Visiting Out-Laws

The brother, sister and niece-out-of-laws have left, the house is tidied up and the cat feels safe to roam the house again.

Knitting Niece
Thaddeus' niece, Alexandra has always had a fascination with my incessant knitting. This weekend, she discovered the Barbie Circular Knitting machine, so we got a big skein of Red Heart rainbow variegated out of the stach for some knitting play time.

I first suggested that she make a door draft eliminator. She cranked, and cranked and created a tube long enough to lay across the base of a door. I finished off the end so she could have her mother help her line it with the leg of an old pair of panythose, and fill it with rice or dried beans and keep her bedroom free of drafts.

The she decided that she needed to make herself a pair of "foot warmers". Since she's the niece with long narrow feet, the Barbie Knitting tube was perfect. I bound off two tubes for her, and voila!



Here's a picture of my beautiful niece.



And a picture of the out-of-laws.



Mini Chock-a-Block
With all the activity yesterday and today, (Tanning, Amish market, Chinese restaurant, Firemen's carnival, and Flea Market) I didn't get much knitting done on MCaB. I finished the seventh row of blocks, but haven't started the eighth row yet. Not enough difference in knitting to provide a picture.

Overall, it seems like most folks think the sleeve should continue the block patterning. I'm glad, because I was thinking it would be the best way to go, despite the fact that it's a little more difficult to write up in a pattern.

New Project
Also got some work done on the new baby blanket. I'm liking the King Charles Brocade pattern stitch. It's a simply Knit and Purl stitch that looks like this:



The pattern stitch is easy to repeat once it's started, and I've gotten to the point where I can start it without looking at the instructions. Hopefully this will make the knitting go faster.

New Knitting Books
I got a chance to see the galleys for the two new books from Unicorn. The first one is the new Jamieson book. I only saw a black and white copy of the book, and overall, it looks like a good solid knitting book. Very comparable to the first few Jamieson books. If you liked the first three Jamieson books, you'll like this one too. I know I'll be getting one for my library.

The second book is the new Simply Knit book. I'm not allowed to give any advance notices of this book, but I can say that I do like it a lot, and the designs and pictures are quite good. All of the designs are also done in the new Unicorn yarns. Suffice it to say, I think this book will sell a boatload of yarn from Germany.

Neither book is available for sale yet. My understanding is that the Jamieson book will be out this month or next, and the Simply Knit book is slated for September.