Tuesday

I am plugging away at the ladies Sorrel design. I have completed the stitch pattern section in the yoke and am adding some more length before I do the first decrease round.

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I am still not totally decided on how deep to go for the overall yoke since I feel like I want to make it more shallow than the original. I definitely won’t be adding the back button detail since that is not needed since it is not going over baby heads. :-)

I will probably knit this for about another inch or so and then work the decrease. I just don’t want to make the mistake of a narrowing the yoke to soon and making the underarm area pull under stress. I am loosely following EZ’s percentage system for proportions here but since my neck treatment will be different than a traditions sweater that is my concern for getting it right and not wasting valuable knitting time by having to rip back.

In other news, we celebrated another birthday here yesterday. It was Kyla’s 16th. She got her presents early. She wanted a copy of Go Set a Watchman which we pre-ordered and received on release day. She opted not to wait and read it that day. She liked it better than I did. I was meh on it, maybe 3 stars; She gave it 3 and a half. Her other presents were a soundtrack CD she requested and a new pair of headphones. Don’t happen to have pictures of the presents but I did take take some with the cake. She insisted on making it herself and it was yummy. :-)

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Officially Done!

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Unfortunately I don’t have any babies in house to model this properly so this will have to do. I am quite pleased with how the yarn looks an feels and I predict it will be a hit at Stitches in a couple weeks. It is perfect for baby knits because it is soft organic cotton that is easy to care for. This little classic sweater is also great for everyday use, no need to save it for only special occasions which sometimes is what people do with hand knits for little ones.

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Since only two skeins are needed, it is an economical project too. It might be possible to get the smallest size out of one skein since I only used 19-20g from the second skein, but I figure it’s always good to have plenty and you can definitely get a hat and maybe booties from the leftover yarn. :-)

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So, with the baby sweater squared away it is time to get back to the ladies size Sorrel top. I am working a couple inches before I start the stitch pattern on the yoke so it doesn’t look much different yet. I am really hoping to finish this prototype and write up the pattern in sizes ranging from 23” to 50” in time for Stitches. We’ll see if that happens. I am done with most of my other preparations on my task list so it may be possible. I will keep you updated. :-)

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Finishing Touches

It is down to the finishing touches on the Organic Cotton Sport Classic Baby Cardigan. I finished the knitting this morning and took this shot before I wove in the ends and put on the buttons.

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I did those tasks while doing school with the children and the sweater is as we speak washing in a delicate cycle. I will show you the blocked results next time.

It is perfectly on gauge and measures exactly 21” at the chest. I used just under 120g of yarn which calculates to about 336 yards for this size. I padded the yardage requirements on my patterns by about 10% so it is using about the same yardage for the cotton as it did for the merino wool I designed it with. I wasn’t sure that would work out but I am happy that it did.

That’s it for today. Final pictures to come, probably tomorrow. Have a great weekend!

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Tuesday tasks

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Sleeves are so quick on baby things aren’t they? See, I am on the second one and they only take a few hours of knitting each. I should be on to the collar and button bands by my next post.

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I had a little bit of dyeing to do today. I found some skeins in inventory which weren’t quite up to specs so I decided to overdye them. I am much happier with them now so it was time well spent. 😊

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Saturday Post

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It has been a busy week but I did squeeze in some knitting time and am ready to bind off the body and start the sleeves on the Organic Cotton Sport Classic Baby Cardigan. I planned to write a post several times during the week and it just didn’t happen. I have been getting tons of new stock in the trailer and doing some general changes to how I pack and how I will set up the booth. I will be doing the shows solo for the first time and felt like some streamlining of the system might be in order.

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A part of the reason for the change is due to Meredith and Luke moving to Nome Alaska this week for at least two years. They both took some good job offers and are going to see how it goes. I miss them but am happy for them to have the opportunity and adventure. Why this affects my travel is that Meredith was the main one able to help out with some babysitting when it was needed at night. My oldest daughter still at home will be filling that role which means there is no one else to help me at shows. I know many vendors manage solo so I am not worried. There will be some inconveniences I am sure but it will work out.

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I took these pictures on Wednesday when they came for a last good bye. They spent nearly all day Thursday in traveling but I got a text around midnight my time that they arrived safe and were getting settled in.

