Tag Archives: acatherinenoon
Pysanky Day!
A Journey Into 3-D Notebook – Hats!
So I’ve been playing with knitting from the top down. I started a sweater and have been wrestling with it (which I’ll share later), but for now I want to share my newest creation: a hat!
My first hat was almost a decade ago. A friend asked me to make a hat for her friend. I did so. It was large enough to fit her, her friend, AND me – and not just our heads. It was not, shall we say, a success.
Since then, I’ve successfully mastered all kinds of things in knitting: sweaters, sleeves, socks, lace, design… So why not hats?
I asked myself that and then gave it a shot.
This one is fun because the increases are one-off from each other so that they swirl around the head. I did the crown with a merino wool, then the sides with an alpaca and mohair blend that’s fuzzy and whisper-soft.
I even like how it looks on me.
And you can see it from the back.
I want to try making another hat that’s a little smaller, so it stays tighter on the head. In fact, I started one, but that’s a post for another day! 🙂
Friday Funnies
Stashbusting – The Ugli Bag
This picture is a bit yellow, and the middle of the bag is beige and not lemon. But behold, my friends, the Ugli Bag.
The top is super soft, fuzzy furry overdye with a thick central filament of a bulky yarn. I didn’t have much of it, so I couldn’t at first figure out what to make; then I decided on a gift bag.
Then I ran out. What to do?
The beige stripe is the leftover marino and alpaca blend that I used for a lovely scarf wrap that I’ll feature in an upcoming article.
Then I ran out of that. Uh-oh.
Enter the blue.
Hrrrh? The bag is a mixture of browns, pumpkins, and beige. blue? BLUE?
Well, orange’s complement is blue, and so it’s a natural choice.
Sort of.
Then it hit me – do the strap in blue, too. The prior picture shows the top of the strap so you can see the texture. This one shows the bag.
I didn’t realize, though, when I put in a 2-stitch edging of garter stitch that I would cause the strap to fold in on itself. It worked to my benefit, actually, because instead of being ultra wide, the strap is now just the right width and the double-thickness means it will be stronger.
You can get a better idea of how obnoxious the blue is next to the orange, though, in this shot. It’s not quite as neon blue as in the image, but it’s somewhere between muted and neon (how’s that for precise?).
I’m going to line the bag with muslin to give it some strength and I’ll show pictures once that’s all done.
Knit on!
Saturday Showcase: Elizabeth Brooks Answers the Question
Elizabeth Brooks is amazing. She’s talented. She’s a writer and an editor and a darn fine human being. And when I asked her, do you craft, she laughed.
Laughed.
Here then, is Elizabeth Brooks and “Sampler Platter.” Enjoy!
Sampler Platter
So Noony put out a call, asking for blog posts about all kinds of things, including crafts.
Do I craft?
Oh, do I! I’m not actually that good at any of them, though, mind you, because I take a rather “sampler platter” approach to all kinds of crafts: I get interested in something, and I get deeply invested in it for a while… usually just long enough to learn the basics and assure myself that yep, I can do that… and then I lose interest and move on to something else.
I’ve done latchhook and needlepoint and embroidery. I’ve made my own clothes (both everyday — which were mostly miserable failures — and some fantasy/sci-fi garb for cons). I spent most of grad school making a counted cross-stitch piece involving a dragon on a castle in a lake that was huge and gorgeous and by the time I was done, I never wanted to see another cross-stitch pattern again in my life. (To this day, I haven’t seen a pattern that’s made me want to pick it back up again.) I’ve been an on-again, off-again amateur photographer since my parents gave me my first camera at the age of ten, and of course, with all those photographs, I got into scrapbooking for a good while, too.
There are tons of other crafts that I’ve toyed with, but never quite gotten fully into: cake decorating, jewelry-making, and assorted flavors of ethnic cooking, to name only a few.
