Well, I said I was working on my pile of UFO’s.  Two more are completed, hooray!    I swear to you I got them done by Dec 31, even if I haven’t managed to blog about them until Jan 3.  Blogging does NOT COUNT as part of finishing.

That makes a total of 21 FO’s for the past year. When I updated my comprehensive knitting project spreadsheet, I was quite surprised to see that 2007 is tied for second place with 2004.  (The best year so far was 2005, with 32 FO’s.  That’s going to be hard to beat.)

Yes, I have a knitting project spreadsheet.  Laugh if you will, but deep down somewhere I’m still an engineer, and an Excel goddess as well as a knitting one – plus I have a rather poor memory.  Believe me, it’s much better for me if I keep it all on a list somewhere.

FO #1 is a solid-color rendition of my own Brioche Rib scarf, in two shades of purple MOHAIR.  Purple’s not really my color, but  it’s intended to be a shop sample.

I’d set this project aside for many many moons, and was surprised to find how quickly the brioche stitch went after I got back into the groove.  Unfortunately this photo doesn’t show the contrast between the two sides of the scarf terribly well, but if you squint and peer closely, you may be able to see that the red-violet is more pronounced on the side that’s showing underneath, with the blue-violet being more pronounced on the side that’s showing on top.

The pattern is available for purchase at LYS’s Farmhouse Knit Shop and The Knitting Bee, as well as at www.polarbearpatterns.com, where you can also see some better pictures – and it includes a nifty reversible hat as well.  If I say it myself, the decreases on the hat are quite clever and, as far as I know, unique – in that they are completely, 100%, reversible.  In brioche st, that’s quite a feat.

In fact, let’s throw in a picture of those mighty fine decreases, even if it isn’t a 2007 FO…  Cool, eh?

(After seeing this site, I don’t know if my decreases are still unique – but for a whole lot more about brioche st, take a look at Nancy Marchant’s site www.briochestitch.com.)

 

FO #2 is a gift for a former knitting student of mine.  She’s a lovely, sweet, elderly lady who is one of the most gracious women I have ever known.  When I grow up, I want to be like Abby.  Unfortunately, she’s had a hard couple of years, medically speaking, and hasn’t been able to knit for a while.  Coral red is one of her favorite colors, so I cooked up this wrap especially for her.

Here’s a picture of the wrap laid out flat, as it was being prepared for blocking:

For blocking, I use old bath towels over 1" thick foam insulation board.  The boards are sturdy foam, covered in plastic on both sides, and they are readily and cheaply available at your home improvement store.  A 2′ x 4′ board can be had for under $5 . This is 2 sheets of 2′ x 4′ board, with a duct-tape hinge along the long side. I can use it unfolded, as here, for large items, or folded for smaller items.

One tedious thing about blocking is trying to get the edges nice and straight.  Gotta love those blocking wires!  This photo was taken before I finished pinning all the ends out straight, but you can see the "stair-step" effect I incorporated to get the wrap to drape more attractively across the back.  There are 9 repeats of the lace pattern across the full width, so I simply bound off one 18-st repeat at each side, after finishing each 8-row repeat.

Additional construction details:  The lace pattern I chose has a definite direction, like a nap on fabric.  I worked the front and the back in opposite directions, so when the wrap is worn, the lace will all be pointing in the same direction.  I used a provisional cast-on, started at the neck and worked down the back.  Then I came back and picked up along the neck edge, bound off the central repeat, and worked down the two front pieces separately.

The lace pattern was from one of my Japanese knitting pattern books, so I’m not going to reproduce it here in case the Japanese copyright police are reading my blog.  It’s a leaf-style lace, with a huge bang for the buck, as far as getting good looks for little effort.

Believe it or not, it’s only an 8 row repeat, with all the WS rows being just purl (OK, one knit st in between repeats, but that hardly counts).  Looks a heck of a lot more impressive!

 As usual, Morgan was very interested in the blocking process.