The Ghost of FOs Past June 25, 2008

So, it’s been busy around here. But, really, where isn’t everyone busy? My in-laws are coming to visit next week, which I’m really excited about. I get to do all the things we never do on our own, like take a ferry and visit Pike Place and drive down to Mt. Rainier and maybe go to a baseball game (I don’t really care about the Mariners, but think of the knitting time! And the snacks, or course!) You know, I think this paragraph holds some sort of Daily Skein record for “Most Links in Fewest Sentences.” Or maybe it’s just an unoriginal Seattle tourism ad, lol. We’re going to do lots of other things too.

As I mentioned earlier, things are busy. As much as I’m excited for their visit, in-laws coming does mean a lot of cleaning. Mainly of the fiber room- I mean, guest room. Right now, it’s fairly trashed from my recent spate of sewing projects and my periodic stash divings to find inspirtation. I haven’t had as much time for knitting, between the cleaning and errands during the day (not to mention exercising) and being busy at night…

I may not have mentioned yet, but I am a huge geek. I love playing video games and sci-fi and math. I even combined all these loves into knitting with my Space Invader gloves, which were my first colorwork project (and full of mistakes.) They’re made from Knit Picks Palette and very much inspired by the BMP socks on Knitty and Eunny Jang’s Endpaper Mitts. They turned out slightly too narrow, so all the invaders look like they’ve been stepped on when I’m wearing them. The shooter and spaceship on top are done in duplicate stitch but the invaders are stranded. Some of the floats are really long and because the grey and black are such a contrast you can easily see the spots where I had to twist the yarns. But I did learn a lot and tried not to make the same mistakes on my Snowflake Gloves.

Like I said, big geek and proud of it. DH and I particularly love playing video games together. We used to play World of Warcraft and now we’re playing Age of Conan together. It’s taking up a lot of our evenings, but it’s so much fun! Anyway, my evening knitting time has been reduced to loading screens and bathroom breaks (his, not mine!) I have started a new project with the Pagewood yarn from Accidental Yarnage. I am so totally in love with this yarn that it’s not even funny. It’s phenomenal; it slides easily on my bamboo needles, it doesn’t split, it’s springy and soft, the colors are rich, and the stitch definition is great! I adore this yarn. I’m not going to tell you what I’m working on right now, but here’s a teaser (well, it’s not much of a teaser- I bet you can figure it out, even from the bad picture.)

To keep you amused while I finish these unspecified items, I thought I’d show off some of my early projects. These’ll eventually make their way to the Knitting Gallery.

Ah, my first project. Well, my first project from my knitting renaissance. I’m sure some of my original garter stitch doll scarves are still around at my mom’s house; I’ll have to take some pictures the next time I visit her. This, if you can’t tell, is the Calorimetry from Knitty. I decided that this would be a fun and simple first project that wouldn’t bore me to tears. It’s done in some cheap DK acrylic. I had pretty much forgotten anything I’d learned when I was ten about knitting. As you can see, I ended up knitting almost every stitch twisted! I did figure it out eventually, though, and I ended up remaking it in a nice 100% wool.

Continuing on chronologically, there are 2 projects that I can’t find to take pictures of. They’re here somewhere… they probably just fell behind the shelf or something. I wanted a pair of slippers that weren’t too warm, so I tried Lacanau in worsted acrylic (at the time, I didn’t really know the differences between fibers, but I quickly learned that I don’t like pure acrylic on my feet.) I then moved on to Widdershins in Panda Wool. I knit the first sock in a heartbeat, trying it on constantly. It fit like a dream. You can imagine my dismay when I cast off and could no longer get the sock over my ankle! Brokenhearted and determined, I ripped the sock out, went up a needle size, and tried again. Since I didn’t realize that the problem was the cast off edge, not the sock, the second sock had the exact same problem as the first. I figured out the problem, but now I was sick of knitting that pattern and I gave up on it. I switched to top-down socks and didn’t knit another toe-up sock for a long time.

Finally, a success story! My first completed pair of socks (although the second sock is missing right now.) Thuja, knitted in Lion Brand Wool Ease that I had lying around from a crochet project. My only problem with these socks was that Wool Ease can be very slippery on aluminum needles- my stitches slid all over the place! Oh, and I picked up the heel stitches rather wonkily. I’ve gotten much better at that now; picking up stitches is one of my favorite part of knitting socks! These socks are a little big, but they’re wearable. Can you tell I really loved looking at Knitty when I first started knitting again?