But yarncraft, oh my goodness, yes. I learned to crochet when I was 13, more or less shamed into it by my great-aunt, who made gorgeous pieces despite being blind. I learned to do little bits, then dropped it for a decade, only to pick it back up after that cross-stitch overload I mentioned. I’m terrible at maintaining a gauge, though, so I mostly made things like afghans, where that’s not quite as important. I made about four afghans (they make fantastic gifts when you’re fresh out of school and poor), then transitioned to crocheting thread instead of yarn. I made a whole slew of lace-covered Christmas ornaments [photo at left] and some breadbasket cloths before dropping it again. After that, I decided I needed to teach myself how to knit, so I did — I made a scarf and a couple of Christmas stockings, but I found it lots slower than crochet, and then I had my first kid and my free time went away, and I put all the yarn away.
But my kids are older now, and just a few months ago, the (unintentionally) combined efforts of several friends and acquaintances got me hooked (hah! I love puns!) on making amigurumi (crocheted toys, essentially).
I love that they’re generally small and easy to make — my favorite pattern is a palm-sized octopus that I can whip out in about an hour and a half, but I’ve made dozens and dozens of different things in the last three or four months. I started with food, then made flowers. Then it was Easter time, so I made a bunch of eggs and bunnies.
I’m an enormous geek who’s just gotten into a Doctor Who obsession, so I made a bunny with a fez and bow tie. Then I made a couple of Daleks in wacky colors, and a weeping angel.
Then I found a little chibi-Cthulhu pattern (did I mention I was a geek?). And after I made one for myself, a friend of mine made some crack to me about Cthulhu porn (“Cockthulhu: The Throbbing Tentacles of Pulsing Purple Passion“) and just to punish him for putting that image in my brain, I made him a chibi-Cthulhu with penises instead of tentacles. (No photo for that. You’re welcome.)
Just about the time I was finishing that up, my friend Lynn showed me this picture of some adorable Elder Gods.
It rather lit a spark in my brain, and now I’m trying to make all of them, though since I’m working without patterns (except for the Cthulhu, of course, since he was already done), it’s a bit slower-going. I’ve got Hastur done, and Nyarlathotep, and Yog-Sothoth. I’m doing Shub-Niggurath now, though it’s slow going because working in black yarn is hell on my eyes. I’m saving Dagon for last, because he’ll be the easiest, actually. But here’s a picture of my Little Horrors family so far:
…Yeah, I’m not quite right in the head. I know. But just for enduring my wrongness, I’m offering up a contest! Leave a comment, and in 1 week?, one random commenter will be drawn to receive an octopus in a color of their choice! (NB: you need to be willing to send us a private message with a working mailing address that can receive a smallish package.)
And if you ask really nicely, I just might include a top hat for him.
* * *
Masquerading by day as an uptight corporate cog, Elizabeth spends her nights concocting gleefully smutty stories. She writes erotic romances for a wide span of worlds, genres, and orientations, and is also a senior editor for Torquere Press. When she’s not writing or editing, she loves a wide range of generally nerdy hobbies, including reading, photography, tabletop games, geeky yarncraft, and silly smartphone games. You can find her online at her blog or on Facebook.
Elizabeth’s latest release is Foxfur, available from Torquere Press on November 13.
Blurb:
Pleasure-slave Cheng takes no particular note of the red-haired woman when she purchases his services. But the morning after her departure, Cheng is taken into custody by the Emperor’s own guards and brought before one of the rare and terrifying Chained Mages. Already frightened and confused, things go from bad to worse for Cheng when the mage reveals the demonic nature of the red-haired woman. Now not only Cheng’s life, but the lives of everyone around him, depend on their finding the fox-demon as soon as possible.
As a Chained Mage, Jin is at best feared, and at worst, despised. But he can’t allow his personal feelings to interfere with his mission, not even when his admiration for the slave deepens. In fact, Jin’s love may result in a disaster. The fox-demon has placed a spell in Cheng, a spell designed to turn his sexual energy to a murderous ends, endangering himself and everyone around him. And worst of all, they’re not the only hunters on the fox-demon’s trail!
Stashbusting – The Purple Purse
From some leftover purple overdye comes this little confection of a purse. I had to laugh, though: I showed it to someone at weaving class today and the first thing they said was, it’s cute, but it’s not big enough. What would you use it for? When I said it’s a gift bag, they said they weren’t that organized.
