Pransellknit

For a good part of yesterday afternoon, Matt and I worked on putting these little beauties together. As many of my non-knitting projects do, this started off as a childhood memory. When I was younger, I really liked receiving those clear plastic stockings filled with popular chocolate bars for Christmas. They’re admittedly cheap, overpriced tat, but there’s no accounting for taste when you’re younger (my love of New Kids on the Block is another example of my dubious taste as a child). From that little seed of a memory, I made my own version of them.

Because they’re pretty quick to put together, and thus could work as a last minute gift, I thought I’d note down how we went about making them.

Ingredients:
Stocking template
Paper
Pencil
Eraser
Sewing thread
Scissors

Wrapped sweets

Method:

I’m not good at drawing, so I found a stocking template on Google Images to trace around. My stockings ended up being around 18cm long, 8.5cm wide at the top and the foot 12.5cm long. However, rather than be prescriptive about it all, I recommend finding a template that appeals and go with that. Or, if you are that way inclined, draw a stocking shape freehand.

We then traced the stocking shape onto a double layer of paper. We used brown paper from a large stationery chain store and could fit three stockings across the width of the paper. The most important thing about selecting paper to use in this project is to choose something that is strong enough to hold the weight of the sweets and treats you wish to put in them, but not so stiff that it can’t be closed up at the top.

At this point it’s probably best to cut around the stockings, leaving a 0.5-1cm seam allowance, but as my sewing skills are about as good as my drawing skills, I sewed around the stockings first using my sewing machine then cut them out. In some ways this was a good exercise in sewing machine control for me… in fact, it’s possibly something I should have done before launching into sewing garments. Oh well, you live, you learn.

Then we erased any visible pencil marks, and filled with a delightful assortment of wrapped lollies. I found it a bit difficult to get lollies into the toe of the stocking. This slight issue could easily be alleviated by making a bigger stocking, or using a template where the foot is not at a right angle to the leg.

Once the stocking is filled with treats, sew up the top, trim any excess thread and any excess paper at the top, and you’re done!

‘Tis a really simple project; in fact, I’m wondering whether I really needed to write out directions. Unnecessary though they may be, they do provide a good segue way into wishing you all a very relaxing and enjoyable holiday period. Stay safe if you’re driving anywhere, and beware of snow drifts (this goes for people in the northern or southern hemisphere!).

It’s astounding how seemingly quick projects can be held up by little, but important, details. A fine example of this is a couple of small baby items I started nearly two months ago. The knitting portion of the projects was completed very quickly, but finding the right buttons was really difficult. I visited all my usual haunts (and lamented the shrinking collection of buttons at the Elizabeth Street Clegs), but couldn’t find anything suitable. Finally the right buttons were found and the projects finished.

Pebble by Nikol Lohr
1 ball Freedom Sincere DK, grey; a skerrick of Freedom Sincere DK, yellow
4mm needles
Start: November 2010
Finish: December 2010
Modifications: slightly larger needle, small row- and stitch-count changes accounting for gauge, striped garter stitch section
Ravelryed: here

Now that it’s all done and photographed, I’m a little disappointed with how this version of Pebble turned out. Pretty much all of this is down to two decisions I made when first starting Pebble.

The first problem is the yarn choice. As my friend’s baby was due in November, I thought using a cotton yarn would be more practical as we’d ordinarily be heading into warmer weather. So far, this summer can only be described as tepid, so a wool-based yarn might have been ok. It’s been quite some time since I’ve worked with cotton, and had forgotten how unforgiving it is relative to wool. So, the fabric’s probably a bit more uneven than I’d like, and some of the weaving in of ends shows through a little bit on the front.

The second problem is my dogged insistence to have a striped yoke (if it indeed can be called a yoke). Initially I wanted to make the garter stitch section blue, yellow and grey. As it wasn’t possible to hide the edge where I carried the yarns, it looked really messy and was quite bulky. By this stage my friend’s little girl was born so the blue was ditched and the garter stitch section consisted of grey and yellow stripes. Even with one less colour and strand of yarn it still looks a bit messy and bulky.

