I Want to Felt
Now that I’ve taken care of those nasty piles on my desk, I want to finish my purse and start a big new project.
I didn’t pick up my knitting all day Monday. But I got to bring it to my Mothers & More Book Club meeting. By the end of the meeting, we finished discussing Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper and I had finished knitting my purse. The purse knitted fast, but there are a few funky things going on with it. I don’t think I connected the ends of the i-cords very neatly. They’re all knobby. I searched through my large stash of beads for something that I could fit the yarn through. I’m a little afraid about how much the big beads are pulling on the yarn. I’m hoping that after felting the purse, it will come together and look good. Now I just need to find a top loading washing machine and a time to felt.
After a fairly successful Daisy Girl Scout meeting, I felt like relaxing watching some brainless TV and trying something new knitwise. Since I wasn’t intimidated by cables any more after watching the video clips at KnittingHelp.com, I thought I’d try cables. I grabbed my copy of Stitch ‘N Bitch and tried a 6 x 6 front-crossed cable. After knitting a few cable twists, I was amazed at how easy it was and how real it looked. Now I just need to learn how to read a cable chart.
This morning I decided to finally clean up my craft cabinet. There were beads and yarn all over the pull-out table left there from the purse project. I turned on some SXSW tunes and got working. In no time it was cleaned up. I still had energy and decided to organize all of those knitting papers I have lying around. I created a binder with sections for my yarn stash, knitting tips, completed projects, and knitting patterns and ideas. I printed out a few patterns from Knitty.com that I want to try and added those to my new binder.
Now I just need to figure out what project I want to work on next. Am I ready for a sweater? Should I try socks? Ella wants a vest. I’ll go to Webs tonight before my organizing class and pick up some new yarn and needles. I’ve found simple knitting is a great way to stay awake for my late evening class.
Knitting Help
Last week while looking around on the Web at different knitting sites, I happened upon an excellent site with over 150 video clips on how to do different knitting techniques. I’ve been using KnittingHelp.com for guidance for the past week and it hasn’t let me down yet.
Easter morning, everything is closed, and I really need to figure out how to do an I-cord. Stitch ‘N Bitch was not making it clear enough for me. And then there was the problem that I didn’t have the #11 double point needles either. I checked out the I-cord video clip. Not only did it make sense, it told me an alternative to double point needles. I had #11 circulars, and substituted them quite easily. Crisis solved.
One of the coolest things is that for each technique, she has a Continental clip and an English clip. Some clips don’t have an audio track, while others do. She also has a fairly comprehensive abbreviation description chart.
Now it’s Monday morning and I see the piles on my desk have really grown in the past few weeks. I know what I have to do. I have to be responsible and put my needles away. This is really hard for me since I’m near the end of this purse that I can’t wait to finish. All I need to do is attach the handles, sew in the loose ends, sew up the bottom, and then do the magic of felting. But I need to be strong and wait. I’ve got a Girl Scout meeting to plan, doctor’s appointments to make, and food to buy. Wish me luck resisting the purple purse. As a preview, check out the yarn for the purse.
Flower Topped Striped Cap
There were many times I thought I went beyond my ability level with this cap. Things that worked against me: yarn over, SK2P, and once again, the dreaded gauge. But in the end I had something wearable.
One of the books I had gotten from the library was from the Vogue Knitting on the Go series of books, Caps & Hats Two. There were many cute hats in this book, but I settled on the Flower Topped Striped Cap pattern. I thought I could try to make it with the inexpensive Shetland wool yarn I had. Working a swatch, I decided I would need #3 needles. I picked out a third color, a new set of circular needles, and got started.
I worked the first color, the dark gray, until I needed to switch colors. Then I went to Webs for the knitting drop-in. I couldn’t get started on the first wave pattern since I didn’t know what SK2P was. A nice woman at the drop-in told me how to do the stitch combination: slip one, knit two, pass the first knit stitch over the second knit stitch. But something was really wrong. After finishing a row I would have eight extra stitches. What was I doing wrong? Was the pattern wrong? After trying the wave pattern four times and ripping it out, I realized that the key must be in the SK2P. Putting SK2P into Google lead me to a site the explained that I should slip one, knit two together, then pass the slip stitch over the knit stitch. Beautiful. I did a row and had the correct number of stitches. The wave pattern was fine after that, though I do not like doing yarn overs. Being left with loose yarn and big holes disturbed me.
Things went fairly smoothly after the first wave pattern. I did get conflicting opinions on what to do with the yarn when I changed colors. Don’t cut the yarn and just wrap it with each row. OR cut the yarn each time and sew in the ends later. Wrapping the yarn would have been nice, except it got awkward with the three balls of yarn being tethered to my hat. Cutting the yarn helped that, but left big holes. I was assured that these would disappear once I sewed in the ends. I just had to have faith. I settled on this method a third of the way through the hat. As I was approaching the end, I had Ella try the hat. See all of the nice detail. But it was looking like it would be too big.
I continued until the end, hoping for the best. But of course it was only bigger then. I tried lightly blocking the hat as the pattern suggested, hoping that this would help. It wanted me to “pin the lower edge to form points.” I don’t have a head form and didn’t expect Ella to sit with a damp wool hat on her head for a few hours. So I tried a balloon, but obviously not pinning the edge. It worked ok, but the balloon was not the right shape. I was amazed at how blocking the hat really changed it. It wasn’t any smaller, but it had this really nice drape that it didn’t have before.
