Recently a friend was “de-stashing” (we all know about that, right?). Among other things, she tossed a ball of her first attempt at Navajo plied handspun yarn on the table and blathered to the knitting group, “This is so seriously overspun, it’s awful, if someone doesn’t take it, it’s going to be tossed out … blah, blah, blah.” (I just love the word “blathered” and couldn’t resist using it … no offense intended, D.)
It was pretty seriously overspun, no doubt about it. But her control of color was good and there are lots of uses for tightly-twisted fibers, right?
My brain went immediately to the Stow Away Shopping Bag pattern by Oat Couture, which I bought at Double-Ewe Yarn. The plan from the get-go was to surreptitiously knit it up and then give it back to her.
I didn’t have quite enough of her handspun so I Navajo-plied a bobbin of emerald green I had already spun and used that. Still not enough, so I took a little leftover reddish-orangeish-pinkish-purplish-with-sparkly-bits handspun I used to finish of a little cap, called That Hat, pattern also from Double Ewe Yarns. And here’s the finished product.
I have to say, this bag is such a great little project. I made one for my daughter before her trip to The Czech Republic. It folds up into a pack about the size of your two fists…
… and tucks into its own built-in pocket. Toss it in the back seat or glove box, or in a suitcase, and hit the road … easy-peasy.
(If you're interested, here's a good short video on how to do Navajo plying.)
The pattern calls for Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted but I used Cascade 220 and it worked just fine. I decided to use Cascade 220 because I had leftover colors from Eva's Christmas stocking, and thought it would be safest to use all the same yarn since it was going to be felted.
While I was knitting it I thought, “huh, I don’t get it … how’s that going to work, shouldn’t that be attached to something … oh, angsty, angsty!” But I followed the pattern in spite of my doubts, and tossed in the washing machine with my fingers crossed. It felted in no time, and like magic it turned into a … a frog!
With a kiss, will it turn into a handsome prince? Now that would be magic!
Felted stocking for Eva, with Harry Bear (pattern free from Berroco) and earflap cap with matching mittens (photos of both below).
First the stocking. Felted, a little fair isle, a little intarsia, nothing too ambitious but I’m pleased with the result.
I knitted the stocking using Cascade 220 (single strand) and size 11 needles, using just a basic sock pattern for proportions.
(A note about the intarsia section: When I came to the tree section, I put the stitches involved in the intarsia on a straight needle, leaving the rest on a circular. I worked the tree rows, left them on a holder, worked back and forth on the stitches on the circular needle until I had the same length as the tree panel, then put all the stitches back on the circular needle and continued in the round. When I was all done, I just stitched the panel in place and the seams disappear completely in the felting.)
(Oh, and just for the sake of documentation in case I ever want to make another, I did an afterthought heel.)
I took some photos along the way because the shrinkage during felting always seems like such a guessing game. So I wanted to record just exactly what happened.
Measurements before felting: 28" long x 10" wide at ankle
Measurements after felting: 20" long x 7.25" wide at ankle
And stuffed inside a fluffy white Harry Bear, about 7 inches or so long,
I have been finishing up projects like crazy but not getting much blogging done! Here are my Lace Panel Gloves, designed by Lisa Hoffman and published in the Fall 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting. This issue has lots and lots of pages with little yellow sticky-notes marking patterns I would l-o-v-e to make!
I used Wollmeise. I had never used this yarn before but it is very beautiful and so easy to work with, and I think the gloves have a very nice fluid drape to them, which you really can't see in the photo of course. I'm so very pleased with myself ... this is the first pair of gloves I've made. Thank you, Deb, for introducing me to this yarn.
My neglect of this website has transcended (or descended?) to a new level. Not only have I been neglecting the site, but I've been neglecting my email! You see, when I first started this site I set up my email to forward to my gmail account. Something must have happened along the way because it stopped forwarding. So I've been missing a lot of emails. I guess I just thought things were quiet around here.
So, if you've sent me anything please don't feel slighted. I just didn't see it. I'm going to have to spend a few days sifting through the messages.
In the meantime, I have precious little to report on the knitting front. I've been kept so very busy by a newly-mobile baby and haven't really been knitting. I have grand plans for a set of Christmas stockings for the babe, her dad and me. But I have to get cracking because Christmas is coming up far too quickly.
To distract you from the lack of anything important I have to say, here's a recent photo of Eva wearing her Sideways Sockyarn Sweater. Most of the sweaters that have been knit for her fit her just great these days, which has turned out to be very good timing, with winter coming up.
Over a year ago I dyed a hank of sock weight yarn using gel frosting dye. I didn’t really have anything in mind when I dyed the yarn. It was just experimental, I hadn’t used frosting dyes so it was just fun to play around. I posted about the experience and said I’d write up how we did it but I never actually got around to it and in fact didn’t do any more dying with frosting dye, in spite of the fact that I was pleased with the brightness of the color
My yarn:
My wrist warmers (do you call them wristers or wrist warmers?) with this yarn looked sort of … well, frankly, like 60s tie-dye. (I should have taken a photo of them before dying but I didn’t … you’d really see what I mean!)
So anyway, I decided to bring out my notes from the initial gel dying and over-dye the wristers.
