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I am finally blocking my Flower Petal Shawl today, and I also spent some time updating Flickr and Ravelry with a few old knitting projects that I hadn't gotten around to uploading yet. Most had already been posted in my LJ but below the cut is a pair of socks that I don't think I posted about. http://www.ravelry.com/projects/firecat/flower-petal-shawlalpaca & silk/mohair petal shawlPattern: Flower Petal Shawl by Elann Needle: US 6 / 4.0 mm 1 skein (341.1m) Habu Kasuri Silk Mohair A-32D Purchased at: TKCS Sep 07 2 skeins (804.7m) Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud "autumn heather" (via swap with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sistercoyote) The pattern calls for worsted weight and I did it in lace weight, but it’s a reasonable size anyway. (I am not sure if I ended up doing more pattern repeats than specified.) I like how the strip of Habu works with the Alpaca Cloud. flower petal shawl being blocked ( two more pix )Tags: i made this!, knitting
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Have Fun! Scarf by Sally Melville, The Knitting Experience, Book 1: The Knit StitchI finished this in 2005 but I got it out for a photo today because auntysocial was talking about the book in question. I don't remember what needle size I used. I knit this from a bunch of different yarns I got at the Mendocino Wool & Fiber Festival in 2004. It’s knit sideways and self-fringing. I made the mistake of hanging it on a hanger, and it grew so now it’s over 10 feet long. ( Read more... )Regia Jacquard socks (two at once, top down on 2 circs) (Finished last month) Pattern: Boot Socks by Knit Picks Design TeamSize: custom Needle: US 1 / 2.25 mm Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Jacquard Color 4-ply / 4-fädig 2 skeins = 460.0 yards (420.6m) Color family: Blue Acquired: as door prize, TKCS Oct 07 ( Read more... )Tags: i made this!, knitting
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http://www.ravelry.com/projects/firecat/an-unoriginal-hatUnoriginal Hat Pattern: An Unoriginal Hat by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Needle: US 10½ / 6.5 mm Yarn: Rowan Big Wool 1 skeins = 87.0 yards (79.6m) Colorway 21 (white and gray) Notes I used exactly 1 ball of Rowan Big Wool with only a couple of yards left over. The hat is a bit small on me; I misread the instructions and used size 10.5 needles instead of size 11. (But then I might have run out of yarn.) Rowan Big Wool is kind of hard to work into cables because it’s not very elastic. It’s very soft. ( photos )Tags: i made this!, knitting
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Last weekend I had - the house to myself
- several white T-shirts (I don't like wearing white T-shirts; I don't like how they look on me)
- two tie-dye kits that had been sitting around the house for years
- an issue of Craft Magazine with an article on tie-dye
- a laundry tub newly installed in the garage
So I embarked on a tie-dye project. Both kits came with rubber gloves and instructions. The first kit, called "Tie-Dye Rope," didn't work out so well. It came with several very small packets of soda ash and some dye-impregnated strings, not really particularly rope-like, more like pencil roving. It was hard to tie the stuff onto the shirts, and since there was only a small amount of soda ash, the dye came out pretty faint. I haven't taken pictures of these shirts. The second kit, Jacquard Funky Far Out Groovy Tie Dye Kit, came with a large packet of soda ash and three squeeze bottles with Procion dye powder in them. The rubber gloves had rotted away while the kit had been sitting around the house, but the rubber bands had not. They were really, really, really sturdy. Using this kit was messy (the squeeze bottles leaked and the dye saturated the fabric and puddled on the plastic) but I was happy with the results. I did three shirts and had dye left over, which I freecycled. ( photos (more on my flickr page) )Tags: i made this!
