Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

When I decided to make my living room color-coordinated with, well, itself, it was clear that my green futon cover had to go. I bought a brown one, and of course my blue bolster pillows also needed to be re-covered to match the new color scheme. I suppose I could claim that I painstakingly knitted a lovely fair isle sweater for these pillow covers, but I actually just went to the Goodwill store and bought some sweaters to felt them. Before anyone accuses me of knitwear blasphemy, I must clarify that I did make sure that the red sweater wasn’t hand-knit (I think it was from Lands’ End).

The piecing of the pillow covers was required due to the size and shape differences between sweaters and bolster pillows. You’ll note that some of the red pieces are larger – that was to eliminate two seam allowances because I was that short on fabric length/width for some pieces.

The square pillows are pretty basic – the fronts are some fabric I picked up in Hawaii, and the backs are some leftover fabric from a skirt I made a few years ago (the pillows are identical, you are looking at the front of one and the back of the other). Have I mentioned how much I love my sewing machine’s one-step buttonhole function? Wow.

Here’s my latest – a purse made more or less according to directions in the Quilts and More magazine that Cathy blogged about a while back.

This project provided some challenges, and I’ delighted that it turned out just fine with no major snafus along the way. The purse has two large lined inner pockets,and the directions called for fusing tricot interfacing to all the pieces and putting batting between both the outside pieces and the pockets. The folks at Joann’s had no idea what tricot interfacing is and, when I told them I was making a purse, recommended a fusible interfacing that is a lot like a very thin, dense quilt batting. I quickly realized that, if I interfaced every piece, I would have something that was way too thick. So I interfaced just one piece of the front, back, and each pocket, and that worked fine. The small outside pockets that you see in the picture were not on the pattern, and I added them because I really like having outside pockets for my sunglasses and keys. They are not interfaced. The directions call for a magnetic snap closure, and that’s what I used, but I think it is too heavy for the fabric. Next time I will use a velcro circle. Putting the purse together was pretty straightforward until I got to the binding. The directions called for 2.5″ wide bias single fold binding and also called for simply extending the binding to make the shoulder strap. I didn’t think single fold binding would wear well, and I didn’t like the idea of having a very thin strap of stretchy bias-cut fabric. So I cut strips on the straight grain for the strap and on the bias for the binding. I did a bit of test binding with muslin and decided that using the 2.5″ wide strips to make double fold binding would work just fine. In fact, I think single fold binding would be way too wide. The tough part was stitching the binding to the purse which consisted of a front, a back, and two pockets, each with interfacing in them. I could barely get the whole thing under my presser foot, but my 60’s vintage Singer rose to the challenge and stiched through it all without a glitch. Once the binding was attached to one side the directions called for folding the binding over to the other side, lining up the edge carefully with the stitching that attached the first side, and machine stitching the back edge of the binding. Yeah, right. I stitched it by hand, and it looks great. Then came the strap. At Marty’s suggestion, I interfaced that, and it was a good idea. I used 2.5″ wide strips folded in half and hemmed, so that the finished strap is a tad under 1″ wide. Of course, that made it wider than the binding to which I thought it would be attached, but a second look at the purse showed me that I could attach the strap to the top tip of the purse itself, stuffing a .75″ long unattached “tail” of binding at each end up into the strap to secure it. It worked just fine, and I now have the purse stuffed with all my stuff, and I’m planning to take it to FL. Oh, yes, and I’m very glad I have my notebook from Cathy to write all of this in, especially since I’m planning to make another one for my young friend, Carrie, using some pieced “fabric” that she brought back from Africa and gave to me. But first on the agenda is a quilt for my great nephew, Bennett, who is now 5 months old and, as far as I know, quiltless.

I’m still catching up on pictures of things I finished a while ago, so here’s my bamboo basket. Actually, the knitting was done a while ago, but sewing the lining in was a more recent endeavor, fraught with mismeasurement problems. It took two tries of cutting the lining fabric, then two sewing attempts to get a lining that fit. It was a “measure once, cut twice” kind of thing. I was fortunate to have enough lining fabric. The pattern for this is Bamboozelle from knitty.com, but I changed it a bit to suit my yarn (slightly thicker than used in the pattern) and sewing skills. I’m hoping it’ll help to contain the explosion of knitting accessories which occurs around the chair I sit in when knitting. My stitch markers have a tendency to disappear into the ether, or perhaps just under my chair.

