I finally finished the 15 stitch gift ghan for my sister’s wedding present on the day before the wedding; September 2nd!  I even worked on it right in the presence of the happy couple, but since it’s not unusual to see me knitting or crocheting I knew they would think nothing of it.  My sister and I had a good laugh when she figured out that I had been working on it right in front of her eyes.  They really loved the gift and I hope that they’ve had some cool days to try it out.

My goal had been to make it the size of a twin bed at the very least.  I didn’t actually take any measurements after completing it which was a bit silly of me.  It didn’t reach that size, it’s about big enough for one person to use length wise from head to toe.  In the last couple knitting weeks I got quite tired of working on it and so progress slowed.  I still averaged 1 skein a week though so I didn’t let myself slow down too much.  I used 10 full skeins and a very small portion of an 11th skein of Red Heart Collage Tundra.  After so many skeins I still thought the yarn was decent and still liked the color.  I would use Collage again for sure, which is good since I think I have 2 or 3 skeins still floating around.  I’ve used the left over skein to crochet a baby hat and a baby wrap cardigan.  The yarn crochets nicely as well, I love the slow color changes.

The blog has been quiet for a couple reasons, one is that I was just knitting that blanket and nothing else.  Another is I was teaching art at a summer camp which consumes a lot of my time; I was up at 5am, out of the house by 6am and home around 6pm, bedtime at 9pm.  This summer I was even more exhausted than the 2 previous summers.  On July 14th I figured out why I was so much more exhausted; I’m pregnant!  This upcoming Tuesday, the 27th, I will be at 16 weeks.  Baby will be here around mid-March next year.  We are very excited!  Of course, this means time to queue up lots of baby patterns on Ravelry.  I’ve told my Monday night knitting group and they are very excited to get to knit baby items again.  One of the other group members just had her baby in July so baby projects are still fresh in everyone’s memories.  I’ve queued up lots of stuff on Rav for the knitting group to peruse and pick from.  I’ve saved a couple for myself as well.  We don’t know 100% yet what we’re having so I’m waiting to make stuff after our 20 week scan in October when we should be able to find out the sex.

Now that the afghan project is done I’ve just been hovering between projects, filling my time with crocheting Snuggles for the Snuggles Project.  I haven’t found any projects that are begging for me to start them, and those that are require knitting needle sizes I don’t have yet.  I’ve purchased the KnitPicks Harmony interchangeables but am still awaiting their arrival.  Waiting is hard when you know there are projects to work on!

I’ve started a scarf that has been in my Rav queue since November ’10 called the Waving Chevron Scarf.  I had some good coupons for Joann’s and picked a project from my queue to shop for.  Luckily, not all the yarn was on sale so I was able to use my coupon on the skeins I bought.  But as I’ve just said, I don’t have the correct size needles for the yarn I’ve picked.  The yarn calls for 6mm and my closest size is 5mm.  I’m trying it out to see if it’ll work but I can see that it is noticeably too small a size because the 5 or so inches of scarf I’ve knit so far bulge a bit and won’t sit flat.  I’m going to keep work on it t see if maybe it’s just because it’s still too short.  This is my first time working with Lion Brand Tweed Stripes and Michael’s new line called Impeccable.  All three are acrylic yarns.  The LB Tweed is considered a bulky yarn and the Impeccable is a worsted.  So far I like working with them; they slide nicely along my bamboo needles.  The pattern calls for 1, 3 or more yarns to create the desired effect.  I didn’t realize that at the time I purchased the yarns, hence the 2 Tweeds and 1 Impeccable.  I prefer to use 3 of the same brands of yarn just to prevent the headache of having to find yarns of a comparable weight.  Luckily, I had the Impeccable from a previous shopping trip and the color goes with the other two.  The weight is similar enough I think.  I’m just itching to do a more serious project than Snuggles that I couldn’t wait to start so I wasn’t going to slow things down by putting off the project until I had another Tweed that would function as a 3rd color.  I suppose I could have just worked with 1 color skein but that wasn’t going to satisfy me either.  So, as my husband says, it is what it is.  If I change my mind after knitting a couple more inches so be it.