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Category: Crafts (page 3 of 28)

November 28, 2015

CampJS Recap & Beanie

Feature photo courtesy of Steven Cooper

I spent last weekend in Springbook, Queensland at CampJS. This is a four-day conference for anyone interested in web technology held at the Koonjewarre Retreat Centre. My Canva colleague Damon was the organiser, and my other colleague Harley came along as well. On a whim, I’d pitched doing a workshop on “Knitting and E-textiles” a few months before and it turned out to be one of the most popular suggestions. I updated my “Granny Was a Hacker” talk and worked with Damon to order knitting supplies for everyone. Then I had the genius idea to knit a special beanie as my prototype for the workshop, and use a Gemma kit with LEDs (based on this Adafruit project) to add some blinky goodness. It was a big hit! I actually ran through the talk on both Saturday and Sunday. I probably had 20+ people at the workshop, and I kept seeing web developers (mostly men!) knitting for the rest of the event. The Camp itself was great, and I met a lot of fantastic people from across the country. Games were played, goon was drunk, and Wi-Fi was cursed. I highly recommend it.

IMG_2822

CampJS BeanieThe CampJS Beanie

I knitted the hat out of oddments of leftover 8ply Filatura di Crosa Zara. All up, it probably uses about 2 balls worth (with the majority in brown). You’ll also need some 4mm needles, as well as a blunt darning needle. I actually knitted it flat and sewed it up, but I’ve provided instructions for knitting it in the round too. I got the Gemma controller from Little Bird Electronics, along with some LEDs and a coin cell battery holder. (They also sell a “starter pack” with all this stuff plus some conductive thread and needles, if you don’t have any.)

Size:  Medium / Large  (I knitted the larger size, and it’s roomy for me.)

Requirements: 8ply wool in brown, dark green, light green, and blue; 4mm needles.

GraphTo knit flat:
Using 4mm needles, cast on 121 (133) stitches.

Row 1: K2, *P1, K1, rep from * to last st, K1.
Row 2: K1, *P1, K1, rep from * to end.

Repeat these rows until you have 35 (41) rows of ribbing in total.

Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch.

Knit the graph in stocking stitch as shown, working the odd rows from right-to-left and the even rows from left-to-right. For the first two rows, I used the fairisle technique of carrying the wools along the back. I suggest you ignore the tree trunks and use duplicate stitch to embroider them afterwards. For the tops of the trees, I treated them as intarsia and knitted them in solid blocks of light green. Then I duplicate stitched the dark green accents on later. You can this in progress here.

Once you’re done with the graph, switch back to the brown wool and knit two rows of stocking stitch. (You should have the Right Side facing you.) Then begin your decreases:

Decrease row: K1, *K2tog, K1, rep from * to end
Knit 1 (3) rows stocking stitch
K1, *K2tog, K5, rep from * to end
Purl 1 row
K1, *K2tog, K4, rep from * to end
Purl 1 row…

Keep going like this (narrowing by one stitch between the decreases) until you have only 21 (23) stitches left. Then break off the wool leaving a long tail, thread it on your darning needle, and run it through the remaining stitches. Cinch it up tight.

To finish, sew the back seam. (You’ll need to reverse the seam where the brim folds up.) Weave in your ends. Attach your Gemma as shown on the Adafruit website, and load up the provided sketch. When you plug in your batteries and flip the switch, it’ll blink!

To knit in the round:

Using 4mm circular needle or DPNs, cast on 120 (132) stitches.

Ribbing: *K1, P1, rep from * to end.

Repeat this row until you have 35 (41) rows of ribbing in total.

Knit 4 rows.

Knit the graph in stocking stitch as shown, working all rows from right-to-left. For the first two rows, I used the fairisle technique of carrying the wools along the back. I suggest you ignore the tree trunks and use duplicate stitch to embroider them afterwards. For the tops of the trees, I treated them as intarsia and knitted them in solid blocks of light green. Then I duplicate stitched the dark green accents on later. You can this in progress here.

