Ripple Lace Tank

Usually when I design something, I come up with the design and then I choose a yarn. With this one, I chose the yarn and designed a tank top for that yarn. I had purchased 10 balls of Queensland Collection Invito yarn on Elann.com for an unbelievable price and I was just dying to use it. It was kind of hard to pick a stitch pattern that would showcase this yarn, but I think the ripple pattern works. For the lace edgings, I used Knitpicks Shinesport. For the straps, I made 2 i-cords on each side 1 in each color and then I twisted them. I am working on getting the pattern written out. When I do, I will post it on my other blog, Gourmet Knitting, if anyone is interested.

My first knitted charity donation

I recently joined the Yahoo! group, Crafting for a Cause. If you are unfamiliar with this group, they craft for a lot of different charities. You don't even have to be able to craft to join. They also accept store bought donations. I decided to join, because I just wanted to give back in some way. I love to knit, so what better way to make a difference. The charity I chose to knit for first is Pine Ridge Indian Health Services (OB unit), in South dakota. Their goal is to send all the newborn babies home in a new outfit. So I decided to knit a onesie and a pair of baby booties. I did not design these, though. Since I have never knitted anything like these before, I just found a pattern in a knitting magazine that I had. I followed the pattern all the way through for the booties, but on the onesie, I made a couple of changes. Anyway, I hope they find their way to a very deserving baby.

Sleeveless v-neck sweater

For this sweater, I wanted to do something a little different. Since I love cables, I decided to try a closed ring cable from Barbara Walker's "Charted Knitting Designs." In the book, it was not a spot pattern, but I thought it would look better this way, so I only did one repeat. I also found a pretty twist pattern called Rapunzel's braid, from Barbara Walker's "A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns," which runs along each side of the v-neckline. The lace pattern used at the bottom is a very old fashioned lace that I found in Barbara Walker's "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns." For extra shaping at the waist, I added an elegant ribbing (this is the actual name of the stitch pattern from "Charted Knitting Designs") at the sides. All in all, I am pretty happy with how it turned out.