Despite my mild disappointment with the end result, I think, and hope, it’s still wearable.

One thing I should mention about the pattern is the number of ends it produces. This wasn’t helped by using two colours in the top section, but it still seemed like quite a large number for such a small garment. The photo above shows how many ends were woven in… So don’t be fooled by the fact it requires no seaming. You will be paying for that privilege in the form of weaving in ends.

Happily, the other quick project for my friend’s baby girl turned out quite well. As it happens, there’s a free bib pattern out that roughly matches the pebble vest.

Easy Peasy Baby Bib by Michelle Acuavera
Scraps Freedom Sincere DK, grey
4mm needles
Start: November 2010
Finish: December 2010
Modifications: smaller needle, small row- and stitch-count changes accounting for gauge, striped garter stitch section, press stud closure
Ravelryed: here

These were very quick to make and a good use of leftover grey yarn. Small modifications were made to the number of stitches cast on and rows worked because I used 8ply instead of the recommended worsted weight. After a small amount of market research, I opted to use a press stud as the closure rather than a button hole. According to a friend with an almost 2 year old, a buttonhole closure might prove a bit fiddly. It looked a bit plain with the hidden press stud, so a button was added for purely decorative purposes. I did toy with making some bibs using the yellow cotton, but decided pretty quickly that it wasn’t nearly as practical a colour as the grey.

It was quite a relief to get something, no matter how small, finished. It felt like quite a while since I’d triumphantly snipped off the last woven in end of a project!

In a recent phone conversation with my sister, the topic of belated birthday presents for one another came up. My sister mentioned that she’d better finish my present off so she could give it to me when I saw her next. My curiosity was piqued by the use of the word ‘finish’ but I tried not to read too much into it. On the weekend I saw my sister, and the present exchange occurred. The little mite had knit me a scarf!

Not just any scarf, but a lovely feather and fan scarf. I’m immensely proud of her — she did a fantastic job, and the yarn she used (Sublime, she tells me) is so soft and warm. I’m not sure if it comes up in the photo but it’s a bit crinkled because the weather’s been cold enough for me to wear it.

Something that the photo hasn’t quite picked up is the colour of the yarn. It’s a bit greener than the photo makes out. A light duck egg blue, I guess is the most apt description.

The owl buttons are a really nice touch too. The white goes well with the light duck egg blue and I’m such a sucker for owly things so she must have known she was on a winner by putting them on.

I don’t know if you read this blog, but thank you little sister, I love my new scarf to bits.

A little while ago, I decided to knit a beanie as a gift for a friend. I had a hat’s worth of yarn in stash in a colour that suits her very well, so it seemed that fate had intervened and the project was obviously meant to be.

Initially I cast on for Porom. The twists looked a bit puffy, but mostly it looked good. That is, until I finished it and blocked it. What was once a nicely-sized slouchy beanie had turned into a perfectly good shopping bag, without handles.

Slightly disillusioned but as stubborn as ever, I ripped it back and reused the yarn in an Icing Swirl Hat. It soon became apparent that it was far too small. So again I ripped the hat back, and soaked the kinks out of yarn. The yarn was starting to lose its structural integrity by this stage, and my disillusionment was starting to grow. As was my stubbornness, for that matter.

I don’t have photographic evidence of either of those mishaps, which is quite fortunate as it means I’ll most likely remember that yarn as this beanie:

Anna Karenina by Veruschka Babuschka
Not very much Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 8ply, Cream
2.75mm and 3.25mm needles
Start: August 2010
Finish: August 2010
Modifications: different yarn
Ravelryed: here

The pattern hadn’t been long published when I knit this beanie up. It was a nice easy knit, with just enough variation to make it interesting. Having two beanie failures ended up being a blessing in disguise — of the three patterns, I think this one turned out the best and I’m really pleased with it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve used Luxury, but I must admit I’m a bit frustrated with it. While it’s a lovely soft yarn and comes in quite a few nice colours, it drops quite a lot after its first watch (see Porom). Sadly, I don’t think this is an uncommon problem. I had been planning to make a few bigger things using Luxury 4ply, but I am now a bit Luxury-shy.