Once you’re done with the graph, switch back to the brown wool and knit two rows. Then begin your decreases:

Decrease row: *K2tog, K1, rep from * to end
Knit 1 (3) rows
*K2tog, K5, rep from * to end
Knit 1 row
*K2tog, K4, rep from * to end
Knit 1 row…

Keep going like this (narrowing by one stitch between the decreases) until you have only 21 (23) stitches left. Then break off the wool leaving a long tail, thread it on your darning needle, and run it through the remaining stitches. Cinch it up tight.

Weave in your ends. Attach your Gemma as shown on the Adafruit website, and load up the provided sketch. When you plug in your batteries and flip the switch, it’ll blink!

October 20, 2015

Denim Hazel Dress

Hazel DressI finished another dress! Back in July I was passing Sew Make Create and did a DOUBLE TAKE when I noticed they were having a fabric sale. I couldn’t resist. I ended up buying three pieces, one of which was an interesting stretchy denim with a pintuck detail (almost like stripes). Of course, as soon as I bought it I couldn’t figure out what the hell to do with it. I knew those vertical lines would be difficult to match up. Donna came through with the best suggestion: why not make another Hazel? (I’ve made two before.) I decided to fully line the top of this one with some red voile, and I used that for the pockets as well. I had a hell of a time with the strap placement and length though, and I’m still not 100% happy with them. (I think I unpicked them three or four times.) On the plus side, the denim was so stretchy that I was able to forgo the zipper entirely. But on the negative side, I didn’t use a walking foot so the top of the bodice got a bit stretched out and gapey. I eventually settled on topstitching a line around the top to create a casing that I was able to thread some thin elastic through. That’s enough to pull the top a bit tighter around my bust and armpits. Despite all the headaches, it ended up being a very cute, functional sundress!

October 6, 2015

Lark Tee

Lark TeeSydney is in the midst of a spate of really hot Spring weather, and something’s triggered a terrible allergy attack. I spent most of the long weekend lying on the couch moaning. Amazingly, I did manage to get some sewing done in spite of my streaming eyes and nose, mostly because I’d wisely booked in some friends to come over for a “crafternoon.” Behold the Lark Tee. Yes, it’s a v-neck t-shirt. I put in a lot more time, effort, and money than I would have to simply buy a similar shirt from Target. But dammit, I made it! And it’s not too bad. The fabric is some beautiful teal jersey I bought at The Fabric Store a while back, and I spent a long time hand-basting a line down a single rib so I could make sure I wasn’t cutting off-grain. (That’s why cheaply made shirts tend to twist on you.) The cutting took a lot longer than the actual sewing, to be honest. I stitched most of it together on my overlocker, only using my normal machine for the neckline and hems. Many thanks to Donna for her advice and moral support on the day–though it didn’t help that she was wearing her own (much nicer) version!

September 22, 2015

Dangling Conversation

As you would’ve seen from the Instagram I posted this morning, I finished my Dangling Conversation scarf! It’s knitted out of a single skein of Manos del Uruguay Fino in “Sealing Wax,” a bright orangey-red. I bought the yarn in the last Morris & Sons sale, drawn to its gorgeous deep colour and its exquisite smooshiness. (It’s 70% superfine merino and 30% silk.) The pattern choice was inspired by a guest at an Inner City Knitters Guild meeting earlier in the year, who showed off her version in a variegated yarn. I casted mine on at Camp on August 28 and finished it this past Sunday, so it took me 23 days from start to finish. I knitted it on 4mm needles, which is a fair bit tighter than most of the other folks on Ravelry. To compensate, I added a lot of extra repeats to make it bigger and use up the entire skein. Oh, and I left off the beads. I’m not insane. 🙂

Ravelry details are here! In sort – excellent pattern; excellent yarn. Highly recommended.

August 31, 2015

The Wow! Scarf

As you may have gathered from my Twitter or Instagram accounts this past weekend, I attended the 2015 Knitters Guild NSW Camp at Stanwell Tops. When I registered for the Camp earlier in the year, the confirmation message invited me to enter the Mystery Scarf Competition. The details were very vague–basically, you were supposed to knit a scarf of a certain size out of black and either white or cream. Inspired by my Ignite talk, I thought it would be fun to try to knit an actual mystery into the scarf. So I started doing research, and I came up with several interesting possibilities:

  • The Beale Ciphers – Very National Treasure, right?! And they could literally point you to an actual horde of gold!
  • The Kryptos Sculpture – Bonus points because it actually looks kind of like a scarf.
  • The Phaistos Disc – This would look better as a circular shawl, right?
  • Tamám Shud – *shudder* Too creepy.
  • Rongorongo – I feel like this would be neat as fairisle motifs.

