Major Knitter

How Knitting Connects Us

I love how the art of knitting connects us to so many other people.  I have met many friends through this blog.  I use my knitting to bring others happiness. I'm passing along a craft I learned from my grandmother to others who will in turn pass it on to future generations.

An artist friend of mine (and Marine) asked for one of my hats last November. I agreed to a barter of our crafts. My hat for one of her cartoons as a logo for my brand. She used my blog’s photo of my hands knitting as the focus for the logo.  Isn't it grand?

And my boss has a new grandson. Grandpa is a Marine so I sent a set of six booties including a woodland (green) and desert (light brown) camouflage pattern.

I love how three Marines were essential for this gift!

How does knitting connect you to others?

Making Something Beautiful Out of Leftover Yarn

My friend recently posted a picture of her mitered square blanket using up all the leftover sock yarn from over the years. You've seen these in the past.  They're fun.  They take forever.  They use up all that yarn you have lying around.

I was inspired and decided to use up some of my sock yarn.  But rather than just use colors willy nilly, I decided to make it more of a pattern.  I decided to make it a white blanket using up some Knit Picks Felici Bare (2.25 skeins) and using all sorts of blue fingering weight yarn from my stash.  It was a lot of fun and I'm happy with the results.

Details:
US Size 2 straight knitting needles
Approximately 225 g (approx 2.25 skeins) Knit Picks Felici Bare (un-dyed)
Approximately 200 g - random blue fingering weight yarn
Finished size - approximately 31x31 inches

Prepare to Dye!

Remember this sweater that I knit for Primogeniture for Christmas?  (Note - being modeled by Secundogeniture because he was available!)

I knit it in natural wool - because that's what I had on hand.  Primogeniture requested a charcoal gray sweater.  I asked for help in my Finish or Frog It Friday group on Ravelry and got a lot of suggestions.  My friend, upon realizing that this was my very first time dyeing a hand knit sweater directed me to the RIT dye videos.  It looked so easy, so that's what I did.

Supplies on hand:
6 gallons hot water
2 cups vinegar
Rubber gloves
1 bottle Rit dye
1 bottle Fit fixative
2 teaspoons dishwashing liquid
Sweater to be dyed
Sample knit swatch (with same wool as sweater) to test the dye

I carefully followed the instructions on the packaging and the video.  The sweater soaked in the dye for about 30 minutes (with constant stirring).  Then it soaked in the fixative for about another 30 minutes.  Then I rinsed it in cold water until the water ran clear.

I pressed out the excess water in the sink, blotted the very wet sweater in a large towel, then blocked it to the proper shape on my kitchen table.  Notice the swatch alongside the sweater.  I'll send that to my son to keep in the unfortunate event that the sweater requires mending down the road.

Now we wait a few days for this Forbes sweater to dry.  If you like this - please check out designer Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed.  

I can't wait for Primogeniture to try it on!

 

 

 

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Stitches...

Every year, for every gift giving event, I knit BF a pair of cashmere socks to keep his tootsies warm at night.  They're made out of Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 6-ply for the sole purpose of wearing around the house, not for outside wear.  They take me about 10-15 hours of dedicated knitting to complete.

Tonight I decided to pick up the bag of odds and ends of cashmere remnants from socks gone by to create a new pair of socks.  I randomly selected the deep purple, cream, sage and gray yarns to create a hodgepodge striped sock.  It's a great way to use up leftover yarn, because you would never want to let luxurious cashmere yarn go to waste.  

So do I count the stitches?  No, not really.  There are probably about 5,000 stitches per sock or 10,000 per pair.  Do you think that counts as my 10,000 steps for the day?  My step counter thinks so.  

No matter how you count it, it all adds up to love.

The Augusta

Not to be left out, I knit a set of baby wash cloths for my grand niece Augusta who is due any day and presented them to her parents-to-be.

This is a design by Kris Patay or KrisKnits on Ravelry called Baby Cloths.  They're small little cloths knit in a very tight gauge which really helps them pop.  I love the hand and foot prints best.  So cute.

I can't wait to meet Baby Gus.

I Was Wondering If I Would Get Anything Hand Knit

My niece is getting married this weekend.  For shower gifts she oohed and aahed over all the hand knit baby gifts her pregnant sister was receiving.  When she finally received a hand knit dishcloth and towel, she exclaimed "I was wondering if I would get anything hand knit."  Fast forward to the wedding.  I realized that I should knit her a set of dish cloths.  I found a pattern by Kris Knits called Wedding Cloths and quickly inquired about my niece's kitchen colors.

I was traveling last weekend and this was the perfect traveling knitting project.

I made three silver cloths - wedding cake, wedding rings and wedding bells.

Two Fiesta Red cloths -  Heart  in a Heart cloths

Three white cloths: husband and wife, champagne and dove cloths

Three ash cloths:  wedding rings, wedding chapel and wedding cake cloths

And the Valentine's Day Cloth patterns in Fiesta Red.

They were fun to make and look cute together.  They add a little happy to the daily chore of doing dishes.

I haven't used dish cloths since I was a child in Iowa.  Since I left for college, I have become a sponge person and have never looked back.  But I might change my own habit and knit a series of dish cloths for myself.  How about you?  Are you a dish cloth or a sponge person?

Can you feel the LOVE tonight?  Congratulations & Best Wishes!

 

 

 

Swatching

I know many people who never swatch.  Or they swatch and only knit one inch.  If I'm trying a new pattern or new yarn, I really like to do an accurate swatch.

