Friday, May 23, 2008

Summertime


Aaahh, summertime! From today through August I get off work 3 hours early every Friday. Today, being the first early release Friday, I celebrated by going yarn shopping. At Hobby Lobby I shopped to my heart's content. No husband checking with me every 5 minutes to see if I'm ready to go...just me and YARN! I bought 5 skeins of white (I know...boring) "I Love This Yarn." It's so incredibly soft and will make a beautiful christening blanket.

A friend of mine is having her first baby and I want to make something special. As she is a devout Catholic I know there will be a christening and I decided on a blanket/afghan. After a fruitless search of the internet with every possible combination on "knitting, knitted, cross, baptism, afghan, christening, pattern" I found a small jpeg of a filet crochet altar cloth with a cross. It seemed an easy matter in my mind to make this into a knitting pattern. This must have been the naive newbie knitter thinking this because the reality was quite a bit different.

Frustrated, near tears, and snapping at my patient husband for his polite inquiry "what's for dinner?", I was ready to concede defeat. As usual, the "right brain/left brain", "creative vs. engineering mind" differences became apparent. He immediately took on the challenge and in no time had taken my conceptual design and turned it into a graph. God Bless husbands especially mine! He printed it out on graph paper that he designed and I was able to write out the pattern so I could follow the chart.

I will post a picture of the design later but for now imagine a large white baby size afghan. It will have a large raised cross in the center and has 2 interlocking raised borders. I plan on using garter stitch for the raised sections and stockinette stitch for the flat surfaces. Hopefully it will knit together just like I envision. Her baby is due in September so I will have time to knit something else if this doesn't work out. (edited to add picture of project)

I had so much fun fondling yarn that I think next Friday I'll visit Yarn Heaven in Arlington.

1 comment:

Kim said...

Just found your blog via Ravelry and it's so nice to find another knitter in Mansfield. I live in Arlington but I'm just yards from Mansfield. My son goes to a Mansfield school, my family attends a church in Mansfield and I do most of my shopping in Mansfield.

Sounds like you had a wonderful time at Hobby Lobby shopping. It's so much more fun to go when no one is bothering you. I haven't done that in awhile. Can't wait to see pictures of your Christening Blanket! Your hubby did a wonderful job on the chart!

If you go to Yarn Haven tomorrow...Have lots of fun! :) I haven't been in awhile. Waiting on some money to pile up first. LOL