Tag Archives: acatherinenoon

Stashbusting – The Purple Purse

Knoontime Knitting

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

Knoontime Knitting

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

Knoontime Knitting

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

Knoontime Knitting

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.

Stashbusting – The Harry Potter Sweater

Knoontime Knitting

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a knitter.  She wanted to knit with all her heart and she bought a book on knitting.  She tried and tried and tried some more, but try as she might, the drawings just wouldn’t make any sense.  Sadly, she put away the needles, and the yarn, and the book; and that might have been the end of the story.

But then, one day while at her place of work, a coworker was knitting.  The knitter went up to the other knitter and asked where she learned to knit.  The knitter, the first one, said that she learned knitting from a knitter at a knitting shop who taught knitting classes.  Our knitter was so excited, she went that very day and signed up for knitting lessons.

After some time passed, she went back to her book on knitting and what do you suppose happened?  The drawings made sense!  She decided to make a sweater for her young boy, who was only ten.

But, as all things do, things became complicated in the form of sleeves.  Sleeves are an evil plague that infect many, many kinds of sweaters, including the simple boat-neck sweater in her knitting book.

The knitter put the sweater away and made many, many other projects – including this blog!

The young boy of ten is now twenty-one.

And the knitter finally finished the sleeves!

Of course, the young boy is no longer young, nor a boy, nor small enough to fit said sweater, but that’s a story for another day.

The End

Front View of the Harry Potter sweater (it’s in the colors of Gryffindor, for those of you who aren’t HP fans; that’s one of the Houses at Harry Potter’s boarding school)

Side View (ignore the wall that needs painting; we’re not done with remodeling yet)

Stashbusting – The Jewel Scarf

Knoontime Knitting

I have named my little scarf:  I shall call it, mini-scarf.  No, kidding.  The Jewel Scarf.  Why?  There aren’t any jewels in it, and no beads, but the colors are shiny and remind me of jewels.  Ergo, the jewel scarf.

Sadly, since it’s metallic, it’s tough to photograph because the lighting gets wonky; here’s another shot with the flash so you can see it a little better.

This pattern is kicking my butt, though.  It’s deceptively simple:  Row 1, K1, *YO, S1 WYIB, K1, PSSO*, K1.  Easy peasy, right?

Okay, if you don’t read knit-speak:  Row 1, Knit the first stitch, then the pattern repeat is:  yarn over, slip one with yarn in back, knit 1, pass the slipped stitch over the knitted stitch, repeat until only one stitch remains; then knit 1.

The purl row is identical, just with purls instead of knits.

That’s where the problem is – I keep forgetting to slip that first stitch, or I forget the yarn over, or I end up with 3 extra stitches by the time I realize I have a mistake.  I’ve pulled this silly scarf out about five times so far and am about ready to throw my shoe at it.  Today I seem to have gotten it, though, as you can see.

Stashbusting, I’ve got your number.  ðŸ™‚

What are you knitting?  (Or crocheting?)  (Or making?)

Journey into 3-D: Notebook – The Jewel Scarf

Knoontime Knitting

I learned a valuable lesson when working in 3-D:  never take the knitting needle out of live stitches by accident, especially when working a lace pattern.

I bought some lovely yarn on one of my trips and, since we just moved, I can’t find the ball band to tell you about it.  But suffice it to say that it worked up into a lovely narrow scarf for use with a work outfit or something.  Just as I was trying to figure out how to cast off, I pulled out what I thought was the non-working needle and voila.

It was the working needle.

For those of you who don’t know what I mean, in knitting, you have live stitches on a needle.  If you have experience, you can generally put them back on a needle.  It takes practice.  I can do it, if I’m careful, with stockinette stitch – so-called “plain” knitting.  I can do it with rib stitches and garter stitches too.  But lace?  Not so much.

Sadly, I fiddled and faddled and put the project away sometime last year or early this year.

In moving, I found it again and decided to bite the bullet and start over.  Yesterday, I sat down with my trusty ball winder and took the scarf apart.  I’m going to make it over again with a pattern from Barbara Walker’s A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, called “Rick Rib.”  It’s a combination of rib stitch and lace.  It’s very simple to work, just two lines, and can be made on any even number of stitches.  I’ve cast on twenty and started.  Here’s how it looks so far (there’s not much yet, but from tiny acorns…)

Here is the project with the yarn next to it.  The jumbled bits are because I did about six rows and realized I’d made several errors and had the wrong stitch count.  Some knitting days are like that.  I started over this morning and it’s going more smoothly.

I love the way the knitted cast on looks like a series of sideways knit stitches.  I’ll post more pictures once I have the pattern established so you can get a look at it.

Sunday Weaver’s Journal: The Belii Shawl

Knoontime Knitting

My beloved street-rescue cat Belii died last year after a prolonged battle with kidney failure.  I decided to weave something in his memory, inspired by him and his place in my life.  It feels a little silly to admit that out loud, that my artistic inspiration is my cat, (Am I becoming a Cat Lady?), but we shared a household for 16 years.  If you have pets, you’ll understand.  If you don’t have pets and aren’t a “pet person,” it won’t make sense – and I feel just a little sorry for you.

From the time he was a kitten, Belii was the most affectionate cat I’ve ever known.  His favorite spot was on your chest – whether he knew you well or not.  I used to hand guests a wash cloth to put on their shirt so that he wouldn’t kneed their skin.  That’s the other thing he did all his life – kneed with his claws.  I think it was a holdover from living on the street.  I’ve read that it’s a way for cats to get the milk to come when they’re nursing, and that makes sense.  But he took it one step further – he would actually curl his paw around your finger and hold on.  If he couldn’t sit on you, he’d sit next to you, as in the picture above.

