The Orange and Black Checkered Hat

I had forgotten how quickly hats knit up. It took less than three days to finish this hat once my last scarf was done.

This hat was knit using Portuguese purling. The idea behind that style is to run the working yarn around the head and hold tension in the right hand while purling by flicking the yarn over the needle with the left thumb. The piece is worked inside out, so purling the entire piece ends up with a knit hat. 

The pattern wasn't free so I won't re-post it here. The orange yarn was some leftover Vanna White from my stash and the black yarn came from the Carron One Pound monstrosity. 

It worked out pretty well except for the crown. Patterns shouldn't tell you to place more stitch markers halfway through so I half-assed the crown. It's all bound off and that's the best that can be said for it. I definitely didn't have the yarn to do it 'right'.

When I do this pattern again I'll use another pattern for shaping the crown.

The White Cabled Scarf Monstrosity

Why do all of the projects I do with this yarn end with "It's DONE!"? Because there is no variety in these projects. I memorized the cables early on and after that it was the same thing over and over again.

The pattern came from Ravelry - the Change-ringing scarf. It was supposed to have two different cable sections but the second one wasn't pretty so I skipped it. 

This was knitted on size 8 needles with Carron One Pound yarn.

Still, it turned out well. The scarf reaches down to my knees and the cables turned out pretty alright. They gap a little at the cross overs but it's not that noticeable.

Practicing finishing techniques

Last month, I had the pleasure of taking a couple of knitting classes. One dealt with finishing techniques and a second taught different ways of binding on.

What I have here is some practice. Both have the same pattern, knit with the leftover Seahawks yarn.

The Dragon Scale Pattern

CO multiple of 4 sts.

R1: K across

R2: (K1, P3) across

R3: (K2, P2) across

R4: (K3, P1) across

This was the first one, on size 6 needles, 24 stitches. Bind on was the Twisted German cast on, bind off was the super stretchy elastic bind off, and I tried slipping the first stitch of each row.

Attempt two was 24 stitches on size 7 needles. Bind on was the twisted German cast on again, bind off was the sewn bind off, and I successfully slipped most first stitches on this piece.

Take away: the twisted German cast on is stretchier than the traditional long tail cast on, the elastic bind off is far too stretchy, and the sewn cast off is nice. I'll be using it again soon.

Slipping the stitches made the sides look nice, but I was too loose in the final stitches on each row to make it look good. Still, it's a good skill to know and it'll look better next time.

The Snowflake Headband

When I saw a friend knitting this stranded headband, I knew I needed to make one myself. Luckily, I still had leftover yarn from the Seahawks hats to use up.

The results were disappointing. I enjoyed the colorwork but the band was too big for my head. If I made it again, I'd shrink the pattern and cut back on the ribbing. And the bind off wouldn't use the super stretchy bind off, which caused the ripples on the bottom here.

Maybe next time will be better.

The Isaac Mizrahi prayer shawl

Look at this little beauty. Three skeins of Isaac Mizrahi craft yarn produced this fuzzy prayer shawl. My friends keep telling me how pettable it is.

It was a fun side project and never got boring. Surprising, given that the entire thing was worked in seed stitch. I liked watching the colors change as I knit.

The pattern couldn't be easier.

Cast on 60 stitches on size 10 circular needles (Gauge is not important).
(k1, p1) util the end of the row.
Repeat until you run out of yarn.
Bind off.

The Lace Edged Prayer Shawl - Part 2

Done! Finally done.

And I still have half a pound of white yarn to use up. What was the point of this shawl again?

Go 'Hawks, Take 2

Guess who has two thumbs and a second Seahawks hat? This girl!

This time I tried giving more slack to the color I was stringing behind, to stop the wrinkling. That turned out pretty well.

I had just enough blue yarn left to knit the hat again. Literally, I had five inches left after binding off.

To top it off, the Seahawks shut out the Bears earlier today. It looks like I've found my lucky 'Hawks hat.

The Lace Edged Prayer Shawl - Part 1

I'll admit, not actually lace edged. 

This shawl was meant to use up the leftover One Pound Carron. That... didn't turn out the way I thought. Halfway through I ran out of yarn so I had to join another pound of yarn. You should never have to join pounds of yarn together. And how will I use up the rest of this yarn? This was not a well thought out plan.

I wanted to do something like the yarn overs from the triangular prayer shawl but with a rectangle. Have to say, it's really boring. At least I'm mostly done.

Seahawks Hat - Part 2

Done after five minutes on the DPN. And of course I'm making another one with the leftover yarn.

Materials used:
Main color: 220 Superwash Aran, Blue Velvet
Secondary color: 220 Superwash Aran, Green Apple
Tertiary color: 220 Superwash Aran, White
Size 7 16"circular needles, Size 7 DPN
Based on http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hawks-hat

Seahawks Hat, Part 1

Do you know what's great? Fair Isle Knitting. If I had known how much I love this, I'd have picked it  up years ago. 

See this? This is the beginning of a Seahawks hat, knitted in about 4 hours. There's the complexity of cabling with the color variation of intarsia without the hassle of a cable needle and bobbins.

Even using a color chart for the first time was simple - read right to left and knit the right color. Much easier than I thought possible.

The only reason this hat wasn't done in a week is because I'm missing size 7 DPN and my local yarn store was out of stock. Once those get ordered, I'm finishing this hat and making another copy.

The Stockinette Prayer Shawl

 I realized recently that I still have a ton of the one pound Carron yarn. And since I didn't want to count the rows of a baptismal blanket, I went with the standard prayer shawl. Well, not exactly standard: the body of the shawl is stockinette, not garter stitch.

