April Blanket Installment Done

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We continue to have our normal spring weather -- beautiful warm days alternating with snow storms. Our latest storm has just started and is supposed to result in another foot or so of snow overnight. We had about 8" of snow a couple of days ago, but most of that melted on the nice days we had in between. This has been a strange winter/spring in that, while we have been getting snow, it's been coming in such a way that I've only had to shovel the driveway once. Very unusual! My back is very grateful, especially since it's been pretty sore from taking care of Lance (my 16-year-old German Shepard mix).

I'm continuing to work on crochet projects. I got my April installment for my crochet blanket (Juni Throw designed by Katy Petersen) and was able to finish that part up in several hours:

Juni Throw

Juni Throw close-up

This time I was able to get an extra repeat out of the skein of yarn and ended with just about a yard of yarn left over. It's nice to get that extra yarn into the project and not have a lot left over! This throw is going to end up pretty heavy with the yarn used, so it should provide a lot of warmth next winter.

When the blanket was finished, I wanted to do some more crochet. I had a small amount of the old mauve acrylic yarn that I've been using up lately, so I looked at headband patterns since I knew I had enough yarn for one of those. I probably would have had enough yarn for a hat, but I wasn't sure and didn't have any comparable yarn to use to complete the project if I ran out of this yarn, so I decided to play it safe. I looked for a pattern that crocheted the headband in the round because I wanted more practice with doing crochet in the round. I started one pattern that had you crochet "in the round," but rather than crocheting in a single direction, you would crochet a row and connect it to the same row on the back, then you would reverse direction for the next row and do the same thing. (This was done to get the desired stitch pattern on the right side of the headband.) I thought this would be a really good pattern to try because it was an easy pattern, but the construction was weird so I could learn a lot from it. I didn't have any problem following the stitch pattern, but I didn't like how it looked at the back where I was doing the joining so I ripped it out and picked a different pattern. I will definitely try this pattern again sometime because I think I'm close to doing it right and I want to figure it out. So, instead, I found another in-the-round crochet headband pattern. This one was more classically constructed and was easier for me to understand. It's the Lee Headband designed by Katie Zastrow:

Lee Headband

I like how this turned out and I'm pleased that I was able to do the more complicated stitches. And it looked much better on the back where the rounds come together:

Lee Headband join close-up

This used up most of the old acrylic yarn so the remainder will just be used in my next scrap blanket.

I also spent a day organizing my little knitting/crochet kits. I have a lot of kits that have accumulated over the years from clubs that I've been a member of (the Jimmy Beans Wool accessory club, Laura Nelkin's "Lola's Choice" and "N Club" clubs, etc). I also have a bunch of kits that I bought from Craftsy/Bluprint over they years when they've had deep sales. These have all gone into a closet waiting for when I would have time to make them. Well, the time is at hand! I reorganized the kits in the closet and cleaned up my Ravelry account so that I can easily see what I have and easily find a kit that I want to work on. (Ravelry is a knitting/crochet Web site that allows you to keep track of the projects you are working on, the projects you will work on in the future, the yarn you have in your stash, the patterns you own and much, much more! And it's all free.....) While organizing I came across a couple of small kits that I bought on sale for just a couple of dollars each that I decided to whip out. The first is the Candy Cane Cowl. This cowl is knit flat, then you seam up the back to make the shape. I've finished the knitting and am currently blocking the cowl:

Candy Cane Cowl

Once it dries, I'll seam up the back. I think I'll also add a line of single crochet around the top and bottom of the cowl to hide where the different colors of yarn are carried between the stripes. I also started the Peaky Beanie:

Peaky Beanie

This picture shows the little bit of progress that I've made so far, but also shows all that was included in the kit. (The knitting needles weren't included, but were necessary for the picture ;-)

That's pretty much it for now. I'm really enjoying having time to work on all of this! Retirement is great!!

Nancy