My block

Well, once I realized we weren't going to be able to finish this for this year, I set the bag aside, but I did finish one block:



I really like the stripes, although I'm a bit miffed that I didn't think to make the stripes work out to be even all the way through! Oh well... I'll make more of the 2 color blocks for sure. I'm thinking I'll make sure I make them in coordinating sets of 2, to balance them out, though.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas (assuming you celebrate, that is!) and has a fun New Year!

Final Call!

Okay, everyone -- this is the final call -- tell me how many squares you have & we'll see if we have enough to get that blanket out this year. Otherwise we'll save it for next year.

Thx!

Update

Okay ladies; it looks like we are about 1/3 of the way there with the cotton-ease blanket, so I propose that we try to finish it up in the next 10 days or so. Then a few days to mail & a few more to sew them up & voila, we have a beautiful hand knit blanket for a needy family this year!

I think a 5x7 blanket would be great -- that's 35 squares & we have (I think) 12 right now. I'm going to buy some cotton-ease myself to start a square this weekend. The colors are: snow, taupe, stone & charcoal. We had planned to use charcoal to seam up.

PLEASE let me know (by posting here, or emailing me at my username at yahoo.com) if you can participate, so we have an idea of how many blocks are coming in. :) We already have someone volunteering to pay postage for the blanket to travel to it's final destination.

:)

Three More Blocks :)

I have finished three more blocks since my last post, but have not taken photos of them yet. I have one that is just a checkerboard of knit/purl squares, one that is a sort of tumbling blocks pattern and one that is a sort of star/cross pattern. Not sure how to describe it.

I've got two black (charcoal?), two taupe (?) and two grey (stone?). Not sure if I have enough for another square out of each ball or not.

How are these going to be stitched together? I don't know how to crochet but I am kind of thinking maybe they can be crocheted together in such a way so as to add about 1/2" between each block - maybe in a bold color not used for the squares like red or blue or green. Of course it would be easiest to just use one of the colors we've already used for squares like grey?

Anyway I ask because I am thinking about doing some two-tone squares to use the rest of the yarn but I want it to look good with whatever seaming method we choose...

Thanks!

Three Blocks

Sorry it took so long to do this - my computer is currently waiting for a new motherboard. But I borrowed a friend's today to upload these so here are three blocks I have finished. I should have another 2 or 3 finished by the end of this week.

I do have a question - what about a two-tone block? I don't think I have enough grey left for another block, and if so I won't have enough black either - but what about one block being grey and black?

This one is diamonds of different sizes.

This is all three together. The top one is a kind of twisted rib or something, actually I don't remember what pattern I used! The black one is just a diagonal stripe.

one day left!

Anyone? This is kinda depressing! Here is Alison's contribution:

If no one else posts pics by tomorrow, I guess she'll win the prize.

Seriously though, is everyone too busy for this (not being snotty, for real! I haven't made anymore recently, I'm planning to get one OTN next week when I have the $$ to buy more yarn)? Should we just bag it until next year? Open it up to all colors within the yarn type? Or to all yarn types within the yarn weight? What do ya'll think?

I'm hearing rumors...

of yummy squares being knit! I'll be buying some prize yarn this week!

I'll post a sneak peak if we have 2 people post pics of finished squares! :)

Would that all I had to do was knit.....

What a luxury that must be.....

Oh my, I think the midnight monster has passed out somewhere on the floor in the last few minutes. She was sitting on my lap trying to sing twinkle twinkle little star. It was very cute but I wasn't really appreciating it at 4:25 am. *sigh*

JoAnn's sale

JoAnns.com

Is having a sale on their Lion Brand yarns! The Woolease Chunky is on page 1 & their Cottonease is on page 3. :) Their organic cotton is discounted, as well. :D

CONTEST!!!

Okay, ladies!! We need to get this going, huh? So I'm going to host(ess) a yarny contest!! My hope is that we can get these blankets finished before everyone gets bogged down with holiday knitting.


Contest:

For the Grand prize:
For every square you finish, your name will be entered into the hat 1 time! Cotton-ease squares get a bonus entry for every finished off skein (since they take longer to knit & I think you get less squares out of each skein). You also get a bonus entry for every person you get to sign up for this (they must complete at least one square for you to get the extra entry, though!).

Other prizes will be given based on the greatest number of squares completed, most knitters recruited, and favorite square pattern (we will devise a way to vote on this). Other contests may spring up in the next 6 weeks, just for fun!


Rules:

Squares must be in proper colors (wool-ease chunky: fisherman, spice, red & walnut; cotton-ease: snow, taupe, stone & charcoal), and knit to the proper size (9x9 inches), of course. You can have anyone you want knit for you (so hit up your grandma or auntie for extra entries), although you may want to share your prize with them if you win! To have your squares knit, you must post pictures of them to the blog by October 31st, or have them in the mail to me -- postmarked by October 31st. I will wait up to 1 week to receive mailed squares, just for expediency's sake.

