Erica’s Blog

Meet Helga.  Helga is three parts Alafoss Lopi yarn from the stash my mom gave me a while back, one part lumpy acrylic of an unknown brand (stranded w/the Lopi), and one part Squiggle (likewise stranded with the Lopi).  This picture doesn’t really do her justice, but hubby needed to take the new camera with him to work today to document some work they paid for that a vendor didn’t do, so all I had was the old, mini, flashless free digicam. 

Helga is twice as big around as Inge, and I plan for her also to be taller.  The straps are supposed to me made separately, then sewn on later.  That’s probably not the sturdiest way to make a bag, but you can’t have everything.  Helga is going to be my knitting bag after she’s been felted. 

I decided not to use the Suki pattern from www.knitty.com after all.  Instead, I’m using a very simple one called the “No Rules Bag” from Angel Hair Yarn Co.  So far, so good.

So, this woman walks into her LYS with her four-year-old in tow.  She’s looking for just a little bit of 100% wool in an interesting color to act as an accent in a felted tote bag she’s making.  Noticing that the same woman who was sitting at the back left corner of the table knitting the last time she came in is there again (still?) wearing something different and knitting a different object, she asks advice of the three knitting ladies.  Twenty minutes and $39.95 later, she walks out with a ball of Crystal Palace Yarns Squiggle (color 9292, browntones), one skein Galway worsted wool (color 91, sort of a pumpkin orange), one skein Galway Highland Heather (color 746, sort of an egglplant color), a skein of Lamb’s Pride worsted (color M-29, Jack’s Plum) and another of Lamb’s Pride worsted (M-155, Lemon Drop). 

As she leaves, she wonders how to keep from getting in trouble with her husband for spending the money on yarn when she recently spent $200 on yarn from JoAnn.  How to explain it to him?  OK, well none of that yarn was the right fiber content for felting.  Hmmm, but then he’ll remind her that the whole reason she got started on this felting kick was that she was trying to use up some of her stash — the Lopi yarn her mom had given her, not buy more yarn.  Hmmm.  Guess there’s no way to make excuses.  Guess she’ll just have to ‘fess up tonight. 

Uh, oh.  That means she’ll have to admit to eating some of “his” ultimate turtle cookie dough, too.  Oy.  Well, that’s what she gets.

Meanwhile, she decides not to use the Lemon Drop and the orange in the current bag.  They would, however, look great combined to make a small felted purse for someone as a gift.  She can see the stripes now…

Well, that was a quick project!  From left to right, we have:

1. Inge before felting
2. Inge after going through on a 4-minute cycle, then a 6-minute cycle.
3. Inge after going through a 14-minute cycle, then the dryer on high for 30 minutes.

She didn’t shrink as much as I expected, which will be good to know for future projects with this yarn.  B/c of that, she doesn’t really look like the pattern photo, but she’s still cool, IMN-S-HO.

Can’t wait to start the next one!

Say “Good-Bye” to that crummy old shed…

I’m going to attempt to recreate my pattern for the sampler scarf.  Please bear in mind that, were I to do this again, I would NOT include the stockinette sections.  Yes, they look nice, but they roll WAY too much.  Instead, I would use about ten rows of garter stitch between sections.

That said, here’s the basic idea:  garter stitch at both ends; at least two knit stitches at the beginning and end of each row for a selvedge edge; after each openwork section, several rows of stockinette, then garter, then stockinette (purpose of this was to make the openwork sections more distinct).  In most cases, I did four repeats of each pattern but, at this point, for most of them I really don’t remember.