What to do now? The hat looked good, but it was so big, no one would wear it. I decided to wash it a bit in hot water and a little detergent. I figured it would felt and shrink some, but lose some detailing. From the washing machine I put it in a hot dryer, checking it every so often. When it seemed to be getting close, I took it out and put it on a balloon again, trying to define the edge with my fingers.
It was dry by the time Ella got home so she could try it on. And it did fit pretty well. It was a keeper. I finished it off with the crocheted flower. As you can see, it did lose a lot of the detail with the felting. But it fits, so Ella will wear it. And I really like the scalloped edge.
A New Recruit
I think we have a potential new recruit to knitting.
Liam received a set of lacing shapes from Grandholly & Granddaddy for his birthday and he loves them. He’s been lacing up a storm this morning. He calls it his knitting. He says, “Me do my knitting, and you do your knitting.”
The Man Hat
My next knitting adventure was to try a hat, moving beyond the rectangular shape. A hat would give me the opportunity to decrease and use double point needles.
I was nervous about the outcome of this hat, so I wanted to use inexpensive yarn. Back to Webs I went. I picked up some Shetland wool yarn back in the warehouse again. I had checked out a bunch of knitting books from the library. One book (can’t remember which one) had a pattern for a man hat with a basket weave stitch. The wool I bought was too thin, so I used two strands. I thought I had the gauge correct and used size 9 circular needles. Things were fine until I got to the point that I needed to switch to double point needles. No one had shown me what to do with double points, so I kind of winged it. It felt very awkward. And by the time I finished the hat, it looked like it was made for a giant. Bill’s got a large head, but not that big. So I frogged it to reuse the yarn.
Now onto my second try. I searched the Web for free knitting patterns and came upon a site with some interesting things by Marnie MacLean. I chose the His Hat pattern with 1×1 ribbing and started over making a hat for Bill.
I worked two strands of the same yarn with size 9 circular needles again. The hat went smoothly and quickly. But now was the moment of truth; will it be the right size? Thankfully it was. And with the ribbing, it even worked well on Ella and Liam, just a looser fitting hat. The style seemed a little short for Bill. I wanted something that would cover his ears a little more. So I bought a new color of the same yarn and made the same hat with a few more rows added at the bottom. It turned out perfectly.
The Neck Gaiter
I’ve continued knitting, trying to add a new skill with each new project. Here’s the project that I did after finishing my first scarf.
I heard on the radio that Webs was having a New Year’s Day sale. Bill had mentioned this Northampton yarn store to me earlier and it sounded interesting. I was almost done with my scarf and was looking forward to a new project. By this point I realized that I DID like to knit and was hooked.
Webs was great, especially the warehouse in the back where there’s a ton of discounted yarn. I found yarn for my next project, Vaudeville by Artful Yarns in the redish color. It is a 100% merino wool knitted ribbon yarn with a bulky weight gauge. I wanted to learn how to knit in the round on circular needles and thought a simple neck gaiter could work with this yarn. I bought a set of 18-inch size 11 bamboo circular needles. I loved the bamboo needles. They felt great. But the cord attaching them was really stiff and took a long time to loosen up.
I used a seed stitch and the neck gaiter knitted up fast on the circular needles. And by doing a seed stitch, I really got to know the difference between a knit stitch and purl stitch. Now I’ve been knitting several of these gaiters as gifts. It’s the perfect brainless knitting to work on when I need that sort of thing. Ella’s been showing me all the different ways to wear her gaiter including headband/earwarmer and hat.
My New Obsession
Well my new obsession is knitting. And I love it. Over Thanksgiving at the Hartrick Family Reunion in Fayetteville, I was inspired to learn to knit while watching all of the others knitting and crocheting.
My sister-in-law Jennifer Childs offered to teach me to knit. I was so excited. I had tried to learn many years ago when I was a kid, but could never figure it out. But it was always in the back of my mind that I’m a smart person and this is something I should be able to do, eventually.
To start, I went to Hand Held, a yarn store in Fayetteville that is owned by a mother of a D.C. friend. I assumed I would make a scarf with really chunky yarn. I wasn’t sure if I would actually like knitting, so I wanted to make something I could finish. I tried to find yarn that was really soft and ended up with two skeins of Rowan Big Wool in Pistachio and size 12 mm needles. I asked the store for recommendations for a knitting book. They quickly said Stitch ‘N Bitch. They did not have it in stock though. They were so sure that this was THE book I should get that they told me to go down the street to the Barnes and Noble and buy it there.
Jenn was very patient with me. She taught me to cast on, knit, and purl. She also suggested that I try Continental knitting (left-hand method) since this was a faster way to knit. I started the scarf with a stockinette stitch, but quickly learned that it curled too much on the sides. I frogged it and started over. Then I went with a 2×2 rib stitch and this worked out well. By the end of the Reunion, I had gotten to the point where I could finish the scarf on my own. Though I did have to teach myself how to bind off. This was a little scary, but the Stitch ‘N Bitch book has really clear diagrams and instructions. I was able to figure it out.
Here’s the finished product on Ella. I’ve been wearing the scarf for the past two months. It’s warm and soft and matches my winter coat too. What more could you ask for?
