Cute happenings

I've been a little bit under the weather lately, nothing serious, but I've not had the inclination to blog. Now that I'm feeling better I thought I'd show you my cute little guy (or gal) who I've been spying on from my  inside windows. We have a rather large rock in the middle of our back yard. Somewhere around or under this rock is the burrow or home of a chipmunk family. Pretty much every day this cute little chipmunk perches on the rock. He's either on the look  out for predators or is sounding off in alarm to keep intruders away or just letting everyone know that they are not to mess with him (her). He makes quite the racket producing a vigorous clacking sound. I really think he wears himself out the poor thing. I know I get tired just listening to him! I was quite surprise that Chipmunks make any kind of noise at all! They really are quite noisy :) According to my research this is how he(she) protects his(her) burrow and wards off the predators.

Miss Pink is thriving. I think she likes the heat and humidity. All of her new buds are now open. She has only dropped one of her old flowers. She now has a total of five flowers open. One of them is one of the original flowers from when I brought her home last March!
I'm really getting the urge to get another orchid to keep Miss Pink company. I've received so much enjoyment from this wonderful plant. I'm afraid it might just be beginner's luck. One of these days if I find the right one...I may just bring it home :) Time will tell....

Knitting wise I have nothing much to show you. I did finish a pair of double knit potholders for my kitchen. That's about it for finished items.

I'm working on a couple of things...one is a baby blanket that has to be finished by July 3rd. It's been slow going. Falling asleep knitting has been a big problem. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to rip it back. The pattern is super easy and I really don't have any excuse other than being tired. Part of the problem I think is that I've started listening to audio book recordings. Presently I'm reading listening to Debbie Macomber's Summer on Blossom Street. It's my first knitting novel :) These self contained digital devices (Playaways) are really cool. Plus the price is right. I'm borrowing it from my local library. It's the perfect vehicle to read and knit at the same time. I just love it. Our library doesn't have a huge collection, but you can download audio books to your MP3 player or take out audio books on CD's as well.. I don't have a MP3 player so it might be nice to get one sometime in the future. That way you'd never be without a book to read listen to. Usually I'm watching TV and knitting, but the summer does not have the best quality when it comes to programing and I detest watching TV just for the sake of watching it,  if you know what I mean, so I do think it would be worth it to invest in the hardware someday. I'm very happy and can't wait to find more interesting books to read listen to! Suggestions of good books to read are always welcomed :)

Well, time to leave you. Must try and do some catching up on my blog reading. Besides that I've been some what busy in preparation for a couple of special visitors who'll be coming to see us sometime soon. More about that later. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and happy knitting :)

Copyright ©2006-2011 hakucho, All Rights Reserved.

Now I can show you...

...the kitchen items I made for my "knit loving" daughter-in-law. Her birthday is tomorrow, but she picked up her gift yesterday.

This is a photo of some of the items. Four of the dishcloths I made previously. You probaby recognized them. Top pair are the Corner to Corner Striped Set and on the right, a pair of Circle cloths.



The rest are a couple of the new patterns I tried out. Now I have some new favorites, like these double knit potholders. Very utilitarian, unlike the fancier ones I made for her for Christmas. She tells me they are decorating the fridge as she doesn't want to ruin them. I hope she'll use these new ones, plus I always tell her there are always more where they came from ;).




Another pattern I tried out was a variation of Grandmother's favorite which is a very easy and beloved pattern, so I never anticipated all the trouble with this picot edged cloth. It was unbelievably frustrating trying to follow the pattern.This pattern has short row corners, which I had never done before, so I was unable to see just where I was going wrong. I was just about ready to give up when I scoped out what others said about the pattern on ravelry. I'm certainly not the first to have a problem and it was a relief to find a kind soul who posted her corrections for the pattern on her ravelry page. She's not the designer, but was kind enough to share her solution to the problems everyone was having with the pattern. In the end, the end result was two very pretty cloths. As my "Knit Loving "- DIL, says they are too pretty to use, but I do hope she'll use them as I will always make her more new ones :)



This next item is what I think is a rather elegant looking towel. I think it would make a nice hand towel or a decorative towel to lay out on your kitchen counter to drain your washed dishes on. It's a little dressy so if you haven't had the chance to put all your dishes away, it will look nice and less messy on your counter. Here some shots of the bubble up towel, another of my new favorites. It looks difficult, especially the bubble work, but it was really easy. I do love it and have another one on the needles for my kitchen at the moment.








