Monday, August 10, 2009

Baby's First Sheep

A friend of mine introduced me to the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm Blog a while back. It is an excellent place to get your cute fix, what with all the pictures of baby lambs, among other things. Not only that, but there are usually links to all sorts of interesting things. One that caught my eye was a link to a pattern for some knitted sheep. That very same week, I bought some yarn and knitting needles, and went about re-learning to knit. My mom taught me how once, but I was probably 15, and had long since forgotten almost everything. And yes, I'm aware that the pregnant lady knitting is a little bit of a cliche. I'm OK with that.

For the first project, I knitted a scarf. It started a little bit rough, left a couple of holes along the way, but finished strong. It won't win any prizes, but I may wear it for the two weeks or so that we call "winter" here in North Carolina. Then I tried to learn the purl stitch, and it wasn't pretty. I spent a couple of weeks just toying with it, seeing if I could get it to look cohesive, but it just wasn't happening, so I left knitting be for a little bit. See how I am when the going gets tough?

Finally, I decided it was time to attempt the sheep. A quick glance at the pattern revealed there was no purling required - sweet! After another trip to the craft store, I was all set. And (fanfare please!) after a few days of working while we watched TV, baby's first sheep was all ready to go:




OK, so now all I have to do is knit the little sheepy blanket. Per hubby's request, it is Carolina blue in color, and may or may not get a little UNC logo at some point. I re-checked the pattern and it says "moss stitch." Eh? So I look up moss stitch and find out it's knit 1, purl 1 for two rows, then purl 1 knit 1 for the next two rows. Crap! I tried, I really did. The problem was, if I pulled the yarn from one side, my stitches multiplied. Multiplied! I started with 24 and would end up with between 27-30 by row 2. So I tried pulling the yarn the other way. It went OK for about 6 rows, but then I noticed that I wasn't getting a blanket so much as I was getting a clumped-up knot of something that resembled rope. Awesome. So for the second time since starting, I abandoned the purl stitch. I just knitted the blanket, and I think it looks just fine:





I had the inspiration to create a few of these, and make them into a mobile. If I manage to do that I'll definitely post a picture - I'm pretty proud of my craftiness!

3 comments:

Rasnovas said...

!!!!

Jen this is Faan, you need to join ravelry. You need to join ravelry right now.

www.ravelry.com

I love your sheep! They're just adorable :D and a mobile is the best way to use them! That would be SO cute!

/hugs Hope you're feeling well. I hope you don't mind that I've been following your blog!

Super Jen said...

Follow away, and thanks so much for the suggestion! Joining ravelry... now. :)

Unknown said...

Those sheep are nice!

Forgive me, but I'm still trying to get over that Ryan is having a child! Well, YOU are having the child, but he's a pretty big piece of it. I'm very happy for you both :)