Daily Craft - The great blanket debate

As my parting payment from sample knitting with Plymouth Yarns, I opted to get a bunch of baby yarns.  I got some Dream Baby DK, Jeannee DK, and a fun textured yarn, Whitney.  All in neutral colors of course, seeing as we have another 2 weeks before I go in for my anatomy scan and find out gender.

What's up with this poor kid's head
being super-imposed on here?!

One of the things I intended to make is a knit blanket...but my search for a blanket ended up being quite complicated with thousands of patterns out there to choose from!  With 6 coordinating colors, I wanted something that would be fun and show off the colors nicely.  In the end, I narrowed it down to 3. 

I did somewhat fall in love with this Honeycomb Stroller Blanket - which looks amazing in bright, bold colors (thank you Ravelry!).   The pastels in the pattern photo do NOT do this justice.  I decided against it for now though as I want something that looks nice on both sides and didn't feel like dealing with adding a backing fabric to a knit piece for now.

I also considered the Bright Blocks Blanket pattern (pictured left, courtesy of Lion Brand). I really like the woven look of the squares, but I've not done a ton of entrelac and I feel like I'm looking for something that won't take forever to do and I don't have to pay much attention to.  Yes - I'm aiming for a good quantity of knit items while I still have the time to do it! 

My final decision?  I've opted to make the Constant Baby Blanket, which will be a nice square blanket, worked from the middle out using simple stitches, but will show off stripes nicely, while being a good mindless (and quick) knit.  Time to cast on...  :)

Daily Craft - Candy Corn Socks

Excited to have finished knitting these socks yesterday, before becoming engrossed in the Oscars.  I had originally bought this yarn (Lion Brand Sock Ease) to make my cardigan but it didn't take me long to realize that the patterning just wasn't going to work out and the cardigan would be better suited to a solid color.  That left me with the ball of yarn to do what was originally intended - make socks!

I opted for a basic sock pattern so as not to muddy the candy corn looking stripes.  I think Lion Brand somewhat missed with naming the colorway "toffee" seeing as the darker grey mixed with the orange, yellow and white really reminds me of Halloween.

The only adjustment I made to the knitting pattern was to shorten the length of the sock so that they sit at the ankle.  I'm not a fan of longer socks, and I live in Southern California where socks aren't really needed most of the year anyway.  I'm also pretty bummed that I broke one of my DPNs finishing up the second sock.  I can still work with a set of 4 in that size though.

It's been such a long time since I knit socks that it was nice to get my sock mojo back...even if we're heading into spring and open toe weather again.

Daily Craft - Tiny Little Stitches

I am excited to say that I got a decent start on my cardigan over the weekend.  I could have gone on a search for the perfect yarn online, but to be honest I'm too impatient for that.  That's several days of knitting time that I would have lost while waiting for delivery!  I ended up buying Lion Brand Sock-Ease from Michaels, which is a wool/nylon blend and also states that it's machine washable, and can even be put in the dryer.  Caution says I'll likely be using my trusty hand-wash setting on the front-loader then line drying, lest I end up with a cardigan better suited for a toddler.  The materials cost about $25, which is not unreasonable (yay coupons!)  I will admit to originally being attracted to the pretty variegated sock yarn colors and spent quite a bit of time musing over the potential to avoid bad color pooling or inconsistent stripes.  In the end I decided I'd be better off with a plain color and chose this green (which is actually much more olive in person). 

As much as I enjoy working lace and cables, I'm actually really happy that this is a nice plain stitch because it feels like it's working up pretty quickly, despite the tiny little stitches.  I've done 5.5" so far, and feeling like I'm getting somewhere at least.  Wishful thinking says I really will be done by the holidays...