Who would have thought all of this was down to not swatching? I tend to swatch for larger garments, but take for granted that for something relatively small, like a hat, would be ok without a test swatch. I have learnt my lesson.

It was lovely to read everyone’s comments about my Derwents, it’s nice to know that their popularity wasn’t confined to just my primary and high schools.

The Derwents were used to plan out my latest graphic design assignment: an A3 poster based on a song lyric of my choosing. I’m fairly inept at both drawing and using image editors so I had to be a bit creative in how I produced the poster. Luckily, I recently came across a lovely cross stitch blog, and had been thinking about doing some cross stitch. So, it was decided that cross stitch would be a good way to avoid drawing and image editing software.

Armed with grid paper, coloured pencils and youthful enthusiasm, I put together a pattern based on a cross stitch border found on etsy, vintage transfers found on Flickr and a particularly uplifting lyric from Morrissey. A week and a half later and with slightly less youthful enthusiasm, I had cross stitched this:

To save my sanity somewhat, the cross stitch is around A4 size, half the required size. Through the magic of scanners, I then made it A3. Although some of the texture is lost through scanning, it works surprisingly well as a paper poster. I won’t bother posting the scanned version of it, as it more or less looks the same as the photo.

For those playing at home, the lyric is from How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths. My Dad seemed a bit dismayed when he saw the cross stitch today; I’m not sure he understood why I went to all the effort of cross stitching something so depressing. To me, that’s the point of it — dainty is often associated with pretty or positive things, when it doesn’t necessarily need to be that way.

Prior to this assignment, I had only attempted cross stitch once when I was ten. My auntie helped me to make a couple of book marks for my parents which I think worked out ok, if not a little wonky. There’s still a fair bit of wonk to this piece, but I don’t think it would be as good if it was perfect.

Irrespective of the mark I get for the assignment, I’m really proud of this work. It’s not often I look at things I’ve made with a sense of pride. I’m often happy or satisfied with a knitting project or other non-crafty pieces of work, but pride is just that step further. The trick will now be to make sure I keep doing things that I feel proud about.

A more organised blogger might have a few blog post ideas squirrelled away for times where there’s not much to blog about. Sadly, I’m a fairly disorganised blogger, so I’ve let the blog go fallow again. I have been busy knitting while I’ve been away though.

Grandfather Vest by Veronik Avery
1.25 balls Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply, Anthracite
4.50mm needles
Start: August 2010
Finish: September 2010
Modifications: different yarn, and that’s it!
Ravelryed: here

As soon as I saw this vest, I knew I had to buy the book that it’s from, Knitting 24/7. It’s a book that’s full of good staples like scarves, jumpers, shawls and socks, so although I primarily bought it for the vest pattern, there are enough interesting patterns to make it a good buy (especially if purchased via the wonderful Booko).

The vest pattern is very straightforward as it’s knit in the round up to the armholes. I think that’s the reason why its completion snuck up on me — it’s very easy to get into a trance-like state knitting stocking stitch in the round. Before you know it you’re staring at a pretty much completed vest that just needs buttons sewn on to be done and dusted.

I was originally planning to use a pair of lovely green glass buttons that I received for my birthday last year. However, while in my trance-like state, I decided that the grey/brown fabric and the green weren’t meant to be together. This left me in a slight state of indecision as I hadn’t considered any other yarn/button pairing, but then these grey buttons jumped out at me as I was sifting through my button collection:

The yarn used was probably the oldest yarn I had stashed away, so it fit in nicely with the ‘first in, first out’ stash theory. It was purchased in either 2004 and 2005, and was leftover from a hat and scarf I knit for a friend. While it’s a good policy to make sure there’s more than enough yarn to cover the project you’re working on, my aversion to running out of yarn resulted in my having around 400 grams extra, which is a tad excessive. Having said that, these leftovers have given me a very wearable item of clothing, so my whinging is minimal.

The colourway, Anthracite, is a bit of a strange one. Under some light it looks quite grey, and in others, very brown. I think it’s a colour that was produced for only one or two seasons which is understandable — it was very hard to get a good idea of what the colour was like from just the shade card.

