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! :)