In the end I settled on the Wow! Signal. This was a strong narrowband radio signal detected by Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while he was working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of The Ohio State University. When he saw the spike on the printout, Ehman circled it and wrote “Wow!” in red pen in the margins. The signal lasted for 72 seconds. It came from globular cluster M55 in the constellation Sagittarius. It looks pretty much exactly like what we’d expect an interstellar transmission to look like. It’s never been repeated, and we don’t know what it means. I like to think it’s an alien civilisation saying “Hello!”. So I knitted it into a scarf.

The scarf is knitted as a tube out of Morris Norway 10 ply in Cream using a 5mm circular needle. Starting from the left edge of the printout, I incorporated about 15 columns of numbers by duplicate stitching them on as I went. Once the scarf was long enough, I stopped the numbers and knitted in plain white to leave a space for the “Wow!” which I embroidered with red wool. I also embroidered on some additional pen marks, like the circles around the signal itself and some of the other numbers. As a final step, I added some tassles out of the remaining black wool.

I’m really pleased with how it turned out! I didn’t end up winning the contest, but that’s okay. I took the “mystery” aspect more literally than most of the other contestants did. (The winner did an amazing double-knitted scarf with a photo of her cat on it.) My scarf is exceptionally warm and nerdy, and I had a lot of fun making it.

August 22, 2015

Canva Comma Club Cushion

Hackathon PosterThis past Thursday and Friday, Canva held its first ever Hackathon. At first I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do for it. (I work with some really brilliant engineers, and my coding skills aren’t great.) But the sign-up sheet came out and it was clear that non-coding projects were encouraged. Then the organiser Chris Doble (jokingly?) suggested that “someone” could create cushions with commas on them. A-HA!

(The Three Commas thing is a running joke from the show Silicon Valley. As a start-up, we quote that show a lot. We even threw in some references as an Easter Egg in our Canva for Work videos.)

So I knew immediately what I would do: I’d sew up a cushion with the Canva logo and three commas, and then I’d use my LilyPad Arduino to make the commas light up. The end result turned out pretty spectacular. Read on if you want to hear how I did it.

Comma Club Cushion

Read more →

August 2, 2015

How to Make a Sock Monkey

I published this tutorial back in 2004, and it’s been pretty popular! I’ve now ported it over to my new site. You’re welcome to link to it, but please don’t reproduce without my permission.

June 1, 2015

Two finished scarves!

Two Scarves

Finally some finished items to show! Both of these are with wool purchased at the Convent and Chapel Wool Shop in Rylstone a few months back.

First up is the Zig Zag in Zauberball Crazy. I bought the wool without any idea what to do with it-“I just liked the crazy autumn colourway-but then I saw Gemma’s Show Stopper in the Easter Show last April and fell in love! So I asked her to share the link to the pattern, which she kindly did. (It’s here!) It’s a super simple three-row repeat and knits up gratifyingly fast. I basically just knitted until I used up every single bit of it. I love the way the horizontal ribbing lines up with the colour changes, almost like stripes. It’s also really smooshy and squishy and warm. Very satisfying project! You can see a close-up of the stitch pattern here. (Ravelry details.)

Next is the Linen Stitch scarf in Marlyn Alpaca. This stuff is SO SOFT. I originally intended to knit something with long lengthwise stripes, but I saw a sample of linen stitch and I was impressed how classy it looked. I thought it might make a nice “businessman’s”-type scarf for the Snook. So I casted on a bazillion stitches and then started knitting random width stripes of the two colours. Man, linen stitch rows take FOREVER to knit! I basically just knitted until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Then I put some fringe on both ends to finish it off. Very nice! He wore it to work today. You can see a close-up of the stitch pattern here. (Ravelry details.)

