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Category: Crafts

Craft projects of mine

  • Shur’tugal Socks

    Shur'tugal SocksThis was the first pattern scheduled for the “Super Special Six Pattern Sock Club” I’m participating in. The idea is that the group (which is now up to 200 members!) chose six sock patterns via a vote and throughout the year we’ll be knitting them with wool from our stashes. (You can read more here, here, and here.) I have plenty of sock wool in my stash, so in December I tucked away six special skeins for this series. On New Year’s Eve, I pulled one out at random: the Shibui Sock in “Pagoda” (a beautiful burnt orange) that I bought at my Mom’s LYS in Goshen. I wound the two skeins together into a center-pull ball and then I was off!

    The problem is that I hated this pattern. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s really well-written. I’ve just found historically that I get really, really bored with tiny allover repeating patterns, especially those involving two-stitch cables. (Remember Conwy?) Plus I just could NOT memorise the pattern. Twice I picked it up at the wrong spot and had to frog back. I knitted both socks at the same time on 2.75mm circulars, and I did the larger size. It just seemed to take FOREVER. I was so thrilled to finally cast them off today and be done with it! They are pretty though. More details are over on Ravelry.

    I will also admit to some irrational irritation with the pattern just because of the name. Apparently it has something to do with “dragon riders” and it’s from that book I hated.

  • Robot Skirt

    Robot Skirt

    I forgot to mention that I finished my third skirt! This is the same A-line pattern that I used for the previous two. (It’s the one from the class I did at the Sewing Room last year.) The fabric is a thick cotton drill I got when I was visiting my Mom in the U.S. last year. Fun!

    The shoes are new Converse “re-issues” I got last weekend from Platypus. Only $39!

  • Olivia’s Rainbow Blanket and BSJ

    Rainbow Baby BlanketOlivia’s Rainbow Blanket and BSJ
    Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that the first two projects shown on my knitting round-up below haven’t actually been blogged yet! That’s because I only just finished them yesterday. First up is an actual, honest-to-god CROCHETED item: Olivia’s Rainbow Baby Blanket. This is a project that I basically made up myself. My Mom had sent me 5 balls of “Sugar and Cream” cotton last year and I’d idly started crocheting squares based on this pattern. When my niece was born a couple weeks ago, it inspired me to join them all up into a blanket for her. I did 12 multi-colour squares (rotating the stripes each time so the squares are all different) along with 4 solid squares. I joined them all together with Cream, then crocheted a Cream border all around. Then I did a scalloped border in a different colour on each side. I’m really happy with how it turned out! I was debating on whether to back it with some fleece or flannel, but I think I like it the way it is.

    Rainbow Blanket   Rainbow Blanket   Rainbow Blanket

    Next is yet another Baby Surprise Jacket. I used some Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed that was leftover from my St. Brigid. It came out quite big, but I figure she’ll grow into it. The buttons are made out of coconut. 🙂

    Baby Surprise Jacket   Baby Surprise Jacket

  • New Skirt

    Blue SkirtI sewed another skirt!
    Saturday I finally decided it was time to start sewing some of the skirts I’d planned. I’d bought a couple different fabrics over the past months, and last weekend I prepped them (basted the edges, pre-washed and dried, and ironed) and cleaned out my sewing machine. So I dug out the pattern from my class a few months ago and got stuck in.

    This is the one that I managed to finish (since it’s the only one I had a zipper for). The fabric is a very fine wale corduroy (light blue with dark blue paisley) that I got on Clearance at Lincraft. It was so cheap that I didn’t have high expectations for the finished product, but I figured it would be good for practice. To my surprise, it squared up nicely and didn’t give me any trouble at all. I laid out all my pattern pieces and remembered to make sure the nap all ran the same direction. The sewing was fairly straightforward, though I did have to refer back to my old skirt a few times just to double-check the order of operations. Sewing in the zipper was probably the scariest bit, and I played around with several different techniques (including sticky tape!) before settling on basting it in by hand just to make sure it didn’t shift around. I only made one tiny mistake in the whole project, when I forgot to leave a seam allowance to turn back at the opening of the facing near the zipper. (That’s the final step – to turn back the raw edge and tack it down on the underside of the zipper. I managed to get it to work, but it may fray a bit at the top edge. I might put some clear nail polish on it.) Here’s a bigger picture so you can see the true colour a bit better.

    I wore the skirt to the barbecue on Sunday, and needless to say I’m THRILLED with it. The cord feels very soft and lovely to wear. My only disappointment is that the waistband seemed to bunch up by the end of the day. I had the same problem with the original skirt though too, so it may be a fit issue. Any sewers want to advise me? Or do you think I need thicker interfacing for the facing pieces?

