Some progress

Actually, I have knit quite a lot since my last post, but I haven't been very good at taking pictures and posting on my Blog. As for my goals... One of my goals for River City Knitters was to knit a Fair Isle sweater this year. When I wrote that down, I was thinking of a sweater for me. A couple of months later, I was thinking about knitting one for one of my 11 year old granddaughters. By June, I was thinking about knitting a Fair Isle sweater for my 4 year old great granddaughter...now, well, we have to dress a teddy bear for our Christmas charity project, so I'm thinking my bear will be wearing a Fair Isle sweater! Can anyone say "downsizing?" I have knit tons of scarves with some railroad yarn and I am happy to say that I think that I have knit the last of it. That is a major stash buster. I'll post the pictures on Ravelry soon and post them here also. I've knit about 12 Fair Isle hats for charity and one for a Christmas present. Which reminds me, I have to have at least one Christmas project per month in my Christmas box...which I have done. I need 12 charity hats turned in and I have done that also along with 3 baby blankets. I needed 20 items made completely from stash yarn and I have done that also. So...maybe Alina will get her Fair Isle sweater after all...but then, I have a spider sweater to knit for Eli, and a shrug for my daughter and Fair Isle hats for Travis and Jessica...it looks like I will be knitting to the last minute after all.

Charity Knitting

This is a little blanket I made for "From the Heart," a charity shop in Richmond, VA while I was up there for the summer. It's a wonderful place where you can go to get donated yarn, needles and patterns for your charity projects. They also have comfey chairs and sofas so you can sit and knit. The first time I was there, there were about 15 second grade students there, boys and girls, all knitting. They had already contributed squares for an afghan for the homeless and someone had put the squares together for them and brought the finished afghan for them to see. They were working on another one while we were there. The school bus picked them up after about an hour to take them back to school. What an inspiration!

They had a need for preemie blankets and I found the mock cable in and was trying to make a blanket 24" x 24," but the pattern is actually a ribbing and the cable draws the fabric in. I can't remember what I cast on, but I calculated it from the gauge.


I learned a few things from this project; cast on about 10% less stitches than you want so it won't ripple at the ends and use some short rows in the side borders about every 3 inches to keep it from drawing in. The cable is really easy to do and you don't need a cabling needle for it.