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Sorry for the horrible pictures, but the husband is taking my camera to work every day, which means I can only get pictures at night. So either I use the flash or I have blurry pictures. The good news, though is that he’s buying a much more powerful camera for his department, so soon I should have mine back. And then we’ll still have bad pictures things might change.
Well anyway, that there picture says I’ve finished the giant dishcloth aka the diagonal garter stitch eyelet border baby blanket, a more or less generic pattern from Lion Brand, which stalled when I ran out of yarn (ho hum, so what else is new), but then Iwillloveherforever Samantha stepped in and mailed me another skein, which got to me in record time, although I still fell short but I substituted a close lookalike and here it is!!! Teddy bear for scale. Here are a couple more bad pictures, just to get your goat (no clue what I’d do with it, but it’d still be fun to get it, doncha think?)
The thing is quite large and expanded a bit after a wash today. I shall pop it into a bag with some of the dishcloths I’ve been making for my SIL’s new baby (I haven’t been making the dishcloths for the baby, but the dishcloths could be used as washcloths or wipecloths on the baby. If you see what I mean :D).
If you click on the pictures you will see that in addition to its giant size in reality, I’ve loaded the pictures in large size as well.
Here are the specs:
Yarn: Lion Cotton in Natural 4 skeins and a bit of TLC Cotton Plus (to fill in the final shortage) in Cream. (Why does a Google search for TLC Cotton Plus-or other Coats and Clark yarns-lead me to third party sales sites and not to the manufacturer’s site? Very odd. I think they should work on their meta tags or something. Also, I find navigating through their refurbished site quite cumbersome and there don’t seem to be helpful links to patterns from the yarn pages. Bad website design.)
Needles: Denise size 7 circular. 3.75mm?
Pattern: Lion Brand
Time: A——-ges. But at least the baby is still a baby (less than a month old as we speak).
Size: 37.5″ square (That officially makes it my largest ever knitted object. Or even crocheted, I think. Wow.)
Extra: #1 The Lion Cotton seems to shed in the washing machine. I had to pick off lint from the blanket as well as the dishcloths. No idea why the lint collector in the machine didn’t work.
#2 I can’t remember now why on earth I chose this pattern. Just before finishing, I read in The Knitter’s Handbook that garter stitch progresses slower than stockinette. Too bad I didn’t realise that before I began the project. Of course, my reasoning would have been (a) knit knit knit no purl (b) freedom to decide size depending on yarn position (HA!) (c) knit takes up less yarn than crochet so I could get more mileage out of my stash (ha!)
#3 I like the sensation of the yarn-needle combination. Like butter. For both yarns. Maybe I should specialise in cotton only.
#4 The bestest part is, I now have a cable free!!! Amazingly all my Denise cables are in some project or other, so it’s wonderful to have one free. Yippee.
#5 No edging required!
I don’t use dishcloths actually, but I find infinite satisfaction in having a Finished Object™, and one, moreover, which uses stitches/stitch patterns new to me. And I find that cotton yarn has this wonderful definition in it, which makes the stitches stand out. Over at the Dishcloth KAL, they’ve announced prizes for the three top (as in most prolific, I suppose) dishcloth knitters. The top two are pounds of dishcloth cotton and the Mason-Dixon knitting book. Sigh. While I covet both wildly (imagine the miles of dishloth-y things that could be made with a pound of the stuff!!! and that baby kimono…on second thoughts, maybe the cotton is better.) Anyway, I fall way, way behind in the counts 😦 That’s ok, I’m still having fun putting off other work making just as many as I can.
So here’s two more.
The regulation details about these:
Yarn: Caron Cotton Tales (white) and Rio from Reynolds (pink), both 100% cotton. I can’t find websites for either yarn. Caron must have discontinued this cotton and perhaps Reynolds is one of those rarities, a brick-and-mortar-only company (Do they still exist in the US of A?). I just got to a Reynolds site and there is no mention of this yarn at all. The Rio yarn is made in Brazil. The Cotton Tales is plied and softer than the Rio.
Needles: Oh dear. I don’t remember now. But I think 3.75mm Pony straights.
Pattern: Kitchen Cotton Dishcloth and Woven Dishcloth, both from the Dishcloth Boutique
Time: I’m slow.
Size: 7.5″ x 8″and 7.5 x 9″ square
Extra: #Nothing, really. Oh yes, the imaginatively named Kitchen Cotton cloth is fully reversible. Which you have to love about a piece of knitting or crochet.
Ok, the eagle-eyed among you might have spotted that spiky purple thing in the background behind the pink dishcloth. That is yet another project I have started. It’s a free Bernat pattern and although I am making it for a boy, those are the colours in stash and that’s what I’m using. *insert mulish look* Using stashy acrylic, it’s coming out way bigger than I think it’s supposed to, but my friend says her baby is big, so that should be okay. I got to just after the armholes decrease and then inexplicably stopped.
