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My new banner for this blog is a part of my newest project. No, I haven't finished Jacob's hat, although I am getting there... No, I haven't worked on that vertical cable idea for Brent's scarf. Actually, on that front, I am considering abandoning it yet again. Maybe that makes me a quitter or maybe that DK Peruvian yarn is cursed! I prefer the latter explanation. But I am very excited about my current project, which is with Zitron Turmalin in multi-blues. It was stash yarn that I got on sale at Spark over a year ago, so it's not like I went out and bought anything new ;) I'm trying a baby cardigan by modifying a lionbrand pattern... I'll give more details when it's complete. I hope to have it done for our trip to Cape Cod when Carrie is visiting, but I am afraid I don't have enough of this yarn! Spark doesn't sell it any more, so I may have to order more online. But I am going to plug through and hope that I can make it with the amount I have, even if I have to unravel my gauge swatch!

CrAzY bObBiN tImE

I decided to make Brent's scarf using the same cable pattern as Rudy's scarf, only with vertical stripes. This requires some tedious work, I guess technically it's intarsia method, using separate bobbins of yarn for each stripe. The first couple of rows were rough, I tell ya. This endeavor will take some patience on my part... but hopefully the end product will be wicked cool :)

one down...

Last week I finished Rudy's birthday present. His birthday was Feb. 11, but he said he didn't mind the lateness because it is like his birthday never ends and he likes to keep getting presents.

I made up a simple cable pattern: K2, P2, k6,P2, with a cable on the k6 every 10th row (starting with row 5, so 5, 15, 25, etc); I did 4 repeats and ended with an additional K2 for the edge. I get confused with the terms "right slanting" versus "left slanting," but I changed the direction of the cable when I changed colors, just for a little variety!


I started out with charcoal yarn, Patons Shetland Chunky, but soon realized I wasn't going to have enough for a whole scarf. I had one skein of each of charcoal, black and aran white. These were bought for a different (abandoned) project, so I was trying to make due. I decided to do charcoal at the ends, then white (but less length then the charcoal), then the whole middle black.

(it's hard to tell in the picture the difference between charcoal & black)

Turned out that when I got through the entire skein of black, I only had about 17" of work done (in that color), so had to buy another skein. That is a big part of why the project took so long, because I had to get to A.C. Moore. I used one more skein of black and then did the color changes at the other end, for a total length of 60".

Brent was a bit jealous of how nicely the scarf turned out and Rudy seemed to like it. I like the Shetland Chunky because it's thick and soft (25% wool, 75% acrylic). It's also machine washable (cold, delicate cycle), which always makes life easier. I would make something else using this yarn in the future, but I know I need to use up some of what I have first.


In other news... I finished the hat part of Jacob's football hat. I meant to send this in time for the superbowl, but... ya know. The pattern interested me because of the seed stitch ear flaps, but once I got to plain stockinette in the round, I got bored. I was afraid Jacob's head might grow too big for it, but it will definitely not be too small! I did the number of stitches for the 2 year size because my guage was tighter than called for, and it was only like 8 stitches bigger than the 1 year size. Anyway, I worked on it last week, so now all I have to do is the finishing applique. I have a special touch I plan to add to customize it for the Bentleys that isn't in the pattern!

Sneak peek HERE!

I also decided to rip out the half done scarf for Brent from a year and a half ago. I am going to try to cook up another cabling pattern to use with the Peruvian yarn. We'll see what comes of that!