Random-Charm · needle arts

Quick, what time is it?

November 30, 2010 in crafting, food, free patterns, needle arts, repurposing | 1 comment

I haven’t been posting so much lately. I’m not really sure why. I thought I would have more time to myself with the girl in afternoon kindergarten. It doesn’t seem to have worked out that way. But I suppose I have been able to volunteer at both of the schools.

Various photos:

This is the second pair out of the same ball of self-striping yarn. Matching socks for the boy and his sister.

These are scraps of an old wool blend blanket that the boy and I dyed various colors. It was originally a light green and the boy had a great time seeing what would happen when we overdyed with various colors. It took the dye fairly well but unfortunately it did not felt well. That may change the intended use.

Swatch of eyelet lace border that I originally improvised for the strangling vine lace scarf. Someone on Ravelry saw my project photos and asked about the border. I had already gifted the scarf so I had to look at the photos to try and figure out what I had done. I hope I got it right. Although the pattern is quite simple, I have a hard time remembering to stop and write down what I am doing. Probably why I didn’t write it down in the first place. So my Ravelry notes for this are now out there and I really hope there aren’t any mistakes for the sake of anyone who may try to knit from them.

This one because you need a food photo don’t you? Recently I have made chili with pulled chicken instead of beef in it and I like it very much. I use poached chicken thighs and pull the meat apart with two forks. And I always put the diced green pepper in just before serving so they stay nicely crunchy.

Tags: knitting, remnants

Girly Socks

November 9, 2010 in needle arts | 1 comment

Girly socks. Plain knitting, nicely colored commercial yarn. This is a wool/cotton/nylon/elastic blend from Patons, available in chain stores. We’ll see how it holds up. Quick knit done in short bursts mostly in the car or while waiting for something/someone. It’s getting easier to make plain socks as I go. And I’m glad that I do not apparently suffer from second sock syndrome – the difficulty of finishing the second sock in a pair. Soon I think I’ll be able to make plain socks without consulting my charts and instructions. Next pair is mine.

The girl wore the first sock mismatched as soon as it was off the needles. I finally finished the second sock so she wore them together today over her tights. I only used half the skein so I could either make a pair of mitts, another pair of socks or maybe a doll sweater.

Tags: color, girl clothes, knitting

Quick spins and the unfinished knitting

October 5, 2010 in fiber arts, needle arts, pattern drafting | Permalink

Some pics of recent spinning. Or not that recent. Apparently I started on this post almost a month ago. I somehow did not size down the photos, thought I double checked that, still couldn’t upload the photos, gave up for a while. Finally asked guru husband, then realized the photos were huge… I’m not computer illiterate. In my other life I was a graphic designer, really.

Anyway, both of these are around 4oz. The first is lavender and pink unknown wool that I received in a trade. To be honest it didn’t look like much before I spun it. I think there’s hope for it now. I don’t know what I’ll make with it though. Suggestions welcome.

And the other is 4oz. of Neapolitan hand-painted Shetland wool from Spunky Eclectic spun to about sport weight.

This second yarn was intended for the 4! Ounce! Challenge! on Ravelry but was plagued with problems from the start.
I did choose the colorway and I did want to try Shetland for this project. I even had an idea for what I wanted to make with it. It did not occur to me until after I received the wool that I probably should have ordered the progression dyed fiber instead of the regular handpaint. Oh well, I decided I would just separate out the colors and lay them out in a progression and spin from there. That way it would have a little more variety to it anyway. Right. Well, that did work out okay except that I spun the thing into one two ply yarn of 400 some yards that goes from unnaturally pink on one end through cream to chocolate brown on the other. That’s when I realized that what I really needed was two balls of approximately 200 yards each going from pink to brown in each ball. Hmm. So that set me back awhile. I thought about other designs. I did end up thinking a lot about all the different ways you could spin a handpaint or a progression dye and how the plying and eventual knitting could take many different turns.

I finally started knitting today. I have a plan to still complete my original project and have it look pretty much like I intended. I have a schematic, I have a swatch, I have WPI, SPI and I’m not afraid to use them. And I’m trying to take notes as I go along so hopefully if it turns out well, I can repeat it. Yes, I’m intentionally not saying what it is I’m making. I haven’t seen anything quite like it, even slogging through the vast patternland of Ravelry. It is historically inspired so I can’t claim the idea as my own but, designing it for handpainted handspun fiber, that I will claim. If it works that is. If not, well, I’ll just come back and delete this post. Oh yeah, nothing you publish to the internet is ever really gone.

