YOP Update - It's Looking Like a Rug

Hi!  Well, it's Sunday and time for a Year of Projects update so here I am inside typing on a beautiful, albeit hot, summer day.  Actually, I'm having lots of fun sitting here in my chair people watching out my front window.  You see today is the Hopkins Raspberry Festival (my city of Hopkins used to be farmland where they raised lots of raspberries) and from my comfortable vantage point I can see all the floats lining up for the parade on Mainstreet as well as all the people walking there to nab a great viewing spot.  I'm not much for parades myself as I really don't like crowds, but the atmosphere is overflowing onto my street which I do enjoy.  

I've been working on my braided rug every morning before my son wakes up and I've been pleased with how its coming along.  Today was, in theory, going to be the grand finish, but it's still a little small to my eye.  Currently it measures 21 1/2 inches wide by 28 inches long (71 cm x 55 cm), whereas I am aiming more for 24 x 36 inches.  With the rug being a bit more circular than oval this will probably end up as 24 x 31 or something along those lines.  My guess is about two more loops around should do it.  I have enough of the red and the blue/green colorways, but am now out of the pink/orange/yellow.  I'll be adding in what I call my "Autumn" colorway which is red, orange, yellow and green.  I think it'll blend in pretty well.  It's really starting to look like a rug don't you think?

I did have a finish this week though, my Out of the Frying Pan oven mitts are now both knit and felted!  The even turned out almost exactly the same size even though I felted them separately.  Cool huh?  I would really recommend this pattern as the fit of the mitt is excellent.  Now I'm all set to start mordanting my base yarn this week.  I only have to skein them up in small sample sized skeins. Yay!

Since I really enjoyed making the felted oven mitts I think I'm going to make some felted potholders for my friend's Christmas gifts.  Every year I pick something and make the same thing for everybody.  Last year it was this Market Bag, the year before simple dishcloths, and this year I was going to make everyone these trivets, but after making all the I-cord for the rug I am getting a little bit tired of the process.  I am trying not to buy yarn, but I think I have plenty of color choices now that I'm using up my knitted toy business yarns. 

Thus, I'm checking off one item to the list and adding one item to the list.  Which means I'm not getting ahead really, but then again not behind either.  Have a great week everyone!

YOP Update - All Over the Place

It's Sunday and time for a YOP update.  I finished 1 item on my list, yay!, and added 5 more. What?  Yeah, I was a bit all over the place this week for knitting because of a decision that's been a long time coming.  You see I've had a little knitted toy shop on Etsy for some years now, but I've decided to stop making toys and to change the shop over to something new - plant dyed yarn.  It's not too much of a stretch because all my toys are knit with plant dyed yarn (dyed by the wonderful Judy of Mamajudes also on Etsy) which is a passion of mine.  In my zealousness last Summer I purchased a good quantity of yarn for the shop, but with dwindling sales I have a lot of yarn leftover.  Since I don't want to knit toys anymore, all of it needs a new purpose.  Judy uses Lamb's Pride Worsted yarn for her base yarn which I love for making toys, but not so much for wearing as it's a rather stiff.  The great thing is that I have come up with a bunch of ideas on how to use it up, the bad news is I seem to be trying them out all at once!

So, I added a "Home" category to my YOP knit list with the following patterns: 

For the Home

Sock Yarn Braided Trivets by Martha Lazar 8 of them 

Sock Yarn Braided Rug by Martha Lazar 

My Oluffa Doorstop by Lucinda Guy 

Cozy Coasters by Joelle Hoverson  

Out of the Frying Pan by Amy E. Anderson

 

With the exception of the Cozy Coasters which uses some Frog Tree alpaca yarn (that never seems to run out as seriously I've made 3 sets of 4 coasters using the yarn doubled and still have yarn for more) they are all knit with my toy business yarn.  They Trivets I mentioned in this post, the rug you can see about halfway done above (it's basically a big trivet), the doorstop will be more of a pillow as it will use some other toy knitting yarn that's angora, and last are felted oven mitts which I'm making for use when dyeing and handling the hot pots.  Felted projects are really perfect for this yarn so I'm hoping to come up with a few more ideas along those lines.

Oh, and the finished object for this week was the Classic Cowl I knit with my rainbow handspun yarn which you can see here.  So, as you can see I didn't go with last week's plan to finish spinning my alpaca/angora yarn, but I'm pretty pleased overall.  Now I probably need to tweak my list a bit by removing a couple of items to make up for the additions I made this week.  Decisions, decisions, decisions...