14 posts tagged “presents”

When felting, you're supposed to make a swatch, and felt it before you embark upon your big project, so you can use the before and after sizes of the swatch to calculate the "before" size you need to get a desired "after". I skipped this step, when making Mom's totebag, given that a) I didn't really care how big it came out, within a certain range I was likely to hit, and b) Patons suggests that their lovely wool yarn, felted according to the procedure I followed, shrinks to 75% lengthwise and 85% widthwise of the "before" size, and I believed them.

One thing I forgot to take into account: I crocheted the straps on instead of knitting them. Crocheted fabric apparently behaves differently than knitted fabric when you felt it; it has the nice bit of texture I'd expected to come up with, but it came out longer and narrower than I expected.

Oops. Fortunately, it's not so long and narrow as to make the bag unusable, but it looks a little bit off.

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. :)

I'm knitting along on my garter stitch not-a-scarf. I made it 8 inches wide - too much, in retrospect - and it's about 7 inches long, out of about 14 needed. At some point, I wondered, "How much yarn does it take to make a row?" I actually measured it at about 2.5 feet. And then I wondered, "How much do I have left?" I kind of eyeballed it at about 30 feet. And realized, in horror, that that would only get me about another inch of scarf-to-be-hatted.

Oops. I did some math, and realized that if I cut it down to 5 inches, it still wouldn't make it. Oops.

I'm looking for a new hat pattern. I've found one that might work (it will involve learning to graft garter stitch), or there's always the old standby Knit A Tube, Then Decrease It Some hat. But I get the sneaking suspicion that I'm deluding myself that a baby hat can be made from 100 yards of DK weight yarn.

If all else fails either a) I will have frogged the yarn enough times as to make it useless, thus ending all question of what to do with the leftover yarn, or b) I will break down and make the booties that seem to have been designed to match the BSJ.

Did I mention that the baby shower's in 8 days? And that, as previously noted, I'm the world's slowest knitter? I'd better start frogging.

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 fact that, a week into my Baby Surprise Jacket, I'm not-quite-half-done instead of "done, and so is the matching bonnet"...bah. I timed myself at 17 stitches per minute, but I can't quite believe that; it doesn't feel like it takes me almost 4 seconds to make a stitch. And then on the other hand I purl faster than I knit; maybe I should do garter stitch in all-purls instead of all-knits and freak people out.

I made a row-by-row pattern spreadsheet, and I'm relying on it heavily; I tick off each row as I finish it, and that way I don't have to count every row. And now I've started the increases, so I don't have to fiddle around with moving the marker: knit to marker, M1, slip marker, K1, M1 works in both directions if you put the markers in the right place. :)

Gonna need to pick up another ball of yarn - and I'm tempted to make it two, so that I'll be able to do the bonnet. But alas, the budget...and maybe even alas, the time; I'm not sure when the baby shower is going to be, but I think it won't be long - I'm pretty sure the baby's due in late July or early August. Must also find some suitably cute buttons.

(And the sad thing is, given the price of baby clothes - I think even if I hadn't gotten the yarn with my gift certificate, it wouldn't've cost much more than a store-bought sweater...)

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 for my niece, who's a tetch over a month old at this point. I can hear her little voice telling me "Stitch faster, Auntie, stitch faster..."

I'm doing it pretty much as shown there, except I was thinking of stitching the text on the books in metallics.

This had been intended as my Stitching World Cup project - I wanted to get down to the bottom of the second tier done. I came close...

As of June 8 - the quarter is for scale

As of July 12

As of Sept. 13.

I hope to get it finished by the end of next week, but there's a lot of backstitching to do - they want a line backstitched around the outer edge of the whole freaking thing. I also wish I'd looked at the pattern before starting it - there's lots of errors in that bottom section, and I never wanted to be able to say "I'm getting good at doing quarter stitches on Aida."

I finished the blankie in time for my sister-in-law's baby shower.

And I forgot to take a picture of it.

Suffice it to say, it was beautiful. And I believe she genuinely liked it, rather than just making "oh, how nice" noises.

I just finished the 20th square.
12 of them are already sewn together. (Need to figure out what to do with the ends from the sewing, though - on some level I don't trust my knots.)
Need to join the last two strips, and then there's a very simple border (rounds of DC) to put on it. This shouldn't take long at all.

(The cross-stitch is not faring so well...alas. I've got a bit more leeway on when to give that, though.)