Tags: color, fiber, knitting, spinning

Boyish? scarf

August 4, 2010 in fiber arts, needle arts | 2 comments

This project started out with 2.5 oz of earthy colored handpainted fiber I received in a trade. It’s probably superwash merino. There was a good sized line of deep brown that ran all the way through the rope of pine green, stormy blue, dark pumpkin and natural wool. I spun it into marled singles which I’ve never tried before. Actually I didn’t know that’s what it was called until after I started doing it. It creates nice soft color transitions.

I ended up with 250 yards so I decided to make a scarf. I decided on garter stitch not just because it’s easy but because I like the nubbly texture and the fact that it looks the same on both sides. I ended up knitting lengthwise so the stripes would be vertical when worn. I used all but about a yard. Washed and blocked and waiting for me to decide who to give it to.

Tags: knitting, spinning

Grown-up pink

August 4, 2010 in needle arts | 5 comments

One skein of NaturallyCaron.com Spa acrylic/bamboo yarn in a color they call rose bisque I think, a free pattern from Ravelry, and a few minutes here and there over the past few weeks resulted in this scarf (Ravelry link). The name of the pattern is Strangling Vine which hardly seems appropriate for such a pretty pattern. The pattern is easily memorized but I kept wandering off track so it took me longer than it should have. I also added a made up border to each end. By the time I was done the whole thing was curled up in a ball but flattened out nicely with a little stretch and steam. The scarf is light, soft, not too long and should make a nice accessory for the boy’s first grade teacher who seems to favor this shade of pink. Too bad I didn’t finish it before the end of school last year.

Tags: color, knitting

“Squirrel!”

June 22, 2010 in needle arts | 2 comments

We like to watch the squirrels—playing outside, in a favorite movie UP, in a funny book, Scaredy Squirrel. The boy asked me to knit a squirrel for him. I was already aware of this cute pattern, Ultimate Squirrel, by Bri of RomanSock who designs the most adorable crocheted animals. They are realistic in a cute way. Since I have enjoyed reading her blog I thought it only fitting to buy her pattern. (Plug: Bri has a new book out, available on Amazon, called Super-Super Cute Crochet, filled with unusual animals.)

I used handspun brown wool approved of by the boy, two round black buttons dug out of the button jar by the boy, and one of my secret make-stuff supplies—those plastic covered wire twisties that keep all plastic toys in a stranglehold inside their plastic-windowed boxes. I’m not usually a fan of plastic but in this case, I like these weird things. (My mother covets them too.) They are far sturdier than craft pipe cleaners or the ordinary bread bag wire twisties. I did have a few problems with the pattern, probably mostly due to the fact that I am apparently incapable of counting higher than 4. There could have been more direction on the stuffing and sewing but I would probably have done it my own way anyway so not a problem for me. The hardest part was the brushing technique since all I had to use was the giant wool carders! I’m sure a dog brush would work much better.

The boy checked on my progress daily and was delighted with the final outcome. Here is his very own crocheted squirrel with some acorns I made months ago, fittingly inspired by another RomanSock pattern, a much larger acorn bag. My acorns are a combination of knit and crochet using some very early hand dyed and spun yarns. And yes, I will be making this pattern again, little sister is not pleased that she did not get a squirrel too. I may make her a chipmunk just for variety.

Nom, nom, nom, nom.

Tags: animals, crochet, remnants, toys

Socks for me

June 3, 2010 in needle arts | 3 comments

Months ago I spun and dyed some oatmeal BFL for myself. Three ply light fingering for socks dyed a variegated spiced pumpkin color.

I was quite pleased with the yarn so it took me ages to pick a sock pattern out. Even though I already knew that these would not be the last socks I’d be knitting. I finally picked a pretty pattern called Irish Ale Socks, by RedScot. Now I couldn’t be smart and just follow the pattern of course. I decided to do them upside down, or toe up. Why do I like toe up? Probably because I prefer to do the hard parts first, i.e. the toe and the heel. And when you are using handspun, you’d rather get the important parts done so you can know you have enough yarn to finish rather than run out around the ball of the foot or whatever. Much easier to adjust the length in the leg if necessary. In this case I probably have enough to produce a third sock! Lots of details of my woes in crafting the short row heels with gussets on my Ravelry project page. They are certainly not perfect but I’m pretty pleased with them and they are on my feet right now. That’s handspun angora for the cuffs. Thank you Maine for cold and wet weather in June, perfect for wearing my handknit socks with clogs.

Tags: knitting, mom clothes

Quick Knit: Moebius Cowl

April 11, 2010 in needle arts | 1 comment

I’m a member of a group on Ravelry that challenges each other to try new one-skein projects each month. One of the new things we are trying is moebius knitting. See the mathematical definition of moebius. You probably played with paper models of these at some point in school. If not—get out some paper, scissors and tape and have some fun with math!

