What do YOU think??

Greetings and Dear Laura:

Well, I'm almost finished with my current toddler sweater! I just need to knit the sleeves and do the finishing, which you know in my fevered imagination will only take a couple of hours..... ;)

And so obviously it's time to decide on my next project. My great niece Katelynne will be turning 4 at the end of the month, and so I have a couple of choices. I had planned to make 'Kitty,' the sweater that I made for Lydia's 4th birthday last May. However, I've made FOUR toddler sweaters in the last 4-5 months, and they have all been raglan sweaters with lace skirts, so it's possible that I should shake things up a bit. I do also have the yarn and pattern to make another 'Tulip' sweater, so that is an option.



It all started with the One-Skein Sweater for a baby shower:

I modified that (my own design) for Josie:

Then I did 'Kitty' for Lydia:

And finally, I'm doing 'Helena' for Maya:




So, please help me decide!! (Oh, and I have to get started in the next few days....just sayin')

Online Surveys & Market Research

Keep knitting!


Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)

Let's try again!

Greetings and Dear Laura:

Hello - I hope you're still enjoying your summer. I suppose you're keeping busy - how are the slippers coming? I just realized last night that I have never felted mom's slippers - I gave them to her big - so I'd better get busy on that!

My current 'project of focus' is a top down raglan sweater with a lace skirt for a toddler. Yes, it should sound familiar, I've done at least 3 variations of that in the last few months. This differs in that it called for DK weight instead of fingering. I'm modifying it by using an Aran weight (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino.) Since I'm using a larger yarn, I'm making a size 18 mos in order to get the desired 4T size.

A dear friend of mine and her husband are currently in Haiti, finalizing the adoption of a little girl. I think she was 6-9 months old when they began the process, and now she is somewhere close to 3 years old. I remember that she was pretty big for her age when they first met her, so I'm hoping the sweater is a little roomy, but at the least not too small!

I remember when our friend Ross came back from spending a few years in Panama, he could no longer tolerate any air-conditioning or cool weather for quite some time. Makes me think that a little girl who has spent her whole life in that climate is likely to find Northern Minnesota rather chilly on summer evenings and once fall/winter arrive, so I'm hoping this merino/cashmere blend will be snuggly!




Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)


-- Post From My iPhone

Technical difficulties

Greetings Dear Readers:

Yes, we are experiencing some formatting weirdness. We'll endeavor to figure it out and get back to normal as our schedules allow. (I'm really hoping that posting from my phone wasn't the culprit -I really like that convenience!!)

**Edited to add: Well, it seems my last post was somehow the culprit, so I've taken it down. Guess we'll have to do without the picture of the Fuzzy Feet! I'll try to show them to you when they're felted!

Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)

Much ado about nothing...

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

Before I forget, YAY that your mom now likes hand knit socks. It's always a gamble when I make socks for somebody (and I've had one recipient who point blank told me that she is not going to wear them, then kept them anyway), so I'm so glad that your mom is recognizing their virtues!

Nice to have this past week off. The boys and I are in that "zone" in which we are trying to figure out how to coexist together again 24x7 without driving each other mad. I estimate that two weeks into the summer, things will resume their even keel; until then, I imagine a continuation of conversations similar to this one (an actual discourse at out house yesterday):

6-yr old: Mom, my cereal smells weird.
8-yr old: Maybe you slept in too long...
me: ????

In the early evening last night, my 8-yr old asked me if I was having a bad hair day... I don't know what might have caused that...perhaps the baseball cap I was wearing earlier in the day, or the tennis I played in the heat and humidity, or the laundry which was enough to work up a sweat, or maybe getting rained on as I was waiting for him to get out of the pool when they called it quits due to thunder during swim team practice in the morning....

I've had some time to knit as I've been waiting for my kids during dentist appointments, sports stuff, etc., though given that it is only short bursts, it has been mindless knitting. And, in my efforts to pull together and develop a plan for completing all my works-in-progress, I've only succeeded in starting a new one, because all of my mundane WIPs are at points requiring thinking, such as turning a heel, picking up buttonhole bands, etc, so I reached for the dishrag cotton. Here is the Circle Dishrag, which I saw on somebody's blog (though my brain has been on the fritz this past week, so I can't remember whose blog it was) and decided to try it. It is probably one of the most "three dimensional" dishrags I've made, and is an easy pattern to memorize. It was going to be very large, so I cast on 34 stitches instead of 46.

