Bye bye, little woollies

The little woolly innocent hats being sent off into the wide world.

Finally, something useful!

From Mazz's pattern in The Guardian's Rebel Knitter's Guide.

You know Mazz... the one who made the knitted adipose monsters, which the Beeb then went out-of-proportion mental about.

Anyway, I modified it because I was pretty sure my ball of yarn was shorter than her pattern, so I added in a stripe of different yarn. The orange crochet flower is courtesy of Nancia, and was useful to cover up the mysterious hole that keeps appearing every now and then in my knitting.

As it's in garter stitch, it's a small bag that stretches out ma-hoo-sive and is therefore perfect for shopping for things like onions, apples and asparagus. Not so good for Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers as the box sticks out funny and it's really obvious that you've been and bought junk food.

A crochet WIP

My crochet is really really basic at the moment. I'm planning to smuggle a crochet needle and ball of yarn onto the aircraft to Australia in order to spend 24 sleepless, uncomfortable hours upgrading my capabilities, but this is where I've got to so far.

This is a scarf, and the scallop will go down both sides when it's finished. It's pretty easy as it's all double crochet (UK treble crochet) stitches, 3 rows straight and then the same stitch in the scallop pattern. Unfortunately the yarn broke, and as I haven't learnt how to start a new ball I'm a bit stuck. Once I've restarted there's only about another half-an-hour's work in it, so there's no good excuse really.

More on piping

Just so that I'd get good value for money out of the new piping foot (which cost £9!) I've also bought this pattern. Again it's a bit summery to make at the moment... what I need is a cardigan.

A work in progress

I thought I'd list a WIP so that I've got something to put under the sewing tag and maybe to encourage me to get on with it. This dress is in an orangey-red linen and has orange piping. I started it when it was warm and sunny, and now it's cold and rainy I'm not very inclined to finish it. It's my first go at piping, and the piping isn't brilliant, but I didn't have a piping foot so I used a zipper foot.

Annoyingly I was 10cm short of piping, but when I went to get more I bought a piping foot, so maybe the rest of it will be better. I'll try to get it finished when I get back from my holiday, otherwise I think it might be a work-in-progress for another 6 months, until Spring!

It's from this pattern, view 3 (blue polka dots) but I'm going to add the pockets from view 2.

In the meantime...

The laptop cover is nearly finished, but I'm waiting to get hold of a crochet needle so that I can close the edges. In the meantime, here are photos of the much-hyped bikini. It's fantastic!

I have to admit to no intention of wearing it. Apart from anything, I've no idea how the yarn would react in water. Experienced knitted-swimwear wearer Jennifer tells me that sagginess is certain.

The strings are simply crochet chains, and the triangles are single-crocheted onto the chain. This was before I learnt how to crochet though so there's a twist at the bottom of one of the triangles. Since I'm not wearing it though, no need to do-over. Result!

First ever project

I'm posting pictures of this, my first ever project, for the sake of posterity. Using three balls of chunky yarn from the remnant bin in John Lewis (I can't remember what it was but it had cashmere in it and is lovely and soft) I knitted a scarf in single rib, with some random thick needles that I think might be 7.5mm.

Although the yarn is great, in single rib it was very dense. It also didn't go as long as I wanted because it was a rib, and shrunk up together. And finally, I made a few mistakes - adding and losing stitches so it got wider, as well as totally bodging up starting a new ball. Twice.

Anyway, past tense because I've ripped it down and re-used the yarn for a new project. I decided the density of the single rib in this yarn was ideal protection for a laptop, so I've started a laptop cover.

Aufwiedersehn!

Broadbean scarf

The broadbean scarf has received rave reviews, both from the optician this morning and the woman in the pound shop this afternoon, so I think it's safe to say that it's officially A Success.

I ought to point out that it wasn't originally intended to look like broad beans, but I'm happy with the way it has turned out.

All the casting on and casting off meant that it took the longest time to make. Although I speeded up as I got better at this knitting thing, each bean took about 1 hour at the beginning, reduced to perhaps 40 mins per bean at the end.

On the other hand, skinny £1-a-ball acrylic yarn goes a long way, so you can see how long the scarf is, from a single ball.

Finished Cost:
yarn - £1
4mm needles - £1.50
time - 54 beans @ 45 mins each - 40 hours (ouch, next time remind me not to do that calculation)

Charity smoothie hat knit

Whilst feeding my Crafty Crafty habit I read about the Innocent Smoothie 'Big Knit 2008' and immediately spotted a way to make myself feel virtuous for almost no effort. Besides, the knitted bikini is finished, I've still got tons of £1-a-ball yarn left, it's raining and Brief Encounter is on the TV.

First try was this:
I'm really quite pleased with it, despite a couple of failings. I read the pattern wrong - instead of going left-to-right then right-to-left on alternate rows, I went right-to-left on all the rows, which is why the seeds aren't offset enough. Not disastrous, but stupid. Oh and some of the seed stitches are quite ugly, possibly because of the tension. I think the i-cord stalk is a success, and I like the technique, although it would be better on double-ended needles instead of transferring the stitches from the right needle to the left.

I liked the technique so much that I used it again for my 2nd try:
This has a lot less stretch, I think because of the colour change. And if you look carefully you can see where I started decreasing with k2tog and forgot to think about the colour changes, so the stripes stop spiralling upwards. Minor issue though.

And the third (this is my fave) in plain stocking stitch and embroidery:









My last go was a standard beanie, with stripes of moss stitch. It's like a miniature real-life beanie, and I think it would be really good pattern for a man's hat. Maybe not in red acrylic yarn.