Red Scarf Project 2007

Last week, I was surfing knit blogs, and stumbled upon this, which led me to this, which led to this:
Sweetie was happy to model it for the photo, even though I told him it wasn't for him, and he was kind of hot to wear a scarf, right after his bath :)

This was knit with 3 balls of Rowan All Seasons Cotton 223 Cassis, using a pattern from Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I used my bamboo Clover (Japanese) size 10 circular needles.

I need to finish up all my other projects, but got cute little buttons for my kid's sweater. I promised myself I will not start knitting it until I post FOs of the Tempting II sweater, the washed towels, and the baby bibs.

The baby blankie edging is coming along fine, with 3 balls worth done. We will sew it up at the next knitting club!

Big progress on the Rowan baby blankie

I finished my 2 strips of the baby blankie, and sewed them together. The trimming is a pattern of 12 rows, and I am starting to wonder how many repeats it will take to go around the whole thing. It took me 7 minutes to do one repeat, and it is now about as long as the height of the strip. It hasn't been sewed on yet, I just put it on top for the photo. I switched to circular needles, and things are going a little faster now. Clover Bamboo Takumi Japanese size 10.

The wrong side is not very pretty, and a fabric lining would make it very nice. But it is fairly large and I'm not sure how much heavier it will be if we add a lining to it.

Even though it's only 2 strips out of 7, now that it's sewn together, it looks and feels more like a blankie now!

Handmade pottery from the Katsunuma trip

These finally arrived from our trip in mid-July to the wine country. I like how the cups came out like me-o-to jawan (husband-wife tea cup set), and the white glaze is a nice color.

Cutie's dinosaurs and beetle trio didn't come out as we thought. It's very hard to tell that there's a picture of a dinosaur/beetle on each one. We needed to draw the pictures and letters bigger and deeper. And the flat plates seem higher in the middle, so we can't use them for anything that has a watery sauce. I guess it will be fine for eating something like scones and cakes.

New project: baby blankie

Yesterday, I went to the Rowan shop with my knitting buddies, S and T, to pick out a pattern and yarn for T's baby due in December. We are all going to knit together a colorful blankie made of 7x7=49 squares. We will each knit 2 strips of 7 squares, and think about what to do next when we get there. (Quite a brilliant plan, considering all the education we have between the three of us.)

Because we decided to substitute a different yarn, the knitting sensei at the shop and S figured out the math. We are to cast on 25 stitches instead of 30. (I forgot I used to be in investment banking. I can't do knitting math.) The Rowan Handknit Cotton DK feels really nice. It's the same yarn that I used for the dinosaurs, but the colors are so vibrant that it seems different. I finished my first strip today!

This morning, I baked a coffee cake from Tania's book. I followed her recipe exactly as in the book, and it came out so light and fluffy. Cutie loved the cinnamon topping, and Hubbo liked how it's not too sweet.

Cutie starts Kindergarten tomorrow!