Later today, I hope to felt my ballet slippers, so I'll try to post some before/after snapshots yet this weekend...

I forgot to mention to you that during my clinical, I had the opportunity to observe an entire surgery! I watched a "hip resurfacing," an operation taking about 2.5 hours, and something that I was working with patients on beginning "post op day 1" to start their road to recovery. I credit my cadaver lab of a year ago as giving me the "stomach" to not get at all woozy during the procedure. Really, it was very interesting, and gave me some insight into what goes into some orthopedic surgeries.

Coincidentally, I've been noticing some minor hip soreness the past few months which I really can't attribute to sore muscles, and I'm beginning to be concerned about the possibility that I may be developing some osteoarthritis. To give my hip joints a break, I decided to take the summer off from running, and so will be biking to school every day (as weather permits) as well as using the elliptical trainers at the gym instead of the treadmills. (My anatomy professor from last summer always used to tell us, "Exercise is bad for you." As you already know, I don't believe that, though I think we should listen to our bodies, too...)

Here is a sandhill crane in our back yard, eating some of the bird feed we put out there:
I didn't want to scare it away, so the picture is through a window/screen... The neighbors have named it "Rupert," and it typically traipses through our yard every evening between 7:00 and 7:30pm.

Okay, so I really have to crank on some filing this weekend, so that's it for now. Have a great weekend!

Laura (YarnThrower)

My Mom and socks....

Greetings and Dear Laura:

My mom has been on my 'No socks for you' list since I was knitting my first pair of handknit socks, and she laughed at me and wondered who on earth would want to wear wool socks. Even when other people praised the socks that I made for them and she started to get curious, I told her no. (I lent my dad a pair after his surgery when his feet got cold but he never wore them.)

Mom had been dropping hints that she needed new slippers. (One of her friends made them for her out of Red Heart, but she has given up knitting, so the worn ones can't be replaced.) Dad just asked if I could knit some for her, but mom explained that she'd blown that years ago. (They don't know that I'm making Fuzzy Feet for her up-coming birthday!) When he mentioned again about her cold feet, I agreed to lend her a pair of my wool socks.

I kept forgetting to ask how she liked them, but last night she sighed and said "I may as well get this over with. Do you want these back or can I keep them?" I just laughed and told her she can keep them. I asked if she likes them, and she admitted that she does. She said that she always thought they would be itchy but they didn't itch a bit! I told her, "Mom, you should know I only knit with good yarn!"


So I'm working on felted slippers for her, using this Lambs Pride Worsted Paint in a pretty Cranberry Swirl colorway. I think she'll like them.

Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)

Back to work!

Greetings and Dear Laura:

Well, not nearly so much fun as last weekend. We are having our company picnic today, so that is some fun at least. If I get a good picture of Lauren winning the three-legged race with knitting needles in her hand, I'll post that tomorrow!

For today, here is another FO from the archives. This is 'Mable,' also from Heirloom Stitches. They really have wonderful patterns! I used Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece and it was a great yarn for the pattern. The lace kicked my butt a LOT but I finally got it.

And here is a picture of the birthday girl on a cool spring day, wearing her new sweater!


Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)


-- Post From My iPhone

The highlight for today....

Greetings and Dear Laura:

The theme for today will be driving, as I am heading for home soon. Before I hit the road, I thought I'd give you a peek at one of my finished objects from the last month or so.

Introducing 'Kitty' from Heirloom Stitches. I used 'Feet First' yarn from Cottage Fiber, which is a wonderful yarn. It's put up with 490 yards, which is the most generous I've found, and one skein completed this sweater. I made a size 4, for my great-niece Lydia. I didn't worry about stopping at the proscribed length, I just kept going until I judged that I didn't have enough yarn for another pattern repeat. The part of the project that gave me fits was that the pattern asked me to do purl/yarn-over combinations, which I'm not a fan of. I'm planning to do this sweater again, but I'm going to change it so that the yarn-overs come after knits, and I purl two together instead of knit two together. The sweater looks really good on Lydia tho!

And now I'm going to take Renata on a quick trip to choose yarn for a bag that she wants to knit and then I'm heading for LaOtto. I'll leave you with one last picture of my two new knitters and I!

Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)