Monthly Archives: January 2011

Working without a net, or at least a pattern

knitting, , , , ,

Drunk with knitting power (and maybe some beer), I recently asked Redbeard what I could make for him. He thought about it for a minute, and finally asked if I could make him a glasses case. Redbeard has worn glasses since he was 12 and has an aversion to direct sunlight that means that he never goes out without prescription sunglasses and some sort of brimmed hat. This means he’s almost always wearing one pair of glasses and carrying the other – in a sequence of never-ideal cases that have failed him in one way or another.

So – no pressure. Just not to fail him where countless others have.

I decided to go the felt route, and found a wool-mohair-angora mixed yarn in a color Redbeard likes. I did a felted test patch, and wasn’t happy with how well it felted down with size 8 needles, so I knitted it on my smallest needles (US 5) instead. I didn’t even really look for a pattern, because I couldn’t believe anyone else had this crazy project, and I knew what I wanted to try – a rectangle combined with a triangle-y flap that ended in a string that would be wrapped around the case to help secure the glasses. Here’s what it looks like, before stitching the rectangle into a pouch:

I used the SSK and K2tog stitches (that I learned from the market bag) on the knitting side to create the triangle flap, but wanted to reduce on the purl side, too. I couldn’t find anything that made any sense to me to use as the purling counter-point to SSK, so I just cast off one stitch at the start of each purl row. This worked really well, actually! The P2tog took care of the last stitch.

I’ve sown up the pouch, but am too tired to get a picture, let alone start felting.

BUT before I trudge to bed – I want to also bring up my other project, that I mentioned awhile ago and have been making slooooooow progress on. There is something about this scarf that makes it hard for me to want to work on it. Apparently I’m not so good at counting to 7 over and over again and find it really challenging (knit 7, purl 7, knit 7, purl – wait how many was that?)

Or, even more likely, the “keyhole” experience that I suffered at the beginning of scarf has scarred me for life. Which is how long it will take me to be ready to face it again at the other end of this scarf. Don’t ask why the keyhole is off-center. Just don’t ask. (I have no idea.)

Ruffle scarf 2: Wider and much more grey

knitting, ,

As promised, I have revisited the ruffle scarf, but this time I added some extra rows to make it a little wider. The yarn I thought was mostly grey was actually white to black with grey in between, so I’m glad that I used it for this scarf because the minor pooling  is not so obvious!

Each project is still a learning experience for me – and for this scarf I learned several things: First, I learned that it is possible to start knitting the wrong way in the middle a row if you’re not paying attention. Second, I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter if you’re knitting with mohair! I love this stuff! I didn’t even bother to pull out the wrong stitches (in part because I couldn’t figure out how many there were), I just turned around and knitted the other way.

Boxing Day Brew In Bottles

Beer, ,

We bottled the scotch ale last night, after a nice day out at the zoo with the kids.  The gravity was still a few points higher than what the recipe asked for, but hadn’t changed in a week, so I figure it’s done one way or the other.

I did a quick search for the final gravity being too high, and found people suggesting problems with

  • the grain bill
  • inaccurate thermometers
  • mashing temperature
  • stale yeast
  • going to second fermentation too soon
  • temperature fluctuations during fermentation

So I’ve got a few ideas of what to do better next time, but I’m mostly confirmed in my paraphrase of Tolkien:

Go not to the tubes for counsel, for they will say both yes and no and RTFM!

Success!

knitting, ,

The market bag is drying on the rack (that sounds so much more professional than “my son’s plastic toy shopping basket balanced precariously on top of his plastic toy microphone stand).

It’s almost there, and it looks like the re-felting worked! (I ran it two more times through – for a total of four complete “quick wash” hot-cold cycles.)

Here’s the close up:

And, the bag in its final felted glory:

It’s weird, though – I deliberately used the same type of yarn for the green and yellow so they would felt the same, but I think that the stitching must matter because the sides are definitely more felted than the bottom. I’m already planning to do another one – making the sides and handles longer.

Felting questions remain

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So, I may have been subject to irrational exuberance yesterday – upon closer inspection this morning I realize that I can still see some stitch definition in the felted bag. There’s no doubt that it’s felted, but it’s not felted-beyond-all-reason-felted, which I was hoping for.

I’m going to look online to see if people have had success with further felting even after something is mostly dried. I won’t be all that disappointed if this is as good as it’s going to get – I’m still pretty happy with the bag! But… if I could felt it further….

And, for my next trick, I’m going to turn this lump of fuzz into a scarf:

Redbeard and I were convinced that this had to be roving until the nice lady at the yarn store patiently showed us how, yes indeed, it was really yarn.

Felting success!

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Yes, it’s true. I am a felter.

The bag is still drying – I’ll get pics once it’s closer to dry. But, either my expectations are low, or this felting thing is not so hard after all.  Can’t wait to use this bag (and start working on the next felting project – a glasses case for Redbeard… though in this weather I should be thinking about a nice cloche hat…)

I know Kung Fu, er- Kitchener Stitch

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Here’s the pre-felted final bag in all its non-felted glory:

The bottom looks only mildly screwy, especially from a comfortable distance:

The pattern actually deliberately causes those raised stitches. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it – and in this case it’s actually true!)

I learned a bunch with this pattern – I learned the wrong way to roll a ball of yarn (unless you like unpicking wooly knots), I learned that knitting in the round mostly means not having to purl (I like knitting in the round), and I learned the ssk stitch. All very cool. But the best thing, bar none, was I learned the kitchener stitch:

Redbeard swears I actually said out loud “Holy crap – it works!”

Now, I get to go learn how to felt in a front-loading washing machine. After some googling, I’ve decided to follow this set of instructions that appear highly rated by other felters. So, as much as it kills me – I’m not felting yet until I make a test patch.

So close!

Quick side project

knitting, ,

I have been knitting, I swear. In fact, a couple days ago two things happened: my friend Gina pointed out a pretty scarf pattern and I realized my daughter and I had forgotten her friend’s birthday. So, a quick trip to the yarn store and about 1000 Yarn Overs later:

This was an easy scarf as advertised, except I should have paid more attention to the comments about the pattern (“It only takes one skein, so you know it can’t go forever”). Over 1000 purl stitches in a row (literally, in a single row)… and the yarn, while beautiful, is fiddly to work with so I don’t think that I’ve improved my purl technique (the opposite, maybe!). I will say, the best thing about working with mohair (or mohair-like substances) is that it masks mistakes really well. Which is good, because as far as I can tell, it prompts more mistakes, too.

Still – love the pattern! I’ll definitely try it again…

Photo Shoot

Beer, knitting,

So it turns out the default header image was making it impossible to read the site header.  So we talked for a few minutes and came up with the idea of a glass of beer on a scarf.

So I got out the tripod, setup a nice shot, took several minutes to get a good glass of beer poured (from our last batch of over-carbonated homebrew), played with the exposure a bit, and generally took a bunch of pictures to make sure I got at least one good one.

Then I took the camera off the tripod and took one last picture by hand.  So of course that was the best one and the tripod and all that fiddling was a waste of time…