Where are my.....

knitting needles?

I have too many WIPs at the moment. I'm currently signed up for three knitting classes. I only have one more class on the Great American Aran Afghan. I then have to assemble the remaining eight blocks and attached the border. I will be so glad when this project is done.

The North American Afghan just started in April. This class will continue until the Fall of 2010. I have all but one of the solid colored blocks done and 2 of the multi color squares are done. I will post pictures soon of the completed squares. Denton said he will show me how to get the pictures into my blog. Yeah, I'm a real ditz when it comes to doing anything on my own with a computer. I was a computer operator for thirteen years but that was big main frames not these little PC's.

Then I signed up to do a Faroese shawl. I've been wanting to do one for quite some time and this is the perfect opportunity. This one is a KAL on Wednesday nights at my LYS. To be honest, I just like to get together with ladies my age to knit. I had joined a local knitting group that met on Thursdays at Barnes & Noble, but this group was too young. There was too much talk about babies and such. How can one talk for two hours about the baby not sleeping the night before?

Anyway, getting back to my needles. The size I need is no where to be found. I have the Harmony straight and interchangeables from Knit Picks and I can't find either set of the size I need. I also have the Options set but I would rather not knit with the metal needles for the lacy project. But, I do have around eight pairs of size seven needles. Now how did I accumulate so many of them?

I believe that I should do what Toni does. She took her projects and put each in a seperate bag. Each month she will pick a different project bag to work on. I like this idea very much. I was taking Thursdays as a day to finish projects, but they were only small projects, i.e., weaving in ends, sewing on buttons. I wonder how many bags I will get. That is for another post.

Off to find my needles.

Classes continue...baseball is starting

I just got my homework assignment for my fourth Aran afghan square. The square is by Suzanne Atkinson and has a picture of a church, tree, birds, and the sun depicted on it.

In our previous classes we were only to have the border finished before class and then we continued on with more of the square during class. The problem with this is, class is only 1 1/2 hrs long. We didn't get too far on our squares until class ended. The next class was a new square. If we had a problem we had to either wait until the next class (a month away) or come to one of the other classes that she was teaching. Now with the fourth square we can knit as far as we can. This way if there is a problem, we can address it in the class that the block is assign to. I think this is a much better arrangement.

Today I was busy copying and enlarging the charts for the next three squares. I like the format of this afghan. All the blocks are different so I don't get bored knitting them. I did two baby afghans for my aunt last year. I had to force myself to get them finished because I got bored with the patterns.

Baseball also starts in April. The Reading Phillies and the Allentown Pig Irons had and exhibition game on Tuesday night. The R-Phillies are the AA team and the Pig Irons are the AAA team for the Philadelphia Phillies. Allentown is a new stadium. The fans picked the name Pig Irons. There is a story behind the name but you would have to check out their website for that info. Last year the AAA team was in Ottawa. It is nice that they are now only about an hour or so from Reading. There are several bus trips planned to go to Allentown this year. I doubt if we will be going though. All the trips are on Saturday's and that is a work day for me. I must earn money to enlarge my yarn stash.

The big trip is to Chicago during the Labor Day weekend. I signed up for this one. We are going to see a game in Cleveland and Chicago but these will be with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Knitting charts and the Great American Aran Afghan

I'm taking a knitting class at my LYS, Yarn Gallery. It is The Great American Aran Afghan. There are twenty blocks in the afghan. Four more can be knitted as pillows or whatever. I've completed the first square, but I had to do it twice as the first one was too big. I have this problem with gauge. I went down one ndl sz., reknit it, and blocked it. Now it is the correct sz, 12" square.

For the next square, I have the first 6 knit rows done. That was our homework for the next class. Yes, I said homework. I used a ndl that was 3 szs smaller then the what was requested in the instructions. I'm working on a guage swatch for the afghan, so I can get a better idea what my guage is using several ndl szs.

The book has charts that can be used but they can be confusing. It will say to knit 12 stitches from chart A starting on row 1, knit 33 stitches on chart B starting with row one, then go back to 12 stitches on chart A but start on row 24. This can be confusing, so I copied the charts and laid them out according to how they are to knit.

So, now I have two weeks until the next class. I better get working on some of my other WIP's.