What I find hard to understand is why this cardigan was designed in pieces instead of making it one piece up to the armholes and then splitting it up. Funny. Especially when you think that in crochet making things without seams is so much easier (and you don’t even have to resort to circulars/dpns etc) as you only ever have one stitch to think about. I read somewhere that having seams makes garments drape better or something. Is that true?
And then you could just pick up at the armholes and make the sleeve downward with decreases rather than upwards with increases. What a pain (working upwards, I mean). Of course, never having designed anything myself, I am not in any way qualified to comment. But I’d really appreciate not having a zillion seams to sew at the end of what is supposed to be a quick project. Not to mention the number of ends that will have to be woven in. 😦
Anyway, before I go, I’d like to clarify that the possiblity of yarn from Russia that I mentioned last time is not a continuous stream (I wish!) but a one-off offer. And I haven’t even written back to the friend yet.
Also, a confession of crime: I steal cats. Yes. All those photos of cats you see on my blog are stolen from their lucky owners. Well, the photos are stolen, not the cats themselves. But yes, Your Honour, I plead guilty.
To distract you from my nefariousness (I hope that’s a word), here is a picture of the nice spike stitch back:
which I might decided to undo and start afresh, this time adding in the front panel stitches to either side, which shouldn’t make that much of a difference, since we turn the work at the end of each round anyway, so there shouldn’t be a jog (jag?) of any kind. Let’s see. The idea is that the friend’s baby will have a sweater for this December.
Remember when I joined the Dishcloth KAL a few aeons ago? I finally decided to actually make something to show for it. So here’s #1
And #2
Details, if you must:
Yarn: Phildar Lin-Coton 50/50 sent me in a CATPAC. The colour is actually a faded blue. I used two strands together. I had two balls of it and after two dishcloths, only a small amount left.
Needles & Hook: Heide‘s Boye aluminium circulars, size 4.50 mm/7 I think. The needle is silver coloured.
Pattern: Checkerboard Dishcloth and Short Rows Rectangular (!!!) Wash Rag, both from the Dishcloth Boutique
Time: About a day each. What can I say, I’m slow.
Size: 8″ x 8.5″ and 9″ square
Extra: #1 I’m really pleasantly surprised by my experience with the Boye needles so far. I find their crochet hooks are very heavy and even crudely made, with prominent ridges. Can someone explain the difference to me?
#2 I don’t know why the pattern is called rectangular, I got a square out of it. The pattern is slightly oddly written. Not enough dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s. I like being spoonfed.
Well, at least the purse he designed 😉
I needed quick gratification, and have been dying to try my hand on this purse ever since Drew unveiled it a few days ago. Although I had promised myself that I would finish some other stuff first, I couldn’t resist this and cast on for it two nights ago. Finished it yesterday. Very nice and easy. The yarn is so nice and soft and probably deserved to be made into something worn next the skin (it is 50% merino and 50% acrylic and so soft!) but woolly things being little required in these parts, purse it became.
For the cord I used the Lobster stitch, and it is a bit too thick for the purpose, so I am now making the Parallel Chain cord found at the same tutorial for a thinner cord. The handle was supposed to be a knitted I-cord, but I cheated and used my trusty I-cord maker instead and whipped it up much faster than I would have on needles.
Here are the details:
Yarn: GGH Aspen in shade 39, mauve. The colour is showing correctly on my monitor. I used a bit less than one skein for the purse body. The Icord and the lobster stitch cord used up much of the second skein. The yarn was a gift from my SP, Ruth. I have another skein left (in UFO form, more of that later).
Needles & Hook: Boye aluminium circulars, size 6.50 mm/10.5 I think. There’s no marking on the needle, but from the colour (dark green) and my knitting needle gauge, I’m thinking that’s the size. It was sent me by Heide. Surprisingly light. Too long for this project of course, but I used my version of the Magic Loop or whatever. Also a Boye 6.5 mm/K/10.5 hook, which supports my guestimate of the knitting needle size.
Pattern: Drew Emborsky‘s Purl McBigBottom
Time: 2 days
Size: 6″ x 10″ approx
Extra: #1 The pattern calls for 110 yds of the yarn, but one skein of my yarn was only about 57m. Maybe if you take the Icord and the eyelet cord, it adds up.
#2 The yarn is really yummy and soft.
#3 I’m proud to have mastered the lobster stitch. The finished cord looks like a golden lanyard seen on some naval uniforms. Here’s a closeup:
No muppets were harmed in making this bag. I doubt anyone will remember, but I started this bag back in February and had an issue with the pattern. Anyhow for the second side I went with plain stockinette and found it produced stripes. I didn’t go with a belt handle, but chose instead to crochet one with some Moda Dea Ticker Tape that I got in my April CAT PAC from Kathleen. The idea was given to me by Skip in our last CAT chat. Thanks, Skip!
I’ve given the bag away to my neighbour’s daughter. It is a bit frivolous for me at my age 😛 Anyway, I believe her brother now wants one for a gift for a friend. This time I might stockinette the whole thing without a pattern. Maybe even on circulars, to eliminate the pain of sewing seams.
