Well, THIS would've been easier to do last week...

Last week, as you know, I had to knit a lot of tiny pink things very, very quickly. So, this week, I'm doing tiny lavender things at whatever pace they happen. So far, I've discovered that planned lavender things using actual patterns knit up much more quickly than let's-wing-it-entirely things in pink. For example, I got two skeins of Plymouth Yarn's Dreambaby DK (color 131) last Saturday at Uniquities (oh, HOORAY!! THEY HAVE A WEBSITE NOW!!!). There was a lovely little sample knitted up in a pattern (Blanket, PATF013, visible here at Cherishables Yarn Shoppe's site).


Look at the lovely store model.


I wish my camera-phone was better so you
could see the INCREDIBLY even, perfect stitches!!
The Actual Blanket calls for two skeins, but I just wanted the little square. Having been a knitter/crocheter for quite a while now (ye little fishes, it's getting closer to forty years than I really want to think about. Yikes. Just realized that, since my first needleworking was when I was three, I *have* been cross-stitching for 40 years now. Good heavens - I can't actually be OVER FORTY now, can I??? How'd that happen??? Anyway, back to the current tale...)

Ahem. having been a knitter/crocheter for quite a LONG while now, I bought two. Which turned out to be a good thing, since I ran out of yarn-ball #1 two rows into the bottom edging (which needed 9 rows and a cast off, total). This was finished yesterday at lunch; here it is on its blocking board, drying out. I really like it, and someone's doll will, too.


Stitches not as perfect as the model, but it's Sooooooo cute!
It's not for my sister; I'm not allowed to make anything else for the baby until after she's born. So I'm making things for the baby's dolls. So there.

Anyway, there I was with most of a skein of lovely lavender yarn. I wanted to make another small thing (since I had most of a lunch hour, a hellish commute, and an upcoming two hours on the exercise bike during Biggest Loser) that looked different, but still pretty and fun to knit. Remembering that I really liked knitting a shawl based on Leanne Cooper's Travelling Roses Scarf, I pulled up the pattern page and marked the stuffing out of it.


I had to figure out how many width-wise repeats I could do, while maintaining triangles on each side that didn't have half-roses in them (three, as it turns out), and how many rows of yarn I *really* had to work with, based on the gauge of the previous blanket. I needed to figure out which stitches needed to get left off to make things square off nicely (two rows at the top, plus two stitches off either side, but not in the repeats!), and if I could really squeeze four pattern repeats out (not really). This is what I have so far - I was doing my Yarn on Thursday knitting last night, so didn't get much done:


Camera-phone only does well in early morning sunlight.
If it actually works in the end, I'll make notes here. I really love this pattern - someday, I may actually make the SCARF, as indicated, from it. But so far, one shawl (the only one I've made that I have proof I've worn in public - from Easter 2008), and this little doll blanket. For never having made the *actual* pattern, that isn't bad!