Will our intrepid author ever knit something that’s not from Knitty? Tune in next time: same knit time, same knit channel!

YCD June 20, 2008

So, yarn hates me right now. All I want to do is to love it (and force it to contort into thousands of tiny loops) and it stabs me in the back by getting tangled, eaten by the cat, and just in general being a pain in the butt. I would like to declare a knitting hiatus… but my hands are shaking at the mere thought of having to watch the Daily Show without something to occupy them, so maybe that’s not a good idea. I’m not sure how to solve this problem, but today I spent some time sewing instead of knitting again. I still had 2 more reusable shopping bags to make today as well as a few that I want to make for someone who will remain nameless. By the time I’m done with all of them, I’ll have made 12 shopping bags in just a few weeks! That’s a lot of sewing for me. I’m planning on making myself a new knitting bag (I got some gorgeous fabric on sale) if I can face my sewing machine after all this. While taking a break from shopping bags, I made this:

 

The YCD- Yarn Containment Device. The idea is to keep a ball of yarn from rolling around the floor while you try to knit from it. (I have a ball winder that makes center pull balls, so for me this is mainly to keep cats from playing with the ball.) I’ve seen all kinds of ways to do this, from putting the ball in a pot by your side to making one from an old soda bottle. (Some aren’t as fancy as that one, though.) The problem with the pot and the soda bottle is that they’re not very portable. Or pretty. You can accomplish the portable with a Ziploc baggie, but that still doesn’t solve the pretty. Hence the pretty, squishable YCD!

The YCD I made today is about a 4″ cube (it’s a little taller than it is wide, but I’m not going to go get it to measure it.) It’s just about right to fit a skein of Louet Gems Pearl, which you can see in there. It’s got a ribbon drawstring. I wanted to use a cord stop, but I’ve run out so I just tied the ribbon in a bow. The YCD has some heavy interfacing on the bottom to help it stand up, but the sides are just two layers of cotton so that they squish nicely for storage or portability.

I’m planning on making more of these; they’re a great way to use up some fabric stash! This one was pretty fast to make, too, and I was making it up as I went along! It’s not perfect yet… I’d like to use fusible interfacing on the bottom for easier placement and probably make the top a little differently. Further experiments on the specimen are required, but if you’d like to try your hand at making one of these, read on!

The 4″ Yarn Containment Device

Supplies:

• 2 fat quarters or equivalent amount of fabric and a 3″ x 17″ piece of coordinating fabric
• 4″ square of heavy interfacing (fusible recommended)
• 18-20″ ribbon or cord
• Sewing machine, iron, freezer paper (optional,) pins, sewing needle

This project uses 1/2″ seam allowances.

On freezer paper or directly on fabric, draw the shape for the Device. The Device is based on a “plus” shape that is then folded up to make the bag. I start by making the 5″ square in the center, then measuring out the side rectangles, 5″ x 4.5″ on each side. You can see in the picture that I didn’t use a big enough piece of freezer paper and had to use masking tape to tape the sides on, lol! Cut one from the outer fabric and one from the lining.

Place a ruler on the cut piece, running from one inner corner diagonally to its opposite. Draw a line about 1/2″ long along the ruler, starting from each corner. (Since that made almost no sense, I hope the pictures help.) Carefully cut along the lines just drawn. These cuts enable the bag to fold correctly for sewing. If you’ve got fusible interfacing, you should fuse it to the wrong side of the outer fabric in the center of the plus shape now. Use the cuts as a guide for centering. If you don’t have fusible interfacing, read on!

 

Fold the piece in half, right sides together, so that two of the sides line up and pin in place. (See why we cut those slits now?) Sew along either of the outer sides with a 1/2″ seam allowance, from the top to the end of the slit. Don’t worry if the slit doesn’t reach the stitch line or overshoots a little, you won’t be able to tell when it’s all done.

 

Repeat for the other 3 sides, realigning as needed, and sew the lining the same way. (Don’t leave a hole for turning!) Trim the seam allowances to 1/4″ and turn the outer fabric right side out. Leave the lining wrong side out.

