15 posts tagged “finishes”

When last we left our intrepid BSJ, it looked like ...

A little origami, some seaming, some cute buttons I'd salvaged from a blouse, and we get...

And Hat 2.0 mostly worked out -

Details: Both garments made for Hubby's cousin's impending baby girl. Approximately 3-6 month size.
Yarn is Jaeger Baby Merino DK, both knit on size 7 needles. Jacket is Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket; hat is Schmeebot's Zeebee, a totally-customizable theoretically-seamless garter-stitch short-rowed beanie. It was a very fast, very fun knit - but I need to practice grafting garter stitch if I'm ever going to make another one. I think Hubby's cousin liked it - "Wow, I can't believe you went to the trouble to make this!" could be back-handed, but I'll persist in my belief that it's not.

On the needles now? Turning

into a felted bag for Mom. I'm using a kind of Fibonacci stripe sequence - but I cast on too many stitches, working in the round - it'll be about 14" wide, post-felting, when I was aiming for more like 11. Two options for dealing with that come to mind:
1) Make the bag "landscape" orientation instead of "portrait".
2) Sew up both open edges instead of just one, felt it, and then slice one short edge open.

I also have no idea what I should do about handles. I've also concluded that I'd better felt a swatch before I go too much farther, because I'm knitting this yarn to a much looser gauge than the last time I felted something out of it. On the bright side, Mom wanted a pocket on her bag; I'll make the swatch match the stripes in the middle part and have at it. :)

Yesterday, in lieu of doing something actually productive around the house, I decided to finish up some of my ongoing projects.

1) Finished off the dishcloth.

I immediately ran off and washed some dishes with it. It's very substantial - nice and scrubby. I might prefer it to the Grandmother's Favorite; we'll have to see how it goes. And most of my remaining cotton yarn is at least vaguely coordinaty; I might be able to kick out a ballband dishcloth or two from it.

Here's the back, which is almost as textury as the front. Makes a nice grip.

Stats: Sugar 'n Cream, size 7 needles, pattern is Bramble Cloth from Knitty's Back to School washcloth set, with more bobbles instead of the embroidered band.

And the Baby Surprise Jacket got turned from amoeba form into an actual jacket.

It still needs buttons, and I didn't photograph the jacket yet because I realized after I was done seaming it that I'd done it inside-out. Hubby said he'd've never guessed, but I know what to look for - EZ's paired invisible M1 increases are only invisible on one side. :| It also looks oddly proportioned - but it did not grow in the wash to fit a four-year-old, despite the rumored ability of superwash yarn to do just that. I'm still pondering whether I want to rip out the seams...and whether to do a hat, and if so what kind.

The socks are done! And Yarn Harlot was right about the mojo. But I think no amount of mojo could have coaxed identical-twin socks from this yarn.

Pattern: Snicket Socks, from MagKnits
Modifications: Only worked 2 repeats of the pattern rather than 3 on the leg. Drastically altered the toe shaping; as given, it would have stuck out about an inch past my toes.
Yarn: Sockotta, from Plymouth, in colorway 364
Needles: Size 2, Boye, a set of 4 that had belonged to my mother so possibly older than me.

Learned:
1) Short row heel (I think I prefer flap-and-gusset)
2) Cabling without a cable needle. (I didn't have enough hands to manage both DPN's and a cable needle.)

I had a surprisingly large amount of yarn left over when all was said and done (and to think I was worried about running out). Any suggestions for what to do with leftover sock yarn welcome.

Okay. One problem. With this specific sock yarn and its ilk. Other sock-yarn problems apparently tend to be along the lines of '$25 for hand-dyed sock yarn, and that's only one sock's worth?' and 'It followed me home from the yarn store...' My particular Sockotta colorway is self-striping, alternating very wide orange stripes with very wide white stripes - which is the problem.

Apparently the gold standard of sock knitting is to end up with identical-twin socks instead of fraternal-twin socks. Easy enough when you're using solid-colored yarn. I would guess the trick to doing it with self-patterning yarn is to get two balls where the ends kind of match.

But the sock yarn I got...is a 100g ball, meaning I'm theoretically starting the second sock where the first sock left off. I finished the first sock somewhere in the middle of a very wide orange stripe. I need to start the next sock near the end of a very wide white stripe if they're going to match.

I think I have enough yarn that I can sacrifice the rest of this orange stripe and most of the white one. I suppose if it looks like I'm going to run out, I can cut it at a white-orange transition and splice the sacrificial bit in; at that point the stripes matching will be a moot point in favor of actually ending up with a complete second sock. But I hope it won't come down to that.

(The first sock is on my foot. It is so comfy I have no words to describe it. It's almost like not wearing a sock. On the other hand I think it's a bit ugly. Picture and write-up when it's not past my bedtime.)

Edit: fixed the title

This was the project I mentioned with the terrifying Hardanger. First, the finished product:

Victoria Sampler's "Antique Lace" bookmark. A lot of fun to stitch - I've never done pulled-thread work before this, either, and I loved stitching with the silk.

