New Afghan or Maybe a Baby Blanket

There was a lot of yarn leftover from the African Flower afghan, so I am trying to use up some of that pink.  I had a pound of minty color for the background and some leftovers from the aqua lace cardigan, so those are getting used up also.  My goal is to not buy any more yarn but to just use what there is.  So far, so good.  I'm thinking it will probably end up as a small baby blanket, 5 squares across and 7 squares down.

 It's interesting and much better to crochet the squares together as you go along, but this requires a layout plan before you start.  I'm doing diagonal rows of color.  I found the flat braid method of crocheting them together online:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080112104311/http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/lffunt/flatbraid.htm

http://www.yarncrazy.com/?page=2

It's nice to have a crochet project in the works to pick up when you are tired of sewing a sweater together.  The yoke cardigan is mostly finished except for sewing in the ends and sewing on the buttons.  That was a really interesting knit.

Yoke Knitting

There are only a few pattern rows left to knit on the yoke of my first round-yoke sweater.  There was definitely a learning curve in the tension and yarn-holding department.  I had to figure out how to hold two yarns at once, one in each hand and make it work for me without falling into the trap of too tight tension.  One of the only other times I tried to knit a fair isle sweater, I held the yarns too tightly and the knitting was not smooth on the front side.  I still don't know if the first draft of this sweater will work out, but it is looking pretty good so far.  There was one try on with all the stitches moved to a long string, and it looked like I am right on track.  Since my gauge for the color knitting is a little bigger than the stockinette, I wondered if my yoke depth was going to work out since I forgot to figure in the neck ribbing, but I think everything is OK.  There is still one more decrease row to do after this pattern section.

Last week I saw several greeting cards on my cookbook shelf and decided to look through them.  I found a nice gift card to JoAnns that I had forgotten about.  I should really look through my greeting cards more often since this is not the first time I have forgotten a gift card.  I spent the gift card on, what else, more yarn.

Round Yoke Sweater

In my long knitting life, I have never really done much Fair Isle knitting.  Always willing to learn a new skill, my next sweater is a round yoke cardigan in dark gray with gold patterning.  I'm using up the leftover yarn from the gold cardigan, but I doubt if I will have enough.  If I have to buy new yarn, I'll make a matching gold hat from the leftovers from that skein.  Using my TNT cardigan pattern, I drafted the first version of a round yoke cardigan.  Don't know yet if it will work out or not, but on the other hand, I'm definitely learning how to do a better job at two-color knitting.

All of the plain stockinette portions were knit on the knitting machine (ribs were done by hand).  The yarn is worsted weight, and the fronts and backs were shaped at the top with short rows.  Short rows are really easy to do on a knitting machine.  I used an old pattern pamphlet I had in the stash for the Fair Isle design, but I moved it around a bit and changed it so much that it no longer looks anything like the original.

At first I thought the pattern knitting was a royal pain, but I seem to be getting into the swing of things, and my tension has certainly improved.  I'm tired of the long, long row, though, and am looking forward to the first decrease round.