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I made a toy for my nephew's 3d birthday. Despite his getting a mountain of other gifts, including a doll house and an OLPC computer, he actually played with the puppet a few times without being prompted, which made me happy. Here's the Ravelry page for those of you who have drunk the Koolaid: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/firecat/manta-rayIt's based on Manta Ray by Brigitte Read on the roman sock blog. Size G hook Yarn: The underside is bulky wool handspun by kiyowaramiyuki. The topside is Plymouth Outback Wool, colorway "Multibright". Both were acquired at yarn swaps. Pattern modifications: * I embroidered on eyes rather than sewing on safety eyes (didn't have any safety eyes, and thought it would be safer for a 3 year old) * I didn't use internal pipecleaners (again, thought they might not be entirely safe for a 3-year-old) * The crochetwork was kind of open and I thought stuffing would show. So I made it into a handpuppet rather than stuffing. There is a side benefit that it is more interactive this way. * I attached the two halves with single crochet rather than sewing. (I suck at sewing.) * I crocheted the mouth piece rather than sewing in a piece of felt. (I suck at sewing.) ( pictures )This might be my last crochet project, since I discovered while doing it that I'm now faster at knitting than crochet. Tags: crochet, i made this!
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This info is written up more tidily on http://www.ravelry.com/projects/firecat/heartbeat-sweaterPattern: Heartbeat Sweater by Jill VosburgCraft: Knitting Made for: me Size: 44" bust with side panel modifications Needle: US 5 (back panel), US 3 (front panel), US 2 (side panels, sleeves, neckline) Yarn: mercerized cotton Colorway: purple and pink varigated (front/back panels), purple (side panels, sleeves, neckline) I got the yarn in a swap. (Waves to punkmom) Notes The pattern goes up to a 64" bust, but as written it isn't all that well designed to accommodate larger sizes - the shoulders and neckline end up too wide. Also the side panel width doesn't change (but I think that it should—a person who is bigger around also tends to have wider sides). We did it as a KAL on the ample-knitters yahoo group. Different folks modified the pattern in different ways to address these issues. My bust is larger than the 44" size I knit; I made up the difference by increasing the width of the side panels. Also I modified the triangles at the bottom of the back sweater panel to accommodate wider hips. (I won't do that again if I make another Heartbeat Sweater, because it makes the bottom of the sweater into an upside-down vee shape, which isn't entirely flattering. But it looks OK for this one). I used #5 needles and continental knitting for the first front/back panel, but the fabric was too loose. I switched to #3 needles and combination knitting for the second front/back panel. When I was ready to start the sleeves, side panels, and neckline I discovered the purple yarn was much thinner than the multicolored yarn, so I knit with two strands held together on #2 needles. The sweater is loose on me - my gauge-fu for garments larger than socks or hats is weak (and it doesn't help when I change techniques and needle sizes mid-project). It has some drape so it looks OK at this size, but I may take in the side panels at some point. Better pictures to come. I've mislaid my camera so I took this on my crappy cellphone camera. It's a detail of the front panel and neckline. ( stitches )Tags: i made this!, knitting
feeling:  accomplished
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It's wordweaverlynn's fault - she e-mailed me a little bit before Wiscon and asked if I wanted to participate in a group Fire Mountain Gems order. I thought I might, but of course in order to figure out what I needed, I first had to drag out and inventory my existing stash of jewelry stuff. And while doing that I came across a bag full of beads and supplies that I had intended to use to make something along the lines of the "Floating Fantasy Necklace" from Beadstyle November 03 issue. I set that aside and started to work on it after Wiscon, only I found out that a number of the small beads I had chosen had holes too small to be strung on the waxed cord, and that I didn't have enough teardrop beads. What to do? I had received the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) botmo collection from May 07, entitled "Dragons in the Garden," and it had a lot of smallish flower and leaf beads, so I decided to use those along with the other beads I had set aside. I made most of the necklace in one evening while watching my Two Fat Ladies videotapes. The videotapes are better than the Food Network version of the show, which cuts out a lot of fun stuff to make room for the commercials. I used a dental pick to make the knots between beads. I got it from a guy who sells inexpensive hobbyist tools at the San Mateo County Fair. The Beadstyle article doesn't explain how to make the macrame cord - it suggests a simplified cord with some overhand knots. I didn't like how that looked, so I did a web search to find basic macrame instructions. Somewhere in my search I found a tip that suggested you could tie the top of your macrame to the clip of a clipboard, so I used that instead of a macrame board. ( photo )Tags: beading, i made this!
