04.04.07
Posted in Crafts, Cuisine, Yarn Arts at 10:27 am by rachel
Where has all my crafting gone? I am in the midst of knitting two nautical sweaters for May/June twins, but am hung up on gauge problems and have yet to find more of the yarn I need. I am thinking of scraping it and getting a new stash alltogether!
In the mean time, I have a lot of cotton and so I’ve decided to add some home-made love to the everyday by making knit dishrags and towels for the kitchen. Mason Dixon Knitting has inspired me with this post, which includes a free pattern for a 9-square dishrag. I made up my own pattern, however, since I needed to use a little less brain power to make my first dishcloth on the morning commute.
Cast 51 stitches onto size 4 straight needles. Rows 1-10: moss stitch (K1,P1,K1 to the end). Rows 11-20: stockinette stitch with moss stitch border (row 11: moss stitch for 8 stitches, K35, moss stitch for 8 stitches, row 12: same, but P35 instead of K35). Rows 21-40: odd rows: moss stitch for 8 stitches, K8, moss stitch for 18 stitches, K8, moss stitch for 8; even rows: same but P8 each time instead of K8. Rows 41-50: stockinette stitch with moss stitch border. Rows 51-60: moss stitch. Cast off.
*EDIT* I just found a picture of a hexagonal dishrag! I must make one! Craft Lover’s blog has instructions on how to make a knit hexagon.
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02.25.07
Posted in Crafts, Yarn Arts at 10:30 pm by rachel
The sweetest little white duck I have decided to knit is causing me some difficulty. I drew out the pattern first and decided it would be a very cute motif in the middle of baby sweater #3 (for baby #3 due in June!). While I have followed a multi-colored pattern of my design many times in the past, I usually only dealt with repeating snowflakes and the like, and so the odd shape and vast expanses of white in this one were new to me.
Alas, my tension is off and the duck is literally jumping out of the sweater! I think I’ve learned that I need to leave some more “give” as I carry the yarn over and behind the stitches in the second color. Perhaps I’ll attempt some sort of matching hat or blanket and give it another try.
On a sidenote, I thought the duck theme was a nice way to add some character to a gender-neutral baby gift. I am thinking about making a stuffed little duck to match with the remaining yarn. I found a couple of great free patterns here and here.
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02.03.07
Posted in Crafts, Yarn Arts at 1:06 pm by rachel
Today is Cécilia’s birthday and we’re celebrating with an “apero-dinatoire” at her and her cheri’s place. I thought for quite a while about what to get her, and finally decided that I could never go wrong with hand-made mittens.
This pair is a stash-buster project: As a base, I used a thin yarn, 100% wool, in cream, and then doubled it up with leftover yarn from the peach baby sweater (wool) and camel yarn from some fingerless gloves I made for Seth.
The project took about 4 hours (or about 5 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy). I made a quick label with washing instructions and tied it on with more of the peach yarn.
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01.30.07
Posted in Crafts, Wedding, Yarn Arts at 10:14 pm by rachel
My first lace project was a shawl I made for our wedding. Because the average weather for late December in Sarasota is in the 60s, I thought it would be smart to make a cover-up to match my dress. In the end, we were sweating, so I didn’t actually need to wear it. It came in handy at the rehearsal dinner, however, as my talented, artistic cousin, Kristen, wore it all evening (she’s wearing it while drawing in the photo at left)
I knit this lace out of 100% silk yarn purchased from Purl in Soho (NY). For a truely airy lace, I should have used a thinner yarn, but I just fell in love with the silk yarn that perfectly matched my antique-looking ivory dress.
The pattern is below. It is repeated nine times across, with an edge of 2 stitches, always knit, and adding a border of 4 rows on each end. In between each charted row, knit a row all the way across.
0 / – - – \ 0
- – 0 ^ 0 – -
- 0 / – \ 0 -
/ 0 – - – 0 \
- / 0 – 0 \ -
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01.28.07
Posted in Crafts, Yarn Arts at 9:30 pm by rachel
Knit mittens are a quick (3-4 hour) project that is quite satisfying because you see instant results. They are also great gifts that not overwhelming to tackle and still show you care enough to make something with your own hands.
