Times up!

My house, well, it's looking a little better now! As you've seen the before picture of my living room, I thought it only fair to do an "after" shot. After a day of (on and off) hard labor, I've put away, dusted, carpet freshed, aired out, vacuumed and mopped. All that is left is this tiny spot around the computer, but it's where I am right now, and I'm saving that for last. I'm looking for him to walk through the door in about an hour.

I started on the legs of my two socks on one circ, the "magic fruit loop socks", in a spiral pattern from my Getting Started Knitting Socks book. It was a bit tricky to add a pattern NOT written for this method, but I just call one side of both socks A and one side B and wrote my own little pattern variation and waaalaaaa, I'm on my way. I dont know how tall/long I'm going to make them, I was thinking until I got low on yarn, which they say is a very good reason for doing toe up socks, and I can see that advantage. Trouble is, I'm barely halfway thru the two balls now, so I don't think that's going to be an issue. I suppose I'll just knit until I'm damn sick of this pattern :)




With all the cleanup, I've gotten absolutely nothing else done. I did lay in bed a bit last night and look thru pattern books for Aran jumpers/cardi's, not to mention searching for hours on ravelry. The trouble is, I reckon, there's just too many young, skinny, fashionable knitters out there, because all of the patterns seem to be made for them. Grrrrr.

A kind lady on ravelry has said she would mail me a pattern. I saw a cardi she made that I absolutely adore. It's got lovely cables and pretty textured stitchwork and it's shaped like a cardigan should be shaped. I messaged her about it. So sweet she is, she offered right away to send it to me, but hers is made with 12ply, and if I can't get a decent gauge, I'll have to keep looking. I doubt seriously I'd want to try and modify all those cables and gadgets, but I might if it has large uninterrupted panels or something. But if it doesn't work, I'm back to square one.

Despite my cleanup, I still have all of my peace fleece strown out all over the guest room (ie mom's) bed, so I can take a peek and cop a feel whenever I pass by. My excuse is, I'm leaving it out to show Chris. It is, after all, what I got from his mom for Christmas...or at least with the money she gave me, plus 30 bucks when it was all said and done. I do love it so though! Utterly fantastic stuff! I'm now trolling internet sites for other interesting wool to suggest to the coop. See how fickle I am?

Well, my week is over, and Chris just called. He's back at the school and waiting for his last kid to get picked up by their parents. My blogging is about to slow up considerably. I can just feel it...heee heee.

One Row Indulgent Scarf (aka. Mom's Birthday Scarf)

For Mom's birthday scarf, I decided to go with the "one row scarf". Ok, I didn't exactly decide to. I put the choices up on here, and she decided for me. I had already decided that whatever I did for her, it would be with the Fiesta "La Boheme", mainly because the yarn itself makes for an expensive present, and birthdays should set you back some cash :) However, in hindsight I wouldn't recommend the La Boheme to anyone, unless your just the type who likes to brag about how much money something costs. Then, by all means, go for it, cause at $45 a ball, it certainly gives you bragging rights. (The catch is, of course, there's always the chance that you will simply impress them as stupid for spending that much on one skein of yarn.) It's also miserable stuff to work with. Just winding it into a ball is a major drama. Knitting with it is a constant excercise in keeping the colorways on the two strands together. The mohair strand is a bit stretchable, so for small discrepancies you can stretch the mohair tighter. If worse comes to worse you can break the yarn, straighten it out, and then start again, or cheat and wrap the longer band around twice on a stitch and then pick both wraps up in the next row (tricky...don't drop it).

I've been hard at work on finishing the "Plain ole Cotton Top", so I haven't had too much time to devote to it, but still, with the "yarn harlot's" One Row pattern (link in previous post), it's still moving along fairly quickly, which, in these circumstances, is a good thing. I love the pattern, although it is a seriously mind numbing repetition of four stitches and the kbl stitch is not always easy due to La Boheme's having two strands. Still, it's easy to remember and the stiches become automatic fairly quickly. I will definately use it again down the track on some homespun, as it was intended.

So, for mom's benefit, as she's much too impatient to wait for the finished project, I'm posting this today so she can have a peek. Now that the cotton top is almost finished, it's pretty much the only portable project I have on the needles, and I have a feeling I'm going to have it finished in no time flat.

