Creating the Calm Cowl

Creating the Calm Cowl and really warm hats!

I took a little fall on Sunday and messed up my leg. I just kept ignoring the pain, until I couldn’t walk. It was such a bummer for me, I have been trying to hit at least 8ooo steps a day on my fitbit now I am only getting 2000 and that’s on crutches.  My husband is now way ahead of me in milage so once my leg is healed I am really going to have catch up.

All this down time has lead to some serious knitting and crocheting.   

The hat is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Knitting Without Tears" book, it's a really easy hat to knit, you cast on 91 stitches and knit until it's the desired length, then you mark off 7 decreases and decrease every other row. It knits up quickly and my husband really appreciates having a nice warm hat.  I knit it with Knitpicks wool of the Andes in a blue and am working a another in Patons Classic Wool Worsted in Grey Mix. Elizabeth's book recommends knitting two and then putting one inside the other so that's what I am working on now. The book is really no nonsense and straight forward.  I have a thing for hats, my son, Michael loves to wear hats so I am always looking for a new hat to make.  

  

A good view of the crown of the hat 

The brim rolls up on the hat

It's a quick and easy knit and using wool makes it nice and warm. I plan on making more of these in the near future.

This is my year to have all the children together for Christmas.  We are looking to rent a vacation home in Michigan for the festivities. It will be nice to have all the children together, they haven't been all together since Tricia's wedding.  Since that time we have added 3 new members to the family, 2 grand daughters and a a daughter-in-law  or as my mother-in-law likes to say a daughter-in-love. Tim will be home from his mission so we will really all be together!  I can't wait. I have managed to acquire a bit of yarn here in China so I will be making quite a bit of the presents this year.  I am working on photo books and knitted items. Should make for a fun Christmas, I love giving presents to my children that I have made, I spend the entire time making the gift thinking about the person I am making it for.

The first gift I have completed is the Calm Cowl    by indigoDot....., it is a free crochet pattern that I found on Ravelry, my favorite knitting site. It turned out beautifully.  Although it is not as full as it is in the pictures with the pattern.  I used a wonderful light green yarn that I acquired here in China, it has a nice drape and the single crochet, chain one stitch really shows off to an advantage with this yarn.  I also plan to make a hat to go with the cowl for the Christmas present.  I just downloaded the Hurricane Hat Pattern, also found on Ravelry.  I will be using #7 needles on a 16" circular to knit the hat.  I love these needles for knitting hats.  I first started using them for hats I knit for this past christmas. The Seedling Hat by Jen Lucas (cost of $5.50) looked difficult but was so easy to make. I ended up knitted 2 of them will probably make more.

Michael wearing his new hat!

as the hat is being blocked.

This one is made from left over yarn from a christmas stocking.

Audrey's Fan Hat and Booties

It's an exciting time for our family. We found out this week that our second grandchild will also be a little girl!  So, we are expecting Audrey in August and Cecila in November. It's so wonderful that the cousins will be close in age.  I hope that they will be the best of friends.

I have been working on several projects in anticipation of the newest members of our family.  The first is the Baby Jane's a free pattern on Ravelry by Valerie Johnson.  It's an excellent pattern and took me 1 hour to make a bootie and probably a half hour to add the buttons and the flowers.  I love the way they turned out.

I purchased the buttons at the Textile Mart here in Hangzhou.  I purchased 14 pearlized buttons buttons for about $1.03 USD.    I was able to use the wonderful peach coloured ones for one pair of booties and the centre of the flower on the hat.  While at the textile market I was also able to purchase 3 meters of suit fabric so that I can have a suit made for my son Tim.  It cost $20 USD and will make a great suit for his upcoming mission. I also purchased a canopy to go over a crib.  It's so cute with embroidered flowers and cost me $10 USD.  Lots of fun finds at the Textile Mart this trip.  It was worth enduring the horrible heat and humidity to find them.  I also felt great physically, living here in China has really helped my endurance.

The fan lace baby hat is a newborn size and also was an easy knit.  I love the pattern of the lace on the hat.  The flower also came from Ravelry. The blog for the flowers has a tutorial as well as the pattern.

I love the free patterns on Ravelry. I purchase a lot of patterns so I always appreciate the ones that are free. Especially ones that are as well written as these three were. I would like to thank the designers for making them available to me! I wanted to add flowers to the booties and was searching for some small flowers to add.  The ones that I found were in a book called 60 Quick Baby Knits, I was so excited to see that I already had the book on my shelf.  I am always disappointed when I can't download the pattern.  It's one of the difficulties of living over seas.  If I find a book I want I have to wait until I return to the USA to purchase it.  So much easier if I can just add it to my computer and begin reading right away.

The yarn for this project came from Knitpicks.com, CotLin, in Island Coral and also Swam.  For the french knots at the centres of the flowers I used some left over sock yarn, in a variegated green.  One skein of the Island Coral made the 2 sets of booties, one in size 0-3 months and one in size 3-6 months, as well as the newborn size Fan hat.  I had about 9 yards of yarn left when I was finished and I think it will make a great flower on some future hat.

I made this apron today from a free bonus pattern on the Fons And Porter website, here is the link to the page. http://tinyurl.com/yc99lug You'll have to register with the site before you can open the page. The apron was quick and easy to assemble. There are also directions for a table runner which I am working on currently, I hope to make matching placemats and potholders for Christmas this year.