  • Sam Socks

    Sam SocksWhile these turned out great in the end, I always seem to have terrible issues with Cookie A patterns. I bought Sock Innovations last year and this was my first project knitted from it. I discovered pretty quickly that there were major errors in the printed pattern. It completely omits the ribbing at the top of the leg, and it also tells you an incorrect number of leg repeats. (If you plan to knit anything from this book, I highly recommend you check the errata. There’s a LOT of it.)

    I knitted these on two 2.75mm circular needles. I could tell they were going to be tight around the ankle, so I cast on extra stitches so that I’d have a full extra pattern repeat around the leg. I knitted the heel exactly as written and just left the extra pattern repeat on the top of the foot. I usually like to knit my socks two-at-a-time, but that’s basically impossible with this pattern because you are constantly shifting the starting point of each round. So I was forced to knit each leg separately down to the heel, after which I knitted both socks together down towards the toes.

    The wool is a single skein of Yarntini Mint Fizz Stripe that I received in a swap from @dancingman. It was lovely to knit with. The third photo (heel detail) is closest to the actual colours: spring green, aqua, and purplish-grey stripes. I had about 1.5m left over when I finished, which was perfect. I’m very happy with how these turned out! (More details and photos are on Ravelry.)

  • Maile Sweater and Swirl Hat

    Maile Sweater and Swirl Hat
    Hey, I knitted something! It’s been months and months, actually. But last week my friend Kevin’s first child was born, and such a thing demands commemoration. I picked the pattern and the yarn before the birth, assuming that the combination would work for either gender. It helps that the father is Irish. 🙂

    Maile Sweater

    The cardigan is the Maile Sweater. It’s knitted from the bottom up in one piece. I actually knitted it twice: the first time on 3.5mm needle as per the pattern, and the second time on 3.75mm needles. (I thought it looked a little small so I frogged it and started over.) On the first attempt, I followed the pattern exactly including knitting the sleeves flat and joining them with no cast-off stitches. I wasn’t thrilled with it though, and the underarms had a few stitches that looked very stretched. So when I frogged and reknitted, I took the opportunity to experiment. The sleeves were knitted this time in the round via Magic Loop. When I joined them, I set aside 4 live stitches on the body and 4 live stitches on the underarm of the sleeve on waste wool. I later grafted these together (a la Elizabeth Zimmerman). It makes for a very nice finish, and it definitely made those first few rows after joining easier.

    The wool is “Merino Chubby Sock” in Barleygrass by the Knittery. One skein was plenty to knit the jumper, and I had so much left over that I actually made a matching hat. The pattern is the “Swirl Hat” from Sheepy Time Knits. And I still have wool left over! This stuff goes a long way.

    As usual, there are more photos and details over on Ravelry: Maile Sweater / Swirl Hat. Now I just have to wait to get a photo of the baby actually wearing them!

  • Photo Post

    Sneak peek at my Halloween costume

    Sneak peek at my Halloween costume

  • Death by Knitting Needle

    Death by knitting needle. Pretty awesome AskMeFi question about horror movies featuring knitting-related murders.

  • Tea Towel Notebooks

    Ooooh! Just found a tutorial for sewing notebook covers out of tea towels. My Mom actually gave me about a dozen old linen tea towels when we visited. Most of them have some sort of outdoor scene and a calendar (for a year long past). That might be a nice use for them!

  • Miller’s Hat for Snook

    Miller's HatMiller’s Hat for Snook
    It’s been pretty chilly around here lately, so I finally convinced the Snook to let me knit him a hat. This is tricky business. He doesn’t like things that make his head itchy. He’s hated every woollen beanie I ever put on him. I’d have to get creative. While surfing Ravelry one day, I came across this photo of a guy wearing the unusual Miller’s Hat. Hey, I thought. That looks neat! So I bought the pattern. I decided to go with Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (80% cotton, 20% wool) for the project, despite all the drawbacks. (Cotton isn’t as warm; knitting cables in cotton kills your hands; cotton tends to be a stiffer fabric than wool.) The main selling point was that I knew it definitely wouldn’t make his head “itch.” I ended up having to restart the hat a couple times because I kept stuffing up the herringbone stitch around the band. It’s not hard once you get the hang of it (i.e. read the chart symbols properly), and it looks really cool. I ended up adding quite a few stitches – a whole extra cable repeat’s worth – to make it looser and to compensate for my famously tight tension. I did the whole thing on a 5mm needle, not bothering to change for the cabled bit. I also skipped a couple of the plain rows towards the end, not wanting it to be too slouchy at the top. As for the edging, I just picked up a zillion stitches around the edge, not really caring about the number. (Basically, I winged the whole thing.) It looks… interesting, huh? He likes it. I think he looks like a damn hipster, but it’s unusual and slouchy and keeps his ears warm. That makes us both happy.

    More details and photos over on Ravelry…