My first attempt was the tree picture. It’s partially modular and you can read more about it here (scroll down): http://www.pictureknitting.com/gator_lake.html

It’s hard to see but the right part of the soil is knitted upward while the trees etc are knitted sideways, with the idea of taking advantage of variegating yarns in different directions. By the time I started knitting I forgot it and just picked the yarn I fancied…      It’s modular in knitting 2 directions in the same piece, but does not have inc/dec(so it’s not a real module).

This is my second modular attempt. I used a small chart I had for a picture knitting class and lots of little left over yarns (I belong to the group that can not throw even itsy bitsy piece of yarn). Still needs work, but it was so much fun to knit and totally impossible to tell what’s going on until the very end.

Husband is a great story teller. That’s how I fell in love with him – he was telling a story and I was listening too intently… good thing too.

So now he is totally interested in making puppets. That’s how froggy came to be, and it is our first puppet.
I started it, husband finished (learning to crochet right on it) and we both enjoy this addition to our house hold .

It reminds me – we used to have a toad living in a pot on our entrance porch – under a leaf of whatever plant was there (I do not remember). It was V-cute!

If you are a serious crocheter – forgive me for all the bad turns, wrong twisting of yarns, and everything else illegal I did along the way.

OOPS -TRIED TO CHANGE PHOTOS AND NOW …

SORRY…

Impish – on top, might have a different name by the time it becomes a pattern, and is influenced partially by spiral shells.

Below – “Raindrops keep falling on my head”, the name comes from how many hat ideas I have recently (see ‘patterns’ on  my website). This hat is so much fun to wear and play with the loose strings (other hats have an even longer ‘ponytail’).

So, little wonder that my knitting turned out a bit Elizabethan (as in Bennet):

What started out as the Sahavas hat pattern in double knitting, ended up as a bonnet! And the caplet – the photos do not do it justice (probably because of the pink pajamas underneath!), the caplet makes me feel like Queen Elizabeth – it is SO NICE to wear.

Being a double knit, here is the other side (of the story?):

And a little side view:

And on to serious matters:

In a way this is a continuation of ‘Meandering Randomnesses’ (see previous post). In the bonnet I used 2 variegating yarns, with the decisions that the pink always goes to one side, and if there is no pink – the lighter color will go there.

The result in my eyes is different to what I get knitting with self changing yarn, that tends to be more stripy.

I used this technique a little bit in the shawl too, but not enough as I came to it towards the end. A way to use it for example is when double knitting with one yarn that variegates from white to black, and one solid color (any color). Then having the white on one side of the knitting and the black on the other. The color change in the yarn dictates on which side of the knitting it will be. So that one side will be white + solid, the other = black + solid. This will be good for background, but not for image double knitting.

And that’s my meandering for today .

This is an experiment in taking decisions and seeing how they effect the pattern. In the pink washcloth the decisions were: do all white as double crochet, light pink as half double, and pink as single crochet (I hope my crochet terms are right, you can click on the image to see a larger photos). So that decision and the self changing yarn determine the amoeba shape of the piece. It is still work in progress, but something already came out of it:

Here I took decisions that determine the colors but nor the shape. The shape started as an experiment in making a double knit hat with the Sahavas pattern (in my books ‘Color & Picture Knitting’ and ‘Knitting with Baba’, and soon as an independent pattern too). The decisions were to always knit the pink on one side, so the other side is ‘pink free’. And to give second priority to light colors on that side and blues on the other. It was much fun to knit.

If you wonder what happened to the hat – husband and I are watching too many Jane Austen. Instead of Sahavas hat it became an Elizabeth bonnet. But more about that in another post.

Hope you’ll enjoy them too…  Read more about them in my website: The top picture is here

The middle one (my lily pond) here

and last, the everything/nothing piece here. I love looking at this piece from all 4 directions, so it has 4 hangers on the back and can hang any which way.

The charts for the water-lilies and the Nothing/Everything are in my knitting books.

First – apologies for not writing for so long, been sick enough as ‘in bed, no computer and no knitting’. Hopefully, that chapter is over.

I did manage to knit this last piece above, called ‘Looking Back’, just before an exhibit at Meher Center in Sep. More about it in the website  http://www.pictureknitting.com/lookback.html .

Below few more photos from the exhibit.

Every year, for 5 days in July, Meher Spiritual Center changes form, and becomes ‘the land of the young’.
The kids are between 14-17 years old, the group leaders – maybe 24. You can count the number of people above 30 years old on one hand (OK, I’m exaggerating – 2 hands. But not more than that!).
My excuse for being permitted to be there (for 1-2 hours a day) is called ‘knitting workshop’, and as of last year we added crochet too.
Even though only few people participate, I like to come up with new designs for the occasion.

The challenge: teach a teenage how to knit/crochet in 45 minutes + have them come out with a product in hand.

The plan for this year is:
Knit: start a fingerless glove (knit sideways, 25 sts #8US). If all they had time for was 2” – fold and make into a cell phone holder. Otherwise, make into the glove.
Bind-off serves to sew together.

Crochet:
start a spiral/snail and continue it to earring, key-chain, bracelet, anklet, necklace, belt or guitar strap.
I tried them on – they are fun and comfortable to wear (cotton), and I admit I did not want to take it off.

The blanket is double knitted, see the other side below. Originally I planned to make it into a pattern, but it will need a lot of polishing before I can do that, and I think I will just leave it at that. The name ‘Sunburst’ was given by the Baby’s aunt, and I like it a lot.