Home Sweet Grrr Arrgh

    Mum recently designed this custom needlepoint canvas for a lady who definitely shares my, shall we say, taste. (Groan if you feel the need, but honestly, you'll just be perpetuating the pun.) Yes, those are little pink brains in the corners, complete with medulla oblongata.
   I think every pro-zombie apocalypse household needs one. If you happen to be a sick stitcher, or have questions, please leave me a comment and I'll put you in touch with the Mastermind.

Fat Bottom Bats

                                             Need a pocketful of bats? Of course you do.

Danger Level: Intermediate/Fiddly

Materials:
Fingering/4ply wool
US #1 double pointed needles
small amount of stuffing - I just used extra yarn scraps
something to stitch teeth - I used Neon Rays needlepoint ribbon
beads for eyes

Size:
About 1" tall x 3.5" tip to tip
Bigger yarn will make bigger bats.

Painless Provisional Cast On - Part III: The Shawlening

I love knitting triangular shawls. Well, to be fair, what I love is starting triangular shawls. There's always a point in there somewhere when the stitch count is over the moon and I wonder why I don't have a sensible hobby, like carving the Colosseum in a human tooth. And I do love wearing them, provided they are big enough to keep the chill off when skimming through the black void in the arms of my nightgaunts. I don't have many those little shawlette/bandana things; I need something practical for fleeing a haunted castle in.

Anyway.

My favorite way to start a triangular shawl is with a garter tab. Most patterns will have you begin this way, because it gives a perfectly smooth garter edge along the wingspan. Start with a provisional cast on of three stitches. With working yarn, knit an odd number of rows; in this case, I knit seven rows. Make sure you end with a right side row. What's facing you should look like this:

Not like this:

If you loose track of how many rows you have worked, remember that each ridge on the right side counts for two rows. When you've knit seven rows, turn the tab on its side. You will now pick up one stitch in each ridge. Just slip the tip of your needle through the little bumps closest to the edge.

Knit these three stitches. This will lead you down to your cast on edge.

Now, we want to get those cast on stitches live. In the picture above, you can see what looks like two and a half stitches, right under the provisional cast on. We'll turn that half stitch into a whole stitch in a minute. First, slide your free needle through the right sides of the two whole stitches:

...and under that last strand at the edge, holding the tail of your working yarn to the back:

Ready for a trick? Take a smallish crochet hook, and slip it up through the edge of the ridge immediately below your cast on. Grab the tail of your working yarn with the hook, and pull it through the ridge so that it forms a loop around your needle.

Knit these last three stitches. You now have nine stitches all together, with three for each edge and three for the center, and you are ready to work a wrong side row. Go ahead and unzip your waste yarn.

Let's work a few rows, with typical shawl increases, so you can see the what happens.
R1(WS): K3, p3, k3.
R2(RS): K3, [yo, k1] 3x, yo, k3
R3 & all following WS rows: K3, purl to last 3sts, k3.
R4:[K3, yo] twice, k1, [yo, k3] twice.
R6: K3, yo, k5, yo, k1, yo, k5, yo, k3.

Neat, isn't it? This is really all you need to start a triangular shawl. You could keep going and going in stockinette with garter borders, increasing at each edge and on either side of your center stitch, every right side row, until you reach the point of madness. Or you could throw in a stitch pattern or two, just to keep the gibbering at bay.

I hope you've enjoyed this little series!
Painless Provisional Cast On Part I
Painless Provisional Cast On Part II

Leftover House Socks - Patchwork Cable

 

        So, that happened last week. Just in case you forgot it's still sort of winter.

                             These bulky, woolly socks are just the thing for refusing to go outdoors in.

 I am in the thrall of knitting procrastination these days. I have a sweater that wants but another handful of rows. And finishing. Then there's the knee-high, all over, bar the ribbing. L'sigh. 

 When I reach that last stretch of a long project, I always get restless. Promiscuous, even. Am I going to spend this afternoon working on any of the above mentioned nearly done knitting? No. I have a couple skeins of cashmere that need something brioche done to them. And some left over Manos and Peruvia that I think will make more house socks, color-work this time (I'm one of those people who completely over estimates the amount of things that can be accomplished in an afternoon).