The pattern called for working with the yarn (which really is made out of bamboo) at a smaller-than-usual gauge (the tapering is achieved through changing needle size, not the number of stitches), and the basketweave stitch also requires some knitting acrobatics. I like the end result, but boy was it painful to knit.

Here’s the exterior:

And the interior:

Upcoming posts: I’ve got a hat which just needs blocking, and my Rogue sweater is finished but not photographed.

Here’s a preview of my Rogue – someone made the same sweater with the same yarn as I did (even the same color!). The main difference is that I didn’t do the kangaroo pocket on mine.

Has it really been months since I posted? Getting high-speed internet is on my to-do list for the nearish future, so that should facilitate blog posting. My current top knitting project (of the several in progress) is of a seasonally secret nature for Mrs. “I won’t tell you exactly what I want and I want to be surprised so you’d better not show me what you’re thinking about making” (you know who you are), but I’ve got a bit of a backlog of projects to blog about.

This is the shawl you all saw in progress this summer – the Leaf Lace Shawl in Blackberry Ridge wool/silk laceweight, which is actually pretty thick for laceweight yarn (not to be confused with their even more laceweight wool/silk).

Here’s most of it – the long side of the triangle is about the same width as my wingspan, so maybe 65ish inches?

And a closeup of the point:

And an even closer close-up of the leaf pattern:

I really liked this pattern – there are a couple mistakes in the shawl, but they’re entirely my fault. I wasn’t so thrilled with the row length by the end of the shawl (the knitting starts at the center of the back and increases every right-side row until the last row is actually the length of the two shorter sides of the triangle), but that’s the nature of the thing.

Here’s another recent project – a hanging circular knitting needle holder. This is modeled after one which is available commercially, but which cost more than I wanted to pay (the cheapest price I found was $16 plus shipping). In making my own version, my requirements were that it be cheap and fast to make (otherwise, I might as well just buy it). I considered a few options – I could use a canvas fabric, but then I’d have to hem the sides – cheap, but not fast. Another option was to use regular cotton fabric and fuse it onto some interfacing to stiffen it and avoid hemming – fast, but the interfacing isn’t cheap. I ended up in the upholstery department at JoAnn’s, and bought jute webbing – stiff, cheap, and about the right width (yoikes – that’s going to show up on someone’s search for things-that-definitely-aren’t-crafty!). Then I got some narrower cotton webbing and a marker for writing the needle sizes, and some rings to use for hanging it on the wall. Total materials cost: less than $5, if you don’t count the marker which can be used for other projects. I sewed the cotton webbing onto one half of the jute webbing, then folded the jute webbing in half. I then sewed across to make “tunnels” – one for each standard size of knitting needle, and an extra at the bottom. I wrote on the sizes – both American and millimeter (the 2.5 mm doesn’t have an American equivalent). Note that I have some more needles than you see – I’ve been doing a bunch of swatching this weekend, so some needles are in my living room, and I’m also in the middle of making a hat. It was interesting to see what sizes I don’t own – I don’t have any size 9 – though I think I’ve got multiple pairs of old aluminum size 9 straight needles. And for some reason I have size 4 double-pointed needles, but not circular – I think I did mittens with them in college. I think I’m going to have to get size 4 at some point, along with some more of the smaller sizes. The really huge needles are used for things which will be felted.

This is slightly old news, but I figured I’d mention what I’ve been up to lately. My crackpottiest recent project was a sweater. After the Nordic mittens I decided that I wanted a more mindless knitting project, and a sweater to wear at home during the winter sounded like a good plan. I’d made the Ribby Cardi from chicknits once before, and wasn’t happy with how the size turned out, but I knew the pattern had potential. I had used the recommended yarn, but even though the rest of the world seemed to like it at 19 st/4″, I thought it was a little loose. (Now, had I been more discerning about evaluating my original gauge swatch, I would’ve figured that out before knitting the sweater). Lesson learned: it’s not enough to get gauge – I also have to like the resulting fabric, or I’m not going to be satisfied with the sweater. With that in mind, I chose a thicker yarn – Cascade Eco Wool, which I really loved working with. I knitted it tighter than the recommended gauge, and am happy with the resulting fabric.

