Timmy's Hat, a Sock for Me, & Stranded Knitting Woes

I've been working on a hat for Timmy.  He loves yellow and green.  I made him a yellow and green Star of Bethlehem quilt about 3 years ago.  Then he got a navy blue jersey Y blanket so he puts that one on top of my quilt.  Kind of frustrating.  Anyway.

Here's the hat.  It uses the stranded knitting technique I used on Sydni's and Brynn's hats, and I'm just not any good at it.  The hats all turned out really puckered, and that's not the way it's supposed to be.

So I gave up for a while and went to stranded knitting school.  The technique I want to learn is knitting with one color of yarn in my right hand and another color in my left hand.

First, I worked on a sock for myself.  My justification for starting a new project is to practice knitting with my right hand (I usually knit with my left hand).  With this sock, the yarn is dyed in a pattern so I don't have to use more than one ball of yarn for the sock.  And there isn't any kind of pattern to it.  It's just knit, knit, knit.  I keep forgetting I'm using my right hand, and knitting with my left, but the yarn looks right.  It doesn't pucker or even look different when I use my right hand and when I use my left hand.

I need to keep working on the sock, but I got a bit bored and started the second step in stranded knitting school:  knitting with both hands alternately.  The colors just don't mesh right.

I think I'll give up on stranded knitting for the moment and go back to knitting the sock for a while.  I've never knit a sock before so I'm learning all sorts of fun things about sock knitting.

Sarah's Quilt (an old unfinished project)

This is the year. I am going to finish my unfinished projects.  I've got three on the back burner that I've brought out.  Here's the first.

Sarah's Quilt
In the fall of 2006 I wasn't working and I needed something to do, so I started a quilt for my mother-in-law, Sarah.  She likes burgundy a LOT.  I found a strip-pieced double wedding ring quilt pattern and template online and used that.  It took me two years to piece and sew the king-size quilt.

When it came time to put the quilt together - to add batting and backing - I decided to use my sewing machine to do the quilting.  But because I'd never quilted with a sewing machine before, and the lines weren't straight lines, and the quilt was so big, I had the hardest time.  I sewed one of the rings and then got the seam ripper and ripped it out, because it was so awful.  My second attempt was to tie it with good-quality yarn that wouldn't fray.  But  the quilt top bunched and it just looked awful.  I got about half the quilt tied, and then I became so frustrated that I put it away.  It's been sitting in my storage room until last week.

Over the last month, I've been sewing a blanket for Ethan.  I almost didn't start the project at all because I promised myself I would finish the purple quilt before I moved on to another quilt. But I broke my promise and made the blanket.  But I still need to finish the purple quilt!

There is another way to finish the quilt.  It has an official name but it's basically professional quilting.  I can take it in to a fabric store near me. They have people who own the big quilting machines and will quilt a really nice design on it.  Then they give it back to me, and I will bind it on my own.  I've hesitated to go this route because it's really expensive, but I think it will be worth it.


I went into the quilt shop closest to my house and found the pattern below.

Last week I separated the layers (batting, backing, and front) and ironed the backing and front with starch, because I read online that it is easier to quilt that way.  The quilt is NOT flat.  Every little four-square join between the circles puckers.  I honestly don't know how to fix that.  Hopefully the person who does the quilting will be able to help me with it.


It's folded up nice and neat, and ready for me to find someone to do the quilting.

Timmy's Stocking (an old unfinished project)

I made Ethan a stocking, and finished it about two years ago.  It's a pretty intricate cross-stitch from the Dimensions Gold collection.

I started on a stocking for Timmy but put it away a while back and it's still not done.  It's a Dimensions Gold pattern too.  Timmy asks me about it every Christmas, and I really need to get it done this year.

Double-Knitting Scarf (an old unfinished project)

This new year's I have resolved to finish my unfinished projects.  Possibly because Craig keeps mentioning them when I want to start a new project.

This project is a double-knitted scarf pattern I found in The Knitter magazine a couple of years ago (my favorite knitting magazine, published in England). I got the beautiful yarn from Heindselman's, my favorite local yarn shop.

It's a men's scarf, and Craig won't wear scarves so I don't know who to give it to when it's done. I think that's part of why I put it away.  The other part is these little strips with the  runes are difficult because they're not a true negative image (if we did that the runes would appear inverted like you'd see through a mirror).  But I've noticed that I have nephews and brothers-in-law who wear scarves, so maybe one of them would like it.

I'm going to pull it out and I'm going to finish it!