Yarn & Hook Happy: And it's July!

7 months into the year already, more then half way to Christmas. Glad to have a 3 day weekend coming up, I can get some things done. Ha, well not on Friday because it is the fourth and which of course means hanging in the pool! Katlyn and I are making margarita cupcakes with a tequila lime frosting, and I am also bring a festive sangria, potato salad and deviled eggs. Should be a fun day.

Baby blanket update, nearing completion. Had to go and get another skein of gray on Sunday though. I had all of the stripes done and had a tiny little ball of gray left, but a border is needed and since the first color I started with is the turquoise and the ending one is white I thought it would look odd with either of those as the border color so another skein of gray I bought!

6.22 progress shot

Here we have our most ridiculous cat Stein, who has no boundaries with the home and pretty much thinks everything is his and has the attitude to back it up.

Stein....100% attitude!

I saw this vest thingy on pinterest the other day and thought it looked pretty cool. It was knit and had no pattern to it, so I jotted down some notes and figured I give it a go. All I could tell was that it was a loose knit and a rectangle. So Sunday I finished up the last row of the striped blanket and since I required more gray yarn, I set it aside and went digging through my yarn stash. I have a lovely black fancy yarn that I was looking for but came across this Bernat Mosaic that I bought on sale because I love the colors in it. What the heck, let's try it. Now I knew I needed a giant hook to get the loosey goosey effect I wanted, so I pulled out my big hooks and got to experimenting. I first tried my biggest metal hook which is an M. Did a quick little work up to get a feel for the gauge and decided it wasn't loose enough. Next up I pulled out my beasty hooks and went with the plastic P hook. Tester worked up nice and loose and so I got to work. Now let me tell you this was a very interesting concept that I had not tried before. Giant hook equals giant chain in which the stitches are not well defined at all. The first row into the starting chain was a slow process, seriously took quite a bit of concentration to see the next proper stitch and to keep the chain from getting all twisted up. Once I got done with the first row the stitches were much more defined and I could cruise along.

beast of a hook and the first row done

Katlyn and I packed up to go to my Brother's for an evening of wrestling and since she was driving, I pulled out and hooked along. Big hook means it goes super fast!

on the road hookin'

Settled in for wrestling with sangria and snacks and yarn in my hand (not all 3 at once)! It's a good time!

Money in The Bank coming up!

Monday morning and back at work, wait what's that I'm wearing. Yes indeed it is my new vest. Not perfect, but a great prototype that I can wear and see what needs to be adjusted. I do adore the colors in this and I will have to get some actual pictures of the entire thing just for future reference. It did not take the entire skein of yarn so that is a good thing to know. The skein is 209 yards, so that gives me a good idea of what other yarns I have hanging about that I can use. I will probably work on another over the weekend for sure. Since I will be outside on Friday and it will be crazy hot, a nice cotton yarn will be just the ticket for the heat.

all done

On the striped blanket I forgot that before I could add a border, I needed to get rid of all those ends. Last night I got that handled and it's now all ready for the border. Katlyn likes the stitch and asked that I make her one for her bed...her queen sized bed. So not something that I am going to be working on in the middle of Summer, but I will get it started up and maybe get a good amount done by Christmas! She only wants 2 colors though, Navy and White, so I will have to get some math worked out for that.