 

Put the outer fabric into the lining, line up the top edges, and pin into place. Sew along the upper edge, leaving a 2″ gap for turning.

Turn right side out. If you’re using plain interfacing, curl the 4″ piece up a bit and shove it through the turning hole and position it correctly. Press the top edges if desired.

Take your 3″x17″ strip of fabric (or cut it now) and fold it in half width-wise (so that you now have a long 1.5″ strip.) Press. Open it up and fold one short edge down about a 1/4″ (don’t worry about the other short edge for now.) Now, fold one long edge down to the fold line. Press. Do the same on the other long side. You’ve now got a 1″ x 17″ strip.

 

Open up the strip you just spent so long pressing so that you can see the center line, but the two sides are still folded in. Mark a place (anywhere, really) on the strip for two button holes. Follow your sewing machine’s instructions for making button holes. This is where the drawstring will come out. The button holes will sew through 2 layers of fabric.

Put the strip on the top of the bag, overlapping the bag by about a 1/4″. Pin in place. Hide the raw end of the strip under the pressed edge of the strip. If there’s more than a 1/2″ overlap, trim the raw end. Try to line up the button holes with the center of a side. (You can see that I didn’t really do that very well…)

 

Topstitch around the bottom of the strip, starting just after the pressed edge of the strip. This part was a little dicey for me, but I think it worked out well enough. Slip stitch the pressed edge to the strip section beneath it. Thread the ribbon or cord through the button holes, trim off any extra, and you’re done! Throw a ball of yarn in there and get knitting!

This YCD is good for very small balls of yarn or center-pull balls that won’t move. Depending on the size of your ball, you’ll want to make the Device larger.

 

 

This work by Cailyn Meyer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

First Review June 16, 2008

Since I’m nowhere near done with even the first Lupine Sock yet, let alone the pair and the write-up, it’s time to start a new feature! Book reviews. I love to go to the bookstore; it doesn’t even matter if I need a book, I just love the atmosphere. It’s especially great to browse through the craft books (and maybe buy a few of them.) But sometimes there’s a book that I really want to look at and the store doesn’t have it. I imagine this happens to a lot of crafters, because there are so many cool books and such a tiny section of the store devoted to our passion. (Really, why do programming and philosophy get more space than crafting? Those are far less important subjects.) We’re stuck buying the book online, where we can’t look at all the projects or read an excerpt (most of the time.)

I’ve amassed a decent collection of craft books and, while I’m not a professional reviewer or anything, I think I’ve got a decent grasp of what a crafter wants. As a public service to others of my ilk, I’ll be posting reviews of my craft book collection. (Let’s be honest, this is really just an excuse to buy more books. “Look, DH, I need this book to review on my blog! People have been asking for it!”) As this is my first review, I think I’ll choose my first knitting book that wasn’t Stitch & Bitch. I, of course, have chosen a book that already has quite a few reviews on Amazon. Go figure.

The Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns

At a Glance

The Good: Colorful, clear photos. A good sampling of knit/purl, lace, cables, and slip stitch patterns. Contains some very unique patterns. Uses both charts and written instructions.

The Bad: Charts and written instructions don’t always match. Charts can be hard to follow. No glossary of chart symbols. Index could be more useful.

The Review

I bought this book because it was the only stitch library at the bookstore and I really wanted to have one. I didn’t like it much right after I bought it, but it’s really grown on me. The pictures are bright and colorful. Each pattern is knit in a random color yarn (if there’s a theme to the colors, I haven’t figured it out yet.) Most of the photos are clear and it’s easy to see the stitch definition; there are, of course, a few photos that are a little hard to see but not many. It’s very fun to flip through, thinking of projects to make or laughing at some of the more outrageous patterns. Honestly, I keep it in my bathroom much of the time to look through and inspire me.

The Big Book has a wide variety of stitch patterns; it includes a little bit of everything. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. The good is that if you can only choose one book to buy, you don’t have to choose which pattern type you want (i.e. cables, lace) like the Harmony or Vogue guides. You get some of everything and the patterns range from easy to challenging. It also has some really interesting patterns (they categorize them as “creative stitches”) that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Unfortunately, because the book samples a variety of stitches, it can be hard or impossible to find something if you’re looking for a particular cable or lace pattern. The patterns are all named and there is an index in the front; the index is not a pure alphabetical index, though. It is divided into the same sections as the book. This isn’t a problem if you know the pattern you’re looking for is a pure cable, but who can remember whether that lace stitch is listed under lace or creative stitches? Not much of a complaint, but something worth mentioning.

