More Loopy Challenge projects

I wanted to get the yarn tubs put back in the closet so decided to pull out more yarn for some of my other Challenge projects.  (If you’re interested in the various Great Loopy Challenges (either sewing or knitting or both) you can find all the information on The Loopy Ewe blog on September 4 – plenty of time to join in on all the fun.)

I pulled these yarns yesterday to make Aeque which is one of the KAL projects.  A cute little cowl that’s supposed to be made with five different colors so it looks gradient colored.  I don’t have any TLE gradients in my stash but I did have these Mrs. Crosby Hat Box yarns.  I’m going to alternate them to make my own blendy look.

I cast on this one last night so I have a smaller project to take along for bus knitting.

I got this far – about 20 rows into my second color and I was a bit concerned last night that there really wasn’t much different between my first color and my second one and that the second one really wasn’t showing much blue like in the caked form.

But took it outside in the natural light this morning to get a better look since my living room lights cast a yellowish color and I can see the blue much more.  When I add in the solid blue it may look more like a stripe rather than blended in but that’s okay with me too.  I got quite a bit knit last night and this is a really simple project so should go quickly.  My yarn is sport weight rather than fingering weight so I went up slightly in needle size from the pattern.

I also made my final decision for Plaid is the New Fad and will be using (L2R) Fruhling, Stella Polaris and Saffron.

I also planned my Showstopper “Change it up” challenge and will be making a fingering weight version of Touchstone (yes I love that pattern and if you knit you really should make one) 🙂 but I’m going to “change it up” and repeat the lace rows across it and not include the wide garter stitch area.  My plan is to use this yarn – it was a Loopy exclusive colorway called Big Box of Crayons.

I’m all set with plenty of stuff to keep my hands busy, that’s for sure.

Starflowers made

Got my last Starflower for this project made so I can clear up and put away my pile of batiks.   I’ve got the filler triangles cut that need to be added when setting the blocks into rows.

Santa Incognito

One the Great Loopy Sewing Challenge choices is to make the Timber Lumberjack pattern.

I’m going to turn my lumberjack into Santa in disguise – he’s tending pine trees in the off season to make sure there will be some good Christmas trees when the are needed.  It will be a fun Winter wallhanging but not too Christmassy.

I didn’t really see a plaid I liked for his shirt so decided to go with the black and red circle print which is reminiscent of peppermint candies. The black is for his pants.  I thought I might use the red ribbon stripe (which I got for accents and binding) for his pants (reminds me of all those UW Madison students I saw last Friday dressed for the Badger football game in their wide striped red and white bib overalls).  But I’m making the smaller of the two sizes of the project and I don’t think the stripe will work well in the size pieces that need to be cut.  I think the button band down the front of his shirt will be striped and his hat.  And I think I might have some snowflake shaped buttons for his shirt.

Now I just need to decide which background fabric I want to use (and which I actually have enough of).   I plan to get started on this later this week.

I also finished planning an couple other Challenge knitting projects before I put all the yarn back in the closet this morning.

More on those later – I have a quilt block to finish sewing so I can clear all the sewing stuff back out of my living room.