I used some unknown soft acrylic yarn I have had for ages to try out knitting a moebius shape. Here is the resulting cowl modeled beautifully by my friend Linda.

And laid out flat. It’s hard to tell but there is no wrong side since a moebius strip has only one side.

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Tags: knitting, mom clothes, remnants

Quick knitted headbands

March 31, 2010 in needle arts | 2 comments

I’m always trying to find a way to contain the girl’s hair. It’s wispy just like mine. I tried this quick headband with some leftover yarns. The first one was made following this pattern from Carissa Knits (Ravelry link). The only changes I made was to size it down for a smaller head (8″ ties and 8″center). It turned out to be stretchy enough that I could wear it too.

I added some rather roughly crocheted white flowers to the ballet pink basketweave headband. The ties are made with I-cord which I had never tried before. It turned out to be fast and easy and fun! The second one was made from green cotton using the same recipe but substituting garter stitch for the basketweave and I used some of the pink yarn to embroider some wonky flowers. The green one is going to my little niece for Easter. Hopefully she won’t notice that embroidery is not one of my better skills.

These were so simple I actually made two in one day despite the crankies. I may even make one for myself, I have a little ball of dark plum colored cotton that might be just right.

Tags: crochet, embellishing, flowers, knitting, remnants

Hemp and Leather Market Bag

March 29, 2010 in crafting, needle arts, sewing | 2 comments

I know I’ve been busy crafting but I’m not sure what! Origami dragons and paper ballet dancer puppets, little doll blankets and perler beads. And laundry. This is the time of the year where we have all our various types of boots and coats out because we never know from one day to the next what the weather will be like. It seems to increase the laundry as well.

Off the spinning wheel: two ounces of hemp fiber spun into about 100 yards of DKish yarn. Or twine. It’s hard to call something like this yarn. It was quite rough so I kept a dish of water to wet my fingers occasionally as I spun. It was certainly interesting but I don’t plan on spinning hemp again. Maybe a hemp/cotton blend.

Off the knitting needles: one handspun hemp mesh and leather market bag. I had hoped to knit the hemp into the Ilene market bag pattern but there wasn’t enough yardage. So I improvised by cutting a piece of thin leather for the base and the handles and knitting the mesh pattern for just the body of the bag. I used a tiny scrapbooking holepunch to make holes 1/4″ apart all the way around the edge of an oval traced off one of my casserole dishes. I then used a crochet hook to pull loops through each hole, did a single crochet and then deposited that loop onto circular needles. I then knit up all the yarn in the mesh stitch and cast off. I punched similar holes in the bottom edge of the leather handle piece and used some commercial hemp thread to hand sew on the bag. The mesh stitch stretches easily to accommodate quite a lot of things despite not looking all that big.

Tags: bags, fiber, knitting, spinning

Cross Stitch anyone?

February 14, 2010 in crafting, give away, needle arts | 3 comments

I believe some of my readers like to do cross stitch. If so, speak up!

I received this lot of cross stitch books, a nice assortment of DMC floss, floss keeper cards and Aida fabric from a neighbor. I haven’t done cross stitch in a long time so I’d like to give this away to someone who will use it. I can’t think of anyone locally so I thought I’d post here. I can include an embroidery hoop for an interested beginner. The chart in the back is for a unicorn. I had to smile remembering how popular unicorns were with us girls when I was in junior high.

And if there is further interest, I have a few original charted designs that I can share by PDF.

There was also a strange package of wood pieces in the bag. If anyone knows what this is, a virtual brownie bottom ice cream sundae to you! xoxo

ETA: Thank you friends. These are spoken for and I will contact recipients for addresses.

Tags: books, cross stitch

Ravelympics 2010 begin tonight (oh and the Winter Olympics 2010 too!)

February 12, 2010 in fiber arts, needle arts | Permalink

I remember watching the Olympics as a kid and I was always most interested in the winter events. Downhill skiing, all manner of ice-skating, and luge/bobsled are probably my favorites. Through college I didn’t have as much time to pay attention but I do remember sitting with Rich rolling our eyes at Bob Costas’ commentary.

I think the kids are old enough now to enjoy watching. I haven’t had a chance to look up the schedule, but it’s fortunate that this is February break here and we may be able to watch some events live this coming week. We’ll mix that up with some winter sports of our own. Skating on the town pond, and maybe some sledding if we get some fresh snow, the stuff we have is rock hard and dwindling. The L.L. Bean MotherStore is running a week long series of mostly free events for kids; I think we’ll be checking out the Taxidermy Safari, maybe some puppets and juggling, crafts and hot cider, and definitely the Chewonki Foundation‘s Live Owls of Maine exhibit. The boy has already previewed the last one at school but I’m sure he’ll be excited to go again. Owls are pretty high on his favorite animal list.