Time for me to start thinking seriously about what I'm going to do NEXT!

Terrie's Horf Pattern

Now that I know she has recieved it, I reckon I can now post the finished pictures for my cousin's hood scarf (aka Horf). I have posted progress on it, but decided to wait before printing the finished project since she knows where to find this blog and that would ruin what tiny little element of surprise there was left. By all accounts, she is happy with it, which is quite gratifying to say the least. It's always nice to have my work appreciated.

I wanted to have it finished and mailed before vacation, and I had finished everything but the mohair edging. The edging, however, required picking up about a million stitches, as I had decided to knit it on rather than crochet it. I'd never done this before, because in the days before I got my Denise interchangable needles, regular needles just weren't long enough to edge something as long as a scarf. With my Denise's, though, I could just join two of the longer cords together and have a massively long needle that did the work quite nicely. The colors of the mohair for the edging and the main body of the horf were practically identical, so it all blends in very nicely. A lucky break really, and all in all I'm happy with the outcome.

There's not really a pattern for this per-se. I sort of winged it.

I c/o 46 stitches with the Natural's Harmony 100% wool, worked in garter stitch (k every row) for what seemed like a decade until I got the length I wanted, then c/o. Ohh, and at either in I put in a couple of rows of garter drop stitches, which is knit one row but wrap your yarn twice around the needle, then knit the next row dropping one of the wraps, but that step certainly isn't necessary. It was done purely for a little extra decoration, and that is a nice stitch that looks the same upside down as right side up.

For the hood, I c/o 98 stitches, and again worked in garter stitch until it measured 11 inches, then I folded the cloth with the open stitches at the top of the fold and used the three needle bind off to join these at the top of the hood. (a video of this method can be found on this page: http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/casting-off

Then I joined the hood to the middle of the scarf. This is really all it took to make a perfectly good horf. I threw on the extra edging, but if you don't possess interchangable needles, I would suggest you do this in the crochet edging of your choice.

Binge shopping & Scarf patterns

I have not had much luck with my spinning. My main problem seemed to be that the twisted wool (not sure if I'd call it yarn yet) wouldn't pull itself up onto the bobbin. It just kept twisting and twisting till it kinked up against the orifice. So I went to googling images of spinning wheels, flyers, etc and noticed something was missing. My spinning wheel, a traditional, should operate with a scotch tension braking system and mine had no such animal. This may sound complicated, but essentially it is a length of what looks like thick fishing line that attaches on one end to a spring and on the other end to a knob (I had the knob). The line passes thru two metal hooks (those were there too), and runs over a grove in the bobbin. Thus, you tighten the tension knob, which tightens the string, which stretches the spring. This is the part that makes the bobbin go slower than the flyer, allowing the yarn to twist onto the bobbin.

Feeling like a total wanker, I realized I needed a some line and a spring. I probably could have rigged something up myself, but I decided not to tempt fate any longer, so last week I went by the Walking Wheel Studio, a spinning studio in Adelaide with the most gracious of women running it, and explained my dilemma. She had the line right there, but she was out of springs. They would be in with her next order, arriving in a few days. She would give me a call. Meanwhile, she gave me a couple of little rubber bands that would substitute for the spring. I tried them out the next day, and at LAST I was spinning something that looked like real yarn, or at the very least, real string. I'm hoping after plying it looks like yarn.

She called me Tuesday, letting me know it had arrived. The studio is open Thursday thru Saturday, so I told her I would see her at her 10 o'clock opening time on Thursday. As she's over on that side of town, roughly, I decided I would hang out at Starbucks in Glenelg and then visit Barb's Sew and Knits (again), this time to see if I could find some yarn for a scarf for mom.

I left work yesterday morning at 7, drove out to Jetty Rd, parked and walked down to Starbucks at about 7:45, ordered a Blueberry Muffin and a Cappuccino, got a paper cup with coffee grounds in it to use for an ashtray, and settled in on the patio, which looks out over the jetty and the ocean. It had just stopped raining, and the ocean had that eerie dark look, but quite beautiful really. I spent the next hour sipping cappy and jotting some preliminary notes down on a sweater mom has requested for Christmas. I have a picture out of a magazine that she sent, but no pattern of course, so I'm trying to design a pattern that will look like the picture. I'm in the early stages yet, and hadn't bought the yarn. Not knowing gauge, there wasn't much I could do besides get the particulars jotted down: drop shoulder, boat neck, bell sleeves etc, and draw a few rough sketches.

