Knitting Projects

Yet another friend of mine was having a baby (seriously people!). I wanted to make another hat similar to my Aurora Baby Hat. The baby is Argentine, so I used the colors of the flag to make his hat.

I also had a lot of scrap fabric left over from my Tomatoe Soup Can Quilt, so I wanted to use that to make a baby bag for his toys and other mommy essentials. My friend Sam had made create sling purse that used pleats, but being cheap I decided to "remember" as much of her pattern instead of forking over the cash for a new pattern.

I made a simple trapeze bag, similar to my previous Diaper Bag but with less of an angle cut off of the sides. I pulled both sides in with pleats and stitched them down to give the bag a shape, and more room on the inside. I then used a french curve to create a curved band for the top of the bag. The band would hide the tops of the pleats and the top would be rolled under, giving me a place to attache my handles.

I did the normal inside and outside pockets. I cute out and attached a little owl as an applique, so he was peaking out of the pocket. The poor guy didn't have any legs, so I stitched some in for him.

This started more as a hoot, than a project. Using an infamous Joanne's 50% off coupon, I acquired an even more spurious The Ultimate Sweater Machine.

The USM is really a glorified knitting loom. It is great for making 1) squares, 2) bald spots as you pull your hair out. I opted for #1, and started picking up soft alpaca skeins wherever I found them. I made six 2.5'x1.5' patches. I stitched these together to make the blanket you seem Hammie modeling.

Every nerd knitter has just one desire, a Doctor Who Scarf! Not ready for something so ambitious, I instead found some neat variegated yarn that made its own stripes.

My last scarf had long, skinny ribs that ran down the length of it and made it curl into a thinner scarf. I wanted to make horizontal ribbing that would make the scarf stretch lengthwise this time.

This is actually the project that got all my sewing and knitting started (again). I was in a toy store when I saw the Singer Knitting Machine in all of its bubblegum pink glory. Childhood perversions started to come back to me: wanting to cook cakes by a lightbulb, hook rugs, friendship bracelets. Wo didn't like arts and craft; and more so, who didn't like cheap plastic versions of real adult appliances?

Twenty some dollars later I was using all my adult words on the little beast trying to crank my way through a simple tube. It claims that it can make flat pieces to, but it is a total lie. It has two modes: randomly drop some stitches from a skinny tube or mangle yarn into Gorgon's knot.

Unable to figure out who to "end" a piece, I just made really long tubes and rolled the unraveling yarn at the end like a tube sock into a ball. Then I tied on tassels to hold the ends together. Viola, a tassel scarf. After a couple of these, I was determined to learn to knit like the big people do. Just like that easy bake, the cakees were so exciting to you had to eat your first one. Then it was on to a real oven!

A friend and former coworker is having a baby that we have all been excited about. Being a programmer, he has kept a lot of us in the loop with how things are progressing. So we all get to share the excitement, but the 3am feedings are all his!

I uses the rest of my super-soft baby stash from Compatto Yarn Salon, and modified the pattern I used for my PomPom Baby Hat

• Cast on 70 stitches on 7 gauge needles 16 inch round needles
• The entire thing is just knit stitches, so no knitting and pearling.
• After the first row, I put a twist in. So as I continue knitting, it kind of looks like a mobius strip.
• Knit 8 rows.
• Now I have to remove the twist. I knit up until the twist and knit these two stitches together. Going forward all of the rows will now be on the same side.
• I knit about 5 inches from the twist.
• Every 10 stitches, I K2Tog.
• Once you get down to about 20 stitches, or it is just to hard to work on the needles, cast off.

I Then made a bunch of Pompoms and sewed them onto the hat. I arranged them so that they shaped the hot to be a little like a fin or elf haf, where all the pompoms spill down the front.

I make sure that the twist is also in the front.

A really nice women I work with is about to go on maternity leave, so I wanted to make her a baby hat. I didn't know the gender, so I went with mint green with pink and blue stripping. One of the colors had to be right!

I bought super soft cotton from Compatto Yarn Salon. Nancy, one of the owners helped me with a super simple pattern that I could do entirely on my round needles.

• Cast on 80 stitches on 7 gauge needles 16 inch round needles
• The entire thing is just knit stitches, so no knitting and pearling.
• Knit 8 rows.
• Bring in a row of blue
• Knit 3 rows of pink
• Knit a row of blue
• Knit 8 rows of green
• Bring in a row of pink
• Knit 3 rows of blue
• Knit a row of pink
• Knit 8 rows of green
• Now start reducing. For every other row, K Tog every 8th stitch.
• Knit in a row of blue, K Tog every 8th stitch.
• Knit 3 rows of pink, reducing on the 2nd row
• Knit in a row of blue
• Now start reducing every row. So K Tog each 8th stitch on each row.
• Once you get down to about 20 stitches, or it is just to hard to work on the needles, grab the blue and the pink and cast off the needles.
• Now take the loose green yarn to tie to the top shut.
• I added a blue and pink pompom to the back.

For the life of me, I cannot remember how I did this. I know that I used three different yarns:

• a thin ribbon or variegated autumn colors
• blue silk with glass beads tilli tomas yarn
• a green silk with glass beads from tilli tomas too.

I knitted the blue and ribbon together and used the green yarn for a fringe.