I bet they are enjoying the temperatures in Nome today at least. It is 51 degrees there right now and in the upper 90’s here with humidity in the low 100’s. I wouldn’t particularly want to trade places in about 5-6 months from now though.

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A Bit of Progress

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Organic Cotton Sport Classic Baby Cardigan progress is moving along pretty well. I am expecting it to take some of a second skein to make the medium but the first one still has quite a bit left at this point. I have been re-watching the X-Files on Netflix in the evening while I knit and sometimes I manage to get in an hour or two that way. I am sort of looking forward to the new episodes that are in the works but I don’t have my hopes too high that they will match the originals.

I wish you could feel how soft this yarn is. I don’t usually care for knitting with cotton yarns but this one is really nice. I pre-washed all the skeins so that the spinning oils have been removed to make it a bit more fluffy and soft.

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Summer sweaters

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Chance of Showers is coming along. I finished the first sleeve last night and seamed it this morning while attending to the school work.

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I would have steam blocked it first but when I got out my iron to do the job I discovered that it is dead. I didn’t want to wait for a wet block of the sleeve to dry so proceeded anyway unblocked. I will just have to wait until it is all finished to do a proper blocking.

Rather than start the second sleeve I thought I had better get a start on the organic cotton sport Classic Baby Cardigan so I cast on for that today. I worked on it for the rest of the day when I could and got this far.

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It is working up to the pattern gauge on US 3 needles and I am making the medium size.

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A Fun Fourth

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Okay so maybe this part wasn’t fun but I am getting to that. We finished up most of the labeling of the yarn on Friday and did the last bit Saturday morning. There were a baker’s dozen skeins that were snarled to the point of needing re-skeined so that is what I starting working on for the rest of the afternoon on Saturday before heading out to my daughter’s in-laws for a Fourth of July cookout and fireworks.

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Many fireworks were fired off and the food and company were much enjoyed by all.

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My attempts to capture they fireworks themselves fell short so I didn’t bother to post those but I did get a few of the ones who were having such fun shooting them. :-)

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I regret that I totally forgot to take a single picture from the family fun we had on Sunday.  Jerry’s mom, brother, and many nieces and nephews came to spend Sunday afternoon with us.

There is not much knitting progress to report but here is what I have on the Chance of Showers sleeve.

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Birthday Celebrating

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Here’s a glimpse at the celebration today.

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Candle blowing and then to the gift opening.

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Yay! It’s just what he wanted! :-D

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The most important piece is of course the T Rex which he figured out how to put together first thing all by himself.

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The rest will require some helpers. :-)

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We managed in spite of the party to still get a good deal of the yarn labeled today. Here’s what we got so far. That’s 560 skeins in all out of 1300 total so not a bad day’s work.

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I can’t believe it’s July already!

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Well the labels all have color name stickers on them and we are ready to start the process of attaching them to the skeins tomorrow. Believe it or not you are looking at 1300 labels there, so it will take awhile for the next part. Part of what takes so long for this step is that it is also the quality control step too. We have to inspect each skein and make sure they are tidy. Some will need to be re-skeined if they are snarled.

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I got some knitting done last night on the Chance of Showers cardigan. I am finished with the yoke and started the first sleeve. They shouldn’t take long sine they are short so my plan is to get them both knit and get to the body section. After that I may take a break from this since I “should” be knitting my cotton baby sweater sample and finishing up that up-sized Sorrel before the August shows start. That always comes sooner than you think it will when you say to yourself “Oh I have 5 weeks, that’s plenty of time”. Well yeah, but there are tons of other tasks to be done in that time as well. Sigh.

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Here’s something else that will be happening tomorrow. Elijah is turning 5 and I got his cake made this afternoon and finally located the toy he wanted. It was hard to track down since it is apparently a popular one.

He is obsessed with dinosaurs so we let him see the new Jurassic World movie which he loved. There is a series of Lego sets based n the movie and he had his heart set on the T-Rex Tracker one. It is sort of pricey but I figured what the heck. The Lego store was out of it, Toys ’R Us may have had it but their website was terrible and I gave up. Amazon was even out except for other sellers who were charging a premium and it wouldn’t have arrived in time. A Google search this morning linked me to Target and low and behold the closest location to me was actually the only store in Nashville who had it in stock for store pick up. Done!

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I will be sure to get some pictures of him opening it to show you. I was so tempted to give it to him today because I can’t wait to see his reaction, LOL!

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