Passap Socks

It has been WAAY too long since I’ve blogged. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to catch up today. Just wanted to stop by real quick and show off the pair of socks I just made on my new (to me) Passap E6000.

They don’t match exactly, I didn’t take the time to start in the exact same place in the colorway, but I love them anyway!

Good night everyone, I hope to be able to post updates on all my finished projects soon.

P.S. The sock pattern is from the Passap Duo 80 manual pg 74, but I did a short row toe instead of the double decrease one.

Hat in progress.

New Finished Objects and Waiting

So, I am no longer without a knitting machine. I recently purchased a Brother KH910 on eBay. However, it needs a new spongebar. I have to wait until it arrives before I can play with my new toy.

In the meantime, I’ve been crocheting hats for my Etsy shop. I have 4 done so far and one in progress. Here they are in no particular order:

Talia was kind enough to model for me. Wow, it’s incredibly difficult to get a clear picture of a 7 month old.

Finished Hats, Booties and a Pattern

This is my progress so far on the hats and booties I plan to donate to the hospital. I want to have 10 pair of booties and 10 hats to donate by the end of the week. As you can see from the hat picture, I got tired of crochet and switched to knit.

This is a close-up picture of my knitted hat. It’s a simple 2x2 rib hat. Pattern can be downloaded here: https://www.box.com/s/b2clbmvor1k9doso77fm

My sweet baby Talia kindly modeled one of the hats for me. Isn’t she sweet?

DeeDee’s New Hat

 

 

 

 

Lately I’ve been working on crochet hats for the Labor and Delivery Ward at our local hospital. It seems like that after every had Dee would ask me if it was for her. Finally, I decided that she needed a hat of her own. This is what I came up with. It’s a simple Granny hat started with a magic loop in the middle. It actually ended up a little too big so I added elastic and tied the two ends to make a pretty bow. She LOVES it!

What do you do when you have no knitting machine?

Yes, sadly, I am currently knitting machine-less. I just sold my whole setup on eBay. Hoping to be able to buy a Passap E6000. Well, technically, I’m not completely machine-less. I do have a Brother kh863 in the bedroom, but I don’t have a carriage for it: I use it exclusively with the Garter Carriage.

So, what does a machine knitter do when they don’t have a knitting machine? Crochet, of course!

When I was in the hospital with the twins Talia was having a very difficult time regulating her body temperature. This led to one very kind nurse scouring Labor and Delivery for hats, booties, and any other warm thing she could get her hands on. Sadly, the hospital was down on donations so my pretty little Talia ended up with two hospital issue hats on her head and her feet stuck in a third. Since then, I have slowly been trying to make baby items that I can donate. This is my progress so far:

Yes, I know 5½  pairs aren’t much to show for 6 months, but I have had to fit in crochet around everything else.

This is what one of the booties looks like unflattened:

Cute, isn’t it? I used a pattern from Lion Brand for these. It works up quick and at the end you only have to work in your beginning and ending tails. You can find the pattern here: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/70225AD.html?noImages= One note I have on the pattern is to use a smaller hook than they call for. The pattern wants you to use a size K hook with worsted weight yarn. For me, that made the bootie come out WAAY too big. I actually had to go all the way down to a size G hook to get the size I wanted.

The Importance of Washing Gauge Swatches

We have all been told that it is important to wash and block our gauge swatches in the same manner that we will use for the final garment. But, let’s be honest, how often do we actually take the time to do this? I can tell you, I usually don’t. However, I’m very glad that for this project I took the time to wash my gauge swatch.

This is the finished shirt before washing. (Dee wanted to help me take the picture) I tried it on over my t-shirt because the yarn knit up airy and see-through.

This is the same shirt after washing. Look how much it shrunk! I’m glad I washed my gauge swatch and allowed for this shrinkage when I knit. Now I have a cute raglan shirt that fits perfectly. Oh, and dear readers, please ignore my chubby belly in these pictures. I haven’t quite lost all the baby weight yet.