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Tag: knitting

Craft Backlog
I am not allowed to start anymore new crafts until I finish the old ones. Seriously. Right now I have on my list:
- My first sweater, which is about 1/4 done.
- About a foot of scarf made from some gorgeous red mohair.
- A baby blanket for my little brother, of which I have, like, six blocks out of fifty.
- A rugby scarf, which is currently just in the “piles of wool” stage.
- Knitted socks for the Snook, of which I have only wool and a vague idea.
- Record albums waiting to be turned into bowls. (see above)
- Album covers waiting to be turned into purses.
- Half a dozen pairs of socks waiting to be turned into monkeys.
- A couple groovy old tins waiting to be painted and decoupaged.
- My “Storm at Sea” quilt, still waiting to be finished and edged.
- “Hello Kitty” images ready to be printed onto transfer paper and ironed onto my underpants.
- A pile of miniature Harry Potter scarf bookmarks to be fringed and finished.
See? Lots. I keep thinking of new things I want to try, though! I’ve been eyeing the resin supplies at the local casting shop. I have no willpower.
April 14, 2003
Knitting

Apologies for the light posting. I had a relatively relaxing weekend, except for my allergies which occasionally drove me crazy. We’re now fairly certain that I have a food allergy to “sulphur dioxide”, which is a fairly common food preservative (and unfortunately gets used a lot with red wine). I’m going to make an effort to avoid it and see if that helps at all.

In crafty news, I attended an “intermediate” knitting class Saturday. I was surprised by how much I knew. In fact, I didn’t actually learn anything new. Cables, fixing mistakes, changing colors… I’d already figured it all out from my books. What’s more, some of the other girls – who’d been knitting for years – didn’t know ridiculously simple things, like how to pull yarn from the center of a ball or make a tassel. So basically I got a lot of confidence out of the class, and I took the opportunity to get the teacher to help me plan my first sweater. I’ve got all the wool (some lovely Jo Sharp stuff in plum) and I spent most of today working on it. I’ve got about half of the back done! I can’t wait to try it on.

April 7, 2003
Dr. Who

Damn! There’s a Dr. Who Convention in town this weekend and I didn’t know about it. I should get over there and see if I can take some orders for scarves. Although now that I think about it, the kind of fan that would fly to Australia for a convention probably already has a scarf… right?

April 4, 2003
Craftiness + Hoochiness = Knitted Bikini

Check out what I made! I felt like I’d been making scarves for years, so as a change of pace I decided to knit a bikini using Get Crafty’s fabulous instructions. It’s knitted with cotton, not wool, and as I used a double thickness throughout it’s pretty dense (and therefore ensures no nipple visibility). Unfortunately this design is just not the right swimsuit for my body shape. The trunks, which just barely manage to go over my thighs, are pretty cute, but they’re so low that I have major plumber butt (even though I followed the instructions for “more coverage”). And the top… Well, I think the main problem is that string bikinis aren’t made for girls with larger boobs. I’m a C cup, and the whole triangle thing just doesn’t work. Even if I made them bigger, they still don’t fit the shape of the breast very well. (I really need to figure out how to knit one with an underwire.) So needless to say, I shan’t be sporting this puppy at the beach anytime soon. It was a fun experiment though.Some notes if you’re interested in trying it yourself:

As I can’t get the kind of cotton recommended in the pattern here, I just went with normal DK weight cotton. Unfortunately I knitted a test swatch and my gauge was way higher than it needed to be. I was afraid to move up a needle size though, for fear that the weave would be too open (and I wanted to keep the nips covered). So I played around a bit and discovered that if I doubled up the cotton and went to a 5mm needle, I got the correct gauge and the fabric was nicely dense. Unfortunately that meant I needed twice as much cotton. Luckily I’d bought 4 50gm balls, and I used up just about all of it.

Another problem: I knitted the two boob triangles on different days and my knitting tension changed significantly, which means they’re slightly different size. I’d suggest that you knit them both at the same time to avoid this.

