Tag Archives: Design

Stash Sunday – Becoming

Knoontime Knitting

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It’s coming together.  Slowly.

2015 has been a difficult year as regards output.  Most of the work has been internal; journaling and the like.  When Rachel was in town in October, we bought this yarn and I started farting around with some lace patterns, and realized I needed to drawn it out in a chart because the swatch was decidedly not cooperating.  As in, sticking out its tongue at me and going “Nya-nya-nya.”

I finally finished the first of the two skeins yesterday.  If this were a scarf for myself, it would be way too short – one, I’m five-eight; two, I like loooong scarves.

But it’s not for me; it’s for Rachel.

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She’s a similar height to Leticia (my dressmaker’s form).  This length comes right about to her hips, which is actually where Rachel prefers her scarves because she is using them more for an accessory, given that she lives in the desert; whereas I, living in Chicago, am looking for warmth and the ability to wrap it around my head and my neck several times.  So yay, it fits!

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Here’s a view around back, and there’s plenty of room for the second skein to make it a full length scarf for her.  I’d like it if it could be longer, but the third skein is a different color (and only one skein of that color, so it’s probably going to be made into an Amazeball or a truffle; I haven’t decided yet.)

An Amazeball: I came up with this a couple days ago when my bud and I were sharing hard-won kudos with working out.  I thought, we need some kind of trophy or something that we can mail around in our group of friends, and whoever gets it gets to take a picture of themselves with it, and gets to decide to wins it next.  But we need something, and I figured a ball of yarn (not a ball of unmade yarn, but a knitted ball) would be a cool trophy.  A truffle, if you recall, is a creature from our Persis Chronicles that’s a cross between an aardvark and a cocker spaniel.  I think I’ll modify an elephant pattern and make a small one; only problem is, I think I need more yarn than I have for this project, which is why the Amazeball.

Glad you asked?

What about you, Dear Reader?  How long do you like your scarves?

 

 

Tuesday Tips: Keeping Notes

Knoontime Knitting

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I just realized something as I was looking at my design notes for the lace wrap I’m making.  My notes go back to about 2010.  That’s like five years, sports fans!  Cool!  So, I figured I’d share some reasons why I think Keeping Notes is the Thing To Do:

  1. Keep track of your current project. This way, if you have to set it aside and you forget about it for a month or ~cof~ year, you’ll remember what you were doing.
  2. Keep notes of stuff you are planning that you might make someday.  In other words, it doesn’t have to be the Notebook of Things I Will Make.  It becomes a NOTEbook.  Of notes.
  3. I found a list of gifts I wanted to make from 2011.  I haven’t made everything on there, and the ideas are good ones, so why not crib from that for the 2016 gift planning list?
  4. You can use it for the 2016 Gift Planning List.  (See how I did that?)
  5. Pro-tip: if you get yourself a pad with grids on it, then you can use it for regular notes, in words, but also for design concepts if you’re learning how to use charts (which I am).  In fact, that picture up there ^^^ is my vereh first real chart.  (My vereh first unreal chart is actually page one of the notebook, but I couldn’t figure out charting, so there you go.)
  6. Number six in my list of five things:  the point of number 5 is that this is a work in progress.  Keeping notes, and reminding yourself that they’re notes and notes by their nature are informal, reminds us that we are learning, always developing, and that it’s not important to get it right the first time.  It’s just important to show up with yarn, needles, a pad of paper and a writing implement.

Happy making!

K Is For… Knitting! Again!

Knoontime Knitting

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I know I did knitting today on the main blog, too, but it bears repeating.  ~grin~  Besides, what if you don’t, yet, knit?  How do you go from string to art?  It’s like anything else.  Practice.

Okay, so how do you know what to practice?

Well, there are plenty of books and websites out there purporting to be able to teach you how to knit.  If you’re reading this and nodding along, chances are that you’ve glanced at them and they meant about as much to you as they did to me – which means, nothing.  Zilch, zip, nada.  I tried to learn to knit from books for almost ten years.  I just couldn’t make sense of the stuff on the page as it related to the stuff in my hands.

If this is you, then I have two solutions for you:

First, find a teacher.  Local yarn shops and big-box stores like Michaels and JoAnns offer classes, as do park districts, senior centers, and adult learning centers.  There are Meetup groups, and knitters even put themselves out on sites like Craig’s List.  Don’t overlook your local university – fashion design programs feature knitting, because the designers need to know how to work with knit fabric.  I met my first teacher through my local yarn shop, and she is an adjunct professor at not one but two local universities.

