it bloomed again! Now in its 26th or 27th year in my home, here is a picture of its tiny porcelain looking blooms:

It is still going strong, needs little care and thrives on neglect. It is outside on the patio this summer soaking up the filtered rays and enjoying the high desert air with its lack of humidity.

The free program called picnik helped make the border and text on the picture. It is a fun little gizmo to play with; picnik has my full endorsement!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Three Colors for the Baby Jacket

Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket (here is the first link) is in progress.

This is the basic yarn used for the EZ SBJ; 100% superwash merino wool, in the Tuscany Colorway, a hand dyed fiber from ShopYarnLove.

The other two added yarns are DK weight wool in lavender (10% cashmere) and another skein in rose/purple from New Zealand that incorporates possum fur into its merino wool.

Colors did not show true in the picture below, but I wanted to play with picnik, a program that allows tweaking of photos, including borders, text, colors, etc. Here is the picnik picture:


This shows the lavender yarn just being incorporated into the sleeve area above the cuff. It is an innovative pattern, complete with instructions available on You Tube here:

The videos (there are six of them) surely help in figuring out this challenging pattern. Kudos to L2Belt on YouTube for this step by step assistance.