The stockinette isn't curling because I added a border of garter stitch around it. Each row begins with three knit stitches, a yarn over, and three knit stitches, and ends with six knit stitches.

The edging here is far nicer and cleaner than when the shawl is knit with Homespun yarn.

Here's the pattern, knit with Carron One Pound yarn on size 8 circular needles:

Cast on 1 stitch.
Row 1: KF&B
Rows 2-5: KF&B, K to the end of the row
Rows 6-13: K3, YO, K to the end of the row
Row 14: K3, YO, P* to the last six stitches, K 6
Repeat rows 13-14 until the shawl measures about 30" long. End on a knit row.
For 4 rows: K3, YO, K* to the end of the row

Finish the shawl as in the original instructions:
Row 1: K3, (YO, K2TOG)* to the last three stitches, YO, K3
For 4 rows, KF&B, K* to the end of the row
Bind off

The Pendleton Crocheted Woolen Rug

Ever wondered what six pounds of woolen blanket selvedge look like? 

It looks like a huge mess.

This wonderful stuff comes courtesy of Pendleton Woolen Mills where, for the low, low price of $3/lb, you can buy blanket selvage for crafts. Six pounds plus shipping came to around $32. 

What did I want with all of this selvage? To make a rug, of course! This stuff is so thick, it makes a great woolen base.  

I started with one ball of scrap, 10 chain stitches and a size S hook. If you've never seen a size S hook before, it has the diameter of a shower curtain rod. Given that my normal size G hook is narrower than a chopstick, it took a while to get used to. But single crocheting in the round couldn't be easier. It's not like the stitches need to be perfect.

This is about 2/3 done. Each scrap ball can be crocheted in about 30 minutes, which goes by really quickly while watching TV. I got this far in five days.

When one ball was finished, I pulled some of the frilly bits from the end of the scrap and the beginning of the next scrap to tie them together.

No added bulk.

I chained one whenever I thought the rug was curling inward. Towards the end I added a few too many stitches which lead to some ripples. Luckily, those could be stamped out.  

The end product was mostly round. Instead of single crocheting the last ball as I did for the rest of the rug, I simply did slip stitches around the border. 

This was much easier than I had imagined, though crocheting wool in 90 degree heat was not my smartest idea. 10/10, would crochet again.

Intarsia: The Flag of London

Domine Dirige Nos

I wanted something simple for my first intarsia project. Thus: the Flag of the City of London. Two colors, no stripes, and no zigzags. Should be simple, right?

Right?

I ended up with four bobbins, two red, two white, along with the pound of yarn that was the main strand. I had to unknit through the intarsia at least four times, and reknitting becomes far harder when you can't tell which side to start on.

It turned out alright in the end, even though I messed up the flag design.

I can't decide if I want to redo this pattern or try another one. There's plenty of time to choose - my next project involves crocheting six pounds of wool scraps. Let's see how that goes...

Cabled hats

Been working on a couple of things. First up is the antler hat. The pattern is a bit boring but I liked how the curling branches turned out. This had more slouch than I expected. 

The second hat was a blackberry hat, made for a friend's birthday. She likes wearing hats back behind her ears so I needed something short and far less slouchy than the antler hat.

The pattern has an actual braid it in and I plan to use it in a scarf. Knitting in the round isn't fun to start but cabling has been easier than I ever thought it would be. No more hats though.

Next up: intarsia

The Double Cabled Red Scarf (Part 2) + The Single Twist Red Scarf

And at 60 inches, my first cabled scarf is done.

Strangely, the pattern got boring at the end. You wouldn't think tracking four tiny cables would be boring, would you? But I finished this while watching Leverage.

That made my next pattern a bad choice. There's only one row of cabling every six rows and it doesn't change. Makes it easy to knit, for sure. If I had discovered this pattern earlier, I would have been cabling years ago. It's already at 56 inches.

I admit that's bad light for details. Next time I'll remember to take pictures in natural light.

The Double Cabled Red Scarf (Part 1)

Why am I making yet another scarf that I won't wear? Because my church knitting circle knits red scarfs for college bound foster kids and I wanted to try something new. Which brings me to...

Cables!

After five years of knitting, I finally learned to knit with cables, which isn't as difficult as it looks. The pattern below is LW4282 from Red Heart. It's described as intermediate but the cabling stitches are easy to understand and now I don't need to look at the pattern. I've also stopped nearly stabbing myself with the cabling needle.

The worst part is dropping a stitch. I have to rip out three rows to get back to the right side of the pattern and hope I don't make another mistake during the fix. Beyond that, this pattern is about as simple as the prayer shawls.

Replacing a necklace clasp

A few years ago my mom gave me a necklace which I never wore because I could never figure out the clasp.

 The necklace in question

 The offending clasp

This clasp is called a screw clasp and works exactly like you would expect, by screwing the ends together. Of course, in a necklace, you can't see the clasp so getting the ends together is a challenge. To make matters worse, the plastic necklace string was tied off in the clasp and tended to lie on the threads so I could never get it to work. 

A better view

 If I ever wanted to wear this necklace, the clasp had to go. JoAnn didn't have a good selection of necklace clasps but I found a suitable replacement.

A sensible toggle clasp and new necklace wire

Cutting the original string gave me some beads to start with. I tied the new wire on the toggle in a square knot and threaded a dozen beads onto the wire. The terminating end of the knot I also tucked into the beads so it wouldn't bother me. This secured the wire end in the necklace.

Restringing the necklace went well and I only lost two or three beads.

I tied the wire off on the other toggle end and strung the wire end back into the beads. The beads aren't completely flush with the clasp but that doesn't concern me.

With a toggle clasp, I have finally wore this necklace.