Finished Object - Cable Blanket

It's a very busy time of year for me so I don't have much time to comment on this FO. It's going to a very special baby due on November 27th who's got 4 older brothers waiting to meet her.


Overall the pattern was easy to memorize and I enjoyed working on it while I watched TV. I used 5 1/2 balls of Plymouth Encore DK so with 2 1/2 left over I might have enough for a cute little follow up project. I would recommend this pattern as a good TV or road trip project.

Pattern: Cable Blanket from Debbie Bliss's Simply Baby
Yarn: Plymouth Encore DK in mango
Needles: US sizes 3 & 6, 32 inch circular
Time frame: 8/4/08 to 9/24/08 (would have been sooner if I hadn't started the Mystery Stole 4 project a couple weeks ago)

Mystery Stole 4 - 2nd Clue

I finished up knitting the second clue for MS4 last night. I have to say that even though there are tons of guesses on the theme for this one I'm not really interested. I like it so far and I'd be fine if there wasn't a theme. I love this yarn. I love working with beads now (total convert). I love that people keep asking me who it's for and I say "maybe it's for me - who knows?"

Here's my status so far. The picture is horrible but you can kind of get an idea of the length and design from here:


Since I finished with this clue a full day early I'll be able to work on my cabled blanket all tonight. I don't have much to go so it's really serving as a min-break from the lace knitting in between clues. I would like to finish it soon though because I'm itching to start the Hearts & Flowers Blanket for my niece. That bulky yarn in neon colors is going to be fun to work with!

Mystery Stole 4 - 1st Clue

This project doesn't fit with my normal knitting. I wanted to knit the Mystery Stole 4 as soon as I heard about it. Adding beads to the mix only intrigued me further since I've never knit a stole or knit with beads. Why not have it be a mystery and join a KAL with thousands of members around the world?

Of course, red never photographs well by trust me. This is a deep, earth tone red with black hematite beads. Love it!


Love it!


I finished up Clue #1 last night and just downloaded #2 this morning. I may even keep this for myself!

Spending Spree

I would have to say that my anniversary weekend was a great time. I started out the weekend a little early by shopping for the tiny crochet hook for the Mystery Stole 4 project that starts this Friday. Michael's was having a 90% off clearance sale so I purchased this brown, black & tan bag for $1.99:


Actually I didn't spend any money on it. I got the crochet hook, this bag and a similar bag for my mother-in-law using my gift card and she paid the 13 cents I was short! It's a great bag with a nice lining and a little pocket inside. Love it! I'm now officially a collector of knitting bags - I think I shop for those just as much as yarn now.

Speaking of yarn, my husband is not great to shop with for yarn. It's not what you think - he doesn't discourage my purchases, he over-encourages them. Really! He pressures me to buy so sometimes I have a hard time just slowly down and touching the yarn and really thinking about things. I think I'm just cheap. He's the best though. My husband is the perfect enabler. This is what I bought:


My first stop was Knit Knackers almost by accident. I didn't know where James Street was so on the way to Yarn Forward we passed James Street so we just lucked out. It was a smaller shop for yarn but she had an amazing selection of roving and spinning supplies. I just stood there in awe. I have no room for more roving so I could only just look, I haven't even spun at all this year. It's just shameful. I did find a lace weight hank of Malabrigo in an electric blue. It's super soft so I just had to buy it and try out this famous yarn for myself. That was my only purchase at Knit Knackers.

Yarn Forward is just an amazing shop. I found some great Cadenza in purple that I really liked so the owner ordered another skein for me from her other shop in Kanata. I went back the next day to pick it up and ended up purchasing 3 balls of Tosca in red & brown and 1 hank of Misti Alpaca in a earth tone brown. Love, love, love this store. I actually grabbed my Ravelry queue for when I went back and wrote down a shopping list so I could have existing projects to shop for.

The couple that own Yarn Forward were very friendly and completely knowledgeable about every type of yarn. I felt completely at ease there and it would have been great to be local and shop there often.