And what is Ravelympics? Ravelympics is a for-fun spinning/knitting/crocheting/weaving/whatever kind of fiber crafting event held on Ravelry, a sprawling online community of knitting/crocheting, weaving/spinning type people. Annie sucked me into Ravelry and now I’m being sucked into Ravelympics. The basic idea is that Ravelers will be participating in challenging yarn events during the Olympics. There are all kinds of categories to choose from and all you have to do is tag your project, post photos and start and finish between the official opening and closing ceremonies. This is good for me, I need deadlines!

So here’s my project/event: I’ve been working on figuring out what socks to make for myself from the spiced pumpkin yarn I spun and dyed. I’ve finally picked the pattern (Irish Ale by Nic W a.k.a RedScot) and figured out my gauge, I hope! Of course, I can’t just follow the directions, because, well, that’s just me. So I’ll be knitting these socks toe-up instead of cuff-down as written, which means some scary upside down freeform thinking that I have to be able to duplicate on the second sock! I may or may not add the “froth” at the top. If I do I’ll have to spin some bunny fur. And at the end of the Olympics will be another fibery event, NETA’s annual SPA, Knit and Spin in Freeport.

And I doubt I can go two weeks without spinning so I’ll probably start on the last six ounces of oatmeal BFL. I’m planning on spinning into sock weight three ply and dyeing it blue and green for Topographie inspired socks.

Tags: knitting, Ravelry, snow

More brown yarn and socks

February 4, 2010 in needle arts | 2 comments

I spun up more of the mystery brown wool and ended up with about the same weight as the first two cakes. It’s split into three skeins because that’s all the bobbins would hold when I was plying the singles together. I need to come up with a bigger solution for plying. I hate having to split my singles just because they won’t fit on the bobbin on the spinning wheel.

I’m halfway through the second sock with this yarn using 3/2 rib on the top of the foot and the leg, based on the Lifestyle Toe-up Sock Recipe. Worsted weight knits up fast! And with some extra reading since the last pair of socks, this one fits Rich’s foot much better. :)

Tags: knitting, spinning

Yarn ball keeper

January 26, 2010 in needle arts, repurposing | 3 comments

I bought a $1 bath pouf a while ago and keep finding interesting uses for it. When I took it apart it turned out to be something like 10 feet of tubular netting. It’s not very strong but it’s stretchy and very smooth. I cut off about 10 inches, knotted one end and stuck a 4oz centerpull ball of yarn in it. The netting will shrink around the ball as I use the yarn. I like being able to see the yarn but not having to deal with a ziploc bag.

Tags: tools

Following the Fiber: Handpaint merino

January 25, 2010 in fiber arts, following the fiber, needle arts, pattern drafting | 1 comment

This is the second in a series intended to show the steps from fiber to finished item. See the first here.

The fiber: a 4oz braid of handpainted merino in colorway Rocky Mountain High from Spunky Eclectic. As purchased and unrolled from the braid.

singles: I pulled 1oz. off the top and then split it into four lengthwise. I arranged the pieces so that I would spin two singles with roughly the same color repeats. I then plied them together.

plies: After plying, I transferred the yarn from the bobbin to the yarn swift. You can see the color shifts very well. Then the skein is washed and hung to dry to set the ply. If the twist is done evenly then the plied yarn should hang fairly straight. On the left is the yarn above and on the right is the same fiber spun at a thinner weight.

finished yarn: ready to knit or crochet

project: I chose to knit a hat for the girl with this yarn. I looked for a simple pattern that would have texture but still show off the color gradations in the yarn. I couldn’t find what I wanted so I ended up making up my own pattern. I had intended to finish with a crochet border that would make the hat about an inch longer but forgot to take into account that the textured stitch I used ate up yardage faster than a simpler stockinette would so I ran out of yarn. It fits okay . . . I’m still thinking about what to do.

stitch: The stitch I used must have a name but I couldn’t find anything like it so if you know what it is called please tell me! It’s so simple and fast and a little girly without being too delicate. (The following instructions will only work in the round. A bit of adjustment would be needed to work it flat as the stitch pattern causes the starting point to shift.)
Row 1: Knit
Row 2: *K2togTB, YO* repeat
Repeat rows 1 and 2. Way simple.
See even more ramblings on this hat in my Ravelry projects.

Tags: crochet, knitting, spinning

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