I am a very visual knitter. I would rather work from a chart than from written instructions. Luckily, the Big Book has both. The charts can be crowded and hard to read on some patterns. The Book uses a horizontal line for purl stitches and a vertical line for knit stitches. For a pattern like Parallelograms, the chart looks like a magic eye. It’s very hard to decipher and would be easier if knit or purl stitches were a blank or shaded square instead. While there is a key for each chart, the key only shows the name of the stitch and not how to perform it. The written instructions have the steps for the special stitch though. Sometimes the written instructions and chart won’t match. I’ve heard that this book is actually a translation from an Italian book, so maybe some things slipped through the cracks. In cases where they don’t match, I usually go with the written instructions or I wing it. It can be highly annoying.

Conclusion

I’m not really sure what to say about this book, honestly. I think this is a good book if you’re looking to try out a bunch of stitches, looking for inspiration, or a gift (there’s bound to be something that pleases!) But it does have some problems that can be really frustrating. It’s also a good book if you’re like me and must be able to look through every pattern ever invented. I’ve seen better compilations, like the old Harmony Guides, but at least this one is still in print!

Next review: Favorite Socks

Bag Lady June 13, 2008

The sun finally came out today! So after my much-needed yard work (blech!) I spent some time taking pictures in the sun.

First I took a few pictures of the lupines growing on the other side of our driveway. I love lupines. These are the inspiration for the pair of socks that I’m currently working on. Unfortunately, the half-finished socks didn’t get their picture taken in the sun. I was too busy taking pictures of these:

I made these reusable shopping bags for my grandmother. Queenofdiy has a great tutorial over on Craftster on how to make them. I don’t add a pocket to mine like hers, but I think they’re still awesome. (And take less time to make!)   The four fabrics are batiks from JoAnn. My grandmother has a dress that looks very similar to the lower right bag and the other 3 just cried out to me. I hope she likes them!

I also made a little “scrunchy” to hold all the bags together on the way to the store. See how small they fold up? Folded, they’re about as long as my hand and stacked they’re about as tall as my hand is wide. So about 7″ishx5″ or 6″?

People are always amazed at how much these bags can hold. I filled one up with some groceries to prove that there’s tons of space. I never use all five of my bags at the store; I end up using just three or maybe four if I’ve got a lot of big things. I used to being 6-7 plastic bags home.

These bags are pretty fun and easy to make, which is lucky because I have to make 4 more very quickly. The handles are a little tricky the first time through, but trust in the tutorial! (Edit 10/31/08: There’s a good tutorial here on another way to do the handles.  I think it’s much easier.)  Once again, freezer paper is my savior. It’s great for so many things, stenciling, quilting, and just general sewing. I have one freezer paper bag template that I’ve used to make all my bags; I just trace a fresh template onto more freezer paper when the first one runs out of sticky.

Hopefully the Lupine Socks will be up some time next week. Until then, I’m going to enjoy the sunshine this weekend!

A Quick Bit of Advice June 11, 2008

How to Turn a “Quick and Easy” Sock Into a 3 Week Endeavor in 7 Easy Steps:

Step 1: Cast on the wrong number of stitches for both socks at once.  Don’t discover this problem until you’re ready to knit the heel.

Step 2: Work almost the entire heel.  Decide that a short row heel would really be much better and “faster.”

Step 3: Choose an easy stitch pattern to hold your interest.  Repeatedly make the same mistake and have to tink back multiple times.  Remember to do this on each pattern row.

Step 4: When dividing for a separate big toe, make sure to set aside the wrong stitches on the second sock to end up with two left socks.

Step 5: Don’t plan out the decreases for the toe sections.  Whatever you do, be certain not to write down how you decreased the first sock.

Step 6: Graft toes closed with Kitchener stitch.  Don’t forget to double up on a step and end up with an uneven number of stitches.

Step 7: Weave in ends and steam block lightly.