Second, look online.  YouTube has a wealth of videos on how to do anything from cast on (which is how you get the yarn onto the needle so you can start knitting with it) to complicated stitch patterns, decreases, increases, lace, cables, and all the other foreign-sounding words that are the stock-in-trade of the knitter’s craft.

If you haven’t discovered it yet, Craftsy is a ton of fun to poke around.  They’ve even got a bunch of free classes, so you can see how you like the learning platform.  Their basics series are good, solid grounding in whatever craft you select; they’ve got a ton of intermediate (skill building) and advanced classes for you more experienced knitters out there.  You can select classes and add them to your wish-list, and keep your eyes peeled for their sales.  Might be just as addictive as doing the craft itself!

What about you, Dear Reader?
What suggestions do you have for folks who want to begin a new craft?

Work In Progress Wednesday

Knoontime Knitting
Attempt the First

It’s Wednesday.  I figured I’d share what I’ve been crafting around with.

My first item to share is the Emerald Keep Scarf, which will be a giveaway in the forthcoming Keepsake Tour starting March 8th, to celebrate the release of Book 2 in the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep.

It didn’t work.

I mean, yeah, it’s fabric, and it’s knitted.  But that’s about it. For one thing, the stitch said WS (wrong side) for both pieces, but either I misread it or it’s a typo because clearly, it’s incorrect – the edge stitches clearly are backward from the main lace stitches.

Attempt the First, Backside

This is a view where you can see the edge stitches are right-side up, while the lace is wrong side.

Grr.

Attempt the Second, Front and Frustration Both Start with F.
So does my favorite swear word.
Jus’ sayin’.

Started over.

And… I don’t like my idea of the border.  You can’t really see it well in this shot, but the edges pull in too much and make it look sloppy.  The reason I wanted a border to begin with is that this stitch has quite a bit of bias curl; however, the edging I picked (mistake-stitch rib) isn’t working.

I think either I’ll throw an extra yarn over in to create a sort of gutter, or eliminate the edges entirely.

Mancooking.
Why move stuff outta the way when you can stand over it?

I mentioned to a friend that we made candles last weekend and realized I neglected to take photos.  I planned to take pics of the cold pots, but we have to cook in our kitchen so they had to come off the stove.

And, apparently, my kid thinks it’s no big deal to stand over them rather than move them out of the way.  He’s cooking a very lovely taco salad at the moment, (well, cooking the sausage that will go in the taco salad).  Yum.

Soap! Curing!

Our batch of soap that we made a couple weeks ago is curing very well.  It’s a lovely creamy ivory color now.  We cut it this weekend to allow each of the bars exposure to air, so they can continue the curing process.

In case you’re wondering, curing is letting the chemical reaction between the fat and lye to finish.

This is raw soap and not milled soap, so it’s not made in a mold.  You can use it as is, once it’s cured, or mill it again and then pour it into pretty molds for a nice appearance.

Candles, Dipped 2015

I only made a half-dozen this year so far; I may fire up the pots once more before I put everything away.  I like the way these came out; they are nice and uniform.  They’re also really long, which is my favorite (I have four different heights I can make).

Basket-o-Candles, Bad Lighting.

This isn’t a very good shot, but it’s of my candle stock.  I’ll see if I can get a better one for you one of these days – but for now, it’s off to eat dinnah.

Yum.

What are you making?

Make Something Monday – Bryce Canyon Hat I

Knoontime Knitting
Bryce Canyon Hat, all done!

I finished the hat late Sunday night.  I used a sewing needle bind off so that the edge is nice and loose.  It’s very warm; reflects heat back against my head.

Top View

I love the way the top came out with swirls.  One thought I had is to continue the swirls down the body of the hat using decreases after each yarn over.

Bryce Canyon Hat, Almost There

Here’s a shot of the rib stitch.  My next one, I want to do something more interesting on the body of the hat.  The ribbing is boring; I’d like to try something more fun – maybe even patterned.

In process, large enough to go on the double-pointed needles.

It looks like a little bag at this stage.

Top View, in process

Here’s the top before drawing all the stitches up.  A pom pom might look cute here, or even a bauble.

Stash Sunday: Introducing Aubergine

Knoontime Knitting
She has a name now!