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This scarf has been on the needles since last December; I started it in the airport waiting for a flight to Las Vegas to visit the OH's cousin and kitchenwitch. I've been carrying it around in my bag as my "knit in waiting rooms" pattern, and I ended up taking it to Wiscon. Every time I got annoyed in a panel I picked it up, so I quickly finished it. :-) The pattern is from a book called Knit It Now!. The book teaches six stitch patterns and gives patterns for three or four garments in each pattern, each made with a different type of yarn, so you can see how a single pattern looks in a wide variety of yarn types. Nice idea, but the garments are mostly kind of dull. They call this pattern Brick Stitch. It's a slip stitch pattern, which means that you're only knitting with one color per row but slipping some of the stitches from the row below to bring that color up into the current row. To my eye the result looks complex but the process is pretty easy. It was my first attempt at two color work that wasn't multi-row stripes. The yarn is Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo. I really like the yarn; it feels really nice in my hands, drapes well, is lightweight, and has good stitch definition. It's not particularly warm. I really like how this scarf turned out, and I got lots of compliments on it while I was knitting it. ( pix - also available on flickr at firecatstef )Tags: i made this!, knitting
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I tried to make a Moebius scarf using Cat Bordhi's A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. I failed to check the cast-on carefully for only one twist, and it ended up as a scarf with one side but three half twists instead of one. I used one skein of Mountain Colors handpainted "Mountain Goat" worsted weight yarn, 55% mohair and 45% wool, and #8 needles. This made a scarf with about a 65" circumference and 5" wide (ribbed). The yarn is absolutely luscious - soft, light, warm, and developing a lovely halo. I finished it with an applied I-cord edging of Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK, 80% alpaca and 20% silk. This yarn feels lovely but is very delicate. If you knit with the brand-new yarn it's OK, but if you frog it and try to knit with it again, it starts splitting very easily. It's hard to tink and impossible to un-knot. I won't be buying it again. ( Two photos of a twisty scarf )I haven't given up on Cat Bordhi's Moebius cast-on, but the first Moebius scarf I made used a different method for casting on (you cast on half the stitches and then pick up from the bottom edge for the next half...not sure if I'm explaining that very clearly) and I didn't have the problem of extra twists. Also Bordhi's cast-on, because it is over two cables, is either very tight to knit into or produces a loose center to your Moebius strip. A lot of Bordhi's projects are felted in which case the loose center wouldn't matter. Tags: i made this!, knitting, mathematical knitting
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I finished knitting my first pair of socks. I used some German self-striping sock yarn, I don't remember the brand, washable wool/polyester. It wasn't the softest stuff I've ever knit with, but it feels good on my feet. I used the Universal Toe Up Sock Formula from Knitty.com. This pattern works quite well to create a custom fitted sock (although for me the toe came out a bit too narrow. I have wide forefeet). I had one problem with the pattern: When I went to start knitting in the round again after making the heel, there were holes in the corners. The pattern suggests that you make some extra stitches to compensate, but that didn't work for me. I knit them on size 2 Brittany birch DPNs, which I loved. The gauge is a bit looser than I prefer for socks, though; if I did them again with DPNs I would use size 1. They are stockinette except for an inch of 2x2 ribbing at the top. ( Herewith are photos of my socks and my hairy shins. )My next sock project will use circular needles. I like working with DPNs; it's portable and most of the sock could be done without my full attention. And the yarn did not slide off the DPNs nearly as often as I expected it to, but it did do so a couple of times. I want to see if I can learn to do circular needle socks the same way and if doing socks on circs will solve the problem of ladders where one DPN shifts to the next. (I did find a way to solve that, which my brain isn't letting me describe in words right now. But the way I used would make doing patterned socks more difficult, I think). Tags: i made this!, knitting
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