Knitted Baby Sweater
My boss Andrew’s wife just gave birth to a baby girl last Friday and I wanted to make them something special. (Okay, so I also wanted to suck up and use some of my extra wool.) I found this pattern for a quick garter stitch sweater knit cuff-to-cuff. I had to start three times but the finished version only took me about five hours. I know it’s blue; but that’s all I had – and it does have pink buttons! I hope it fits.
Tag: knitting
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Knitted Baby Cardigan
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Greek Key Jumper
Curse be damned; I knitted the Snook a sweater. This is my first seamless and patternless sweater and the first of my own design. The stripe pattern is from a woven scarf his mother gave him a few years back. (I just graphed it and worked it twice, once in reverse.) The sweater itself is green and the pattern’s in grey. It’s made of a thick Aran wool and it really absorbs the light, which makes it pretty hard to see here. It’s got a regular crew neck and raglan sleeves, which means the seamlines run up diagonally from the armpit to the neck (like a sweatshirt). My biggest problem was getting the cast-off collar loose enough to fit over his head! Here some more pictures of him in his favorite modeling poses:
The first is called “The Beach is That Way!”…
…and the second is “What Time is It?”. I make him do them whenever he tries something on, because it cracks my shit up.
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Sweater Sampler
Three-Legged Dog Sweater
Just kidding. It’s actually a Sweater Sampler from Jacqueline Fee’s book The Sweater Workshop. She recommends you knit this thing so you can practice all the different techniques you need to knit a seamless one-piece sweater (the Holy Grail of knitting, as far as I’m concerned). It has different widths of ribbing, increases, decreases, a cardigan placket with a buttonhole, a hidden pocket, a knitted belt, two-color knitting, and four different kinds of cast-offs. Fun, huh? It reminds me of a Thneed. It took me a few days but I’m a lot more confident now. Onwards and upwards!
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Harry Potter Mini-Scarf Bookmarks
My friend Steph is a primary school teacher and a few months ago she was admiring the Harry Potter scarves I’d knitted. Since I had lots of the yarn left over, I told her I’d knit a mini-scarf to use as a bookmark for each kid in her class. They’re extremely simple and you can finish several in one night. I used a normal DK (8-ply) yarn and a slightly smaller needles size than recommended. (This makes for a bulkier bookmark.) Cast on 8 stitches in red, knit six rows, and switch to yellow. Knit six more rows and switch again, each time carrying the unused color up the side. When you’ve got thirteen stripes, cast off and weave in the ends. Add three tassels on each end, made from one strand of each color. Voila! And I even managed to get them done before the next movie comes out. 🙂(Special thanks to Amy, who helped out by knitting some up from her own stash.)
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Double Trouble Socks
Socks!
Tonight I finished my first pair of knitted socks. They’re big house socks for the Snook to putter around in. Since double-pointed needles scare me and I like to do things as quickly as possible, I used this “Double Trouble” pattern for knitting both socks at once on two circular needles. (That sounds difficult, but this page has great illustrations that explain it pretty clearly.) To the right there you can see the Snook modelling them. The wool was a German “Sockenwool” that I did on 2.75 mm needles to get a 10 st/inch gauge. It was dyed in varying colors which gives a nice mottled effect. Pretty sweet, huh? Here are two more pics of the socks on the needles to give you an idea of how it was done. (I did the calf section in 2×2 rib, which is why it looks so much skinnier than the body of the sock.)
I was most scared of “turning the heel” but this pattern makes it a cinch. I recommend it for you beginning knitters that are getting tired of making scarves! Just use a thicker wool than I did. The thin stuff takes ages to knit up… 🙂
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Knitting
The current Ask Yahoo! is all about learning to knit, if you beginners need some help.
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My First Sweater
It’s done! It’s slightly wonky and the fit is weird in places, but it’s wearable. (I think I’ll be able to block out some of the weirdness when I wash it. I should’ve done that first, but I was too excited to wear it.) The pattern is called “Sweet” and it’s from The Knitter’s Bible by Kate Buller. The wool is Jo Sharp DK 100% wool in “Plum”. The ruffle looks hard but – other than having to cast on 500 stitches – it was suprisingly easy to knit. The actual hardest part was sewing everything together at the end. I suck at that. The seams are a little bulky and non-symmetrical, which accounts for most of the fitting problems. I’m definitely going to knit my next sweater in the round so I don’t have to worry about that stuff. But it’s kinda cute, right?(Edited to add: Yeah, ignore my glazed expression in the photo. It was 7:30 am and I’d overslept, so I’m a bit out of it.)
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Scarves Galore
The Easter Crafting Marathon continues. I’ve finally finished my red mohair scarf, which you can see below. The other two are scarves I’ve made in the last couple weeks.
First you have Snookums modelling my “Rock Star Scarf”, which is knitted out of Faux Fur. It’s this crazy yarn with lots of little hairs sticking off it that actually looks like fur once you knit it up. (Let me warn my fellow knitters: It was insanely difficult to work with. You can’t see any of the stitches so if you drop one, you have to start all over.) The second and third scarves are both made of mohair, which is incredibly soft and fuzzy and beautiful. I did the blue-green one first as a gift for my Dad’s wife Cindy, and I liked it so much I got the red to do my own. Pretty nice, huh? They’re both about six feet long and six inches wide. I can’t wait to wear mine outside (if it ever stops raining)…
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Craft Backlog
I am not allowed to start anymore new crafts until I finish the old ones. Seriously. Right now I have on my list:
- My first sweater, which is about 1/4 done.
- About a foot of scarf made from some gorgeous red mohair.
- A baby blanket for my little brother, of which I have, like, six blocks out of fifty.
- A rugby scarf, which is currently just in the “piles of wool” stage.
- Knitted socks for the Snook, of which I have only wool and a vague idea.
- Record albums waiting to be turned into bowls. (see above)
- Album covers waiting to be turned into purses.
- Half a dozen pairs of socks waiting to be turned into monkeys.
- A couple groovy old tins waiting to be painted and decoupaged.
- My “Storm at Sea” quilt, still waiting to be finished and edged.
- “Hello Kitty” images ready to be printed onto transfer paper and ironed onto my underpants.
- A pile of miniature Harry Potter scarf bookmarks to be fringed and finished.
See? Lots. I keep thinking of new things I want to try, though! I’ve been eyeing the resin supplies at the local casting shop. I have no willpower.
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Knitting
Apologies for the light posting. I had a relatively relaxing weekend, except for my allergies which occasionally drove me crazy. We’re now fairly certain that I have a food allergy to “sulphur dioxide”, which is a fairly common food preservative (and unfortunately gets used a lot with red wine). I’m going to make an effort to avoid it and see if that helps at all.
In crafty news, I attended an “intermediate” knitting class Saturday. I was surprised by how much I knew. In fact, I didn’t actually learn anything new. Cables, fixing mistakes, changing colors… I’d already figured it all out from my books. What’s more, some of the other girls – who’d been knitting for years – didn’t know ridiculously simple things, like how to pull yarn from the center of a ball or make a tassel. So basically I got a lot of confidence out of the class, and I took the opportunity to get the teacher to help me plan my first sweater. I’ve got all the wool (some lovely Jo Sharp stuff in plum) and I spent most of today working on it. I’ve got about half of the back done! I can’t wait to try it on.