Working up from the “bottom”, or the end I started from, here are the patterns:

1. SECTION ONE
   • Miniature Leaf Pattern, Knitting For Dummies, pages 173, 184 & 185.
2. SECTION TWO
   • Ridged Ribbon Eyelet, Knitting For Dummies, page 183.
3. SECTION THREE
   • Spider Pattern #4
   • Please note that the finished product looks almost nothing like the pattern b/c of my yarn choice and gauge.  I still like how it looks, though.
4. SECTION FOUR
   • Elongated Garter Stitch
   • This is from a scarf pattern.  I really like how it looks and will probably make a scarf entirely in this in the future.
   • This section came out wider than the others for some reason, most likely human error.  Is this stitch really called drop stitch?
5. SECTION FIVE
   • Arrowhead Lace, Knitting For Dummies, page 184.
6. SECTION SIX
   • Heart scarf pattern (scroll down to page 7).
   • The original pattern for this makes one heart.  I did two repeats with an extra K in between so that I had two columns of hearts.
7. SECTION SEVEN
   • Knotted Openwork Scarf
   • I didn’t do as many repeats of the pattern as I originally intended to do b/c the pattern went astray at one point, and I didn’t feel like frogging to fix it.  I knew it would be more obvious if I started doing it correctly again, so I just stopped.  Lazy, I know, but it was late, and I probably shouldn’t have been knitting at that hour.
8. SECTION EIGHT
   • Open Honeycomb
9. SECTION NINE
   • Fern Lace (scroll down)
10. SECTION TEN
    • Honeycomb Slip Stitch (scroll down farther)
11. SECTION ELEVEN
    • Foaming Waves
    • For this one, I did K5 on each end of the rows for selvedge edges, with two repeats of the pattern, so each row was K5, [pattern], [pattern], K5.
12. SECTION TWELVE
    • Eyelet Twigs
    • For this one, I did K3, [pattern], K1, [pattern], K3.
13. SECTION THIRTEEN
    • Lace Rib Panel
    • For this one, I did K5, [pattern], K2, [pattern], K2, [pattern], K5 on each row.

There were lots of other cool openwork/lace patterns I found that I couldn’t use either b/c the multiple of stitches needed just couldn’t be made to work easily (at my skill level) with the width of my scarf (35 stitches) or b/c I ran out of yarn. I actually have two more skeins of the fuschia Wool Ease, but I didn’t want to use them for this scarf.  Total yarn used:  Just under two skeins.

I just realized that I haven’t posted any hat pictures in a while.  This project is definitely stalled.  I’m trying to make myself do two or three hats (at least) in between my other projects if I have the time. 

One of the really nice things about having finally taken the time to figure out how to use dpn’s is that now I can make my baby hats seamless.  Having also figured out some lace patterns, I can now make pretty little lace baby hats. Awwww…..

Baby Kai, look out.  Some hats are bound to come your way (along with some other stuff).

See hubby.  See hubby working on the closet.  See what hubby did.  Hubby will be done soon.  Doesn’t hubby look cute with his new hair cut?

OK, I don’t really like the pictures of me knitting, but hubby and the Things were goofing around with the camera last night, so I let them take them.  Since they applied to this post, I kept them.

I got started on the felted bag yesterday afternoon.  There were a couple of false starts:  first, I had my cast-on row twisted when I joined; second, I remembered that you’re not supposed to use white yarn for felting and started with some white, so I had to frog it; third, I realized that, while I had circ’s of the right size, I didn’t have circ’s of the right length for this project, so on the way to pick up Thing One from school, Thing Two and I stopped at the LYS (so expensive!) to get needles.  I ended up having to get bamboo ones b/c they didn’t have the Inox ones in the length I wanted.  I must say, though, that they’re really nice.

Once I got going on it, the project started going pretty easily.  I only stopped when I did b/c I was tired and went to be early last night.  I wish, though, that I had read the pattern more thoroughly before I started.  If I had, I would have realized that it starts with the handles, and I wouldn’t have used my small amount of rust-colored wool in the handles.  I would have saved it for lower on the bag so it would show up better.  As it is, when it felts and rolls, I suspect you won’t be able to see it.  Oh, well. As Alanis Morissette would say, “You live, you learn.”

The pattern I’m using has a really boring name — Free Lopi Tote.  Whoopee.  So, I’ve decided to call this thing Inge.  Hey — all the other knitbloggers have names for their projects, so why not me, too?