What makes this scarf Parisian is where I bought the wool yarn. In the Village of Montmartre, there were fabric and yarn stores. I picked up these two skeins from and older lady with a tea cup poodle that didn't think anyone should be in her tiny store. I had no idea what I was going to make, and wanting to stay light on the packing, I just picked up these two small skeins.

I ended up knitting them with pencils I bought in the airport, as they wouldn't let me take my knitting needles. So limited yarn, and pencils I just did something simple. It was a short, wide stocking knit with both yarns used as one. At the end, I twisted the scarf and stitched the ends together.

I picked the greens, browns, and blues as these were the vibrant colors I saw on the island – when the sun was out. The white was wool that I spun in a spinning class, which honestly does look just like the Shetland sheep that it comes from. So there, the whole islands in a scarf.

With some serious graph paper, I made up this pattern like it was a D&D dungeon. I am not sure how much this hat helps my armor class, but I am now +2 on circular needles.

I had two big skeins of strange yarn that didn't match anything else I had and nothing really in mind.

The green yarn is a posh, hand spun green that has tints of blue and green and little light blue glass beads spun into it on a brown yarn. The brown is full of golden and bronze metalic threads...so yes, the whole thing is "subtle."

Not realizing how big everything would be, I started with the green on a size 14, 29 inch circular needles. I knit

• row 1: cast on 65
• row 2: p65
• row 3: k65

Then I realised that the bulk of the yarn was making this tight, so I switched to a yarn over/drop for everyother stitch:

• even rows: (k1, yo) * repeat 65 times
• odd rows: (p1, drop stitch) * repeat 65 times

Then I ended up with this giant green circular loop that i could wrap around my neck twice. So I put it aside until I could figure out what to do with it. I then started on the brown yarn. I thought if I lessened the measurements and did the whole thing as yo and drops, I would have enough to maybe make a cowl. With the same size 14 needles:

• row 1: cast on 35
• even rows: (k1, yo) * repeat 35 times
• odd rows: (p1, drop stitch) * repeat 35 times

It ended up too short to be a cowl. So I twisted the green loop as if I were going to put it on my head, then I took some left over brown and started to stitch the brown loop to it. I kept divided by halves. So I stitched the front and the back. Then I found the middle between those and attached the sides. Then I found the centers of those areas and attached the quarters. I ended up with 8 stitches holding the two loops together.

You see the end result being modelled by Brunhelga. She thinks it makes quite a statement.

Since it was my first, with needles, project I stayed simple:

• Size 14 needles
• Cast on 29 stitches
• K5 P1 K5 P1 K5 P1 K5 P1 K5
• P5 K1 P5 K1 P5 K1 P5 K1 P5
• Keep alternating until long enough (about 6.5 feet in my case).

A nice lady at a yarn shop suggested that I paint the end of one of my needles so I could always tell if I was on an odd or even row. It was such a helpful suggestion, that all my pairs have a painted one now.

• Size 14 needles
• Cast on 41 stitches

• P41
• K4, (K2tog x 2), *(yo, k1)x3, yo, (K2tog x 4)* repeat section between astrics*, (yo, k1)x3, yo, (K2tog x 2), K4
• P41
• K41
• P41

• Keep doing this until you scarf is long enough.
• End with a P row then a K row.

This was my first project to using cabling. I made the two copper colored sections separately.

• Size 14 needles
• Cast on 12 stitches
• K12
• P12

And kept going until I had 26 inches. I did that for both pieces.

The middle blue part was where I did cabling.

• Size 14 needles
• Cast on 18 stitches

• K6, Slip 3 to the cable needle, K3, K3 from the cable needle, K6
• P18
• K18
• P18
• Repeat last two rows rows 2x
• The start at the beginning again.

• Do this until you have about 22-24 inches, depending on how snug you want the neck warmer to be. I did 24.

• Take safter pins and meet up the ends of the strips. Put the two longer straight pieces to the outside and the shorter cabled piece in the middle.
• Stretch the shorter middle piece to line up with the longer outer pieces. Use the safety pins to hold it in place.
• Now take some yarn and stitch the outer pieces onto the middle one.

Once you are done, the shorter, cabled piece will pull the longer outer pieces into almost a ruffled gather. I used big buttons and sewed them on to make it a single ring. It has enough stretch to be pulled on and off easily enough to not need to actually function as buttons.

This was exciting, I spun my own yarn. What made it really cool was the wheel is a family heirloom from 1875. My aunt had recenty given it to my mom, and it had been a great great aunts back on the homestead. My mother has an embroidered table cloth made of flax grown on that homestead, spun on this wheel, then woven and embroidered by its original owner.

Now I had a chance to reach back through all of those years and people and literally, spin my own part of the wheel's yarn.

Not being a very experienced spinner, I wasn't much good. There just happened to be a spinning open house the weekend I was home, so we went and met betty. Crafters are the nicest people. She gave a personal spinning lesson and showed me the basics. We grabbed some practice white roving and some great dyed stuff for when I was ready.

I was off! After my first skein of white, I dove for the dyed which spun into these great jewel toned skeins. 

You can read all about it at: https://helloscriptkitty.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/crazy-as-a-loom/

The gist is that I took the Home Spun Wool, made some more, then I wove a plaid scarf.