Tag Archives: green

Fun with counterpanes!

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So I’ve had this yarn from the yarn shop where I learned to knit for some time.  I believe I originally bought it oh about six years ago or so.  Well I am out of blue thread for my other project so… time for more knitting.. and time to tackle something with counterpanes!

There were many to choose from but finally I settled on a three leaf counterpane pattern, originally seen here: http://www.knittingparadise.com/ (Scroll up for images)  Through some alterations based on my trial square, this is what I ended up with:

Mint Leaves!

Now as you can see from these two closer in views of the leaf section and the diamond section, I am not the greatest of fancy joiners, but I do think they look alright… just not very lacy.

At this point its more flowerlike

Diamond Point join

So I think it turned out ok, and here’s what I did differently for anyone curious or wanting to replicate.

  • I did a knit increase in my first knit stitch instead of a yarn over increase.  I tried the yarn overs, but it just looked to loose and sloppy to me, so I went with the knit increase instead.
  • My Row 15:  Row 15 YO, (k1, yo) twice, k1, p4, SKP, k9, k2tog, p4, (k1, yo) twice, k2  — I felt that swapping two stitches to purl instead of knit made for a better transition.
  • When you swap to the Diamond Point (included in the follow up post from the three leaf section)  you need to add a simple knit across row so that your diamond point turns out purl side up as the right side.  do not increase that row, as you should go into the Diamond Point section with an uneven set of stitches
  • For Row Two in the second post its just: k2tog, knit to last 2 sts, k2tog — She corrects this in a later post on the thread, its just a duplicate in there in the original.

I finished it off with a simple double crochet row and then a scalloped crochet row (2 single crochet stitches, then 3 double crochet in the next stitch and repeat) because three skeins meant I was pretty much done with just a 9 pane blanket.  Seriously…. this is all the yarn left:

Dr.Pepper can for scale

So if I had my life to knit over so to speak… here’s what I would do differently:

  • Buy about 4 more skeins of yarn so that I could knit up 12 counterpanes, which would leave me with all diamond edges instead of some leafy edges, and an all around better size.  (Nothing wrong with a 9 pane size, but 12 would be even better for the repeats imo)
  • I’d finish it off with a border of leaves, which I figured I could snag from another counterpane pattern such as the one here: http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/counterpanes/rosedale-counterpane.htm

I greatly enjoyed how it turned out… so much that I’m actually contemplating making something more full size at some point, perhaps as a gift.

I could totally see this as a much larger piece.

August: Traditional Style!

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Well I tossed about several ideas… went looking for patterns and finally just decided to have a more traditional looking stocking.

Green and White is always right.

The cuff is a pattern you can pick up for free from ravelry  I spent quite a bit of time the other day going through patterns looking for a cable from a Duncan McLeod sweater… and that was one of the extras I stumbled on.

The tree however…. is a true original.  No pattern… just winged it!  There was a bit of cabling, a bit of increases and decreases… and I’ve been assured by the ever critical Ben that it does indeed look like a tree!  Felt like a real accomplishment!

So now I’m at 11 stockings for the big sale of 2012.

Not just geeky knitting happens here…

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I realize that I knit quite a bit of geeky things… even my first quilt was all videogame blocks. But I do work on other more traditional beautiful projects. The banner above was a peg-rack full of scarves. So here’s a couple in the works projects…. (apologies in advance these are cell phone photos)

First I have some pieces that will eventually be a baby afghan. I don’t have children, and frankly don’t really know what I’ll do with it when its done, but I just liked the designs and was given some children’s weight/color yarn. So these are my edges based on and a wheat ear cabling. I like the leaf design, and my somewhat matching yarn is just the blue verigated with no greens…. I am thinking I will make it a tree row and then add a border.

Half Done with the second side.


Here’s a closer detail on the stitching.

To be fair, I’ve had that project on the needles for some time, was working on it while traveling and just getting distracted and kept pulling out rows because I flubbed it up and then going back… but I’m finally making some solid forward progress.

Second item…
I am working on my second quilt. The original plan was a very hawaiian style quilt, as a gift to my grandmother. She used to go to Hawaii every winter with my grandfather. And I wanted her to know how much I think about her and worry about her even though I am the world’s worst letter writer (in the mailing it out dept). However, my quilt blocks aren’t super Hawaiian, and fall more toward the snowflakes realm of things… so its a snowflake quilt. I have all my flakes cut out and I’m currently appliquéing them on.

Yes, I love snow.

Unfortunately my quilt shop near me is closing this month. 😦
Which has me all manner of sad, since the proprietor was the kindest and most helpful person in my quilting experiments. She always seemed sincerely interested in my quilting efforts, even though it was obvious the subject matter wasn’t familiar. So now.. my nearest fabric shop is once again.. at least 30 minutes away.