Spring interweave knits and Best of the worsteds

Today I picked up my mail which included the spring Interweave knits magazine. I felt that the pages were printed on much lighter paper. Am I right? As for the patterns: There are a lot of cottons and that's great as it will help me to finish off more of my huge cotton stash. I have a lot of Tahki cotton classic so the scarf by Eunny Jang is calling. I did a shawl online by Susan Lawrence and I have the yarn called for to make the Fountain pen shawl. I have the Brown Sheep cotton fleece also (7 skeins) so the Jeff's pub sweater is another option although I'm a bit scared about sewing in a long zipper assuming I could even find one. The shawl by Norah Gaughan is worn as a skirt so I can't tell how it would look as a shawl so that's a no go for me. Omdahl has a shawl and it interests me although I have her book so probably will do something from her book before this one. I really am attracted to the scarf by Kenny Chua. I can't figure out what the yarn is. sport weight? dk? The tee by Teva Durham is quite attractive. The other items I find less interesting as they resemble so many others found in other places.

I also got the book "Best of the worsteds" edited by Bobbie Matela and published by House of White Birches. This is good again for my huge stash as I have so much yarn that knits to the gauge of 4.5 sts to the inch or thereabouts. All the patterns are easy ones and are designed by many designers new and old names to me. The patterns come with schematics which are useful just that way for me. There are 40 designs arranged by subject of baby stuff, gifts and wearables.
What I liked best are: most of the baby stuff many of which are done in cottons. The gifts section has something called shadow placemats which look great. A hat and scarf set in mitred squares. zigzag scarf, cabled hat and fingerless gloves. ribbed cap which is much more than just ribs. In the wearables, there's a nice bolero in a variegated yarn which I have (of course). A gorgeous cardi lace vest in cotton. knit from the top pullover with baby cables accenting the raglans. long vest in a rib pattern I did on the raglan sweater I'm working on now. Classic cables vest (which is why I bought the book in the first place). A very nice straight up vest in a cotton yarn (here I'm pleased to have the schematic). I like the diamond twist afghan and the modular one knit in pieces. There's a handy section at the back to help with knitting and crochet but since I didn't see anything in crochet, I'm not sure why they put it in. Those are the patterns I might do or use in some way. I also liked the editor's introduction in which she suggests you just go ahead and use up any yarn that fits the worsted weight label. Very nice book.

granny hat

The granny square comes from the VK book called "Grannies" c2008 and it's actually the basic square for a baby blankie on p.69 by Marianne Forrestal. I have also started the blankie in the same acrylic yarn but in a gorgeous hot color. All I did here was to crochet 5 squares and attach the first 4. The 5th square was attached at th e top with one side to one side of each square and it is a very quick item to make and because it's just one color, there's a lot less ends to sew in too.

Diakeito raglan

Yarn is Diadomina # 335 which I bought a few months ago at the LYS in HOngkong. It's a new color (my photo shows the colors too light) and I really love it too. I made it smaller about size 42 but I think it is a bit wider anyway. However I like the way it fits. I also made the sleeves 18"
long as I rather like them that way in case it's cold outside. Brrr. Again I relied on the J. Fee book on raglans. I do have a problem right now though. I've started another raglan which is written to be worked in pieces. So I did a sleeve and really don't understand why it was done so that the rapid decreases all come first. That makes a raglan which is really impossible for me to wear. Maybe a very slim model. Anyway, I'll be redoing it the way I did this one.

clown toy

This is from Knitted toys by Jean Greenhowe, c89. It's been a wip for years as I didn't know what to do with the hair but now in the future I might do an embroidery stitch with it which I ran across in a very old French book.Anyway, I gave it to Asya and she wasn't interested. She's more into cars. Also everything looks to her like a phone and if it isn't a phone (and this is not for sure) than she couldn't care less. I'm getting ready to go to her 2nd birthday party in March. It's in HOngkong so the trip is a long one for me. But my two kids have set up a really grand time for me including two trips into China, 2 days in Macao, a day in Penang in Malaysia and of course Singapore and Jakarta and a few weeks with the little one. This time she's getting cars!