Here are the gory details:
Yarn: Vardhman Fun Feather 50g skeins (2), Small amount of Moda Dea Ticker Tape
Needles & Hook: Size 7/4.5 mm straights, Boye size J/10/6 mm
Pattern: Loosely based on this
Time: 5 months?!
Size: I didn’t actually measure it but it might be about 8″ across and about 5″ deep.
Extra: I might actually sell something like this, wow!
Another cotton Sugar and Cream FO. This time it’s a facecloth from the Dishcloth Boutique. I decided to make one of the patterns without a picture, just like that. I’m quite happy with the result, except I don’t see any eyelets in the border. Maybe I knit too tight.
This finished the skein of the Sugar and Cream. So I got two ****cloths (dish, wash, face, whatever!) out of one 2.5 oz (70.9 gm) skein. Nice. I probably wouldn’t be able to crochet two full pieces, but knit is possible.
Details:
Yarn: Sugar and Cream in Cornflower Blue. The other half of the skein left over from the Round Dishcloth.
Needles: Pony 3.75 mm (UK 9/US 5) straights
Pattern: Eyelet Border Facecloth from the Dishcloth Boutique
Time: Overnight
Size: 8.5″ x 7.75″
Extra: #1 New stitch pattern learnt! And without a picture, too 😀
#2 I literally had less than an inch of yarn left over at the end. Gasp!
The Dishcloth Boutique is a great place to practise and learn new stitches. They have both crochet and knit patterns. Now if I could only arrange for an uninterrupted supply of cotton yarn or find a good substitute for it here.
Since I’m so pleased with myself about this thing, some more pictures of the neat marching rows of stitches:
Dang. WordPress isn’t letting me upload any more pics. Must be tired of faded blue knit pictures. Sigh.
S I saw these very interesting dishcloths (yes dishcloths) on my Flickr Knitting feed and hopped on over to the maker's blog and begged her for the details of the pattern. She kindly obliged, so I gave my weary fingers a break from the pink sweater (which is getting heavy) and turned this out overnight:
Close up:
Yarn: Sugar and Cream in Cornflower Blue
Needles: Size 4.5 mm (7) straights
Pattern: From Mielke's Farm (she's also got the crochet potholder that is made in one piece but ends up double-sided – Magic Square, I think it's called)
Time: Overnight
Size: about 10"
Extra: #1 First time making a circular piece in knitting
#2 Short rows again
#3 Too holey where I picked up the stitches, maybe it'll be better next time
#4 I want to be able to do this without the scallops and in different colours in the same piece.
It turns out that the famous "Ballband dishcloth" is the same one that I knit way back in December. The authors of MDK duly acknowledge it in their book. Wow! Never been ahead of the trend before. Probably will never be again either. Thanks, Sara and Noricum!
Oh, and Sara has now moved to WordPress as well, and you can get her feed here.
Sorry to be so vulgar, but I’ve finally finished my first adult knitted garment. The candy stripes cardigan is done and here it is:
Front
And back:
Yarn: Acrylic from Shillong. Less than 600 gms both colours together.
Needles: Pony 3.75 mm and 4.5 mm straights (pattern calls for 4.5 and 5.00mm)
Pattern: Robin Wools sheet from Shillong (Rs 10 per sheet)
Time: Over 2 weeks
Size: Me!
Extra: #1 First-ever adult garment!
#2 Used the largest size number of stitches and worked it to my size measurements
#3 Read what Nona says about process vs product. I’m not sure I like the fit of this cardigan either, but I liked making it. And of course, I look nothing like this: :-p
What have we here? An FO!!
The Short rows baby jacket that I read wrong and made a right royal mess of is finally done. It ain’t pretty and won’t stand up to close scrutiny, but done it is. Here are the gory details:
Yarn: Froya Narvik 100% wool, 3 50gm balls, 131 yds each (120m).
Hook: Pony 3.75 mm straights (the label calls for 4mm)
Pattern: Garter stitch short rows
Time: Over a week (come on, you don’t really expect me to give you exact times, now, do you?)
Size: 21″ around, 10.5″ from neck edge to bottom edge, 10″ sleeve, 4″ cuff.
Extra: #1 Learning short rows
#2 I read the pattern wrong, else the shaping goes from one front panel to sleeve to back to sleeve and second front panel.
#3 The pattern doesn’t give measurements of the finished product in inches, only says ‘3-6’ month baby. Could somebody please tell me what size baby this might fit? Please!
#4 The binding off had to be done imaginatively because I ran out of yarn and I invented a technique of binding off which involved picking up loops and slipping over themselves and a spot of black magic…
#5 I also joined the fronts together at the top because of the same issue of yarn shortage. More abracadabra there.
#6 Skipped the 3-4 rows of ribbing at the neck edge. See #4 and #5 above for reason.
swakrta.com 