Thought I wasn’t knitting anymore, eh? After the surge of jewelry posts and crochet posts, I was itching to knit something. I missed my knitting needles so much! And so I jumped on the very crowded bandwagon and cast on for very popular Hemlock Ring Blanket for my friend Julie. She’s been sick for the past year or so, and lost a significant amount of weight, and this blanket is a little something to cheer her up (and warm her up) throughout her health ordeal.

Side shot:

Center:

The feather and fan pattern:

The edging:

Pattern: Hemlock Ring Doily Throw (here is Jared’s version, here is the Rainey Sisters’ version)
Needles: US #9, dpns and circs
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Lake, approx. 3 skeins
Notes:

Pattern

There are ERRORS in the original pattern. I was totally fooled in thinking so many people made this blanket and hardly anyone had any trouble, so I jumped right on in without thinking. The Rainey Sisters’ pdf version has the errors corrected and re-written slightly better. I’d recommend knitting from their pdf instructions instead.

Other than that, the pattern was EASY PEASY. In fact, it was so easy, it was a tad bit boring. It looks really pretty, but it just wasn’t challenging enough to keep my interest - good thing this is only a lap blanket and not any bigger! And the bind off row - leave PLENTY of yarn for this one row. I think that row alone used up 60-70% of an entire skein of yarn. It was never-ending, lemme tell ya.

In summary: simple, easy, a little boring, but very pretty! I’ll be gifting this to my friend this weekend, along with alot of prayers for her recovery. =)

I know it’s starting to get cold, as winter is approaching (at least with those of us in the Northern hemisphere). I’m not quite ready for it though. Our last memories of summer were just a little over a week ago!

Me knitting on the beach (Hanauma Bay, to be exact):

I was in Oahu for a week, and I was able to knit up a really quick something-something for myself. You can knit this up in one afternoon or one evening, tops. Here’s a front view and a side view (thanks to Les for being my photgrapher):

Pattern: Reversible Winter Capelet (or Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet), by Peony Knits
Yarn: Bernat Softee Chunky in brown
Needle: US #11
Notes:

Pattern
A super fast knit, based on your own measurements. Although it said to do it based on your upper arm measurement, I was worried because sometimes that’s not a good indication of your shoulders (there was no final shoulder measurements). So I based my measurements on the *most* upper part of my arm (where it meets my shoulder) to give myself plenty of room. And because I chose a yarn with some acrylic in it, it will definately relax, so it all worked out. A perfect little shrug! I still have yet to find a little clasp to make it a capelet - I will soon. I think it would look great as a capelet as well.

Yarn
The original pattern calls for Rowan Polar, but I subtituted, obviously. The only hang up I have about this pattern is that it uses a chunky yarn, and if you all know about sizing, chunky yarn isn’t quite slimming. I know I definitely don’t have slim shoulders, and I avoid looking like a football player (remember those shoulder pads in the 80’s? YUCK). Otherwise, everything was great. I think this looks OK on me, I’m just overly sensitive about my shoulders. =P

***

Another little something I’ve been working on, is this (photo curtesy of Michaels.com):

Here’s my progress on it.

It’s the most complicated cabled project I’ve done (definitely requires more of my attention than alot of lace projects). But I really love the textures of it, and who wouldn’t love a cabled/wintery handbag?

If you hadn’t forgotten, this is still a knitting blog! I’m still knitting! I saw a friend’s version of this pattern and absolutely loved it (hi JJ!). I did a yellow version and a blue version. I gifted the yellow to a friend - here are some snapshots of it before I sent it off:

At first, when I was knitting it up, it was hugely boring. This is the easiest, most boring lace you will ever do. Which means, it’s probably great for a knitter who wants to start off lace but is intimidated. This is the pattern for you. By the time you get to the edging, you will be SO GLAD to have a change in pattern and a change in yarn color! This is definately a TV knitting kind of pattern. Seriously.

But even though I complained about it being so incredibly boring, the edging was really fun to do. And not only that, there is absolutely no sewing involved! None! I love how it looks. So I was completely back in love with the pattern after the first blanket was done. So I did another, but in blue (I will also gift this to friends - hopefully they don’t see this post before then!).

Spread out on the floor:

Draped on my bannister:

The center (this is where you cast-on and knit from, on dpn’s):

The pretty edging:

Underneath the edging (remember, no sewing involved!!):

Pretty, ain’t it?? It was so much fun. Although, now that I’ve shown you all the pretty pictures, I do have to give you a low-down on how the pattern went. You can purchase it here, but for some, it may not be very intuitive to understand (I had to read it a good handful of times to understand certain parts).

If you DO get the pattern, here are a couple tips:

1. When knitting the blanket, you start off with working the chart, reading from bottom to top, right to left, on every single row. Once you are finished with the chart, instead of going back to the bottom row of the chart and literally doing the chart over and over again, the pattern actually means that you continue the chart in that manner until you get the correct number of stitches (113 sts in each of the four sections, which is 452 sts total for the whole row). This means you have to watch how the pattern repeats itself in a certain way while it progresses and just knit according to that.

2. In the Edging section, first sentence, it refers to “working increases”, but doesn’t explicitly say how to do those increases. The increases are done as kfb (knit in front and back of stitch)…. and don’t worry, it looks okay. Although, when you first do it, it’ll be on a purl row, and there’s a different way to do it on a purl row that I found on knittinghelp.com (scroll down to “bar increases”).

3. In the Edging section, 7th sentence, it says “Change to smaller needles”. It freaked me out because I thought this whole time I was on the wrong size needles. I think it actually means, change to SHORTER needles (length-wise, not needle size). But this is up to you, how much room you have/need, etc.

4. In the Edging section, in the bind off section, it says to “Bind off ridiculously loose”. Yes, bind off really loose, but to help with that, you use a size 8 needle to bind off (size 8 dpns were listed as a needed material item in the start of the pattern, but isn’t mentioned anywhere else). So I used a size 8 needle and just did the bind off slightly loose, and that was good enough.