Belated Easter post

Things have been so crazy the last 3 weeks that I'm still catching up with all of the knitting-related updates!
Here is the felted Easter basket that I knit as a hostess gift for my mom. It has 3 little chick soaps from Avon and was intended to be a soap dish for her bathroom. My mom hosts us for every holiday and Easter is the biggest (usually 25-30 people)
This was my first foray into pattern writing modifying/altering. I wanted the look of a woven basket and immediately thought of the ballband warshrag from Mason-Dixon Knitting and thought it was exactly what I wanted. A little math and a few modifications on the fly and Presto-Change-0 ~ we have a felted basket! Now, I really had hoped that it would shrink more vertically. I got the idea for this basket in my head about a week too late. If I had thought of this idea sooner, Round 2 would have made the basket about half the height before gifting it. I am working on Round 2 now for next year. I'll let you know how it goes!

The Knitty-Gritty:
Pattern: Felted Easter Basket by Me
Yarn: Plymouth Galway Worsted in colors 89 (purple) & 601 (blue multi)
Needles: Sz. 11 (8.0 mm) X 16" bamboo circular by Clover
Finished size: Didn't measure (oops!)
Modifications Improvements: Not bad for my first attempt at creating my own pattern! I had to do some math and a whole lot of reminding myself that this thing was going to be felted, but overall it went pretty well!

Off the needles...for now!

It's finished (on Thursday night, actually)! I bound off and wove in my ends on the Landscape Shawl. I think that the blurb at the beginning of the pattern describe it best: "Rows of eyelet separate chevrons of garter, seed, stockinette, moss, and reverse stockinette stitches..." It turned out a bit bigger than I expected, but I love it. The only thing I may do is un-bind off it and do it again in a smaller needle size to make it a bit more taught at the top edge. Still needs to be blocked, and that will probably happen tomorrow in the next 3 months.

The Knitty-Gritty:
Pattern: Landscape Shawl from Fiber Trends
Yarn: Ultra Alpaca by Berroco, colorway#6284, "Prune Mix"
Needles: 10.5 (mm) x 24" bamboo circular by Clover
Finished size: Really big (85" wide at the top x 40" long from center point to top edge- unblocked!!)
Modifications Improvements: You can knit this pattern in various weights of yarns for different finished sizes. I went with the worsted, but knit it using the numbers for the next finer yarn to get a larger shawl. I did bind it off with a size 13 needle to get a looser top edge/ I am going to think about binding off using an 11 for a bit more structure. (Although, its a miracle that its finally a FO, so I'm not hopeful for the deconstruction and reconstruction.)

Better late than never...

I finally finished an overdue baby shower gift (from October)- so what if the baby is now almost 2 months old?!? This is the Seija Set from Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker. This a great pattern to make that crochets up fast (ignore the fact that this was 4 months overdue) and has endless color combos. It's also the perfect size to fit over the stroller and/or baby carrier. I have made this a bunch of times before and usually check out the stroller/car seat that Mom has registered for and make it in matching colors. Instead of a set stripe pattern, I used this random stripe generator to vary the colors. I'm pretty happy with the way it came out- mom liked it to. The downside: a million ends to weave in!!! I did weave some of them as I went (aka crocheted over the ends in the next row, then back-weaved them and trimmed.), so it wasn't as painful as the first few times that I made it. I also made the matching hat, but the shaping is kind of weird and looked like a viking helmet with the braids hanging down, but I stretched the bottom when I blocked it to give a little more normal shape. It fit perfectly!

The Knitty-Gritty (or should it be the crochety-gritty?):
Pattern: Sejia Set from SNB The Happy Hooker
Yarn: Caron One Pound
Hook: E/3.5mm (blanket) & C/2.75mm (hat)

Finished size: 24" x 28" (blanket) & approx 15" diameter (hat)
Modifications Improvements: Besides the striping pattern, I added about 8 rows to make it a little longer. I also eliminated the slit for the car seat buckle. I have made this pattern with it before, and none of the moms have been able to use the slit, so I just left it out!