I’m a little disappointed with the fabric I produced with this yarn, as it’s a bit uneven in places even after blocking. I’ve used Classic 8ply before and gotten very neat results so I’m at at bit of a loss to explain why it’s not so good this time round. Hopefully it’ll even up as I wash and wear it.

It seems my trance-like state was very productive, for as I was creating round after round of stocking stitch, I decided to make the cabled jumper for Matt rather than the striped raglan. As much as stocking stitch makes for good commute projects, I found myself wishing for something a bit different. Something with cables should scratch that itch, even if it flies in the face of ‘first in, first out’.

Matt’s fingers have been suffering this winter. While I’ve been getting by just fine with my Herringbone Mittens, Matt’s gloves gave up the ghost in Japan. In their stead, he’s been trying to survive with a pair of fingerless mitts I made for him in 2006. Fingerless mitts seem to be fine when it is barely cold, but as soon as the weather even marginally resembles Winter, they are completely insufficient.

He was well overdue for a pair of knitted gloves, particularly because I’d promised to make him a pair after I made my Dad a pair of Knucks a few years ago. In what can only be described as perfect timing, just as I was starting to look for glove patterns, Ozknitter pointed me in the direction of a nifty mitten pattern that would do the trick.

Presto

Chango!

Podster Gloves by Glenna C.
Sock yarn from the Bendigo Woollen Mills bargain room (equivalent to Heirloom Argyle)
2.75mm needles
Start: July 2010
Finish: July 2010
Modifications: different yarn, larger needles, added rows to the thumb gusset
Ravelryed: here

The largest size offered by the pattern were for small mens’ hands, so I used 2.75mm rather than 2.5mm needles and added two more rounds to the thumb gusset. With these modifications, they fit pretty well.

By far the best part of this pattern is the podster thumb. It has a little flap so he can flick his thumb out and use his iPhone (iPhone touch screens are unresponsive to gloved fingers). The pattern calls for part of the flap to be knit separately and then attached to the thumb, but was a little unclear about how to sew it down. I ended up using a whip stitch which probably wasn’t the best option, but it’s pretty secure and the dark yarn hides a multitude of sins. The long cuff is also really good, and can be easily tucked under jumpers or jackets.

So far, they’ve been worn nearly every day since I snipped the last end off. Nothing says success than that.

Last night I discovered my table and chair was posted on Design*Sponge, which was not only a lovely surprise, but a nice way to end the working week (thanks for the heads up Debs!). If you’ve moseyed on over here on account of that post, welcome!

It was astutely pointed out last post that the blog has taken quite a sunny turn. So I don’t get people’s hopes up, here’s a dull grey jumper I finished a couple of weeks ago:

Still by Kim Hargreaves
2.75 balls of Bendigo Woollen Mills Boutique, Grey
4.00 and 3.00 mm needless
Start: May 2010
Finish: July 2010
Modifications: different yarn, smaller needles to get gauge (no lengthening required!)
Ravelryed: here

I mean dull in the nicest possible way, because I’m really happy with how this jumper turned out. The length is good, the waist shaping sits nicely and I really like the neckline. I was concerned the gathered sleeves were going to be a bit fussy for my taste, but they seemed to puff out a little less with the yarn I used. This might also be because of the sleeve cuffs, which despite my adherence to the pattern, seem a bit shorter than the version in the book.

The yarn was a limited run that came out a couple of years ago. I bought three balls almost as soon as I saw the shade card, because Bendigo Woollen Mills was, and to a certain extent still is, not known for their greys. I think the colour suits the pattern well, making it a little less girly than the book’s version, which is a pastel pink. The yarn itself is a little rough, making it a wee bit prickly, but nothing I can’t get used to. I have worn it a couple of times and it has started to pill around the sleeve cuffs. It would be preferable if it didn’t pill, but I’m one of those odd people who gets a strange sense of satisfaction from de-pilling, so it doesn’t bother me too much. It’s a jumper that will get a lot of wear.

