A loom knitting update and weekend goals

Today I'm going to post a bunch of notes on loom knitting so that I have a place to refer back to when I need this info. Learning new things is a lot of fun as long as you are along for the ride and have the proper expectations. In other words, don't expect to be thrilled with your first projects! At this point I've made 3 of the blue hats, the green hat and 2 scarves. For these I used either the Boye looms (hate them) or Loops and Threads Knit Quick Kit (not as bad as I thought it would be). That's the purple one below. For $5 clearance, it wasn't a bad deal. The Boye looms are at the local thrift store already.

This hat pattern is the basic starter hat. I don't love it but it's a perfect way to start. It's fast and very easy and virtually every beginner knitting YouTube video is this hat. The scarf on the right was done on the round loom in a flat knit stitch. Big mistake, of course, it curled and required lots of blocking. The scarf on the left is the e-wrap double knit done on the Loops & Threads flat loom (purple one below). It was also fast and easy but is quite a bit too loose as you will see in the next photo.

Then I got the new KB Looms.  This light purple one is part of the Adjustable Multi-knit loom. It can knit standard gauge or bulky gauge. I set this up for bulky gauge by removing every other peg. You can see that the KB loom rails are closer together than the L&S loom and that affects the gauge too. These two knits are done exactly the same with the same yarn (Premier Serenity) and the fabric is soooooo much better on the KB Loom with a tighter gauge. But I will keep the L&S loom kit too. I can see using it for certain things since the gauge is bigger.

Here are 2 swatches that I knit on the KB loom. The swatch on the left is a double rib and I felt it was a little too tight for a scarf so, until I try new patterns, I'll do scarves with the e-wrap double knit. It's going to be a great car project for our trip.

The other new loom is the Flexee bulky, also from KB Looms. I'm working on their basic beanie pattern that teaches how to decrease the crown so that it isn't gathered like the green one above. This is a fun loom to work on and the flexibility will make it easier to work on in the car.

So these are my current projects for the looms and I think I'm mostly ready for the car ride.

In other news, I cut out 4 more sets of 8 blocks for my Flora's Star quilts. Here's the stack of block sets (8 of each one) ready to sew and these are going on vacation with me. After I get these made I'll take a little more time to give some background in what these blocks are really for.

For travel, I have each block set arranged on a piece of cardboard and wrapped in plastic wrap so that everything stays together. Yes, one is wrapped in foil. I worked on that set at the beach but didn't finish them. I only had foil to wrap them up to come home.

I have so much stuff packed to work on during vacation! I feel like I'm taking too much but we aren't going to have the normal number of visitors this time. We essentially will be on our own for 3 weeks so I think I'm going to have a lot of sewing time. For the 4th week we will have one of Chris' best friends so I'll still be left with lots of sewing time.

The last thing I worked on was finishing the quilting on the big green quilt. I'm trimming it up and am ready for binding this week! I should be able to deliver this to Cheryl this week.