WIP Wednesday: Purple

A lot of my friends are having/had babies recently. So the knitting for babies continues... All my knitting is purple...does this surprise anyone? Probably not. haha...

Shale baby blanket - I haven't memorized this pattern completely, but I'm getting close. I'm about a quarter of the way done with this blanket.

Garter Rib Baby blanket -  I love love love this pattern. It's easy to memorize and it's mindless knitting. It makes it very easy to pick up and put down whenever I need to. The first time I made it I felt that the blanket was too narrow, so I'm making it wider this time around.

Garter Rib Baby Blanket

Pattern: Garter Rib Baby Blanket

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in Beach Fog

Needles: US Size 7

Started on: July 3rd

Finished on: July 21st

Comments/Modifications: I knit this blanket as written. I love the way that it turned out. It's a great mindless pattern that's easily memorized and works well with variegated yarns. I love the softness of Dream in Color yarns and the color ways that it comes in. The only issue I have is that Dream in Color doesn't offer dye lots. Out of the three skeins I bought, one of them looks very different than the other two. I decided to alternate skeins. This was my first time ever alternating skeins for a project. I alternated every four rows and then carried the other yarn up the side. The only annoying thing with this technique is that my two skeins of yarns kept getting tangled. Overall, I think it was effective and you can't really see that there was a difference in one of the skeins versus the other two. The blanket came out slightly smaller than I expected. It's still a very soft and nice blanket. I think the pattern and yarn work well together.

Baby Bird Nests

Pattern: Baby Bird Nest from Wildcare

Yarn: Cascade 220 in 7803 Magenta - this is the leftover yarn from the One Row Handspun 

Cascade 220 in 2422 Lavender Heather

Needles: US Size 6 

Started on: I don't remember, but sometime in July

Finished on: I don't remember when the knitting was finished. I got around to felting it a few days ago. I've just been waiting for it to dry completely.

Comments: I didn't have a model for the nests, so I just put some eggs in it to humor myself. These nests were made out of yarn from my oldest stash from 2006. The magenta yarn is completely gone now. Hooray! The nests will be donated to the Wildcare Baby Bird Nest campaign.

One Row Handspun

 Pattern: One Row Handspun from Yarn Harlot

Yarn: Cascade 220 in 7803 Magenta

Started on: June 2nd

Finished on: July 9th

Comments/Modifications: This is my first finished project out of my oldest yarn (from 2006). This is also my second project finished out of my basket dash!

This is my go to scarf. It knits up very quickly. I'm glad that this yarn is finally out of my stash. I have no idea why I even purchased this yarn, since this is not my color at all. It's way too bright for me. This scarf will go into the gift bin.

WIP Wednesday: Distracted

Lately I've been distracted from my stash dash basket. I knew a lot of my friends are having babies between June and December of this year, but it just occurred to me that I should probably be knitting some items for said babies. Some of these babies have already been born, so I'm a bit behind!

So the first project I'm adding to my stash dash basket is a garter rib baby blanket. I'm going to swap out the Morning Glory stole as it doesn't seem like I'll have enough time to get it done.

I'm really happy with the way this blanket is turning out. It's a wonderful mindless knitting project. I'm using Dream in Color Classy. While, I love how squishy this yarn is and the colorways it comes in, it is annoying that they don't have dye lots. I bought three skeins of this colorway online and one skein is distinctly different than the other two. I've run into this problem before, so now I check my skeins more carefully before I start a project. This is my first time attempting to alternate skeins. I'm alternating skeins every 4 rows and then carrying the yarn up the side. It is annoying that my two skeins keep tangling with each other, but hopefully this will solve the issue and it won't be noticeable that the skeins are slightly different colors.

The second distraction is something that a friend drew my attention to a few days ago. It's an organization that collects knitted baby birds nests for local wildlife rehabilitation centers. They need knitted nests from April - August. Since August is quickly approaching and my knitting time has been severely cut down, due to real life getting in the way, this is now my primary focus. After reading about the program and guidelines as far as yarn goes; I know I have some yarn that will be perfect for this! I  plan on making at least two nests.

June Stats

In the month of June, I finished three shawls. In total, I used up 4.5 skeins of yarn/ 1,820 yards. This is way more than I expected to knit this month.