I enjoyed reading everyone’s thoughts on the value of handcrafts. It’s a recurring issue, but one that I doubt will ever be fully resolved. It is inherently difficult to price handcrafts — as Michelle mentioned, I think there’s a tendency to price goods based on what the seller thinks the buyer will pay, rather than what’s fair compensation for materials and time taken to make the item. I did this myself in my short foray into selling knitted items. Obviously, there is no point pricing something so high that no one will purchase it. However, to me it seems pricing of handcrafts is often based on the price of its substitute, machine-made or mass produced items. Perhaps (re)education is required for both the buyers, in terms of understanding the time required to acquire a skill and produce an item, and the sellers, in terms of valuing their hard-earned skills. Having said all that, it seems like quite an over-simplification for, as mentioned before, quite a vexed issue.

Matt and I are edging ever closer to owning matching tracksuits, now that my version of Henry is finished.

Henry by Mareike Sattler
1.5 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted, Paris Night
5.50 mm circulars
Start: February 2010
Finish: June 2010
Modifications: many, listed in detail below
Ravelryed: here

While doing research into Matt’s Henry, I came across this version and knew that I would have to make a similar one for me. Because I used Malabrigo Worsted, my Henry is a lot thicker, softer and I’d argue warmer than Matt’s. That’s not to say mine is necessarily better than his, it’s just different. A good kind of different.

The pattern calls for three repeats (12 rows in total) for each diagonal section, and seven pattern repeats (the herringbone ‘v’) in total. I opted for two repeats for each diagonal section and four repeats in total. This resulted in a scarf a smidge over 12cm wide, a little bit over half the width prescribed by the pattern. I don’t think a wider scarf would work as well in worsted weight yarn as it would feel a bit too bulky around my neck.

As with Matt’s Henry, I used a cable cast on, but the cast off used for Matt’s — k2tog and slip resulting stitch back to the left needle — didn’t translate well to the heavier yarn. The closest I could get to a matching cast off was to use a modified sewn bind off. The cast on and off don’t match exactly, but I think it’s close enough. If I were to make another Henry, I would definitely swatch the cast on and off, something I neglected to do this time round.

Besides the cast on/off issue, the only minor niggle I have is the slight flare at the ends due to a slightly looser tension at the ends of the rows. It’s not too noticeable, and because I wear the scarf under my jacket, the ends aren’t generally visible anyway.

Although a few little issues created frustration at the time, I’m pretty pleased with how this one turned out. The herringbone pattern scales up well, with some minor modifications, and it is so lovely and warm — perfect for the cold weather we’ve been having.

Excluding my Tyrolean Cardigan, it has been over a month since finishing my last knitting project. There’s been lots of knitting going on, but progress has been slow. So, it is with great relief that I present my latest finished project:

Generic toe up sock pattern by Wendy Johnson
75g Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply, Raven
25g Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply, Kelp
3.75mm needles
Started: May 2010
Finished: June 2010
Ravelryed: here

As the name suggests, these socks are a belated birthday present for my Dad. Although they are late I am pretty confident he will not mind — he seems to quite like hand knit socks. In fact, this is the fourth pair of socks I have knit for him, the third with this pattern and colour combination.

The previous pairs of Dad socks were knit either using one colour only, or with contrasting ribbing, heels and toes. This time I decided to treat Dad to some stripes, using the spiralling stripe method (Ysolda has a good tutorial here). I quite like this method for knitting stripes in the round as there’s no jog to worry about. However, it did require working with a number of balls of yarn at once, which resulted in some major tangles.

This pattern is my go to for plain socks as it is very straightforward. The yarn makes nice thick socks and has the advantage of knitting up very quickly relative to convetional sock yarn. Based on previous Dad socks, it seems to wear pretty well too. The fabric is probably a bit open, so next time I will use smaller needles.

Speaking of next time, I will have to find a better foot model. There was a little bit of a goldilocks thing going on when I took the photos — Matt’s feet are a smidge too big for the socks and mine a smidge too small. I am sure Dad will appreciate me drawing comparisons between his foot size and a fairy tale character.