Organized? It doesn’t take any organization at all to use up our stash in these little bags or other small projects. Quite the contrary, actually. If we use it up, then we don’t need to organize or store it – and if it’s a gift bag, we can give it away and get it out of our house, and make somebody really happy in the process. A win-win, in my book!
I figured out one thing, though. I used the Woven Stitch from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. If you’re a knitter, get this book and the other three in the collection as you can. They’re a treasure trove.
But I digress. So, Woven Stitch. It calls for a K1 before the repeat begins on Row 2, and a K1 at the end of the repeat on Row 4. I wasn’t thinking, and knitted the bag on 3 needles in the round like a sock. I did each pattern repeat distinctly, one on each needle, not thinking that when I took it off the needles it would be a tube. In the front left of the image above, immediately to the left of the handle, there’s a vertical stripe of stockinette (stocking) stitch going up the purse in the midst of the Woven Stitch; it’s echoed on the other side as well. I actually like the effect but had a “derp” moment when I took it off the needles and realized my mistake.
If you’re reading that and trying to figure out why it’s a mistake, consider this: even though you’re knitting on three needles, you’re knitting in the round. You don’t need the edge stitches to keep the integrity of the design the way you do in back-and-forth flat knitting. I should have just omitted those extra knit stitches on either side of the design and then you’d never be able to tell where I began and ended the row repeats (which, since I was knitting in a circle, were rounds and not rows). Clear as mud? Good.
Here’s a bigger picture so you can see what I’m talking about and use my thumb for scale – it really is a cute little bag. But, honestly, I would use it for keys and cell phone if I was going out for the evening somewhere casual but where I didn’t want to drag my planner and ubiquitous backpack.
The woven stitch when knit flat has a curl to it, so I decided to do a seed stitch for the handle instead so I didn’t have to worry about edge stitches to keep it flat.
Here’s a detail of the handle and a look inside the maw of the bag. Rowr!
One more stash down; a lot more to go.
Organizing Tips for Crafters – Project Binder
Have you come across a project you made and wish you remember what yarn or needles you used? Or, worse, given something away as a gift, only to realize you kept no record of what you made – but then you want to reproduce it?
There are fancy knitting journals that one can buy but I find them inadequate to my needs because the space is so small in which to make notes. Instead, I prefer to use 3-ring binders with sheet protectors.
The 3-ring binders allow you to customize the size for the project. I typically use letter-size binders because a) they’re less expensive than odd-size binders and b) they fit on my shelf in a uniform fashion. I then use sheet protectors inside and instead of putting paper in the sheet protector, I put a sample of the project, such as the swatch, or a bit of leftover yarn if I didn’t have enough to keep the swatch (such as with an expensive luxury yarn).
I can also put notes on the project in the sheet protector with it. I can type up the project and even put pictures. I’ll admit, I haven’t gotten that far and right now it’s just my notes, sometimes even scribbled on the back of an envelope, but I can’t tell you how valuable this is a year or two later when I want to remember what exactly I made. It also serves as a scrapbook so I can see where I am now in relation to before.
What do you use to organize your projects?
A Journey Into 3D Notebook – What I’m Working On
November is coming, and with it, NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, NaNo-ers write 50,000 words on a draft of a novel – some more, some less, and the madness that ensues is infectious.
I wish we had a NaKnitMo, National Knitting Month. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
I was lamenting recently to Rachel Wilder, my partner in writing crime, that my stash is reaching epic proportions. I typed up what’s under the bed in bins and showed her pictures of my shelves in my office, which overflowed from the huge apparatus over there to the top of the filing cabinet over here.
Unperturbed, she said, “Just think of it as hours of pre-paid entertainment.”
Blink.
LOFF!
In celebration of that, I figured I’d share a few of the things I’m working on or have recently finished.
This is an Ojo de Dios, or “Eye of God.” Made by the Huichol peoples of South America, they are prayers of blessing and good fortune. Ojos are made and placed in the central village temple for blessings on a child, a new business venture, a marriage, and many other occasions.
This one was fun to make since I usually make much smaller ones. This one is about 12 inches on 1/2 inch dowel rods. I sanded the dowels and then stained them using a combination of varnish and stain. I skipped the recommended steel wool sanding in between the two coats and I think, in hindsight, I wish I had done it; on the next project I will use that as part of the preparation. Overall, though, I like how the dowels came out.
