Some Finished Knitting Projects

I've finished a few knitting projects in the last week and thought I would share them with you today.

Now that winter is almost over, I finally finished Sophie's sweater. This is the Biscuits and Bones Dog Coat - a free pattern from the Patons yarn company. If you really love your dog and also really love to knit cables, you'll really love this pattern!
I had this sweater half done and found that it was way too large at the first fitting session, so I ripped it all the way back to the "armholes" and started over. As you can see in the photo below, it's still too big around Sophie's chest, but it's done now and she's just going to have to wear it that way (because she's just a dog and none of her friends are going to laugh at her at school anyway).

Here's one more picture, just because I love tormenting her with the camera! Silly dog--why is she so terrified of the camera?

Here's the completed "North Star Scarf" that I started a few months ago from the Donna Druchunas book called "Arctic Lace." This scarf is one of my "pay it forward" projects, but I can't send it to the recipient until the end of May because I'm going to enter it "photo/art/crafts contest" at the upcoming Minnesota Master Naturalists conference. I thought this might be an appropriate entry because Minnesota is the North Star State.

This scarf is approximately 8.5 inches wide and 64 inches long. It was knitted on size 2 needles with a fine laceweight yarn called Kinair. The fiber content is nylon and superfine goat hair. Because the entire project was worked from a chart, I know for a fact that there are 32,508 stitches in this scarf! Amazing! The other really amazing thing about this scarf is how light it is. And to prove it to you, I put the scarf on my postal scale -- it weighs only 1.3 ounces!

as compared to this kiwi fruit which weighs almost 3 times as much at 3.1 ounces! I have quite a few balls of the Kinair left in my stash and next time I use this yarn I'm going to knit something for ME!

Here's something I did knit for me--a ribbed beanie. This is just some Red Heart acrylic yarn, but I really liked these earth-tone colors and since it's machine washable yarn, I can wash and wear this hat for everyday. And it sounds like I'm going to get the chance to wear it for a few weeks yet this year!

This is the "Bobbles & Leaves" tam-o-shanter, from another Paton's pattern book called "Where Did You Get That Hat?" I've never tried this pattern before and it's knitted circular from the center out. I think it turned out really pretty and because it's a tam, I got to put my dinner plate to use again as a blocking tool.

I have another knitting book that has dozens of charts for Fair Isle knitting designs, so I took one of the basic "96 stitch" stocking hats and created my own design for this hat. Hats are a good way to try new patterns, use up those leftover skeins of yarn from other projects and they go pretty fast (all of the hats in this post took me about 6 hours to knit).

I'm starting to notice a "nature" theme in many of the things I've been knitting lately, either with the yarns (earth tones or natural fibers) or the patterns (leaves, stars, snowflakes). When I started this blog, I called it Nature Knitter because I was a knitter and spent a lot of time out in nature, but now it seems that even my knitting has taken on a nature theme. Hmmmmm, what's it all mean?

Oh yeah, here's one more thing......you remember this little shawl I finished back in November and then I decided I didn't like the way it hung off my shoulders and I was going to try and fix that with some beads or something? Well, that's exactly what I did! I found some pretty, clear glass beads in the shape of a leaf (nature again!) and sewed one to each point on the edge of this shawl. The weight of the bead is just enough to give the edge of the shawl a little more weight and this makes it hang much nicer, plus the colorless beads don't clash with all the other colors in the shawl.

So anyway, that's the latest on the Nature Knitter scene. I'm looking forward to another weekend of marathon knitting to take my mind off the "winter storm" the weather service is predicting for us (6 inches of snow?? unbelievable!)