Utopia hat - finally finished

I'm not sure why this got set aside for so long. It only took a couple of hours to finish once I picked it up again. It's a free pattern available on at Smariek Knits. It's in Lamb's Pride Worsted (color M-26 Medieval Red) which made a great weight fabric that's just thick enough to be warm, but not too heavy, has good stretch and is relatively soft and not too scratchy.

Upcycled Blanket

I've been wanting a nice heavy-weight wool blanket and haven't been able to find one to buy. I thought about knitting & felting one, but only had to look at the long-unfinished Babette sitting in a sorry pile in the corner to realize that wasn't happening in this lifetime. About this time one of my daughter's friends returned a lovely striped sweater she'd borrowed & kindly machine washed & dried before returning. Not knowing any 6-month olds in need of a heavily felted sweater I tossed it on my worktable hoping for an inspirational idea to appear. I got the idea to turn it into a patchwork sweater & got to work scouring the house for outgrown or holey sweaters. I got all those felted & realized that I'd be needing a whole lot of sweaters. I hit the local thrift shops. But this being SoCal, wool sweaters were hard to come by. I turned to ebay next, and had great luck - never spending more than about $6 (with freight) for a sweater. I played around a while and came up with a wide zigzag stitch on my sewing machine that allowed me to butt two pieces together. That way the blanket would be double sided with no thick seams. I've been using it for a few months now and it's exactly what I wanted - thick, heavy & very warm.

I've compiled a list of average blanket sizes to use in designing your afghans and blankets.

Noro Stripe Long Ribbed Fingerless Gloves

Design 19 from the book Designer Mini Knits. My fascination with striping Noro yarns continues...

Noro Kureyon Striped Scarf

Finally finished this Noro stripe scarf. I've had the how-to notes scribbled on a scrap of paper on my desk that I uncovered during my end of year cleaning. It came from a 2007 post on the Brooklyntweed blog.

When I finally got around to it, it couldn't have been quicker or easier. And it's far more interesting & complicated looking than it actually is.

I used 2 skeins of Noro Kureyon - one each in color 90 & 220.

Using US7 needles I cast on 39 stitches using cable cast on & slipped the first stitch of each row as if to purl. IN 1 x 1 rib I just went until I didn't have any yarn left. Ended up being 7" by about 75". A great length with the right proportions.

 I finished a second scarf using the same technique - this time in Noro Silk Garden, colors 279 & 267.