Quick explanation of dying process:
Gather up:
The item(s) you want to dye
Bowl or bucket in which to presoak the item(s) you want to dye
White vinegar
Water (room temp is fine)
Gel frosting dye (Wiltons, available at Michael's)
Plastic wrap
Rubber gloves
Microwave safe dish or bowl
Microwave
Hanger or rack on which to hang item to dry
Soak the item you want to dye in a mixture of water and vinegar. Thoroughly mix the gel dye in plain ole the water. I made just a tiny batch because this was just a tiny project. I put the wrist warmers in the dye water, swished them around to make sure they got thoroughly and evenly saturated. I probably left them in the dye bath 5-10 minutes. Then I squeezed out the excess water, laid each on a piece of plastic wrap, folded the wrap around it to seal, rolled each up like a cinnamon roll, put them on a dish and microwaved (microwave for 2 minutes on high, leave in microwave for 2 minutes, then microwave on high for another two minutes, remove, let cool until you can handle them, then unwrap, and hang to dry).
For this, I used only about a quart of water and ¼ cup of white vinegar in a plastic ice cream bucket to soak the wrist warmers. Soaked them for a couple of hours. Then I used 12 ounces of tap water to which I added 1 tsp each of red and burgundy gel.
And here’s the final product:
I am actually okay with the result. I have a purple suede jacket that I love, and the purple on the wristers (which doesn't actually show up very well in the photo) is a nice match.
So … see? There’s hope for some of those “really, I thought that was a good idea????” projects.
I’m not very inventive in costumes. Really, I just skip that part of Halloween and try have the best treat on the block. My costume this year, should I wear it, is apparently going to be Strange Person with Pink Acrylic Hair.
Several of us in the knitting group made these crazy knitted wigs. The pattern is free on the internet from Knitty.
Angela made a beautiful blue one, Marg a red and silver sparkly one … she’s is very into red, it’s perfect for her! Come Saturday, it will be interesting to see if anyone else made one. There’s talk about going out to lunch somewhere
and all wearing them. Sort of a new take on the Red Hat Club maybe? Mmm … probably not.
(The Treat: Individual packs of Pringles – yum, I think that beats bite-sized candy bars just about any day!)
(That's a touch of local dialect ... and a very cute baby.)
This Whirligig Shrug is so cute. If you make it, you can very easily use the basics of the pattern to improvise a little matching hat.
I made the shrug using Merino 5 Superwash by Crystal Palace Yarns. I bought three 50-gram skeins (110 yds/skein) and had most of one left over so I was able to just use that. I used the same size needles I used for the shrug. And I chose to approach it as a top-down construction so the U-cable for the hatband wouldn’t be upside-down compared to the waistband of the shrug.
I started by casting on 7 stitches in a circle. (Tip: After a round or two you’ll want to place stitch markers to divide the piece into 7 sections. Then make your increases in the stitch before (or after) each stitch marker. Just be consistent in where you add them.) Working in stockinette stitch, I added 7 stitches per round until I had 28 stitches. Then I added 7 stitches every other round until I had 77 stitches. I worked those 77 in stockinette stitch to the length I wanted (about 3-1/2 to 4"). (I cook that way, too: "Oh, I don't know ... you just wanna add 'some'.")
Just before starting the U-cable section, I added 3 additional stitches to bring the count to 80. You bring the stitch count to 80 because you need multiples of 8 to duplicate in the hatband the U-cable stitch pattern of the shrug.
After finishing the U-cable “band”, I made a ruffly brim by adding stitches in the same manner as they were added to form the ruffle of the shrug. The brim is maybe 8 rows of seed stitch.
Strangely enough, even though our summer this year was so wimpy and un-summer-like, I'm not too sad about the approach of winter. Maybe I don't mind winter as much now that I have a January baby? I don't know, it could just be because I have a new winter coat and I'm working on some winter wear to go along with it. It's really been years since I've had a decent winter coat, hat and gloves. Last year I wore a very cheap maternity coat from Target. I felt like a giant red strawberry. The year before, I wore my spring coat all winter despite freezing my butt off, just because I didn't like my winter coat and was too cheap to buy one. This year I decided I want to be an actual grown-up with an actual nice coat.
And on one fateful day in Nordstrom Rack, I found it:
So of course, I couldn't have a nice new winter coat without a nice new hat to go along with it. Perhaps the Provence Cloche [Ravelry link] from the Interweave Knits special Weekend edition?
And gloves, of course. How about the Lace Panel Gloves from Vogue Knitting [Ravelry link]?
I'm so happy with this pattern and how these gloves are turning out. They fit my hand like they were made exactly for me (and with no tweaks to the pattern). This is one of those patterns where every little detail has been thought through and well-explained. Kudos to designer Lisa Hoffman. I only see two patterns by her listed in Ravelry, but I'll be keeping my eyes open for more patterns from her in the future.
So... if you happen to get a pair of these gloves from me for Christmas, it's just because I'll be unable to stop knitting them and I'll knit up my entire sock yarn stash into these gloves. And if you happen to see me cheering and dancing around the first time it snows, it's only because I'm so excited to wear my new coat, hat and gloves.
(Oh, and I have yarn to make a scarf too. How could I not?)