I used a large, bulky yarn with an overdye pattern, which is what accounts for the color variations. I also varied the weave in making the ojo itself, which is what accounts for the visibility of the dowel in the middle of the design in parts.
At the October Nightweavers meeting, a chapter of the Weavers Guild of the North Shore, we made snowflakes for the upcoming Fine Art of Fiber taking place at the Chicago Botanic Gardens November 8-10, 2013. The designs are surprisingly easy to put together and look quite pretty in white paper. I am across some colored origami paper that’s white on the back, so I decided to try the design using six sheets of that, instead.
The white added a depth to the snowflake that I didn’t anticipate and like very much. I think it would look pretty, and very different, when done on paper that has designs on both sides, especially if the designs aren’t identical.
I nipped its ear when I was punching a hole to hang it with; you can see it on the tip of the red ear here.
If you’re curious, the location where it hangs is the Pumping Station: One, a hackerspace here in Chicago. This is the art room and the view in the background is to one of the consoles for one of our 3-D printers.
Weaver’s Journal – The Fringe of Weaving
I’m working on the fringe for the Belii Shawl and wanted to do a laticework effect with the beads. Since the image I’m using is from a book to which I don’t have the rights, (I almost typed, “writes,”) I drew it for you here by hand:
The top picture is straight fringe; the bottom one is the lattice effect that I wanted to try to achieve. I used a fringe winder to ply the fringe together. What that means is, you take the yarns that are the fringe and figure out direction they are spun. All yarn has a natural direction of spin. One direction spins it further, creating more energy in the twist; the other direction essentially unspins the yarn (and with looser yarns can cause them to fuzz up).
When you ply fringe, you take two or more of the fringe yarns and twist them further in the direction of their natural twist, and then tie a knot. When you release the yarns, after they’re knotted, they roll together creating a pretty, and more stable, fringe that will not knot up when you wash it, for example.
What my hope was, was that by taking yarns adjacent to each other and plying them together, I could create a lattice effect like I’ve drawn, above. What happened was that in plying the second row of fringe, it increased the twist of the fringes above it and when I released the yarns after the second knot, they twisted together, creating a mess and not a pretty, flat lattice. I’ll show you what I mean, and what I did instead.
This is the second side of fringe; the yarn ends are longer on this side (meaning, the fringe is longer). The fringe on the right has the first row of plying and beading done; as you can see, the beads are held in the middle of the twist by the energy of the plying. (They’re not so tightly in there that they cannot move; I suspect when I wash it, for example, I’ll have to push them back into place.)
The tackle box is there to provide weight on the main body of the weaving. By doing so, the fringe has something to pull against when you ply it.
This is the first row of fringe all done. The fringe will be trimmed at the end, but I’ll wait until I have the beads in place, (three rows in total). The finished length will be between six and eight inches.
In this view, you can see both sides of fringe as well as the main body of the shawl. The loose threads on the body of the shawl will be snipped after its first wash. I don’t want to wash it until the fringe is done, otherwise the threads will knot with each other and make a mess.
These are the tools I’m using. Clockwise from top left: fringe winder tool, gold beads, scissors, COFFEE mug (if you don’t think this is an essential tool at Knoontime Knitting, you haven’t been paying attention), fringe comb, extra yarn, and purple beads.
This is the first attempt at the latticed fringe. As you can see, the second row of beading just causes the whole thing to twist up on itself.
We tried again, this time with my instructor holding the yarns under tension. It didn’t help; as soon as we released the tension, they twisted together. I need a sound-effect, like FOOP! Foop, they twisted together.
I put the tackle box on the first row of beading and made the second row of plies on the same ply as the first. On the first row, I plied it 13 times; the second row didn’t need that many because of residual twist; so I used seven twists instead.
Detail of both rows.
Final view showing the whole side. I’m really curious to see what it looks like when it’s done and washed. The fabric right now is thick and dense; it’s mercerized (perle) cotton and it softens up after washing; I’m curious what the hand of the shawl will be like once it’s all done.