Madeleine’s Afghan

Here is one of my favorite projects, a baby afghan for Madeleine.I started with no idea what I was going to do and ended up with this.

I found a really fun yarn for the main part.  I don’t really know much about knitting but I wanted to knit this so I made a best guess. I used to a knitting needle contraption that was a long plastic cord with knitting needles on both ends. If I dropped a stitch I was in trouble. That’s the problem with knitting, I don’t know how to correct mistakes and if you drop a stitch it’s like nylon sock, it just keeps running.

The edge was very unique. I just kept going around adding different stitches. Instead of going wider and wider like you usually do with an edging, I have several layers coming from the first row.  The pink flowers and dark green leaves look like they are done individually, but they are rows of stitches. I did slip stitches in between.

Stars Displayed

Here is how we displayed the stars at our party.  Everyone got to choose their own star at the end of the program.

More Christmas Stars

Here are more of the stars we created for the Christmas party. Four of us worked on the stars. I added ribbons, bows and beads for the final touches.

Mark suggested I do some with gold and silver yarn.

I used the specialty yarn that as fibers sticking out all over on some of the stars, mostly around the edges. It required a lot of patience. On this one I doubled the yarn. It took a long time, but it turned out fun.

I tried using the specialty yarn on the inside of a star. I did three parts and that was all I could handle. It was actually a kind of scarry looking star. I filled in the rest with regular yarn and added ribbon and beads. I even glued ribbon around the edges. It’s the star at the top. It kind of reminds me of a favorite pet.

I tried to find yarn with interesting textures. I think this white yarn looks so pretty. It’s simple, but elegant. For the bow I used ribbon left over from my daughter Catherine’s bridal flowers. It went really well with the yarn.

Here are some more variations. I have to admit the black fringe on the top gray star wasn’t too effective.

I liked these stars. I filled them in at an angle and used several different yarns.

Beads, bows and berries.

Gold, silver, white and shiny red.

Bows and beads.

My coffee table full of stars.

Christmas party favors, December 2, 2009

The theme for our party was stars. There were four of us who created stars out of plastic canvas. I bought yarn and cord in colors that were subdued and went well together. I was going for a rustic barnyard star feel, but everything had some bling also. Either some metallic cord or sparkly yarn. I let the others create their own designs but the color palette was the same so they looked good together. I added more embellishments and some ribbons when they were all finished.

Here is one of my favorites.