The biggest problem I had was the bit at the end of the pattern where it tells you to “single crochet” around the trunk elastic and the bikini chain. I posted a request for help on Glitter and was directed to this page of instructions. That’s for making a hair band, but I figured out fairly quickly to adapt it to what I needed to do. I did the bikini chain easily, but I decided not to finish the trunks since they don’t fit well enough to ever wear.

March 30, 2003
Knitty

The spring issue of Knitty is out! Too bad the seasons are reversed here and all these pretty little spring things aren’t exactly appropriate for an Aussie winter…

March 3, 2003
Gryffindor Stocking Cap

Here’s my latest knitting project, a stocking cap that I whipped up earlier this week. As you can see, I’m still trying to use up leftover bits of Harry Potter scarf yarn. The pattern is pretty easy to follow and it’s a good one to get familiar with using double-pointed needles (for knitting in the round). The only part I had trouble with was the tassel. Mine is all kinds of wonky. But the rest is cute, huh?

February 27, 2003
Hogwarts Scarves

I’ve been waiting for Marci (who just set a wedding date!) to receive the scarves I made her before I showed them off. Since she got them today… here they are! (Don’t worry, Marci; he doesn’t have cooties.) The Gryffindor scarf shown here was acrylic and turned out really long. The Slytherin was 100% wool (some gorgeous soft Tasmanian stuff that I’m now obsessed with) but is wider and shorter.

I’ve gone one more in production, but after that I’m available if anybody wants to place an order!

February 6, 2003
Purdue Hat

Feedback needed.
My brother is a sophomore in college and I asked him recently what he’d like me to knit him. He said a hat would be nice, and that “the more unique the better”. This is what I came up with. (Don’t worry; he never reads the site so it won’t ruin the surprise.) I based it on this pattern for an “ear flap hat”. Instead of using the provided zig-zag design, though, I decided to try my hand at doing some fair isle knitting. So I laid out a design using the name of his university in their school colors. It came out pretty well! Slightly wonky shaped, but I figure some blocking this weekend (i.e. me wearing it around the house a lot) will square it up. Now I’m wondering… Should I put a pompom on top? He said “unique.” Would any of you guys actually wear a hat with a pompom on it? Is this whole discussion moot because it’s so dorky he’d never wear it regardless? Please advise. (I’ve set up a poll to register your thoughts on the issue.)

February 5, 2003
Knitted Kerchief

For this weekend’s knitting project, I whipped up this 60’s Triangle Scarf for myself. I think I look quite the hippie in it. It was pretty easy and I managed to finish it in just a day. (Well, two days if you count my first unsuccessful attempt. I misread the pattern and my scarf ended up only half as long as intended.) It’s my first project that involved “decreasing”, which means it’s the first thing I’ve knitted that wasn’t basically a square. If you give it a try, I’d advise playing around with different needles to achieve the stated gauge, since they ones they list are totally wrong. (I ended up using 6.5 mm.) I think I’ll try the button version next.

January 20, 2003
Funky Hat

Funky Hat: Last week I figured it was time to try something new with the knitting, so I settled on this funky (yet easy) hat. It’s easy because you don’t do any increasing or decreasing; you just basically knit a tube with a circular needle and then close off the top (like a square). Then that bit kinda flops over. It’s also got twisted rib brim and little braids that hang off the back corners. (I’m going to put beads on mine as soon as I can get to the bead shop this weekend.) Since I’ve still got tons of Gryffindor yarn left over (hint hint – anybody want a scarf?), I decided to do it in Gryffindor stripes. Pretty cute, huh? The only flaw was that I grossly overestimated the diameter of my own head, so it’s not a very snug fit. But at least I know now, right?

And before you say anything, Sis, yes, I know I need to pluck my eyebrows. I’ve just been too busy with the craftiness. 🙂

January 13, 2003