Tag Archives: knitting

New Projects

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My mom came to visit this weekend – which was fantastic. We did indeed go to the yarn store (among many other activities), and I stocked up for three, no four projects, with expert help from my mom.

No doubt I’ll be outlining the victories and setbacks in these projects in the days and weeks to come, but here’s a preview:

(1) Alligator scarf (with pattern)

(2) Felted tote bag (without pattern)

(3) Stuffed owl doll (with pattern)

(4) Shawl/Wrap (with hand-crafted pattern from my mom)

Will post more with links to patterns and pictures soon… I’ve already made a lot of progress on the alligator scarf, avoided the 8-stitch double-pointed needle start in one project (the tote bag), only to have to do not one, but TWO 6-stitch DPN starts for another (the owl). I guess I’d better learn to like doing this – so many projects I’d like to do involve starting to knit in the round from 6-8 stitches. If only there was a way to grow two extra pairs of hands…

Still here, no really

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Wow – it’s really been over a month since I last posted. I’m not sure how it’s already mid-March. And I’m a little fuzzy on what happened to February.

Real life has been seriously interfering with Knitting life, but I did manage to finish a long-promised scarf for one of my best friends. The same ruffle scarf I’ve done in the past, but I changed it a little bit, and added a border at the end:

I like how it came out, and hope my friend does, too. But (true confessions), I only thought of adding the border when I, uh, ran out the white yarn I’d been using. So, I dithered between going to store and getting more (Excuse to go buy more yarn!) and trying out something new. The test scarf I made for myself is very soft – almost too soft! – and so I thought the border with a different type of yarn would give the scarf a little substance. I wasn’t expecting the sort of vintage look that it adds, but I count that as a bonus.

My mom is coming to visit this weekend – so a trip to the yarn store is definitely in order!

Working without a net, or at least a pattern

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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

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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.

Success!

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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…)

Going round and round

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My local knitting shop finally opened. I dragged Redbeard along so we could go to lunch together afterwards, figuring it would be pretty quiet. Boy, was I wrong! Apparently there were lots of ladies who were itching to get their hands on more yarn. (Maybe some new year’s resolutions being started?)  Plus, the shop was stuffed (over stuffed!) with all kinds of knitting things. (Gotta take my mom the next time she comes to town!)

So, Redbeard and I tried very hard not to step on anyone’s toes (unsuccessfully, on my part, I’m afraid) and get some yarn for the market bag project. I wanted to do a leafy green with brown accent, but I couldn’t find a single type of yarn that had both a great green and a great brown. So, I went with the perfect green and a nice, rich yellow.

I really should be working on the things they pay me for, but I couldn’t resist getting a start on this whole knitting in the round thing. The squeamish may want to look away for the next picture, though I think it could be going *much* worse:

My practice tries with starting an 8 stitch knitting in the round (with another yarn) were unmitigated disasters, so I’m actually kind of happy with this. Plus, the worst of the messiness will get obscured with the felting (right… right?). I will try to sew the tail in tohelp make it more solid, too.

But, first, back to “real” work….

(Isn’t that green gorgeous? That will be the main body of the bag and handles. The yellow is the bottom and a small part of the handle.)

Running before I walk?

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So, I’ve decided to try to tackle this bag that I mention in my last post. One of the very first links on Google (for “knitting in the round”) turned up this video. This looks completely doable to me. I ran off to Michaels to get the right needles, but they don’t have the right yarn (even after I figured out what the heck “Aran weight” yarn meant). My local yarn shop (which I didn’t even know existed yesterday) is closed until Monday. Ugh! Must wait…

In the meantime, I finished my daughter’s blue scarf and then I started, and restarted (and restarted) a “sock” for my laptop. But, then my daughter showed me a knitting pattern for a scarf in a book she’s been really enjoying (The Magic Thief) – how could I resist switching to that? (Side question – just how many times CAN you unravel and knit with the same yarn?) Sure, I just finished a scarf for her… but her brother has a scarf AND a hat (and is now angling for mittens. Ugh – mittens?! I could probably manage some sort of bag-like device that fit over his hands and tied around his wrists with a draw string… maybe…)

After my daughter went to bed, I realized that I may have gotten over my head with the scarf, too. It turns out it has a “keyhole” at each end that requires having two balls of yarn going at the same time to work each side of the scarf around the keyhole. I got spooked by this and when the instructions offered a  non-keyhole alternative, I took it. I’m regretting that a little now, because upon second thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. But, in the meanwhile, I’m discovering all kinds of cool things you can do with knitting and purling:

Unfortunately, I’m also learning that I really need to remember what stitch I’ve just, uh, stitched (stutch?) because the knobbly part at the bottom starts to look pretty weird if I get off by one K1-P1. Muttering out loud while I knit gets me some weird looks from Redbeard, so I’ve got to come up with some system. Maybe the way a hold the yarn out of each stitch? My purl stitch “technique” is still pretty “fluid”, though…

My hideously poor short term memory also means I also can’t keep track of how many rows I’ve done and so I’ve just been eye-balling the checked squares to make sure they’re square.  I guess I’d better figure out a trick for that, too. The problem is worse because I can’t tell how to count rows after I’ve done them!

Still – I really like how the scarf is going so far. I think I will try the “keyhole” thing at the end of the scarf.