Mason Dixon KAL

This is my earthy, chocolate, cafe con leche absorba bath mat with a royal guard of trusty wash clothes by her side. It was a wedding gift for my brother and his beautiful new wife..........back in August.

My camera ran out of batteries of the wedding and I forgot I had even taken a picture of the bath mat and wash cloths. Whew! That was a close one. There are now either in Japan or getting there so there is no guarantee I'll ever see these again.

# posted by Luanda @ 7:44 PM 1 comments

The colors reminded me of a daisy, so I just HAD to get the daisy buttons for it. There's a third one on the inside.

# posted by ericah64 @ 12:59 PM 4 comments

Hubbo goes out; Hubbo returns with shiny red Gibson...

Hubbo says to knitter, "Lil' Lucille", (guitar now has a name!) needs a
polishing cloth. Not just any polishing cloth, how about one of those Genius
Baby Burp Cloths?"

Knitter is thinking, who is the "genius" here? CatKnitz

# posted by catknitz @ 7:34 PM 4 comments

Here's the baby kimono I made as a cardigan. It took less than one skein of Cottontots. Detail on my blog.

www.justknittingaround.com

# posted by Nancy @ 2:57 PM 5 comments

Having finally finished my first MD project (well, I still have to sew up the kimono, but soon!) I have questions re: the next two things I want to do: first, I'm just starting a Nina shawl (thanks again to the awesome 'lauriec' for providing the missing color so quickly!), and when I practice the fair isle technique I keep getting tiny holes where the contrast color starts and ends. I've tried all the things I can find in my books and on line, but can't seem to eliminate those holes- any advice?

And second, in the book, the border of the Moderne Log Cabin blankets does not look like the mitered border referred to in the instructions. Does anyone know how they're actually finished? I much prefer that narrow border to the other for this application.

Thanks everyone- for all the ongoing inspiration and any advice you can share!!

-Lynne

# posted by lynne @ 2:44 PM 6 comments

I really did not enjoy knitting this. I just couldn't find the rhythm to knit it up quickly. It's not made out of Euroflax, it's Plymouth Yarn's Wildflower DK. It's 51% cotton and 49% acrylic. The finished towel is quite lovely.

Since one hand towel is just not enough for a gift, I'm knitting a second hand towel - this one based on my own design.

I used the knitting grids found on Sweaterscapes web page and followed the directions there. I printed the aspect ratio that matched my actual knitted gage (in this case, the 1.48). I put the grid back into the printer and printed a W on the page in the Monotype Corsiva font, with a font height of 200. It's important to print it in a different color as you can see the pattern easier.

I then approximated the look of the W by highlighting each block. I then took out every other row and knit all the way across on those rows. It just allows the W to pop out (if you don't, then the letter won't really look like a letter). So, on the rows that aren't crossed off, I purl the open squares and knit the colored ones.

The actual letter width is 21 stitches (which worked out well as it's exactly 1/3 of the total stitches (less the border stitches). The towel is actually coming out looking like the font I wanted it to look like:


I'm planning on knitting an upside down W for the other side of the hand towel. The rest of the towel is plain stockinette stitch.

If I were to do this over again, I would have knitted 6 rows before starting the monogram. In this case, I started after knitting 3.

# posted by Shelly Hattan @ 12:31 PM 10 comments

Pattern: Ballband Dishcloth + straps

Yarn: Sugar 'n Cream

Needles: US 7s

I think it will make a perfect add-on to a shower gift! Read more here ...

# posted by kristinknits @ 6:17 AM 4 comments

And this is my Log Cabin Baby blanket for a friend who is expecting in Feb. It is Malabrigo and truly is the softest, squooshiest fabric ever! (I am following in JanuaryOne's cybertrail; this is a random number blanket. See her site (http://www.januaryone.com/archives/chance_v1/) for info on how to do it!)

Yaaaay! Enjoy the advent of fall everyone!

# posted by Amber @ 2:54 PM 9 comments

I don't know how many times I tried to make the MDK washcloth and had to frog it. But finally this weekend I finished one! Then promptly cast on for another and finished it!

I don't like the second one as well, I used a fuzzy yarn that made it hard to see my stitches and I think it's too big. Oh well.