Of course I can not leave you with out giving you the latest news about Miss Shirley Pink :)  One of her buds opened up this week and there will be another one opening shortly...
 

...need I say more?  She makes me very happy!

Spring flowers also make me happy as well. Here's a little sampling from my yard:

1. IMG_1084, 2. IMG_1083, 3. IMG_1082, 4. IMG_1128

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Happy Knitting :)

Copyright ©2006-2011 hakucho, All Rights Reserved.

A question about joining Circle cloth squares into a blanket

 I recently received the following (ravelry) email from Anita and I thought I would share it with you:

"I work with a Warm Up America group in Lexington, KY. One of our members brought in a block of circle cloth and a copy of your pdf pattern. We were totally fascinated. One member brought in a block she had done over the week and that inspired several of us to create our own blocks. The idea of connecting the various blocks into a small blankie grew out of our fascination. We did agree on Red Heart yarn and that the back color would be white. There probably will not be sufficient number of circle cloth blocks to make the entire blankie so we will do simple spacer blocks. Now we have to figure out how to connect these blocks! I’ve thought of stitching or crochet to connect the blocks but wondered if you had any suggestions for me.
I would appreciate any suggestions or advice. Thanks for sharing such a creative pattern with us all."

I have a method in my madness in posting this email, as it would be very nice to have input from those of you who may have already made up a blanket of circle or similar cloths (ballbands comes to mind) into a blanket. I would love to hear how you joined your squares, so please leave a comment. I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated by many of my readers :)

First, I'd like to share with you my thoughts on the subject, but remember I've never tried to make a blanket out of circle cloths. The first method that always comes to mind is the good old mattress stitch, but as most of you who read my blog regularly know that I avoid sewing knitted items at all costs...therefore I can't really recommend this method. The mattress stitch would be very forgiving and adjustable given the fact that the circle cloths, as the original pattern has been written, have very untidy edges. If you don't mind sewing. This would be a good approach.

With that comes my next thought...when I recently knit my circle baby blanket I played with the idea of a neater edge for the cloths and subsequent baby blanket. It worked out great for the blanket and I rather liked how the edge turned out on my experimental cloths.

To turn the original circle cloth into one with a neater edge cast on 6 more stitches and do the following:
(right side) beginning  and end of each row - first 3 and last 3 stitches = Knit 1, sl 1 wyif, knit 1
(wrong side) beginning and end of each row - first 3 and last 3 stitches = sl 1 wyif, Knit 1, sl 1 wyif



I think if I were going to make a bunch of cloths into a blanket I would plan on using this edge on my cloths. It would make the assembly a little easier.

Keeping a neater edge in mind, a couple of choices of joins comes to mind:

A plain old crocheted slip stitch, for example Lucy's slip stitch joining method which I loved using to join all those identical granny squares. I wonder how this method would work with knitted squares? Would you have to frame each square with single crochets first? Well I gave it a go first without the single crochets with two of my cloths with the neater edge:



I used orange yarn so you could see how it worked out. Looks pretty good to me and pretty easy to do with the neater edged circle cloth. If you didn't mind adding more work to the assembly edging the cloths first with single crochets might even be better. I imagine the original (untidy edge) circle cloth  with the slip stitch might work as well, but edging the squares first with single crochets might be a necessity.

Then there is the braided flat crochet option. I have successfully used this method to assemble a tessellated fish blanket and two (Pine Street Inn Knit-a-thon) blankets of all sorts of different types of squares, both knitted and crocheted and was happy with the results. This method is also pretty forgiving and I don't think a border of single crochets would be necessary.

 
Well, hope this helps. There are lots of options and I bet there are lots more out there.

Anita, sure hope you'll send me photos of your group's completed circle cloth blanket. I would love to show it off here on my blog! I am very happy and flattered that you are so excited about my circle cloth pattern and you are using it to help others. Good luck with your assembly and be sure and let me know how you make out.


happy knitting :)

Copyright ©2006-2011 hakucho, All Rights Reserved.