At 8:45, I drove back up Jetty Rd and turned off onto Byron, where Barb has her shop. When she opened, we first looked at ideas for mom's jumper, both ready made patterns (of which she has, seemingly, millions, both old and new) and then we explored wool options. Then I looked around for yarn to do mom's scarf with, which was far more urgent than the jumper at any rate. What I wound up buying was 2 skeins of the most beautiful yarn I think I've ever seen, at least in the skein, Fiesta's La Boheme. It was very dear, but it came in 100 g skeins, which I used to justify the cost. Besides, I reasoned, it was for mom's birthday. So, I talked myself into it, and walked out with some beautiful yarn that, for the price, should have been solid gold.

Having already spent more than I had planned, I left Barbs and went over to the Walking Wheel to pick up my $1.50 spring. I wished I had left with only spending a $1.50, but that was not to be. I left with 8 skeins of beautiful hand spun, perfect for mom's future sweater, and my wallet, once again, much lighter.

The night before, hubby informed me that my yarn order at my LYS in MB had arrived. Thank goodness, it was already paid for with my Christmas pressie gift certificate and a few extra dollars. It was 30 skeins of Cleckheaton Country Naturals that I am planning to make a super difficult cardi out of. I got the pattern months ago, and have been looking at it periodically with longing ever since. Loving mindless knitting as much as I do, I love this cardi more. So before coming home, I swung by there and picked that up as well.

So this morning, I'm faced with a shopping hangover, and all sorts of ideas of "what to do with what" running thru my head. This is NOT in any way aided by Ravelry, which has so many ideas available on it it makes me dizzy. I thought I had pretty clear cut ideas when I bought it, but now I'm not so sure.

Last nigth, hubby helped me wind one of the La Boheme skeins into balls, and as it is made of two distinct threads, yet dyed together, it was really hard to wind and keep the color pattern even on both threads. Consequently, in actual use, it might be really hard to get the graduting look I was looking for in the scarf pattern I had in mind, which is this short row scarf from magknits found here:

http://www.magknits.com/warm05/patterns/rib.htm

So, I'm thinking of this one, which looks good on Ravelry knit in other yarns besides homespun: http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2006/10/12/one_row_handspun_scarf.html

But it also looks fantastic in homespun, and I do have alot of the homespun I bought at the walking wheel for mom's sweater lying around, and can always get (or, potentially spin myself), more for that and just make a shawl with the La Boheme.

Another horse coming from the outside is this one:

http://grumperina.com/knitblog/shiftingsands.htm which would look good with the La Boheme I think, or the Grignasco.

I'm so confused, and I wanted to get started TODAY!

Ironing things out

I don't know if it's my ironing board, or just ironing boards in general, but I just cant seem to get any of the covers to fit right. I keep buying them, and they are either way too small, or they are usable, but big, and I have to scrunch them up under the "nose" of the ironing board and then wrap the excess material in a rubber band to get that all important "tight fit".

About a year, maybe more, ago, my friend Ang gave me a box of old material scraps her mom had left at her house. She knew I took these odd fits of sewing, and thought they might come in handy. Some of it was potentially usable, including a nice huge peice of organze, but frankly, a lot of it was hideously ugly stuff, looking like remnants from projects making kitchen curtains and such in the 70's, with big teapots and flowers and such on them. The only thing I had previously used a piece for was to put under my kitchen stove so it wouldn't rip or scratch the linoleum when it needed pulled out from the counter to get fixed.

When my old "rubber-banded to fit" ironing board cover bit the dust, I was ready to go out and buy a new one, resigning myself to the poorly fitting option. They are cheap after all. Just the cloth to make one would generally cost you more than the already "made in China" products. Then I thought of the "ugly kitchen fabric" that I had resigned to the "i'll probably never use" box in the shed. I drug it out and found the tolerable fabric which you can see in the picture. Besides, it's an ironing board cover, not a peice of clothing or curtains or anything you really need to worry about looks-wise.

