I tried to cater to everyone who wanted more ZE, I really did.  However, Zac blog-jacked another post.  I’m over you Zac.  My entire post with 4 photos and multiple links – gone.  I am quitting that man.  To top things off, I have a child who is melting down because I checked review of Rise of the Guardians and decided it would be too scary to watch tonight at the discount theater.

Where does one even start when recreating a blog post?  Mary Poppins Alice in Wonderland would say that the beginning is a very fine place to start.  Random note, I just found a lot of really fun Mary Poppins quotes here.

So…. back to knitting.  I’ve been doing some organizing off and on over the past week.  Mostly I’m taking the patterns, books and knitting magazines that I own and entering them into my Ravelry library.  That way I can do a search selecting just the patterns I own.  I find that I tend to overlook the patterns that I have for something new and shiny.  Hopefully this helps.

In the last week I’ve finished the 1970′s socks from Socks that Rock in A Very Scummy Christmas colorway.  I need to redo the bind off on the first sock and then do the second sock bind off.  I used a regular bind off and while they fit, I think I want something stretchier.  So I’m going to use the sewn bind off instead.  Here’s a picture of how I do it for extra stretch.

Sewn Bind Off

Pictures of the socks will be coming once they are blocked and dry.  I’m anxious for a new pair of socks as it’s been brutally cold here.  They actually cancelled school today and tomorrow because of the sub zero temps.  It’s a good day for hand knit wool items.  Also, a good day to remember that your stash actually acts as insulation for our houses (that’s my stance and I’m sticking to it!).

The other items that I haven yet blogged are 2 scarves that I knitted Santa brought for a friend.  The first (and unphotographed) is a Staggered Rib Scarf similar to the one I knit for my boss last year.  I knit this one out of some Lion Brand chunky that had been in my stash for years upon years.  The skein was a little short on yardage so I made 2 button holes three rows before I bound off.  The girls and I found some cool grey buttons to sew on.  I guess the recipient has gotten a lot of compliments on his unusual scarf.

The second scarf is the Autobahn Scarf.  I’m a little frustrated with this pattern.  Maybe I’m missing the boat here, but I bought the pattern from Twist Collective.  It didn’t sync to my Ravelry Library and there doesn’t seem to be a way to access the errata without buying the pattern all over again.  The problem I found was that I could get the cables to go one direction, but when they switched direction the cables on the back side didn’t work out right.  I finally just gave up, ripped it back a bit and decided to let the ribbing continue up the rest of the scarf instead of cabling it all.

The yarn I used, Socks that Rock in Heavyweight was awesome as usual.  Since the recipient claims that he is not very “metro,” I used a nice manly brown.  The cables are classic enough that I think anyone could wear this scarf.

Autobahn

Another knitting project done!  For anyone who ever watched the TV show, Monster House, I desperately need a "DONE" stamp to put over these projects.  Because this one is done baby, done! 

Although this is in no way my oldest finished project (we probably won’t even talk about some of those!), it is one that has been weighing heavily on me.  I started this on New Year’s Eve or there about.  I thought it would be a real quick project, and it should have been, but I got bored part way through the 2nd skein.  This scarf has travelled with me to Florida, to Alaska, to Chicago, and to numerous cabin trips.  In fact, this project actually lived in my carry on bag for many months.  There was no reason to take it out as it was my go-to project in case I finished whatever I was meaning to work on during any one of those trips.  The kicker is that I never really needed that go-to project. 

You can see the true colors a little better here. 

The crazy part is that I really didn’t need to do all that much more on the scarf.  I probably finished about ten pattern repeats over the last week before I called it done. 

The Details:

Pattern:  Based on the Seafoam pattern from Barbara Walkers Second Treasury of Knitted Patterns.  Here’s one of the many patterns for this scarf. 

Yarn:  Panda Wool in Neptune.

Like all lacy knits, this one didn’t look like much while I was knitting it.  It was shrivelled up and just plain short.  I kept hoping that it would block out well and I wasn’t disappointed.  Other than turning the wash water an amazing shade of blue, it really blocked amazingly well.  I think it was just over five feet long when I blocked it, which is plenty long for me.  I have slightly under a skein of yarn (100 yds or so), it might be enough for baby socks.