Some easy knitting!

My intention last week with my new baby cardi, was to make it another February sweater, but I decided after the yoke was started, that I was going to do something different...not sure what yet, but this is the progress so far :-) (I'm making these baby things to replenish my pressy box, and practice my design skills)
The blue diagonal knitting is the start of Knitty's Unbiased
I love this bag, and have had it on my to-do list for ages. Diagonal knitting is one of my favourite techniques, it looks great, and requires hardly any concentration ;-D ...you've gotta love that! My plan was to make the bag from a Magic Ball but I didn't want to wait until I had a big enough ball, so started instead with some Sean Sheep Daisy...it feels really nice, it's a ladder yarn with the 'steps' being a very thick chenille.
Kelley, thanks for the comment :-) The yarn I used for my February sweater was Red Heart Soft Baby. The ball band says that it's fingering weight, but I'm not too familiar with US terminology...if I was talking in Aus/UK terms, I would call it a baby 4ply. I used 4mm needles, but could possibly have gone down a size. There are a few more stitches on the yellow sweater (than in he modified directions), as I added more for the front bands. The chest measurement was about 20 inches, but the ones made with the written mods, should be slightly smaller.
Hope this helps :-)

My February Sweater Modifications

I've been asked to share the modifications that I made to EZ's February Sweater..I've tried to be very careful regarding copyright issues, so have written it in such a way, that it is an add-on to Elizabeth's pithy directions, and won't make any sense without the original...(hope this is ok..if not, I'm happy to delete the post :-))

**Work as the original until you reach the first row of increases. Instead of increasing, decide where your shoulders should be (pin the neckline closed as if it's buttoned up, and the folds at the edges will be about right for the shoulders). I made the top of each sleeve, 2 stitches wide, so placed a stitch marker either side of that. Working from here in stocking stitch, increase one stitch either side of the 4 markers, on every knit row (keeping front edges in garter stitch). Work until there is roughly the same amount of stitches as the last increase row in the pithy directions ( mine had 6 stitches more). You are now at the part in the directions, where you divide for the sleeves and body...from here, you start using the Gull Pattern instead of stocking stitch. I increased the sleeve and underarm by casting on enough stitches for one pattern repeat. The rest of the pattern is as the pithy :-)**
This really is the easiest ever modification :-D ...hope the way I've written it makes sense!

EZ's February Sweater

This is the baby jacket I've been knitting for the 'Blind Assassin' challenge over on Knit the Classics. It is meant to represent the wartime effort by the women of Port Ticonderoga, to knit baby garments for the 'Starving Armenians and Overseas Refugees' at their Thursday knitting group. I thought that a traditional baby's matinee jacket would fit in pretty good with the time line, and in keeping with the make-do wartime spirit, the yarn is from my stash and the buttons from the op shop. I really enjoyed the book, and the thought process for the crafting challenge...(I've tried to be careful not to plot spoil for anybody still reading the book :-))
The pattern is based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's February Sweater from her Knitter's Almanac. I have started to knit this sweater a few times before, but have always been unhappy with the way my garter stitch yoke looks...the increases look scruffy and holey!...this photo shows one of my attempts :-(
...not wanting to give up on it (especially after seeing how awesome others looked over on the Zimmermania blog), I decided to change the part of the pattern that wasn't working for me. I figured that I could still make pretty much the same jacket, with a different yoke. I lined up my increases in a row at the 4 seams (in other words, made it a raglan) and continued on with the gull pattern for the rest. It is still made top down and 'practically seamless on 2 needles' as per Elizabeth's instructions :-) I did the raglan yoke in stocking stitch, as I thought it would look neater, but I'm going to try doing the same in garter stitch.
Thanks, thanks, thanks! to EZ, for helping to give us knitters the confidence to explore different ideas, when something isn't working the way we want it to :-D

Necklace no more

Well, my Cheap as Chips necklace has now turned itself (with the help of some wire snippy thingies) into 8 new stitch markers :-) It worked out really good, coz the big rings that go on the needles were also part of the necklace (I think I may have left too many beads dangling...but they looked so cute!...I'll just have to snip again if they get in the way of my knitting).





I started to do the lettering for my Handbag quilt. I think it would look good to have all of the writing in the centre on a pink background, and have the bags around the edge in a medallion style quilt (I will remember to iron the blocks next time I decide to take a photo!...I was just too anxious to see how they looked on the pink background!) :-)

Shopping :-)

So this shopping trip may not seem like such a big deal to you guys ... but believe me, shopping for yarn in Adelaide is not always easy ... so you can imagine my excitement at finding self striping and self fairisling(?) 8 ply at Big W! ... woohoo!
It may not be the world's greatest yarn, but compared with the alternative (ie nothing!), I'm pretty excited :-)
They had camouflage as well, and whilst I was tempted to get some, I just couldn't see me having a use for it (apart from the excitement of seeing it knit up I suppose).
The choice of colours were mainly on the loud side, but I really liked the two that I bought.
My other two shopping goodies were a Woolcraft knitting book from about the early 70's, from the second-hand bookshop, and a necklace for $2 from Cheap as Chips, to be snipped up and made into stitch markers :-)

Knit the Classics (*no plot spoilers*)

After struggling through the heat to finish the cropped part of my top down sweater, I eventually conceded defeat, and have put it on hold until he colder weather kicks in...... I'm pretty sure that I will still do an underneath layer, but in the meantime, I've got a finished sweater waiting for the winter :-) (I'm so over the hot weather right now!!)
My project for Knit the Classics was started over the weekend...the march novel is The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood...I really loved the book (it wasn't my usual genre, so I was suprised at just how much I liked it..I couldn't put it down!). I'm gonna keep my knit project from it under wraps until the end of the month though....don't wanna plot spoil :-D

Cropped layer

I finished the cropped outer layer of my sweater, with about half a ball of yarn leftover :-)
...next.... to make the fake under layer. I'm using some oddments of grey to make, what will hopefully look like, a striped, ribbed grey sweater.
This was my first time knitting a top down raglan with a V neck....really easy!...I cast on the stitches for the back neck, plus 2 for each sleeve top, then one for each side of the front neck....then, in the usual top down way, I increased one stitch each side of the markers every second row, and at the same time, increased one stitch at each side of the front neck every fourth row, until there were the same amount of stitches on the front as the back :-)