Great American Afghan Update

I'm almost halfway finished with my squares. Of course, I'm behind schedule if I want to finish and ship this for Christmas. I have nine weeks to knit 14 squares, sew them together, and finish. Hmmm....

Anyway, here's my progress so far.

Square 1
Square 2
Square 3
Square 4
Square 5
Square 7
Square 8
Square 9
Square 10
Square 11
Square 12

I'm not knitting square 6 as written because I don't want to add the needlework; the stitches would require lots of running thread across the back or lots of weaving-in of lots of ends. Not very knitterly.

Here's a swatch of what I'm substituting for square 6:


I can't decide if I'm going to knit square 13 as written either. Again, there's already too much going on in terms of having to add things to these blocks after I'm finished knitting them (see blocks 1, 4, 15, in addition to 6 and 13).

The cool thing about this project is that so far, with the exception of block 11 (the cat), every block has included a technique and/or stitch that I've not ever done before (block 12 was my first experience with entrelac). It's been a good learning experience.

Knitting Graph Paper

I just found this Web site that has a knitting graph paper tool--you tell it how many rows and stitches (and a couple other values), and it spits out printable graph paper. I tried a couple of others, but this one is the best of those I tried.

P.S. It works better with IE than with Firefox.

Finally, in 2009

My how time flies! I've picked up my needlework again. Here's what I've been up to since last fall:

I finished the Farrow Rib Cardigan:

It's from Interweave Knits, and it was a nice pattern to work up. My cardigan is 100% alpaca--a female named Jewel, with whom I'm personally acquainted. :o) For Christmas, I made Chris's dad this Meg Swansen vest:

It was hard to know exactly the size to make, so after completing it and Bruce trying it on, I had to steek and reknit the facings.

For Chris's mom, I made Pearls of Wisdom by Brenda Patipa.

This is unblocked. I forgot to take a photo of the piece after blocking, but it turned out beautifully, and Anne-Marie loved it.

For Helena, I made these mittens by Jared Flood in Vogue Knitting:

It's a great pattern and lots of fun to knit.

I made a pair of mitts for Judy. This photo shows us both wearing our mitts, which are made from the same pattern with the same yarn, but with the color work reversed.

Some Canadian friends invited us to watch President Obama's inauguration from the Canadian embassy, so to thank them, I knitted Denis a scarf and Louise a pair of cashmere mitts:

For Cindy for her birthday, I made her a pair of bed socks:

I also made a couple scarves and a hat, and I finished my spring cardigan (finally), but I still need to take photos of the latter.

And I just finished this scarf for Mary for her birthday:

To needlework!

Pat's Huswife, which will be a way to store and carry needlework tools:

The photo on the left is a photo of a photo of the finished product. The photo on the right is my work in progress. The outline on the right is where the scissors will be kept, and it is done in hardanger.

This is Venetian Delight:

Again, a photo of the what the project will be and a photo of my progress. This is canvaswork designed by Jean Hilton and Ro Pace. I took this class from them at a national seminar for the American Needlepoint Guild.

I've started on a group correspondence course with the Embroiderers' Guild of America. It's a drawn thread piece called Angelina. This is a photo of the project since mine at this stage just looks like a piece of white linen with barely visible basting lines:

And lastly, I've started on a piece of counted work on 40-count silk gauze. The needle is placed for scale.