Finished: Starry Night Project Bag

As mentioned previously, I took up the challenge to make items for the October 2015 Geek and Nerd Swap, and was assigned to find ways to interpret Gothic architecture and Impressionist paintings into handcrafts.  A knitted scarf took care of the Gothic side of things, so Impressionism was to be the inspiration for another handcraft.

I should point out that the specifications for the swap do not include two handmades.  A swap package is to include one handmade item, one fiber arts item (such as yarn or stitch markers), an edible goody, and a non-edible goody.  I like making two handmades because I sew as well as knit and crochet, and I think a handmade project bag, notion pouch, or needle case is an excellent way to translate a theme into a beautiful, useful item.

So I spent time staring at pictures of Van Gogh's "Starry Night," my swap partner's favorite painting, and sketched out the major elements of the image: the exaggerated moon, the hilly landscape, the church tower, and the swirling winds.  I then looked up the dimensions of the bags produced in this tutorial, and converted my sketches into panels of the correct dimensions on parchment paper.

 

Finished: Gothic Arches Scarf

At the end of September, I made a perhaps foolish decision.  I signed up for the October edition of the Geek and Nerd Swap on Ravelry.  The theme was Art and Architecture, and while that is not my area of expertise at all, I was unemployed and so in theory had lots of free time, if not a lot of money.  It seemed like a good project that would require a bit of research and give me something besides job applications to think about.

When partners were assigned at the beginning of the month, I found mine liked Gothic Architecture and Impressionist paintings, with a particular affection for Van Gogh's Starry Night.  She also lived in a warmer part of the US, so accessories had to be on the lighter side.  I ran with the Gothic Architecture theme in knitting.  This style is known for its emphasis of vertical elements, use of pointed arches, and bracing walls with flying buttresses.  Pointed arches and flying buttresses allowed the stone buildings to be built taller than had been possible before with stone, adding to the vertical emphasis of the buildings.

Finished: Elizabeth Shawl

As I have mentioned before, my maternal grandmother is the original crochet person in my family.  I grew up with crocheted ripple afghans she had made and gifted us, and she started teaching me when I was about eight.  She stills talks about the lovely crocheted lace doilies made by the other women in her family and her friends.

When I became aware that her eightieth birthday was approaching last fall, I decided to make her a lace shawl as a birthday gift.  I selected the lovely Elizabeth Shawl pattern by Dee O'Keefe and Malabrigo Silkpaca in Polar Moon to match the description my mother gave me of "grey with some blue in it."  I cast on with my new Hiya Hiya interchangeables and knitted away, in evenings, over holidays, and on the train.

I spectacularly underestimated how long it would take me to finish this shawl.  I started in September 2014.  It took over six months from cast on to bind off, and I finished when I did in large part to having started to send 8+ hours a week on a train, primarily knitting.  The shawl then sat, unblocked for months, until I traveled to visit my grandmother in person.

The pattern was easy to use and in my opinion quite well-written.  The yarn was soft and the color lovely.  It was also extremely slippery on my metal needles, but that doesn't bother me much.

Upon my arrival at my parents' home and shortly before my grandparents' arrival to visit, I was able to take over a spare mattress and an hour of time from one of my brothers, who helped me pin out the points.  Much of dinner was spent sneaking off upstairs to check on it and then remove all the pins.  I have, unfortunately, only terrible pictures of the final shawl.  I also failed to take any pictures of my grandmother's reaction.  She first laughed at me for having missed half of dinner, and admired the shawl until she had to put it away to keep it safe from the dogs.

I think that was a good response.

Finished: Inlay Socks

Universe, enough already.  In the past twelve days, I discovered my practice skirt had disappeared an hour before a lesson, had a horrible performance at a big competition, had a three-day disagreement with my supervising professor, and tried to rearrange plans because other professors want to reschedule a meeting into my vacation time.  Something was blocking the railroads out of Brussels last Friday, so getting to Germany to spend the weekend with my husband required changing trains three times only to skid into the final station 45 minutes late.  DB only gives refunds for delays of an hour or more.  To cap it off, the direct trains I have been using for this Belgium-Germany commute are not available now due to the summer holidays, and my next best options run at odd times and take over an hour longer than nominal.

