Knit a Mile Show and Tell, Project 1

Posted on 01/26/2008 by Barb | Comments (0)
Filed under : Finished Objects, Knitting, Stash

Well, here’s the finished Coin Lace and Cable Wrap, Project 1 of the Knit a Mile from Stash commitment. I gave it to Andrea. It's cozy warm, and v-e-r-y long ... here she is wearing it, looking a little what ... sassy? haughty? smug?

I have 125 yards left to successfully complete The Challenge. I’m improvising some wrist warmers using partial skeins from my stash. First attempt wasn’t quite right so I tore that out last night. Net accomplishment this week toward completion of that last 125 yards: 0 … but a willingness to give it another go.

(Actually, that sort of sums up my week!)

Installing a zipper

Posted on 01/16/2008 by Barb | Comments (6)
Filed under : Finished Objects, Knitting, Spinning, Tips

I recently added a zipper to a sweater and people asked how I got it in straight, without having it look all "ruffly."

It's pretty simple. In addition to a sewing machine, your garment and the zipper, you'll need a sheet or two of white tissue paper.

This technique works for all sorts of finicky fabrics ...

Here I'm putting an open-end zipper in the front of a sweater. First, carefully block the sweater, making sure both edges for the zipper are the same length, that they're straight and any stripes or patterns line up left to right.

I generally leave the zipper zipped when I do all this, but if it's easier for you to take the two halves apart, that works, too.

Position the first side of your zipper along the edge of the sweater as shown, and pin it in place. Then lay a sheet of thin tissue paper over it. The tissue paper permits the sewing machine foot to glide over the knitting without pulling at or catching on the yarn. With the tissue side up, carefully stitch through tissue, sweater and zipper, making your row of stitches far enough back from the teeth so the zipper pull will be able to move freely along teeth without any yarn catching in it. It's pretty easy to see what you're doing right through the tissue paper.

Then carefully tear the perforated tissue paper away and remove the pins. Repeat for the second side of the zipper.

That's all there is to it. When you're finished, you'll want to give it a good blocking, of course.

I just grabbed a bit of scrap yarn and tied it to the zipper pull on this sweater, but it's fun to find an interesting bead or bauble to dress it up. I'm keeping my eyes open for just the right thing!

Finished! Retro Redux Shrug

Posted on 01/14/2008 by Andrea | Comments (0)
Filed under : Finished Objects, Knitting

Pattern: Retro Redux Shrug from the book Lace Style (Ravelry Link)

Yarn: di.Ve' Autunno. I think this was a great yarn to use for this particular project. It's so soft against the skin and the color changes are subtle and lovely. It's just a single ply of yarn that puffs up if given space, but compacts down if using a smaller needle, so it was perfectly adaptable to all the needle sizes I used, from 7 to 10.

Modifications: I made the medium size, but used one smaller needle size all the way through. Somehow, it came out perfectly.

Made for: I had a wedding and a fancy holiday party both in January, and knew I'd probably be cold during both events. I didn't finish it in time for the wedding, but the fancy holiday party is this weekend, so I'll be able to wear it for that.

Overall thoughts: I love this pattern. It's easy to knit, a very simple brioche lace. You almost couldn't invent a simpler lace pattern. And there's no shaping. You just use successively larger needles as you knit the thing. This would be a perfect project for someone who's new to lace and may be intimidated by it. But even for someone who's not intimidated by lace, it's still fun to knit. This was my most satisfying knitting project in recent memory.

Pink Argyle Wrist Warmers

Posted on 01/10/2008 by Barb | Comments (2)
Filed under : DIY, Finished Objects, Free Patterns, Knitting

When we first started this blog, I thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if we could post a pattern for pink argyle socks knitted in the round ... I've never seen hand-knitted argyle socks that didn't have a seam up the back." (Well, there might be a reason for that.)

Anyway, off I go! I think, "maybe Fair Isle ... maybe intarsia." I set out to do it Fair Isle. It didn't take long to conclude that I couldn't keep the carried-along yarn loose enough to get the sock over my heel.

To make a long story short, we now have a pattern in our DIY section for pink argyle wrist warmers, modeled here by my niece's son who used them as boxing gloves when he wasn't being annoying with the remote. (Okay, it's important not to take oneself too seriously, right?) But I do (seriously) love how they turned out. It was a fun little challenge so I thought I'd share the pattern. Make 'em, wear 'em, and you're guaranteed to get some comments!

Finished! Short row felted bag

Posted on 01/08/2008 by Andrea | Comments (2)
Filed under : Finished Objects, Knitting

I love me a finished object, don't you? Meet the second biggest pain in my ass (knitting-wise, anyway) lately: the short row felted bag.

Pattern: The Short Row Bag Collection by Diane Sutliff. This pattern comes with several variations; some are knitted sideways to get vertical striping (like this one) and some are knitted vertically. I think this pattern is very clever, although I had a hard time navigating it. There's a whole lot of information in those eight (I think) pages and I tended to get lost. I spent a lot of time scrutinizing the pattern and trying to just understand how it was supposed to work on a basic level. Then I rewrote it out in a way that made more sense to me. Since I was adding short row sections and omitting the base, I kind of had to do that in order to not get lost.

Yarn: The pattern calls for Noro Kureyon, but I wanted to use some Jamieson's DK shetland wool I had in my stash.

I used what I had and bought two new colors (the brighter blue and brighter purple, to go with my sister's bright disposition). I think it was a wash as far as stash usage, because now I have lots of small amounts of many colors left over.

Modifications: Many. I didn't get gauge with the wool I wanted to use so I added a couple of extra stripes to make sure the bag was the width I was going for. That worked out pretty well. I also added a pocket on the inside. I knitted it sideways because the bag was knitted sideways and I wanted it all to felt the same way and sewed it to the inside of the bag before felting. This worked out surprisingly well and is almost undetectable from the outside.

The biggest (and worst) modification was to the bottom. I didn't want to knit a flat bottom like the pattern called for, so I just didn't knit the bottom at all and decided I'd "figure something out" later. I don't recommend this kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants knitting. It works for some people (I'm looking at you, Mom), but so far I've probably had too many problems arise from a lack of planning to make it worth it. I knitted a garter stitch bottom after finishing the whole bag, felted the thing, and then cut the bottom back out of it because it looked so awful. Then Mom (bless her heart) machine-sewed the bottom closed.

Made for: I made this for my sister for Christmas. I had a little bit of extra time to finish it because we weren't celebrating Christmas with her until January 6th, and I used all the available extra time to help undo the problems I'd created for myself.

Overall thoughts: Well, my sister liked it! And that's the main thing. The short row sections were satisfying to make. Instead of working back and forth across the whole row, you just do each little "bubble" separately and then move on to the next and there's something very satisfying about that. It's like working magic, almost. And felting always feels like working magic, although there's also a certain amount of fear involved. If there was one thing I could change, it would have been to have planned for the bottom from the beginning instead of just assuming I'd eventually come up with a plan. Also, I like the distinct solid-colored sections, but I can imagine it would be great fun to knit this with Kureyon and be continually surprised by how the colors came out.