                                                                     

Little Black Bento + Big Surprise

       This Christmas was amazing. One my favorite gifts is this adorable bento box from Mum.

There is something very relaxing and refreshing about sitting down to a neat, tasty, little meal.
                                               It brightens an otherwise dreary work day.

                                       For now, I'm using this skeletal calico as a furoshiki.
I'm plotting a new wrap as my first project on one of my other totally amazing Christmas gifts:

                                          Queen Batflaps is responsible for this one. 
I feel certain this machine will take me past the "damn damn damn" stage of my sewing trajectory. That button up there? It back-tacks. All. By. Itself. Those wee heiroglyphs? All sorts of different stitches. This year is going to be so much fun!

Yule Badges

I felt like I needed a little Holiday spirit, something to carry me through the annual panic and remind me that all this with the paper and lights and last minute card making and frantic knitting is ultimately supposed to be fun. Cheerful.

                  It's how we mortals make a stand against the darkness, if only metaphorically.

These are surprisingly easy to make. I covered some old pin-badges with a little white cotton, then knit blanks of my favorite Shetland wool - Jamieson & Smith's Ultra. I ran the ends through the edges and pulled them snug around the backside of the pins, and I used Appleton tapestry wool to duplicate stitch the motifs. I think I'll have to make more (when the aforementioned late night knitting is completed)!

Owyhee Vest

A few weeks ago, I inherited a mixed bag of Colinette Chrysalis from a long line of baffled knitters. I decided to accept the challenge, and see if I could make something wearable out of it. A most unusual yarn, it is a kind of unspun cotton suspended in a loosely bound tube of stitching, bulky, heavy, and soft.

After pouring over every pattern on Ravelry, a design started grow in my brain. A vest, loose but a little fitted, pockets, a shawl collar. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, and I wasn't sure I had enough yardage to get me there. I went for it.


I made the back first, with some shaping. Next, I picked up from the side seams and knit forward, casting on to shape armscye, then knitting straight until I had a shoulder to seam, then casting on a little more to meet at the center of the neck. Here, I joined the front pieces to work the collar as one. When I was done, I picked up along the bottom edge for a few rows of ribbing. Finally, I picked up near my side seams and made some capacious pockets. 

I'm pretty pleased with the results.


I think next time, I'll add some short rows across the back to keep it from curving up so much, and some across the collar to make it a little larger. Next time, I think I'll use wool, or maybe an alpaca blend. I definitely need at least one more of these. 

This turns out to be a wonderful way to make a nearly seamless sweater; the only joining is shoulder to shoulder, sewing down pockets, and stitching the collar to the back at the neck. The changes in direction highlight variegated yarn, and any pooling winds up vertical on the front pieces. It is terribly versatile. I've worn it with skinny jeans and long skirts, over t-shirts and sweaters. The Pacific Northwest calls for a lot of layers, and this vest is a perfect addition to the heap.

The blending of colors reminds me of little lichens, and picture jasper, and the desert southwest of where I grew up, all dust and sky. I never would have chosen this yarn for myself, but I'm so glad it made it's way to me.
                                         

Yipes! Stripes!

                  I turned around one day in July, and realized I'm in the midst of a craze for stripes.

Mad Simple Shapely Legwarmers

Top Down Summer Sweater

Little Anklets

This is hardly surprising. Return with me now, if you would, to the dark ages of the late 20th century, before there was a Hot Topic in every mall, before Harry Potter and Hogwart's house colors. Should a girl want something like the Doubtful Guest's scarf, or Dorrie's long and never-matching socks...

from one of my favorite Edward Gorey books

from Dorrie and the Blue Witch

 

...there was only one thing to do. Learn to knit. Somewhere in a trunk, I still have that first black and white striped scarf. It's about 1.56 miles long. I wore out the stockings long ago.

The Rikke Hat

-Stripes are completely addictive to work. "Just one more row"  easily becomes, "Just one more stripe".
-Stripes are thrifty, and eat up those single skeins all knitters have lurking in their stash.
-Stripes are a fantastic way to play with color; against a neutral background, even wild colors look fresh.

Different Lines

You'd think I'd be sick of them by now, but I'm plotting some old-fashioned stripey knee-highs for fall. Maybe I'll mis-match them, just like Dorrie.