May 31, 2015

Little My Softie

I wanted to make a special present for my niece Cali, so I thought that I’d whip up a “Little My” softie. Little My is from the Moomin books, and she’s Cali’s favourite character. (I know because I sent her this Uniqlo t-shirt and she LOVED it.) So I started by downloading a line drawing and printing it out. I decided that I was only going to make a simple “two-dimensional” toy rather than try to translate her into full 3-D. I traced the drawing onto some felt and cut out the pieces. The trickiest bit was embroidering her face.

Embroidering the face

I used some acrylic yarn for the embroidery. Her features were done in black with a split stitch, and I used orange yarn to backstitch her hair (leaving long strands at the top to form her top-knot). Rather than bother with turning things inside-out, I just used a tight zig-zag stitch around the pieces (with wrong sides together) to sew the her head and body pieces together. For her hair, I actually tucked the long ends back down into her head before sewing her scalp so it couldn’t be pulled undone. It worked really well! I stuffed the head and body parts through the neck opening and then joined the two halves there. Then I zig-zagged across the neck to join and covered the resulting mess up with a cut-out pink bow-tie (tacked on by hand). I also zig-zagged around the arm openings (where her hands are on her hips) and then snipped out the inside bits. I had planned to use black felt for her hands and boots, but honestly I couldn’t be bothered at that point.

No big deal - just being the BEST AUNT EVER. #littlemy #handmade

The first thing my niece Indie said was, “Her head’s going to fall off I think!” Which may well happen. The whole thing was a bit of a bodge and I doubt it’ll hold up very well–the felt was starting to pill within a day–but I’ve decided to just treat it as a prototype. Cali absolutely loved it, and that’s all that matters! I’m thinking of redoing it in fleece and trying to make her a bit more three-dimensional next time…

April 12, 2015

Blackberry Cardigan and Argyll Vest

Yesterday I picked up my entries from the Sydney Royal Easter Show Arts & Crafts Competition. I entered two projects: a cardigan for me that had been hibernating 90% done for over a year, and a hipster vest requested by the Snook at Christmas. I’m really happy with how both of them turned out. (I didn’t win any ribbons this year, but I’ve given up trying to understand the judging criteria. That way lies madness.) Anyway, the details…

Blackberry Cardigan

Blackberry CardiganThis is a cardigan I started knitting for myself back in 2013 but never finished. I love knitting cables, and I wanted something warm and snuggly to wear in winter (and in my freezing cold office). The wool is Filatura di Crosa Zara merino wool, which I’d previously bought from Reecie in a destash. I’d knitted a couple things out of it previously, and I knew that it would give great stitch definition yet be soft enough to wear directly on my skin. I hate sewing up, so I knitted the body in one piece up to the arm holes. Then I split the piece and worked the back and two fronts separately up to the shoulders before joining them with a three-needle bind-off. I also knitted each sleeve in the round up to the sleeve cap, which I knitted flat. At that point, I lost my knitting mojo and the pieces sat in my craft room for well over a year. When I unearthed them, I realised there wasn’t a great deal left to do. I picked up and the knitted the giant shawl collar (which goes all the way around and includes the button holes for the front), then blocked all the pieces before sewing them together. I found the buttons at Sew Make Create. I’m really, really pleased how it turned out. I’m wearing it right now, in fact! (More details over at Ravelry.)

Argyll Vest

Argyll VestOver Christmas we were having lunch at a cafe in Newtown when the Snook asked if I’d knit him a “hipster sweater vest.” He so rarely asks for knitted things, I got really excited and pulled up Ravelry that minute on my iPhone to start searching for patterns. When I saw katarina’s Argyll Vest, we both knew it was the perfect one. Happily I had the pattern book it’s from already in my collection! We walked straight up to The Granny Square and picked out the wool on the spot. We selected three different “heathered” colours of Morris Empire 4-ply. The only pattern mod I made was to make the body a bit longer, because Rodd has a very long torso. Since the neckline is meant to start at the top of a diamond, I had to decide ahead of time how much length I was going to add (so I could add it on at the bottom above the ribbing). And of course, you can’t knit intarsia in the round so I had to knit the front and back separately. I love the neat geometry of intarsia and had a lot of fun seeing the diamonds emerge. The diagonal lines – which I learned are called rakers – were embroidered on with Swiss darning. Then I just had to block it, sew it up, and knitting on the bands. He really likes it! I think it’s going to get a lot of wear this winter. (More details over at Ravelry.)

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