Read about these and other exciting adventures, knitting and nonknitting on my blog. Happy Knitting! On the Needles: Hand towel, Irish Hiking Scarf, another ballband, hat. Bobbi

# posted by The Kelly Green Rogue @ 6:22 AM 1 comments

OK, this time Blogger's finally letting me post some pictures; I hope it works! This is from June, my first baby kimono for a very special newborn girl, whose brother was born last May and only lived an hour. Naturally, her birth was an extra-big deal, and I wanted to give her something extra-special.

OK, the felted log cabin mat is a bit lopsided, but on the whole, the set came out well. This set was also from June, as a gift for my best friend's birthday. She'd just had her house remodeled, and these are the colors of her family room. She was SO excited.

Ooops, out of order. Anyhow, these are from May, my first attempt at log cabin knitting. The Preemie Project needed some soft blanket squares for NICUs, so I grabbed some soft acrylic (crummy yarn, but very soft and washable, the kind of stuff the NICUs love) and made a few. I was laid up in bed at the time, and this helped keep me entertained.

This stash-busting WIP has been lurking in my basket for a while. Our best friends got a puppy, and this is a blanket for her. It's some hand-me-down Aunt Lydia's rug yarn. The green and cream is a nice-feeling cotton. The blue and white are, however, some hideous polyester. The recipient, however, is a dog, so she doesn't care.

# posted by ericah64 @ 6:34 PM 2 comments

If you
had told me I was going to be
knitting baby bibs and dishrags 6 months ago I would have said, uh..... no.... but
here I am... Those Mason Dixon Knitting gals really got me hooked with their book
and pretty soon I was also reading their blog, the KAL and knitting bibs.

I was in one of our many LYS's the other day and the
owner was doing something called "domino" knitting. Always
curious, I asked, "What is that?" One thing led to another and soon I
was reading Vivian
Hoxbro's book, "Domino
Knitting". Of course, the first
thing you are to do is to make her 9 basic squares. OK, I didn't make ALL 9, but
there was one that caught my eye, #9. She called it "beaded". Vivian,
like Ann and Kay, is big on the virtues of the garter stitch.

I just had to make one
of those cute bibs and...

Baby Bib-O-Love meets Vivian
Høxbro!

The beads
are basically a slipped stitch
worked over 2 rows of garter stitch in a contrasting color, aka a mosaic
garter stitch.

Here is a
shot of my bib in fuchsia and green:

These tropical colors
are courtesy of Tahki, Cotton Classic. A detail shot of the beads can be
found on my blog
as well as a description of the pattern stitch.

For the
bib pattern, refer to your copy of "Mason Dixon Knitting".

Whichever way you
choose to do the
colors, or the bead/stripe patterns,
this technique is a great addition to your pattern stitch techniques and looks
like you did a lot of work, when you didn't. And, who doesn't like
that?!?!

Happy
Knitting!

CatKnitz

# posted by catknitz @ 11:05 AM 10 comments

Thanks for the inspiration.

~Bonnie

# posted by Bonnie @ 9:39 AM 4 comments

I ended up using Caron's simply soft yarn for the red and the blue (1 ball), Red heart's soft yarn for the purple (1 ball) and Bernat's satin yarn for the green, yellow, orange, and black (2 balls each). My favorite to work with was Bernat's (no surprise) but when I was looking at Joann's for the yarn they didn't have all the colors I wanted in the Satin. The only thing I would change is making the black outside border thicker. I knitting that as I went so I could carry the black to each spoke and save weaving in more ends. The great thing about this afghan is it was knitted in one peice and the only seam is between the red and purple but I did it with black on each side so the seam is in the spoke.

Now that is done - on to more projects. But my next question is when Ann and Kay are doing a sequel! That have made me rethink and expand my thinking!!

# posted by Sarah McDonald @ 6:52 PM 11 comments

I guess you could call it more of a bath rug rather than a bath mat. I just didn't know how big the pattern in the book would come out so small. Luckily it's log cabin and I was able to make it bigger. This has not been blocked.

The rug comes out nice and thick:

Details: Peaches 'n Cream Potpourri double worsted weight yarn on size 15 needles. I didn't bind off as I went, I kept the stitches live (I love my Denise System needles).

Final measurements: 27" wide by 22" high. I knitted 19 strips around the center rectangle.

# posted by Shelly Hattan @ 11:13 AM 5 comments