Category Archives: Finished Objects

Blah and Hah

I am really glad I decided to blog today. You see, when I cast off the last stitch of my DayBreak shawl and half tried it on 2 nights ago, I suffered a strong feeling of BLAH! and I hate when this happens!

Today, I decided it may be a good subject of a blog post, this feeling of blah when you finish knitting a project – does it sound familiar to anyone?

So I took my shawl out of its hiding (I had to hide it to protect it from a too hasty ripping attack you see,,,) to take some photos to try and explain the problem and suddenly I saw quite a lovely shawl spread on the table and the grass in front of me! I had quite a strong HAH feeling – what a lovely surprise.

Oh the sun brings out the purples in me, good!

The sun brings out the purples in me, good!

I look quite green don't I?

I think the problem was the garter border that wanted to fold and not stand straight and the tension of the upper border that makes the shawl end in a weird way. Today both issues look OK to me and I think blocking the shawl will make it look even better, what do you think, to block or not to block?

The Malabrigo Yarn Sock colorways I used gave me many surprises too.

As you can see in the two photos above (excuse the quality, my photographer is busy right now,,,) they look quite different in different lights.

Looking at the yarn in the skeins:

Aren't the center skein look kind of purplish to you?

I was sure this shawl will be on the purply side but in most lights it looks more blue/green/yellow combo to me.

The biggest surprise was that when I look at the two colors in the cakes they look quite different to me:

These colors are very different no?

But while knitting the stripes in some sections I had a problem differentiating between the two colors so much that I had to check the source of the thread I was knitting with to make sure I am using the right color! The light outside brings out the stripes but you can see the mingling of the colors in the right side of the second photo above.

This issue made the knitting of this almost all knit shawl quite a pleasure, I kept waiting to see how those stripes will come up next but I must admit I would have enjoyed it even without the colors play, you see, I just love knitting simple stockinette, I am weird that way!

Oh and I have enough leftovers of these two colors to knit some ropes too ,,,, did I admit of being weird or didn’t I? :)

Knitting for Babies

At long last I can share with you the knitting I have done in Israel.  While I was there I knitted some presents for a baby that was not born yet which is something I thought I will never do. You see, I am a worrier and thus I usually follow the Jewish tradition of not preparing anything for a baby until after he/she is born and we know the little one is doing well and is healthy!

I still remember my shock when during my first visit to London, UK, after I finished my army service (yes, I was once a soldier but this is a story for another post I think), I saw in a very fancy department store, a very pregnant and very elegant young lady with her similarly elegant mother (I assumed), shopping for her baby with the assistance of a few of the store workers. My first thought was: what will she do with all these things if god forbid something will go wrong with the baby,,,

Since then I witnessed this kind of preparations and heard about baby showers but my reaction remained the same.

So imagine how much I shocked myself when before I went to Israel in March, I went and bought yarn to knit some presents for my sister’s first grandchild that was still a month or more away from being expected out here and even more, when I decided to follow my friend’s advice and knitted things for a baby just because I had an urge to suddenly knit for one.

Those knitted creations were officially designated to Noam, my new grandnephew (do you call them grandnephew or what?) only after he was born, a big healthy boy.

Baby's knits are so cute

You can see all the details of this set on my Ravelry Project page (did you notice you can now make your project pages accessible to the public?)

As it turned out, Noam was born quite big and the set is too small for him, I think it is a sign that I should have kept the tradition and waited patiently,,,

I also knitted a larger cardigan for him:

Will this one be too small too?

Will this one be too small too?

As this one is knitted in a merino yarn, I knitted it for a 6-9 months baby which will be Noam’s age when the winter is expected in Israel but I have my doubts about fit of this one too.

Oh well, Noam is going to have very elegant teddy bears I think.

Talking about knitting for babies, I knitted something for our “baby” too:

Look at her T-shirt

We celebrated her 22 birthday yesterday.

Did I do a good job?

I call this Pink Lemonade as the design is called Citron and I used some 70% Alpaca 40% Silk lace weight yarn I bought in some small place in one of our little day trips in Ontario, I am sorry I don’t have any other details about this yarn.

Please excuse the quality of the photos in this post, I will try doing better next time.