So, I knitted the sweater -which was quite a smooth process – and after blocking the pieces, found that they had shrunk in length. I think the “warm” water in my washing machine was significantly warmer than what I’d used in the sink when blocking my swatch. Lesson learned: don’t block wool that loves to felt in the washing machine unless I’m ok with shrinkage. (Note: I didn’t actually “wash” it – I just used the “soak” cycle).

And that’s when the project got crackpotty. I knew that I’d need to lengthen the sweater, and because it was ribbed, I couldn’t just pick up stitches at the bottom of each piece and knit downwards – the knitting downwards is 1/2 stitch off from the knitting upwards, and the ribbing wouldn’t match. What I ended up doing was knitting extension pieces for the back and fronts of the body, then grafting them on to the original pieces a couple rows up from the original cast-on row. Then I removed the cast-on row and got a virtually invisible length extension. (I can give the gory details if anyone is interested). For the sleeves, I did pick up and knit downwards, changing from the K2P2 rib of the sleeves to a K1P1 rib so the lack of matching wouldn’t show. I knit enough to make turned back cuffs.

and here’s a photo of the finished sweater:

Pattern:
Ribby Cardi from Chicknits. I knitted the same size as the first time, but did the all-over ribbed version, which made the sweater more fitted, as I desired. I did change the collar a bit, using a variation I found on the Ribby Cardi Knitalong blog so the collar is a double layer of fabric. I also made the zipper facing one row wider than in the pattern, and added an inner facing so the raw edges of the zipper tape are enclosed.

Yarn:
Cascade Eco Wool, dark brown. Note: this is knitted at a gauge smaller than the yarn’s recommended gauge, and I had to go down to size 3 needles to hit 19 st/4″. I love the yarn and resulting fabric. There is some pilling, but the pills are loose and easy to remove. I’m hoping that the pilling will stop once the first pilliness is done.

Evaluation:
Despite the headaches in finishing, I love the sweater. Plus, knitting and grafting on the extensions was very educational. The one downside of knitting yarn at a tighter-than-recommended gauge is that this sweater is extremely warm. On the plus side, I might be able to turn my thermostat down a bit while wearing it.

Here are the finished Nordic mittens. No guarantee on the colors appearing accurate – I blame the poor lighting, my inadequate photography skills, and my monitor.

And since it seems to be trendy to also show the inside of colorwork projects, here’s the inside:

Details:
Pattern: Nordic Mittens from Interweave Knits, Winter 2004

Yarn:Brown Sheep Naturespun Sportweight, mostly my friend Bowerbird’s leftovers from her mittens

What I changed: I used black for the main color instead of the brown called for in the pattern because I want them to go with my black wool coat. I also replaced one green row in each color repeat with brown in an attempt to better coordinate with the scarf I posted earlier.

What I learned:
Norwegian purl makes corrugated ribbing rock.
Yarn dominance (which explains a lot about the appearance of my previous mittens).
Spit-splicing is my friend.
Multicolor mitten knitting is much more pleasing after a several-year hiatus (I’d done mittens in college and swore I’d never do that again)
When knitting patterns with multiple color charts, cover up the one not in use to avoid knitting from the wrong chart (fortunately I realized before even finishing the row I was working on that things weren’t calculating out correctly)

Evaluation:
This is a good pattern and was fun to knit, but I have some size issues.
The cuffs turned out longer that I was expecting, but the diameter is good. The hand part is rather large on me, so I’m not sure if I’ll try to shrink them a bit, or line them – I lined my other mittens with windblock polar fleece, and that’s been great on cold, windy days. I’m afraid that if I try to shrink them, the thumbs and cuffs will end up being too narrow.

I’m home from work with a yucky cold, so I have been zoning out on the internet and ran into this blog post and I think I’m the person referred to.

I’ve had this scarf done for a while (since at least last December), so here’s the picture, along with an exclusive pre-blocking preview of my nordic mittens. I’ll take more pictures of them once I’ve finished weaving in ends on the second mitten and blocking them.