Leaving tomorrow

I will not be posting for a while, I'm going on vacation. But that won't stop me from knitting a lap robe for a wounded soldier. I could have made a prettier site with graphics and buttons, but that will have to wait until I come back.

Finished!

I'm wearing my new cotton tank. I don't have a picture yet but it's coming. I'm also finishing the favors today.

Ribbon and shells

Faery Crafty visited this blog yesterday. That's quite soon for this brand-new blog, I wasn't even expecting comments. Her links and her entries include a lot of free patterns, so I'll take a peek now and then.



My favors project is almost done: I have attached ribbon to all but eleven of the little shells. Now it's my husband's turn to use his pretty handwriting and write my Niece's name on each one of them. I've been nagging him about this ever since Wednesday, when I gave him the first batch, but he's a busy guy. In fact, I feel guilty about nagging him, so I started again to work on a project for him. Of course, I also needed to rest my eyes from the pink, glossy satin ribbon. His winter request was a pair of keyboard gloves, he wanted to wear them and still be able to type, so I designed them without fingertips. I finished them in January, but I put off weaving in the ends and before I knew it Spring was here. He says it's all right, it can wait until next Fall. But working on those ends once in a while does not hurt.

The tank is finished

My third attempt at the neckline was succesful. I remembered that for my previous cotton tank I had actually used one crochet stitch per two knit stitches. Since I did not bind off the neck stitches, it was harder this time, especially having to do ssk and k2tog with a crochet hook. The thing is happily drying on a towel and I'll wear it to work on Monday.



Now I have to work on those little shells, the baptism is next week. All I need to do is attach ribbon to the rest. Here's some of them:

Done with seaming

I finished the seams on the sleeveless tank. I also did the edging for both armholes and started weaving in some of the ends. I still have to finish the neckline. I started twice, but did not like the result. I'm going to try once more, hopefully I'll finish this weekend and wear this on Monday.

No more shells...

I'm done with the crochet shells. I have more than thirty by now. I washed them all and spread them on a towel to dry. Today I'm buying more ribbon to finish them.

More free yarn

"

I'm not usually this lucky. This was my gift from India. It's really soft and the colors are nice. There's no indication about the type of fiber, but hey, it's a gift. As long as there's care instructions, I certainly don't mind.

Yesterday I finished the shoulders of my tank and finished the shoulder seams. There's more seaming coming, but I need to block first. Here's how it looks so far:

Free Yarn!

This is unbelievable. The retirement home is cleaning out their craft shop and I got a lot of wool. Some of it was clearly meant for weaving and it will end up as knitted rugs, but I think I can get away with a Frankenvest or two. Thank you!

This should not be an expensive hobby...

But it is. If you're a knitter, you already know this. But non-knitters believe we actually save money because we knit our own clothes and Christmas presents and so forth. The truth is, pretty yarn is pretty expensive. Oh, don't get me wrong, some of the yarn out there is lovely and I'd love to knit it and wear it, but I cannot afford to spend much money for every single one of my projects.

As for patterns... I only finished a project from a pattern once and discovered too late that my gauge was wrong. Luckily, this was a sweater for my nephew and he eventually grew into it, but it seems that every swatch I've made since then comes out in the wrong gauge. Plus, I'm a free spirit. Halfway through a pattern I abandon all instructions and take off on my own. Which is good, because I'm a short person and always need height adjustments anyway.

So I'm a cheap knitter. I use cheap yarn and never buy patterns. I'll be posting a few pictures of my projects soon.