Gift for Eli

My newest great-nephew was born last week! His name is Elijah (Eli), and he's a cutie. And for a change I got a baby gift finished when the baby was only a week old! I finished his blanket last night.

And here it is! It's being displayed on top of the cutting board at work, so please ignore the part of the cutter that's showing at the back of the photo. :)

My nephew Ken and his wife Melanie were doing a jungle theme in the nursery. It's hard to knit something jungle like (at least for a beginner knitter - I can't do the fancy knitting designs yet), so I went with a jungle-y green. I hope they like it.

It's done in a basket weave pattern, which I just love the looks of. In fact, I think once I'm done making a blanket for my brother's new baby, I may make an adult sized version of this pattern for myself. It looks so snuggly and warm!

I did have one frustration with it yesterday when finishing it. I ran out of yarn! The end of the border was supposed to be 8 rows, but it ended up being 3. I'm sure Ken and Mel won't mind. :) As it is, I ran out of yarn when I still had about 15 stitches to bind off, so here's what the end looks like:

Oh well. It's the little imperfections that make these things mean more, right? :)

Welcome to the world, Eli! I hope you'll get lots of use out of your blanket once you get it.

Scarf!

I finished my scarf last night. Remember the scarf I started knitting for myself ages and ages ago? Yeah, after getting sidetracked by other projects, I finally finished it! And I LOVE it. It came out so nicely. There are a couple of mistakes in it (in the mesh stitch sections, mostly - it's the only one that really tripped me up at all), but it's for me, so who cares? It came out so nicely. And I knitted it! Woo!

I think my favorite section is still the basket weave. I just like it. I think that's the pattern I'm going to use for the next baby blanket I make. Imagine how soft and warm that will be for a baby! :)

So, now that this is done, the only project I'm currently working on is my sweater. I haven't touched it in a while, so I think that will be the next one to be finished. Then I have two baby blankets to make - one for my future great-nephew, and one for my future nephew or niece. And when I was visiting my sister before Christmas, my niece (who is a nurse on a cancer ward) brought up that the patients who are undergoing chemo are usually given hats to wear, as they lose their hair, and the hospital had run out. I'm hoping they got some more since then, but she asked if I could make some to donate to the hospital, and I like that idea a lot. So I want to make some hats.

That seems like enough to keep me busy for a while, right? Yes, definitely. I have a mental list of other projects I want to make, though. I want to make myself a knitted afghan. I want to try making some nice warm socks to wear around the house. And when I get good enough, maybe even I'll try to make a pair of gloves for myself, who knows?

I'm so glad I taught myself to knit. :)