Anyone may join, whether or not you are a Mothering.com member. Squares may be in any pattern you wish, but keep in mind we're going for unisex teen blankets this go-round. I'm on the fence about whether or not already completed squares should be counted...


Deadline:

October 31st!! That's right, on Halloween!


Prizes:

GRAND PRIZE:
-One skein of cotton-ease or wool-ease to knit more squares.
-A gorgeous surprise skein(s) of yarn (I will be stalking your blog, etc. to determine what you might like...hints are welcome! ;)).
-A knitting bag (made by me) filled knitterly accessories/tools.

OTHER PRIZES:
-One skein of cotton-ease or wool-ease to knit more squares.
-A gorgeous surprise skein of yarn (I will be stalking your blog, etc. to determine what you might like...hints are welcome! ;)).
-A surprise *something.*

QUICKY CONTEST PRIZES:
-To be determined... ;)

If you are interested in contributing a prize, please let me know!!

This is for a great cause; Mothers/families who cannot provide much of any Christmas/Holiday for their families.

On your marks, get set, KNIT!!!

2 Cottonease done

I have 2 cottonease (stone) done. I do not think I can get 1 more out of the skein. I have another skein of it so I should be able to get 5 total. I am going to continue on. I also do not like knitting with the wool-ease. I may just be doing cottonease squares. We'll see how it goes.

1 Charcoal CottonEase done

I finished one block last night and it measures about nine by nine but it looks huge. I might have to redo. :( Hopefully I'll see Carolynn tomorrow so she can say yay or nay. :) Then we'll get the other one done. We can get 2 squares from one skein right?

I enjoyed knitting with the CE as I've not used that before. I will have to lint roll before handing them off to Carolynn though. Dark colors and my house don't mix. LOL

Anyway I'm pooped. To read why go to Silvercrest79. I've got class at 8am to 9:25 followed by a pretty long test. YUCK!!!

More Pattern Ideas

If any of you own any of the Walker Treasury books, this website is a really great resource:

http://thewalkertreasury.wordpress.com/

It has really good color photos of a lot of the patterns in these books, which are a lot better than the black and white pictures in the books. If you're skilled at "reading" knitting you might get some neat pattern ideas just from looking at the pictures too even if you don't have the books. I don't own any personally but I check them out from the library sometimes, they are great for inspiration.

First Block

I'm a little slow these days, but I just finished my first block. It's in Stone Cotton-Ease, and is a diamond knit/purl pattern from "the New Knitting Stitch Library".
These photos are awful but the sun has disappeared and I have no idea when it will be back!
The pattern is a 19-stitch repeat so I cast on 40 stitches total; 38 for two repeats of the pattern and one stitch on each edge, plus a row at the beginning and end for a border.

It was a really annoying pattern to remember/read, so I had to keep referring back to my chart, but overall it was not too bad.

3 blocks done!

Although I can't claim to have finished them myself. After I did the first one, I passed the yarn & needles onto a friend (and MDC mama) to do a few. I simply had to work through some of my backlog before I did any more.

She finished 2 blocks in less than a week, and that finished off the skein (with a few yards left, at the most). I'm going to try to make it to Joann's to grab another skein -- of a color other than Spice. ;)

Speaking of JoAnn's, they have the big 4 oz. balls of Sugar & Cream on sale for 1.79 (I think it is) this week. :)

Just updating you all

I have stone cotton ease that I have started. I am a little over halfway done with 1 square. I am doing a waffle stitch pattern. I will post a pic when I can. I also got walnut chunky wool-ease.

Blanket size

What do ya'll think of doing a 40 square blanket -- 5 x 8. According to my math that would be about 3 3/4 feet by 6 feet tall. That's decent for a "throw" right? Or even a twin bed. Hmmm...maybe we should do 6x8?

Deadline & other details...

Someone asked about a deadline; I'm inclined to leave it open for now, but it would be great if you could set and post a goal amount of blocks per month. I know some of us could do one a day, while others are lucky to finish one in a week -- and that doesn't take into account other knitting projects.

Personally, I'm going for between 4 & 12 per month -- that will also depend on how many I can get out of a skein of yarn. I'll do some measuring and decide on how many blocks we need per blanket (opinions always welcome).

Regarding seaming... I'm open to volunteers -- someone commented they might be able to get their local knitting group to help with one. I might be able to do the same, there is an mdc mama in the next town who runs a fairly regular knitting group, so I could ask her.

Feel free to pass this blog address on to other knitting friends -- we aren't exclusive to MDC here, necessarily. :)

bought willow color chunky

Michaels had no chunky at all (no wonder I accidently bought the thick and quick) but hobby lobby had willow (green) spice and black only. Since there are already a number of people doing the spice I bought the willow. I couldn't remember what colors were selected to use, but it matches the spice so I hope it'll work. For my first block I'm gonna use the quinn bag cable pattern- I've never done cables before and really want to do that bag so I figured this would be a fun way to test it out!

same pattern for both blocks?

Should we do the same pattern for both of the blocks we do for each yarn type (assuming we each do 2) Or should it be different? I finished my first cottonease block so wondering if the second one should match or be a different pattern??

