knitting

While on vacation I had the opportunity, finally, to catch up on some knitting. It started in New Jersey with a visit to my parents. My aunt was there as was my sister-in-law, brother and family.

Side note, I actually taught someone else how to knit! My sister-in-law has been wanting to learn. So I brought her some yarn, she and my mom went to a shop to buy needles and she is working on a scarf in a lovely blue colorway, mohair mix yarn. I'm amazed, she's a really good knitter for someone who is just learning. Her stitches were very even, not too tight, not too loose and well-spaced.

Another side note, my aunt was making a scarf for my mom and needed to bind off using something called the "Icelandic Bind Off." We asked at the knitting shop, my mom tried to Google it, to no avail. A wikipedia search reveals that it is a rather stretchy bind off. So now we know.

For my own knitting I decided to start a new project with existing yarn. I had some leftover acrylic purple and a purple-green varigation. I found a pattern in the latest copy of Family Circle Easy Knitting for a hooded beach coverup that looked really cute and decided to start it. I'm really enjoying making it, I love the way the colors go together and having the luxury of working on it uninterrupted while the kids were in the pool was great. Unfortunately the scanner isn't working at the moment but I'll try to fix that soon so that I can scan the resulting material and show it here. While some may scoff at the idea of a sweater in acrylic for a beachy or poolside coverup I think it's a better option. Plus it uses up the leftover.

I've finished one sleeve and started the body. One of the reasons I like the pattern is that it is worked from side to side so there is no joining of pieces, just two seams (well...three if you count adding in the hood). Unfortunately I'm realizing that there may not be enough yarn left to do the whole thing and I may need to go get more in the same colors. But since it's for an existing project that's not so bad. And I've decided to take all my "extras" and make squares with them. I figure if I keep doing that eventually I'll have an interesting assortment that I can put together into a blanket.