I used the foam backing from the old cover, which I had already trimmed down to fit the "nose" of my ironing board better. I would suggest this, as the foam backing practically never dies, and as a form of recycling, it's good for the planet. I'm not the tree hugging sort generally, but really, foam takes a few eternities to break down in a landfill, so if it's not necessary to change it, I can see no reason why you can't reuse it.

But, if your old foam backing just won't do, you can buy 2 or 3 mm thick foam commercially. Find a place in your home with enough floorspace, lay the foam on the floor, turn your ironing board upside down on top of it. Trace around the edges and trim a bit. Easy as that.

The amount of cloth you need is pretty simple, just measure the length of your ironing board and add on about 5 inches (12 cms). Now, you can either make a template for your cloth cover, or just do what I did. Lay your cloth out on the floor, wrong side up, and again flip over your ironing board. Grab a peice of chalk (I'm a huge fan of common colored chalk for marking sewing projects). As my ironing board is about 2 ins. (5 cm) deep, and you have to allow for the seams, I marked the fabric with a little chalk dash every few inches all the way around the board at about 4 inches (10 cms) from the edge, paying special attention to the curvy bits. Then I just whizzed around connecting the dots with my handy dandy La Sarta electric sewing scissors (which works a dream, I hate cutting out).

I did have to purchase some thin elastic. I got 2-1/2 meters of the stuff, which for my ironing board worked out well, with quite a bit left over. Total cost from "The Bridge Agency", or habadashery here in Murray Bridge, was $.75.

I went round the fabric, ironed under about a 1/4 inch, then did the same all over again. Then I sewed down this doubled hem. I took out the elastic, stretching it out as I went, and sewed that over the hem all the way around.

VIOLA!!! My ironing board cover. I know, I know, it's not knitting....but for a change, other things can be fun too. And best of all, it actually FITS!!! When ironing, I'm not constantly trying to straighten out my ironing board cover. For me, that certainly makes it worth the effort.

Three hats and a pattern

I made these three beanies as Christmas presents to send back to the states. Started out, I was just going to make one for my mom, but as it went so quickly and I had lots of yarn bits just perfect for the job lying around the house, I thought I'd make one for my sister and my aunt as well. I used different bits of yarn here and there, but basically, all were 12 or 14 ply wool yarn, and I used some of Spotlight's Yarn Bee novelty fur yarn to trim them in, which I picked up a couple of months back on sale for something like 1.49 per 50 g skein.

The pattern was very simple. I made them on straight needles and just put a seam in the back. I suppose that is sort of the cheaters way out when it comes to hats, but I find that if I'm careful with my seams, they really come out looking pretty darn good.

The pattern went something like this:

Winter Hats on Straight Needles:

----------------------------------------------

Materials: 2 - 50g balls 12 (or 14) ply yarn

1 - matching novelty fur yarn

8mm straight needles

Cast on 70 stitches,

Knitting with one strand of 12 ply yarn and one strand of fur yarn:

Knit in 2x2 rib (1st row k2 p2 to end, ending with k2, 2nd row p2 k2 to end, ending with a p2, repeat these two rows for pattern) until work measures 9 cm.

Cut off novelty fur yarn, leaving a 6cm tail. Continue on in 2x2 rib, using only the 12 ply yarn until all of work measures 26 cm, ending with a purl row.

Begin shaping:

Row 1 : K2 tog, *P2, K2tog; rep from * to end. 52 stitches

Row 2 : P1, *K2,P1: rep from * to end

Row 3 : K1 *P2,K1: rep from * to end

Row 4 : As row 2

Row 5 : K1, *P2tog,K1: rep from * to end. 35 stitches

Row 6 : P1, *K1,P1: rep from * to end

Row 7 : K1, *P1,K1: rep from * to end

Row 8 : As row 6

Row 9 : K1, *K2tog: rep from * to end. 18 stitches

Row 10 : *P2tog: rep from * to end. 9 stitches

Cut yarn, leaving enough of a tail to pass thru the remaining stitches and also stitch up the seam of the hat.

Pass tail thru the remaining stitches, pull tightly and tie off, but DO NOT cut short. Sew in all ends. Then take the remainder of your very long tail, thread it into a yarn needle, and sew up the seam. Reminder: your fur area is going to turn up, so switch sides as your sewing the seam at the point of the fur, as to keep the ugly back of the seam out of sight.

Easy as! I don't often get to sit for 3 hours and just knit, but I reckon that would have been the sum total of my 15 minutes here and there it took me to knit these up!

