Basket Dash Recap

I finished all the items from my basket dash! I even did it within the time frame! That's NEVER happened before.

Here's the before photo. Granted there were a fair number of WIPs, but I'm still so proud of myself for setting a manageable goal.

Here's the photos of the SIX completed items.

1 & 2) Matching pink Darwinia dresses.

3) Blue Darwinia dress

4) Cluaranach Stole

5) Glenallen Shawl

6) Holbrook Shawl

Holbrook Shawl

 Pattern: Holbrook Shawl designed by Dee O'Keefe

Yarn: Jade Sapphire Cashmere Silk in Lupine

Needles: US Size 5

Started on: April 3rd

Finished on: June 13th

Comments: This is my "H" in my Lace A-Z Challenge. I really enjoyed knitting this one. I particularly like knitted on borders. This was my first time using this yarn. This yarn is some of the most precious in my stash. It was lovely to knit with the cashmere silk blend. I love how it turned out. This is also the last item from my basket dash! Yay!

Glenallen Shawl

 Pattern: Glenallen Shawl designed by Dee O'Keefe

Yarn: BMFA Laci in Rose Quartz

Needles: US Size 3

Started on: April 13th

Finished on: June 5th

Comments: This is my "G" for my Lace A-Z Challenge. This also counts as another item from my basketdash! The yarn is leftover from the Blooming Stitches shawl. Somewhere in the middle I lost momentum on this shawl and started knitting on lots of other projects. It was very hard to come back to this shawl. There were sooo many stitches towards the end. The rows were very long. The pattern is pretty and I love this yarn. I think Laci is my favorite yarn from BMFA. It's soft and light and comes in lovely colors.

FO Friday: Cluaranach

 Pattern: Cluaranach Stole designed by Knitspot

Size: Petite - Only 5 repeats of the Thistle Leaf section on each side

Yarn: Bare Naked Wools Breakfast Blend in Sugar N Cream

Needles: US Size 7

Started on: March 19th

Finished on: May 23rd

Comments: This is my second time knitting this pattern. The first time I knit it for Knitspot as a sample for their trunk show. It turned out so beautiful, that I decided I needed to make one for myself to keep. I think this pattern looks best in white.

This also counts as one more item finished from my Basket Dash!

WIP Wednesday

I'm working on my Cluaranach stole. I put it aside after finishing the first half to work on other knitting projects. Now that I've picked it up again, it's moving along faster. Funny how that works. It's just the convincing myself to work on it that took time.

Now that I'm more than halfway done, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm now getting into a rhythm and keeping at it, I think it can be finished soon.

Darwinia

Pattern: Darwinia designed by Georgie Hallam

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK in Wellwater

Size: 18 month old baby doll style

Needles: US Size 3 and US Size 6

Started on: April 25th

Finished on: May 15th

Comments: This counts as my third item finished for basket dash. This was my second time knitting this pattern. (Third if you count the Dolly Darwinia.) I really enjoy Georgie Hallam patterns because they are well written. It's easy for me to follow and understand, which is important because I'm not an experienced garment knitter. I appreciate the clever construction that allows the garment to be seamless. I really enjoy working with this yarn. It's so soft and squishy, but can be splitty at times. I really love this colorway. The blue has so much depth.

WIP Wednesday

Back to my WIPs. I decided to start working on my Darwinia dress again. This is my third time making this dress. This time I'm using a beautiful blue color in Madelinetosh Tosh DK. I think this one will knit up quickly as it's a smaller size than the first Darwinia I made.

WIP Wednesday

 I started a pair of self striping socks. I love how bright these colors are. This is just what I need to get back into knitting socks again.

I started my THIRD Darwinia dress. This one will be for DD # 2, who I know will wear it, as she's not yet old enough to be particular about her clothing. I love this blue and how much depth it has.

I'm still working on my Glenallen shawl. Although progress has slowed down quite a bit as the rows are starting to get long. And this one requires concentration and focusing on a chart.

Hobbes' Dress

As promised in my last post, I had an idea to tip the scales in my favor of DD # 1 liking the new dress I knit for her.  I had almost an entire skein of yarn leftover from after knitting DD # 1's Darwinia. I was updating projects into Rav when I realized the designer designs matching doll dresses with many of her children's clothing patterns. It's designed to fit American Girls dolls.

I myself have never been into dolls and my girls aren't either. However, DD # 1 loves Hobbes. So I did something I never in a million years imagined I would do.

I knit a dress for Hobbes. Ha! I have to say I really enjoyed knitting this project. And I think the dress looks great on him.

