Support Hooker

I did tech support for 18 years and although I’m now in implementation I still do a lot of support.  I guess there is really no getting away from it.  That being said I feel like I should give myself some kind of support title in regards to patterns I try because I almost always make some changes to improve it (in my opinion).

For example, there is nothing wrong with the braided cowl pattern.  However, I feel that if you chain 10 instead of 13, and DC 20 into it instead of 23, it fixes a few things.

1. the center hole isn’t as big so you can use reasonable sized buttons like 1” with no problem
2. the center hole isn’t as big so when you braid the loops together, they fit more snugly and don’t flare up at the edges as much.
3. 20 dc into a 10 chain leaves less spread between the stitches to make a more consistent full loop.

Just my thoughts.  I tried it on a cowl and I thought it came out better that way.  And this was after I tried this cowl using a thick homespun yarn, a solid 4 Caron One Pound yarn, and a 3 Lion Brand mandala yarn.

Just a few more cowls

Braided Cowls`

I’ve been going absolutely bananas making these! So pretty and easy, if a little time consuming.

I’m just out of  buttons! I ordered some from Walmart but they were way too big, like 2.5 inches.  Then I ordered some cute butterfly ones but they were way too small.  Apparently third parties can sell on Walmart with crappy photos and non-existent measurements!

I’ve made several more of these since but I’m stalled at completion thanks to not having buttons! argh.

Trying out Knitting

Well, my cast on is messy and I got so frustrated with the knit stitch I took a break.  But I’ll get it eventually!

Keyhole fringed ponchos

I actually made three of these so far but I haven’t taken a photo of the rainbow one yet.  I really liked this pattern, and purchased it mostly because of the keyhole neckline to use in another projects.

This was the lilac one almost finished but I’m keeping it so I didn’t do final photos.  I wore this the other day in fact!

So cute!

Then I started working on a shirt version!  It came out a little small but that was my fault, I used a much smaller hook and slightly smaller yarn than the Caron One Pound.  It was from a bag of ‘scraps’ my sister got me last year so I was using what I had.  I believe it was off-white Caron Simply Soft but it had no labels.  I made calculations to keep the keyhole centered with the lesser initial chain count and decided on a shell border instead of fringe.  I do love fringe though.

Just not sure what to do about the sleeves or leave it sleeveless.  May just do another row of DC and then a shell border around each arm.  We’ll see how that looks.