Easy peasy bookmark pattern

My friend Angie, not an avid knitter, gave me heaps of wool bits and peices a couple of weeks ago. Remember the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Black Sheep, have you any wool"? Yep, you guessed it: three bags full. Now, for the most part, I'm a big project girl. My knitting is sort of an extension of my sewing, and I prefer to make clothing. Of course, a colourful variety of bits and peices are just dandy for sewing up fuzzy knits. It beats buying a whole ball of yarn just to do the stitching together. However, after I finish this project of Chris', I'm going to attempt to avoid the furs and the eyelash for awhile.

Anyway, Christmas is sneaking up on me, so it occured to me that some of this yarn would be good to use to make either Christmas decorations or little presents, such as bookmarks. I looked at various bookmark patterns on the internet, but they were either too complicated for a lazy knitter like me and sort of "doily-ish", or I just didn't like the looks of them.

So last night I decided to come up with something on my own. Something quick and easy but attractive. I drug out the "three bags full" and dug out some gold 8 ply cotton (at least that's what it appeared to be, there was no label) and a pair of 3 1/4 mm needles. What design would be easier than a cross? Nothing, I reckon. Perfect for the Christian friends and rellies. (I would have posed the finished bookmark with a bible, but I realized I don't own one. What a heathen I am!)

Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Guage: not terribly important. Whatever you get using 3 1/4 needles and 8 ply cotton will be fine. I would warn against dark colours, as the cross pattern is somewhat subtle and the darker the colour, the less well it will show up.

c/o 19

Rows 1-3: knit

*Row 4: k2, purl 15, k2 (purl row)

Row 5: k* (knit row)

Repeat from * to * (rows 4 and 5) until work measures appx 7 cm, ending with a row 4 (purl row).

Cross pattern:

Beginning with a knit row:** k8, p3, k8

Purl row: k2, p 15, k2**

Repeat these two rows 12 times, ending with a purl row.

Row 13 (of cross pattern): k4, p 11, k4

Row 14: k2, p15, k2

Row 15 to 18: Repeat rows 13 and 14 twice more.

Row 19: k8, p3, k8

Row 20: k2, P15, k2

Row 21 to 24: Repeat rows 19 and 20 twice more.

Row 25: k

Row 26: k2, p15, k2

Row 27: k

Row 28: k2, p2tog, p to last 4 st., p2tog, k2

Repeat rows 27 and 28 until there are 5 stitches left.

On last 5 stitches: k one row, then on next row k2tog, p1, k2tog

On last 3 stitches: k3tog.

Leave a tail and do what you like with it. I did about a 4 cm crochet chain with it, but you might have other ideas.

There it is! Possibly the easiest bookmark ever.

Birthday shopping spree No. 1

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recieved several gift certificates for my birthday. One was for 50 dollars for any coles myers store, and I wound up buying some floor mats to match my new "Frangi Pangi" carseat covers ($30), and used the rest, plus a little extra from my pocket, to buy a new webcam, both purchases at Kmart.

The other was a $50 gift certificate to my favorite LYS (local yarn shop). Wasting no time, I spent this one about 3 days later, which was the quickest I could manage being in the city past 9am. My mission, once I got there, was to buy yarn I needed for a pattern I found in a library book back probably 6 months ago. It called for no less than 4 different types of yarns and a total of 6 colors. (yes, it's striped, but I prefer to call the stripes "rows" of different colors and textures). It's listed on a sample of the patterns in the book on google books. I've been trying to get a picture over from the website, with no success, so here's the link to the website where it can be found: http://books.google.com/books?id=rseR2LHP_6YC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=diva+29+mohair&source=web&ots=tFX3mFBAG8&sig=byaSNjqbOj3h-8vQt2OCOgk75P4#PPA11,M1

This link gives you several patterns from the book. The one I'm planning to do is the one entitled : Hudson's Bay.

Anyway, I bought the yarn for it with my gift certificate, plus a bit from my pocket. It was a fabulous hunt for different yarns that might look well together colour wise plus would match the same guage while knitting. The only thing I had bought so far was the loopy mohair. I had thought at first to get the yarns a couple here and a couple there, but really, that makes combining the colours a bit hard. Anyway, my shopping results are pictured.