I put off writing this post for a long time to keep some of these projects a surprise, but I think it’s finally time to show them off.  At one point I had three pregnant friends, all due about a month apart, and I decided it would be fun to knit baby blankets for each of them.

The first couple chose not to find out the sex of the baby, so I had to keep it fairly neutral.  They were planning to use a lot of white in the decorations though, so I chose a white yarn.  It took a lot of searching, but I finally found a pattern that I thought would be perfect – interesting enough for me to knit, gender-neutral, and beautiful.  The pattern was created by another member of Ravelry, and she was kind enough to share it with me.

Ravelry Link: Cables and Lace/Ladders Baby Blanket
Pictures:

The next blanket was for a girl, and I wanted something simple but pretty and girly.  The Ondas pattern fit this exactly.  It is knit in the round, and it was a really fun, quick knit!

Ravelry Link: Ondas
Pictures, including a couple of progress:

The third pregnant friend was also having a girl, and had picked out beautiful pastel pink and green for the nursery.  One of the patterns I had been eying for a while was a little bit more decorative, and it was just what I was looking for.  This was another pretty quick knit, and I can’t wait to make one of my own some day.

Ravelry Link: Baby Chalice Blanket
Pictures:

For two of these, I also made “lovies”, with the cutest little pattern ever!

Ravelry Links: Bunny Blanket Buddy and Another Bunny Blanket Buddy
Pictures:

Finally, a friend asked me to make a blanket for Hope Clinic For Women’s charity auction.  I didn’t have a lot of time, so I chose a simple but absolutely beautiful pattern – another one that I’d love to make for myself someday.

Ravelry Link: Serenity
Pictures:

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I’m procrastinating finishing some homework (for my last class ever!), so I thought I’d update with pictures of some fun scarves that I made recently.  I’ve been eying this pattern for a while, so when my mom asked for a ruffled scarf I knew this was it.  I went with Malabrigo Silky, and made one for each of us.

I picked out a beautiful teal color for mine, and started it first since I had to wait on my mom’s yarn.  It only took about a week to knit, and it was really a lot of fun.  Shortly after I finished, I got a great haircut and temporary curls, which went great with the scarf.  The kitties also helped me with some modeling.

My mom’s was in a really nice red color (Ravelry Red!), and I made it a little bit longer than mine.  It took me a little bit longer since I’ve been busy with class, but still only a couple of weeks.  She hasn’t seen it in person yet, but Buster was happy to model it for her.

I loved this pattern and yarn, and I will definitely use them both again!  And now – back to work…

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First, my thoughts on Starbucks goes (RED), which is being promoted on facebook.  They say “Join us for World AIDS Day.  On Dec 1, buy any hand-crafted beverage and we’ll give 5¢ to the Global Fund to help save lives in Africa.”  Seriously?  You want me to pay $5+ so that you can earn whatever crazy profit you get off of every cup of coffee, and you’re going to donate 5 whole pennies to AIDS?  I think you could do a little bit better than that.

Second random thought – I’ve been trying to knit several projects lately.  I’ve always bought my knitting needles at Michael’s, because it’s easy, but I needed 16″ size 6 circulars, and they didn’t have those.  I stopped by Haus of Yarn, our local yarn store, and picked up some Addi Turbos, and they are amazing.  I don’t think I will ever buy bamboo needles again!  I’m currently working on a neckwarmer for Jake (Darkside Cowl, Ravelry Project Link).  I finished My So Called Scarf (Ravelry Project Link) for my sister (picture below), which I really love, even though it’s a bit short – next time I will suck it up and buy two skeins.  On my to-do list: Cascade Christmas Stockings, some gifts for my nieces Emma and Ashley, a scarf for my mom, and a scarf for me.  So many projects, so little time!

A much needed PhD update – I’ve got a project narrowed down, so I’m currently in the process of selecting my committee and getting ready for my qualifying exam and proposal.  I feel like this took forever, but as it turns out, I’m still on track to finish by the four year mark (crossing my fingers).  I’m really excited to get started on the project!

In just a few short weeks, Jake and I are going on our anniversary cruise!  Can you believe it’s been a whole year already?  I’m SO excited about the cruise – we’re sailing out of Miami on Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas to the Bahamas for 4 nights.  Naturally, I will be back with a million pictures.

And finally, I am cooking my very first Thanksgiving turkey tomorrow!  Jake and I are hosting several friends/family who will be staying in the Nashville area for Thanksgiving.  Hopefully everything will turn out well and I won’t poison anybody.  I’ll try to post the results of that as well.

Ok, enough random updates – back to cleaning!

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Now that I have finally gotten around to giving Joy and Cris the baby gifts I knitted for Dominic, it’s time to actually post them.  To start, I only wanted to knit a blanket, and thanks to Ravelry, I found such a cute pattern.  As it turns out, I had way too much extra yarn, so I added booties and a hat to the list so that I could use up the yarn and teach myself some new techniques.

The blanket (Honeycomb Lacy Baby Blanket) wasn’t too difficult, especially once I actually understood the stitches in the pattern and stopped trying to count or go from memory.  The booties (Seed Stitch Baby Booties) were fun and quick, but I still need some practice knitting in the round, and I need to learn to pay more attention to the pattern (K2 != K2tog, and one ankle is skinnier than the other ankle).  Finally, the hat (Cable and Seed Stitch Baby Hat) was a bit of a challenge, mostly because I was still practicing my knitting in the round techniques (with seed stitch – bad idea), and making my first cables (also a bad idea to put these on the ends of the needles).  And back to the paying attention/counting, I managed to completely miss one of the cables!  Either way, I had a lot of fun making these, and hopefully Dominic will get a little bit of use out of them.

For anybody actually on Ravelry, here are the project links: Blanket, Booties, Hat.

And of course, here are the pictures, complete with Dominic modeling everything!

PS – If anybody wants to buy me some more knitting needles or gift certificates to the yarn store for Christmas, I would be eternally grateful.  I have lots of projects that I want to make, but my needle stash is very limited!

PPS – I know that I am a terrible blogger and I need to update this way more often!

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