On the needles

Even with this burst of hot summer heat, I've been clicking away.  Some days I get a chunk done and others I don't get to my needles until late at night.  But I'm motivated.  Fall has to be here soon.  Knowing my luck, it will be cold really fast and all of my woolly plans will be started too late. 

Right now I've got four projects in the works.  I attended a Knitter's Retreat with my local yarn store, Klose Knits, where we learned some Fair Isle knitting, miniature sock knitting, and adding beads.  Although I knew how to do all of these (and I didn't realize that it was a beginners kind of retreat) it was fun and I was happy to lead a hand when needed.  One of the projects was to knit felted wine bag.  I'm just about done with the green and will add some red and white trim to the top.  Easy and simple knit and it was good practice with multiple color knitting. 

I'm plugging away on a lap blanket by Brooklyn Tweed - The Tweed Baby Blanket.  I wanted something garter and something with the hap lace for those cold winter nights.  I unfortunately ran out of the main body yarn and now have to search for more.  I opted out of using the SHELTER yarn for the entire thing and substituted Cascade Eco for the center panel.  I'm looking forward to tackling the outside lace portion of the blanket and am so annoyed at myself for not getting enough to begin with.  I hate waiting to work on things.  On a side note - if you are a Brooklyn Tweed fan...their new fall collection, Wool People, is so beautiful.  You must go and see!

Tonight I should finish the sock yarn sweater for Logan.  It is so much smaller than I wanted it to be.  I knit tight and even though I went up a size on the pattern, it still is not as large as I wanted it to be - even with a gauge swatch.  Maybe he won't grow much this winter!  Luckily I can always add length later if I need to.  I opted for a layered look on the sleeves and ribbed wrists since I'm not a fan of loose sweaters on little people.

Soon, I'll start on the first pair of longies of the season. I've collected (aka hoarded) a lot of really fun wools for Logan - some was even hoarded for Mason before he potty trained - and have a lot of plans for that this fall.  Since Logan is my last little monster, I plan on decking him out in homemade goodness whether he wants me to or not.