His name, Belii, is the Russian word for “white.”  When he first adopted me, he was white – all white.  I took him in, got him healthy (he had a slew of stuff that the vet needed to take care of; he was the most expensive “free” cat I’ve ever gotten), and fed him.

He turned orange.

As you can see in the photograph above, his ears are the darkest part.  I looked it up; he’s got some Siamese in him and there’s a rare colorway called “peach point” that I’ve decided is Belii.  It sounds cool, doesn’t it?  I have a Peach-Point Siamese.  La-tee-da.  Folks don’t need to know he was homeless in Las Vegas when I found him, eh?

The design challenge is how to represent his colors in fabric.  I suspect this won’t be the first project where I attempt it, since I have some yarn in my stash that I bought with the idea of knitting something.  But for now, my focus is weaving and creating, in cloth, a piece of art inspired by my orange white cat.

Oh, why didn’t I change his name?  The Russian word for “orange” is Ð¾Ñ€Ð°Ð½Ð¶ÐµÐ²Ñ‹Ð¹, or oranzhevyy in transliteration.  Not nearly as pretty-sounding to my American ear as Belii.

I love the pattern I made for the kimono and I talk about using that warp to thread the new warp, in a Sunday Weaver’s Journal earlier this year.  I’ve been working on the project and have pictures but not had time, because of our move, to post anything.  Today, I’m here to remedy that.  So, without further ado, here’s some photos:

My pattern is called “Twill Complication,” from A Handweaver’s Pattern Book by Marguerite P. Davison, page 46 (Marguerite P. Davison, Publisher, Swarthmore, PA, 1994).  I took the treadling pattern and put it in an excel spreadsheet so I could mark off where I am on the pattern.  The wrap is nine feet long in total, so that’s a lot of pattern repeats!

We realized that there were a couple boo-boos in the threading once I started weaving.  In between the time I finished the kimono and started the wrap, one of the assistant instructors thought I was done with the loom and started taking the old warp off.  When she realized I was intending on tying the new warp to it, she re-threaded everything.  We’re not sure if the boo-boo happened then or when I originally threaded it, so her suggestion was to do one entire pattern repeat in a highly-contrasting thread so we could evaluate what to do.

The options:  keep going anyway, even with the mistake, (if it wasn’t too visible); cut the warp thread(s) that could be safely eliminated without changing the design; or take the treading out and start over – which I did not, frankly, want to do.

Here’s an example of the entire repeat.  There were three problem spots, which aren’t greatly visible here, but are visible enough that they would cause a problem in the finished design.

After conferring with Natalie Boyett, we decided to just cut three of the warp threads and let the rest go – primarily because I didn’t want to rethread everything.

I am working on a Glimakra loom from Sweden.  It’s taken a while to get used to, because the shed (the part where you run the shuttle back and forth) is a lot narrower than on American looms.  It does, however, make for much neater edges, which is something I struggle with.

After using the loom for the last almost nine months now, I’m really liking it.  We’ve had some challenges, most notably when the twin holding the heddles in place snapped, but Natalie was able to fix it and it works smoothly now.  The most important part, how the weaving looks, is something I’m really happy with.

Here is a the first repeat of the actual pattern.  I decided to use alternating peach and ivory repeats of the pattern, because I loved how the contrasting yarn looked in the header.

Here is a detail of the pattern.  I love the way it looks beaded.  You can see a comparison with the kimono fabric in the Weaver’s Journal post here.

This is a view of the loom in its entirety except for the castle.  It’s a nice width for me and I love how the fabric is turning out.

Oh, contrary to popular belief, the Russian word for “scarf” isn’t “babushka,” it’s ÑˆÐ°Ñ€Ñ„, or “sharf” in transliteration.  A “babushka” is a grandmother.

Stay tuned for more Weaver’s Journals coming soon.

Saturday Showcase – Upcoming Releases!

Knoontime Knitting

I’m so excited.  I’ve been emailing around the interwebs and am tickled pink, purple, and yellow to report that I have TWO surprises for you coming in October!

October 19th, author Tina Holland will be coming to KK to talk about her craft of scrapbooking.  Tina is a trip – she lives on a self-proclaimed “hobby farm” in Minnesota, writes sexy romances with the tagline, “Have You Been Naughty Today?” and hopes one day to open a bed and breakfast with her husband, a pilot and something of a mad scientist himself.  My kind of people!

When I asked Tina what crafts she likes, she said none.  None?  NONE?  Well, scrapbooking.  It’s really her aunt’s passion, she told me, but from the sounds of it I think Tina qualifies as a crafter.  Have you seen some of these scrapbooks?  But I want to know more about why she focuses on writing and what niche it fills for her in terms of creative expression, and how that ties in with scrapbooking.  I can’t wait.

On October 26th, author and textile artist Maddy Barone will be coming to play!  I so want to marry Maddy and hide her away as my kept woman to write books and make stuff.  Multi-talented, she can design period clothing, knit, write awesome books, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she can do magic too.  We haven’t yet managed to meet in person, though we’ve talked on the phone, but one day I will make her part of the Noonypod.

Noonypod.  I just made that up.  I love it!  ðŸ™‚

Now, don’t be like that.  You won’t be assimilated, silly!

At least not until October…  o.O…