I’ve been making mittens for about a decade, and here is my secret recipe:
Ingredients:
~Four size 4 double-pointed needles
~Two skeins worsted Lose Weight Exercise wool
~Yarn needle
What to do:
*Note: pattern is for the LEFT mitten. Numbers of stitches for the RIGHT mitten are written in parentheses.
Cast on 40 stitches and spread over three double-pointed needles (12, 12, and 16 works well).
rows 1-20: *knit 2, purl 2* repeat until end of row
row 21: knit the whole row
row 22: knit 18 (20), increase 1, knit 2, increase 1, knit 20 (18)
rows 23-24: knit the whole row
row 25: knit 18 (20), increase 1, knit 4, increase 1, knit 20 (18)
rows 26-27: knit the whole row
rows 28: knit 18 (20), increase 1, knit 6, increase 1, knit 20 (18)
rows 29-30: knit the whole row
row 31: knit 18 (20), increase 1, knit 8, increase 1, knit 20 (18)
rows 32-33: knit the whole row
row 34: knit 18 (20), increase 1, knit 10, increase 1, knit 20 (18)
rows 35-36: knit the whole row
row 37: knit 18 (20), increase 1, knit 12, increase 1, knit 20 (18)
rows 38-39: knit the whole row
Congrats! You now have 14 thumb stitches added onto your second needle.
row 40: knit 18, then move the next 14 stitches onto a stitch holder (I just thread some extra yarn through these stitches and tie them off for later). Now increase 2 stitches to the 18 stitches you’ve already knit this row. Knit the rest (20 stitches) of the row.
rows 41-61: knit the whole row
You will now decrease to finish the top. Make sure the mitten is big enough at this point to cover your pinky finger. I find it useful to redistribute the stitches at this point, so that you have 20 on one needle, and 10 stitches on each of the others. That way, you are decreasing at the beginnings and ends of needles and it’s easier to keep track.
row 62: knit 1, slip 1, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, knit 14, knit 2 stitches together, knit 2, slip 1, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, knit 14, knit 2 stitches together, knit 1.
row 63: knit the whole row
rows 64, 66, and so on: decrease 1 stitch at each end of the mitten, as you did in row 62 (that means decreasing a total of 4 stitches on each decrease row)
rows 65, 67, and so on: knit the whole row
Continue decreasing until you have only 4 stitches left on each side (8 stitches total). You can finish the end by weaving thread through the stitches so that it is seamless, or you can “cheat” (this is what I usually do) by just using a yarn needle and going through each loop and pulling it like a cinch sack.
Finish the thumb:
Distribute the 14 thumb stitches onto three needles. Knit 16 rows or until the thumb is long enough to fit your own thumb. You can close off the thumb using the same cheating method described above.
Finishing: You will need to sew in all of the loose yarn ends by turning the mitten inside out. It’s important to sew up the hole that is formed at the base of the thumb, so use one of the yarn ends to close it up.
**Variation: draw your own snowflake on graph paper and incorporate it into the mitten design. Using two colors means doubling up the yarn, so the mittens will be even warmer.
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Posted in Crafts, Yarn Arts at 8:49 pm by rachel
There will be three new babies in my circle come June, and that means… three more baby sweaters! I bought some cotton yarn at Loisirs et Creation, which was having a sale, and then I drew this simple sailboat motif. My only problem is that I have run out of white cotton yarn, and I still have another 1/3 of the sweater to make! I went back to the store today, to no avail. I may need to make one of the panels an inverse image, since I have plenty of blue. I’ve just broken what must be the first rule in knitting – make sure you have enough yarn for your project…and certainly do not buy yarn on sale if you are hoping to find more later!
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01.04.07
Posted in Crafts, Yarn Arts at 2:37 pm by rachel
My best friend, Grace, has a niece! Congrats to Sarah and Kelly, proud parents of the beautiful, perfect Evelyn Grace.
This sweater was made using a pattern I purchased at a yarn store on the Left Bank. It’s 100% washable wool and wraps around the front to close with two buttons. Evelyn is a Georgia Peach, like me, so I chose the color accordingly.
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