Sorry for the blurries. I hadn't realized how much my hand was shaking when I took them, and most of them, I can't shoot again...

	Before starting to cut.
	Withdrew a few of the threads.
	And some more pulled out in the other direction...
	Ack! Naked needlework!
	The finished product, with needleweaving, doves' eyes, and beading.

I tried some of the cuts with a method suggested on a website I was looking at - carefully identify the thread, cut it in the middle, unravel it to the end, lift it the way it wants to go, and then snip it, which is supposed to make it easier for the end to withdraw all the way under the satin stitching. I found that method to be a pain in the rear, all in all; I'll live with my little fringies. I plan to stitch some kind of backing onto it and then (gleep) cut it out...

Two WIP's, and a FO.

WIP: Teresa Wentzler's "Tradewinds". There will eventually be a boat in that half-circle area. My longest-running WIP - I think I started it in 2004. Heh. I will finish it before I die.

FO: Teresa Wentzler's "Knotwork Bookmark" freebie - a 'color your own' design, designed to be used with an overdyed floss. Picking the third color gave me such headaches - I'd tried to find a gold in my Floss-O-Dex that went with the overdyed and dark green, but the light green shade there was the one I ended up with. Calling it "finished" is stretching the term a little - I still need to sew the backing onto it. And now I can honestly say I've finished three TW patterns....this one, and the "Stretch" and "Futurecast" freebies. :) Fabric is light blue Jobelan; the overdyed was Six Strand Sweets "Patti Cakes".

WIP: Dragon Dreams's "Blackwork Dragon". As much as I complain about backstitch, you'd think I'd avoid blackwork like the plague, but once you find the rhythm of a particular pattern it's fun and easy. I couldn't find the Silk Bella the pattern called for - the only non-overdyed silk my LNS had was from a brand called "Splendor".

I feel a little guilty for having two WIP's - I haven't worked on Tradewinds in about a month. But I really wanted to get the fuzzyfeet done.

I've also got a series of pictures on the project I did with the Hardanger; it's getting a separate post.

Pattern: Fuzzyfeet, by Theresa Vinson Stenerson for Knitty.

Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, in Amethyst

Needles: Boye DPN's, aluminum, Size 13.

I learned: How to Kitchener! Not as terrifying as I was led to believe.

...pre-felting, pen for scale

...post-felting, same size pen.

...in their native habitat. :)

I blocked them over another pair of socks, so they're custom-fit to my feet. I also made a pair in red for my sister, and she loves them. I've also gotten requests from Hubby and Daughter. Good thing they're pretty fast to knit...

I finished the Hardanger bit right after my last post - and it wasn't as intimidating as I expected it to be, once I got over that bit of trepidation sheer terror. I was also surprised how fast the finishing went - the needleweaving and doves-eyes were pretty quick to do.

I stopped working on my FuzzyFeet after finishing the first sock - not because of Second Sock Syndrome, but because I decided my chronically cold-footed sister needed a pair of her own. She got red. I finished her second sock in the car on the way to my mom's to give it to her (shhh!) and did the Kitchenering wrong on that one (shhh! again) but it shouldn't matter once it's felted - which I gave her instructions for doing. :) My second sock is on the "shape gusset" step. And looking at it, I think I need to learn to do short-row heels - my heels are just fuuuuugly.

And I keep promising pictures. I think this weekend? Someone smack me if I don't post them.

This is a small, cute socklet designed to teach the mechanics of sock construction rather than actually fit a human foot of any size. I decided to give myself a little practice before diving into the FuzzyFeet slippers. It came out lumpy and holey, but it is undeniably a sock.

Pattern: Knitty's training sock
Yarn: Some red acrylic from my stash.
Needles: Susan Bates #10 1/2 aluminum DPN's.

This is the first time I've ever used DPN's, and it showed. I got some really bad laddering, mostly in the ribbing. I also did the k2tog's wrong in the gusset shaping, but didn't feel motivated enough to frog it and redo once I realized it.

My tension was worse than bad, especially at the edges - there are some serious holes where I picked up the stitches along the heel. I think one of them, I picked up in a really wrong place. The toe shaping came out really well, though.

I'm making another one for more practice - the laddering isn't quite as bad, and I got the k2tog's right, but it still had the same big hole where I picked up that one stitch.

I am not yet confident enough to make a "sock" sock to actually wear, but I almost think it will be easier to manage the DPN's with a few more stitches on them - and maybe using the whole set of 5 dpn's instead of just four. I will, indeed, work on the FuzzyFeet at this point, though - if there's one thing felting is good for, it's hiding bad stitches. :)

Really, the problem was the border around the frakking butterflies. The butterflies were fairly quick and painless, but the red-and-gold border just got to me at some point.

...and it officially answers to "Butterfly Triplex", a Dimensions Gold Petite kit. I started it in February 2005. Yeesh.