Here are the details:

Project: Dolly Darwinia designed by Georgie Hallam - Baby Doll dress version

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK in Rose

Started on: April 23rd

Finished on: April 24th

Darwinia

I've never had the desire to knit baby clothing. I enjoyed knitting Milo so much and there seems to be many cleverly constructed seamless garments out there, I'm afraid I may be a bit addicted. This one is Darwinia which is also designed by Georgie Hallam. I find her instructions to be clear and easy to follow.

Here are the details of my knit:

Pattern: Darwinia designed by Georgie Hallam - Baby Doll dress version

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK in Rose

Started on: April 17th

Finished on: April 22nd

This is my first completed item from basket dash! I knit the pattern as written. It was another very fast knit, which can explain one of the reasons I'm now addicted to knitting baby clothing. This was a risky knit as it was the first time I've ever knit a garment for DD # 1. I have no idea if she wear it or even will like it.

I tried to tip the scales in favor of her liking the dress by finding the perfect shade of girly pink in a luxurious yarn. This actually meant I went out to buy yarn, because I didn't have exactly what I wanted in my stash. I also did one other thing which I will share in my next post.

WIP Wednesday

I've been monogamously knitting away on my Darwinia dress. It's almost finished. I can't wait to see how it blocks out. I've used close to two balls of yarn so far.

Basket Dash

I decided to participate in the basket dash that is being hosted in the stash knit down group on rav. It started on April 15th, but I figure better late then never. The goal is to fill a basket with yarn and WIPs and try to finish knitting everything in your basket by June 30th.

Here's my basket.

Here's what's inside. Maybe because we are full on into Spring now, everything I'm knitting is light colored and cheery looking. 

Let's take a closer look. Of course the first two projects I'm working on are the ones that haven't been started. In fact, I haven't even finished winding yarn for them. I plan on knitting two Darwinia dresses for my two girls. I don't think I'll need to use up all three balls of yarn for each dress. I think it will take two and a half balls for the bigger dress and maybe a little over two balls of yarn for the smaller dress. 

After that, I plan on focusing on my "G" shawl for the Lace A-Z challenge. This is the Glenallen shawl. Yes, that's a mega ball of yarn. The majority of it will go into this shawl. I think I'll have just a little bit leftover after this shawl is done. 

When the "G" shawl is done, I will work on my "H" shawl for the Lace A-Z challenge. This is the Holbrook shawl. I've gotten the boring part of the shawl done, all that's left is the knitted on edging. I think it may take an entire ball of yarn to finish the edging, you know, that skein of yarn that I have not wound yet. Knitted on edgings are deceptive, it feels so close to being finished, yet they take a long time to knit and they use up a lot more yarn then you would expect.

Last but not least, I have to finish Cluaranach. The first half is finished and you can see I folded it up in the photo. I still have the second half to knit, which will take up almost the entire ball of yarn. 

If I finish everything I'll add more yarn and projects. I'm not even sure if I can realistically finish all these five items. I remain very optimistic. I really am looking forward to working on all these projects and even more so to finishing them.

Romney Kerchief Shawl

Pattern: Romney Kerchief Shawl from Brooklyn Tweed

Yarn: Cascade 220 Color way 9325 Westpoint Blue Heather

Needles: US Size 8

Started on: May 22nd

Finished on: Aug 21st

Comments and Modifications: I knit this as written. I did add extra repeats to try to use as much of the yarn as possible. This was a very straightforward knit. The pattern was easy to memorize and made great mindless knitting. It only took a long time to finish because I kept putting it down in favor of working on other projects. It feels great to use up some of my oldest stash from 2006.

I didn't block it due to the drought. I'll wait until I have more items to block and then block them all together.

WIP Wednesday

I picked up this shawl again. I needed a break from baby blanket knitting and the color purple. I think I'll try to finish this shawl before I go back to blanket knitting. I already memorized the pattern and it goes quickly so long as I actually work on it. I love this shade of blue and this is also one of my 2006 oldest stash yarns.

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.

Elizabeth Shawl

Pattern: Elizabeth Shawl

Yarn: The Periwinkle Sheep Wink Lace in Thunderstorm

Needles: US Size 4

Started on: June 17th

Finished on: June 28th

Comments/Modifications: This is my first project finished for the basket dash. It's also my "E" for my Lace A-Z project. I love the color of this yarn. It's also got pretty sparkly silver bits throughout the shawl. The pattern was straightforward and intuitive to knit, even though I had to refer to the charts constantly. The shawl pattern is also nice as it doesn't have many repeating charts. This helps to keep things interesting. I really love the size it turned out to be. There was a little bit of a nail biter at the end as I was beginning to worry that I might run out of yarn. Luckily that didn't happen, I also love feeling like I used up as much of the ball of yarn as possible (without running out). I love this shawl and can't wait to wear it.