Knitting Progress

Baby flame hat is done!

I just hope it fits the baby's head, at least someday. I feel like I was blindly making the hat and just assuming that it fits...not the best feeling.

Here are my do-over socks in Green Envy Red Heart sock yarn ("with aloe"!) -

I was working on these a bit as I rode the bus to and from Mount St. Helens on a field trip with the 8th grade, so I took this picture on the bus. I can't say enough how much I love the colors in this "Green Envy" color combo! I think I will be putting this project on the back burner until later. I picked up several skeins of that same yarn to make a funky-colored baby sweater, and I need to get on that project now.

On a car trip to Spokane and back last week I started a new recycled plastic bag bag. I have finished 10+ inches, and that took more or less 10 hours. I had been TRYING to keep track of how many hours it takes to make one of these, but it's hard to keep track when I work on them in lots of short chunks of time. The long stretch of knitting time on that car ride was the key to getting a clue of the time required. I would guess at this point that it takes about 20 hours to make one of these bags. Or more if you count the time spent cutting up bags.

Lucky for me this spring my sister-in-law brought me a bag-load of colorful bags, and she and our kids cut them up for me! So instead of automatically having stripes of color on the bag as I work with one cut-up plastic bag and then move on to another, I am pulling plastic strips somewhat randomly from the mixed-up collection of strips this time. It's a nice change.

Sock knitting frustration, and a happy "invention"

First of all, I have to say that it's a good thing that I LOVE the color combo of this "Green Envy" yarn, because I have been spending a lot more time knitting with it than I should have.   I finally finished the socks while we were out at the ocean for mid-winter break, and sadly they are just too big.  I don't know if you can tell at all from the comparison above, or the side shot below.  I look like I have a paddle foot.  This is after starting over once already because I was originally making the socks with my usual number of stitches and they were going to be too small to be able to stretch on over/past my heel.  I tried them on as I went along, but it's hard to tell the fit with the needles still there.  Anyway, I've ripped sock number one back to its ribbing.  I want them to fit right!

Meanwhile, when I "finished" the socks I had the remainders of two skeins of the Green Envy yarn that I just had to do something with because I love it so much.  I decided to start with wrist warmers and see if I had enough yarn to continue up to some snug little fingerless gloves.  Ta da!  I did it, and here they are - 

Oops!  I'm wearing my watch under the glove in the first picture above, so it's a little fat in the wrist.  I'm pretty excited about this little pattern creation, especially since these gloves in this yarn should be fairly durable and most definitely machine washable.  

If I'm lucky I'll get the pattern on here to share soon.

Green Envy Socks

I walked by this yarn, totally did a double-take and couldn't go any further without it. It made me think twice about basically ignoring Red Heart yarns. (Oops! Sound like a yarn snob? Don't mean to) I love the color of the green that is the dominant color, and all of the added bits are so funky. This is the first time I've used self-striping yarn that is random. So the socks will match in general, but not with the same stripes/pattern. Cool! Socks are so fun to knit, but they sure take a long time for such a small project!