Last night I discovered a new pattern and immediately knew I wanted to knit it.  

It's called Maine Squeeze by Katie Smith.  It's knit on US Size 13 needles holding two strands of bulky yarn together at the same time.  So it's extra quick and thick and it's so adorable.

Before using the actual yarn I bought for a blanket, I used the same yarn in a denim blue that was leftover from a friendship blanket a few years ago.

The swatch on the bottom was my first attempt with a US size 15. Good news!  I was spot on gauge of 9 sts = 4 inches. Bad news. I quickly noted two problems.  My wraps were too erratic.  I discovered that if I held the cable needle independently of the rest of the knitting, but close to the right hand needle, I got a more consistent wrap.  The second thing I noticed is that my stitches were a little bit loose.  I wasn't certain this is the look I wanted for this blanket.

Trying for a tighter stitch, I cast on again with a US size 13 needle.  See the top swatch. Good news. My wraps were more consistent.  The fabric I knit was more even.  Bad news. My gauge was slightly off.  10 sts = 4 inches.

I decided to go with a US size 13 needle anyway.  But as soon as I had knit about 5 inches of the actual blanket, I realized the more even fabric I was creating with the smaller needle was also creating a very dense fabric.  That was the opposite of the goal I was trying to achieve.

Ripping out and starting over didn't take too much time.  With double bulky yarn and very large size 15 needles, this knits up so quickly.  In no time at all I had the beginnings of a gift blanket.

I really like this blanket.  My only concern is that I'm not comfortable that the gauge is going to give me the overall dimensions in the pattern.  

Gauge: 9 sts = 4 inches

Blanket dimensions:  48" x 54"

Since I cast on 93 sts, I only see that this blanket will be 41 inches.  That's pre-blocking, of course.  So I hope those final dimensions are post-blocking.  Since it knits so quickly, there's a very good chance I finish this blanket today or tomorrow, so I'll let you know the final dimensions pre and post blocking.

 

 

31 Projects in 31 Days

Wow!  I like knitting lots of quick knits.  So much so that I actually knit 31 projects in the month of January.  I should say more accurately, that I finished 31 projects in 31 days.  Yes - there were many hats and jumbo Christmas stockings which are all very quick - but still THIRTY-ONE projects is a lot of knitting.  I don't think I posted every single on in the blog.  You can look at my Ravelry project page (click on the tab that says 2016) to see what I've been up to so far this year.

Now we're on to February.  I hope it's equally as good a month.  So far, I have quite a few felted hats and felted projects in mind for this month.  I hope it goes as planned.

Remember the Size 2 Wonderful Wallaby I knit last year?  It's for a friend who has had her first grandchild and I wanted to knit something special that her little darling could grow into.  As you know, the Wonderful Wallaby is one of my favorite projects to knit.  But it needed something else to give it a little extra pizzazz so I found Hanna Leväniemi's Siksak hat pattern that was featured on the front page of Ravelry on February 1st and knew that was the perfect accent for this gift.

It turned out quite nicely and my Curious George was more than happy to model the finished hat.

I made a pair of children's mittens and incorporated an abbreviated version of the zigzag pattern.  I added the crocheted string to go through the sleeves of the sweater so the mittens won't get lost on a toddler.  Is this a thing anymore?  

Together I think they make a nice set.  Now there is some life to the pink baby set.

And my friend was here for Super Bowl Sunday and she loved the set.  It's always good to knit the extra mile.

Another Baa-ble Hat

The Baa-ble Hat is so darned cute that I had to knit another one.  This time I had to use some darker green yarn and I wasn't sure how I would like it.  

I also used a darker blue for the sky and I think it worked out just fine indeed.  Baa.

I love a good close-up selfie.  It's pretty hard to take a picture of your own head (without getting your face).  Baa.

We're actually scheduled for a very cold weekend (-6 below zero!) so I'm very glad to have so many cute and adorable hats to wear.  Baa.

I'm not going to promise that this will be the last Baa-ble hat.  Perhaps I need one with black sheep instead of fluffy white sheep.  What say you?

Baa.

 

Three Marled Hats

2016 is the Year of the Hat in my Ravelry Finish or Frog It group.  That's great because it coincides nicely with my 2016 Year of the Purge.  Since I'm trying to clean things out of my house and move them to places where they can be used and loved (or in worst case scenarios disposed), knitting hats is a fantastic way to use up those random 1-2 skeins leftover from other projects.

My friend Michelle made Plucky Knitter's Marled Hat.  It's the perfect hat for stash busting as it uses two different colors of worsted weight yarn held together to create the marled effect.  It's super thick and warm and since it's knit on big needles, it knits up quickly.

I made a blue marled hat using two skeins of Cascade 220 that were on my shelf for about ten years.  I'm thrilled to finally have them become a stylish wearable item.

It's fine as is, but I liked how Michelle added a fur pompom.  So I purchased a few faux fur pompoms online and played around with them.

My personal review is that the Bernat faux pompom is fabulous.  It is 3.5 inches in diameter, comes in a variety of amazing colors, and looks and feels like fur.  The brown pompom is nice, but it has the look and feel of a teddy bear pompom.

I wasn't kidding when I said it was a large pompom!

The hat has a lovely slouch to it.  It's fashionable, warm and you can make up your own color combination.  

I made the third marled hat in two shades of purple.  If you're fortunate enough to own some Plucky Knitter yarn - you'll have an even more luxurious experience knitting the Marled Hat.  But any worsted weight wool will do.  

How quickly can you bust your stash and make some of these lovely marled hats?