I’m so excited – I settled on a name, and I’m nearly done with the scarf!  This picture is a little too heavily slanted toward blue, but you get the idea.  I’ve decided the name is Aubergine.  I should be done in another day or two.

This is a fun project because the stitch is much simpler than it looks.  It’s just a four row repeat, and two of those rows is to Purl across.  What could be easier?  This would be suitable for a beginner, as long as they know how to cast on and bind off, knit, purl, and do yarn overs.

Pro-tip – keep your yarn untangled by moving the working skein around the waiting yarn on each color change.  Otherwise you’ll have a wadded up mess before you go five or ten repeats.  No fun.

Work-In-Progress Wednesday

Knoontime Knitting
The Beginning

I received my first commission as Knoontime Knitting!  I am making a scarf for a friend in two colors of purple, Royal Purple and Lavender.  Here is the beginning as it sits on my design pad after the starting swatch.

The Middle

 Here it is after a bit of knitting.  It knits up quickly.  I am using 30 sts cast on for width.

Still the Middle

This is how far I got before I called it a night.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this shapes up.

Make Something Monday

Knoontime Knitting
What’s In YOUR Wallet? or Bag?

Happy Monday, Dear Reader!  I’ve gotten some of my design mojo back and have been playing with some different knitting designs.  This morning, as I waited for the bus, I checked the Bus Tracker tool.  It said the next bus wouldn’t be there for 27 minutes.  Aside from making me late for work, that meant I had time to get some knitting done.

Then, mid-row, what do I see but a bus? Holy crap.  Try stuffing size 10 needles in an already over-stuffed knitting bag and grabbing everything to get onto the bus.

MONDAY!

WIP

This is what I’m making with my size 10 needles.  One of my books has an afghan on the cover that’s made out of triangles.  I decided to take a twist on that idea and using a base of 35 stitches, make a sampler with leftover yarns and different textures.

This is a Turkish Stitch done in Lion Brand Homespun.  It’s a boucle-type of yarn and difficult to see stitch definition; however, I like the less dense look of the fabric.  I find the juxtaposition of the bias pull of the stitch with the decreased edge for the triangle to be an interesting opposition.

What are you working on?

The Eyes Have It

Knoontime Knitting
The Sun

Every year, I struggle with Christmas and the holidays and what they mean to me.  Much like my forays into 3-D, my forays into what the holidays “should” be like are colored by the past and by expectations.  I remember when my parents separated when I was ten, and I believed my mother “ruined” Christmas.  The magic was gone.  I couldn’t understand why my father couldn’t be there and we couldn’t just celebrate like we had in years past.

Tolstoy said that every happy family is happy in the same way, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  Melanie Beatty said that in alcoholic families, everyone’s angry: Mom’s angry, Dad’s angry, even the dog is angry.  That last one stuck with me – even the dog?  She’s right; my dog knew something was “up.”

Why do I bring that up now?  As I learn how to make the holidays mine after all these years, I’m finding that the past is much with me.  Which brings me to the Ojos de Dios, or “Eyes of God.”

The Huichol people believe that these amulets bring blessings and luck upon the person for whom they’re made.  When a person is born, an ojo is made for them in the central temple.  Ojos are also made at the inception of new business projects, marriages, and other beginnings.  It’s a way to attract the benevolent attention of the deities onto one’s own life.

Enlightenment

A friend of mine suggested some years ago to make the ojos using cinnamon sticks and embroidery floss.  The idea caught fire in my mind and I love the shiny effect of the weaving.  By varying the weaves, you can create more complex structures; but just by using a simple overdyed yarn you can achieve beautiful effects with relatively little effort.

Water

I made these ojos for my office.  I wanted to bring blessings on our work, and to remember that it’s the holidays.  I’m trying to capture some of that sense of magic they had when I was little.  I’m not sure what made it magical, which is part of the challenge; I don’t know what I’m searching for.

Fire

One year, my cat Marina kept batting down all the ornaments I’d put on our tree.  She broke several of them and made a mess.  By end of the holiday, all the ornaments were grouped in the top 18 inches of the tree, leaving the rest to the lights.  The next year, I made ojos for the whole tree – a whole canister of them.  It made me incredibly happy to do.

That’s part of the magic, then – making things.  I think that we humans are crafty creatures and that making things with our hands is part of what satisfies us.  So our holiday this year has centered around handmade things – from food to decorations.

What about you?  
What makes the holidays magical for you?

A Journey Into 3-D Notebook – Hats!

Knoontime Knitting

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! 🙂