Knitting Factor has moved!

And is now MARYTOWN. Come on over and say hello!

Comfort Shawl

I made this simple garter stitch shawl for brother-in-law's mother, who is undergoing chemo for pancreatic cancer. It's so comfy and cozy, and she can carry it in her bag to use any time she gets a chill. Hope she likes it!

I used three different yarns, which I will document more fully later, but one was a deep blue mohair, one a variegated wool, and the other a coppery eyelashy yarn.





These pics really don't do it justice. It's much more blue than it appears here.

I have been knitting

My first sweater!
Pattern: 'Holly' from Naturally Noro by Jane Ellison
Yarn: Noro Transitions shade 4
Needles: Addi Turbos US 10.5

Front and back panels look alike:

Sleeves:
It doesn't look exactly like the picture in the pattern book but I'm very happy with it so far. Just the sleeves and turtle neck to go...I'm getting excited!

How NOT to mail a camera

I left my digital camera in San Francisco on my last trip up there so I called my brother-in-law to ask him to send it to me. Unfortunately, I didn't tell him how to package it or that perhaps he should take it to someplace like Mail Boxes, Etc. and have them package it for shipment. Nope, didn't do either of those things.

He sent it back to me in a padded manilla envelope, so you can imagine my surprise when it actually turned on when I checked it. Unfortunately, I didn't check to see if it could take a picture because when I tried to take one today, this is what I saw through the viewfinder:

Nice!

Wild About Harry

Elizabeth Zimmerman

Surfed upon this gorgeous Baby Surprise Jacket and have been looking online for an hour for the Art Yarns Supermerino he used with no luck. Please excuse the horrible sentence structure by I'm exhausted for no good reason.

This fringe has been a headache

So I'm making this poncho for my 4-year-old niece. I saw a photo of a great one in The Yarn Girls' Guide to Knits for Older Kids - the little girl was twirling, making the fringe fly. That was it. I had to make that poncho. Had to make it. For some reason the pattern seemed big or was made out of mohair and was cost prohibitive so I made a revised version. Unfortunately, my poncho also looks like it is for an older kid...like...six years older...ugh! Math! I should have consulted my 11-year-old nephew regarding the math!

The good news is that the Knitting Answer Book is very useful for measuring out 10" pieces of fringe.

At first I just had the 'Stained Glass' fringe on but the black thread against the pink seemed too dark once I had it all on.

Fringe 1:

Fringe 2 was so hideous I won't scare you with the details but suffice it to say
it involved variegated pink mohair. When I folded it up and put it in my knitting bag, it looked like Barbie's dead pink dog. I'll say no more.

Fringe 3:

OK I couldn't take a good pic of the Fringe #3 but I'll take one of the kid wearing it.