Is there a difference...

between the chunky and thick & quick? I think I got the wrong one, I got thick & quick. I may have to go back and swap it out, I don't recall if they had a "chunky" one and just assumed it was the same until I noticed Karen's post about it below.

Wool Ease Chunky

I found WE Chunky at Joanns on Wednesday so I got a skein in Spice. They also had walnut but not any of the other colors. Also, they had no cotton-ease. I will try to get to Michael's or Pacific Fabrics or something this weekend or next week to look for Cotton-Ease.

Should we try to organize a tally of who has what colors, to try for an even mix of blocks? Or should we just go for it and see what we end up with?

1st block done...

At least *my* first block! I really love how quick it went; I see myself whining when I start doing the cotton blocks... lol Anywho, here's a quick pic:

The first picture shows the front side, the second is the backside. Either way it looks nice. Here's the actual pattern if anyone cares ;)

CO 46 St size 5 needles

Knit 3 rows
1 Knit 3 stitches; place marker
*k2tog w/o taking off needle, knit first stitch* repeat from * to last 3 stitches
Place marker; knit to end
2 Knit to marker, purl to next marker, knit to end
3 Knit 4 stitches *k2tog w/o taking off needle, knit first stitch* repeat from * to last 4 stitches; knit to end
4 Knit to marker, purl to next marker, knit to end

repeat pattern from row 1-4 then end with 3 garter rows. (can also be done with a LT by purling 2 tog instead and knitting across)

I've got the cotton one started and about 2 inches done. I picked up spice today for the bulky. So, I'm doing white for the cotton and spice for the wool. Just an FYI. I'm using size 5 needles. What size needles are you all using? Interesting to know whats being used by the rest of you. I think I CO 46 stitches.

So, what patterns are you all doing? For the white I'm just doing a RT for all knit stitches and purlling across the back, with a garter edging. It looks pretty so far. I keep thinking of other things I can use that pattern for. The LTK apron top comes to mind, I could easily see adding that texture to that top and WOW it would look cute!

Started!

I made it to JoAnn's and picked up a skein of Spice. I'm loving the chunky -- it goes so fast! Most of my knitting projects are in 5's lately. I'll post a pic tomorrow, but I'm doing a simple cabled rib pattern.

Greenegirl

lol, greenegirl! My Michaels & JoAnn's were the same -- soo annoying! I'm going to try to get to JoAnn's today (since it's closer) and to Michaels sometime this week for the cotton-ease. That's awesome that your boss is joining in! I think I'm going to forward a link to our blog to my local yarn store, Lily Lane Knits.

Maybe some ladies there will want to join in. :)

Got my Yarn!!

Yesterday I went to Joann's and got a skein of Woolease Chunky in Walnut. The Joann's near me does not have the Cottonease yet. I thought I must just be overlooking it, so I asked at the Service Desk and they told me, "We're behind here. If it's something new, I'm sure we don't have it. But don't give up on us -- we'll get it eventually." Like that helps me now.

Whatever. Michaels has Cottonease, so I went at lunch and bought a skein in Stone. I told my boss about the project since she doesn't have anything OTN right now, and she decided to join us! She got a skein of Cottonease in Charcoal. Michaels didn't have Woolease Chunky, though. They only had worsted or thick 'n' quick. I thought the point of big box stores was supposed to be convenience. How convenient is it if you have to keep going from one to the other to get what you need? (insert MDC dizzy smiley here).

The Details

Okay, it looks like we have all the details hammered out! We're doing 2 blankets; one of Wool-ease Chunky using colors: fisherman, spice, red & walnut, and one from Cotton-ease using colors: snow, taupe, stone & charcoal. Please send leftovers of walnut & charcoal along with your blocks to aid in seaming.

Blocks will be 9x9. We're going for unisex teen blankets this time, so try to keep the extra lacey blocks to a minimum. Otherwise, the sky's the limit for patterns! Share links to what pattern you're doing, if possible!

Don't forget to post here your progress updates, 'cheerleading' comments, and pictures! :) Oh, and if there's interest for a 3rd blanket to be done in crochet, speak up! Otherwise we're going to stay with just these two until we're done.

Its me- estirbunny

I am going to be changing my user name eventually to xan&ali for boards I post on so I figured I'd start it now on this blog. I just can't get past the idea of having to pay a fee to change it at MDC and keep my post count so I can still do the swaps and stuff. Anyway, just thought I'd let you know it was me in case you were wondering who the heck xan&ali was!!

Welcome!

This is my first time using Blogger & organizing a knit-a-long, so be patient with me! All constructive criticism is welcome. :) I'll post the particulars for our first blanket as soon as we finish hashing them out over at Mothering.com.

So far we've decided that we're going to all knit blocks out of cotton or wool-ease and send them to one person (and their LYS, hopefully! lol) for seaming. This blanket will be made for the Holiday Helpers thread on Mothering & will be made for a teen.

More details soon! :)