At least the long train rides mean buckets of knitting time.  I got the Inlay socks done.

Inlay is by Hunter Hammersen and was published in the First Fall 2011 issue of Knitty.  The pattern is thorough, and I love the texture of the final fabric.  I think it gives the sock a unique look when compared to the far more common cables and lace sock patterns out there.  I never managed to memorize the entire repeat, so I kept a paper copy of just the charts in my knitting bag and referred to it often as I worked.  The pattern was worked cuff-down on two 2mm metal circular needles.

Finished: Jaywalker Socks

I am primarily a transit knitter.  Much of my knitting is done in ten minute snatches while I'm waiting for or on the bus.  Train travel, which happens about once a week for me now, is also excellent for handwork.  Big lace projects have claimed the train knitting time lately, so the bus knitting time goes to socks and hats and other simple things that can be started and stopped easily.  One shouldn't underestimate the bus knitting time, though; I spend 20-40 minutes a day on public transit of one form or another, and as the weather gets warm enough for me to knit while standing at the bus-stop, that will only increase.

This is how, while bigger projects get all the screen time, a finished pair of socks pops into the Knitbook without previous mention.  These are my recently cast-off Jaywalkers.  The Jaywalker is one of Grumperina's most famous designs and a fine example of her skill in pattern-writing.  She provides little details for a nice finish as well as ample information on the techniques used, so no previous sock experience is needed for this pattern.  The chevrons do wonders for self-patterning yarns, and as this yarn has so much patterning going on, I doubt any other pattern could compliment it as well.  The yarn is Opal, and while not soft, it is sturdy enough to handle several froggings without looking ratty.  I think I did a good job of matching yarn to pattern here.

Finished: Jade Anna Dress

It has been a hectic few weeks with travelling and train strikes and a presentation and birthdays and a competition.  I have multiple finished things to share, but let's cut to the main event, shall we?

Guys, the Jade Anna dress is done.

Finished: Ellinor Hat

Look!  I finally finished something!

This is the Ellinor hat, from the pattern Ellinor by Maria Naslund.  It is a feast of twisted stitches and lace.  I love it.  The pattern itself is adequate in transferring information, but it does assume that the knitter can fill in details.  Instructions for steps like joining to work in the round are omitted, for example.  There are several rows where one must shift the start of the row to work a decrease at that seam.  The pattern also includes six different kinds of decrease, with minimal instructions on how to work them.  I spent a couple of busrides staring at the hat and the pattern instructions until I figured out a decrease that would get rid of the appropriate number of stitches, lean the way I wanted it to lean, and twist the stiches I wanted to twist.  More thorough details can be found on my project page.

Finished: Lord of the Rings PotHolders

This particular project gave me a small host of problems, which is part of the reason I have been lax in reporting on it. I was excited for the January 2015 Geek and Nerd Swap because the theme was Imaginary Worlds and I love those in my fantasy. I had gushed about Lord of the Rings in my introduction to the swap, and since I knew January was going to be a busy month I started pre-planning hat and fingerless mitt projects around LOTR cultures and places.

Then I received my partner assignment, and found that while she would love to visit Middle Earth, she was more interested in home furnishings than accessories. That derailed my planning, because as the observant will have picked up I primarily make accessories. My home décor projects are limited to the occasional afghan and those potholders I made for my mother. So it was back to the drawing board for me.

January 2015 Swap Report and Finished: Swap Bags

The world postal systems turned out to be remarkably efficient at the beginning of the month, so I am the lax one in not reporting sooner on the results of the January 2015 Geek and Nerd Swap, themed Imaginary Worlds.  Let me put that right.

That time-consuming prima donna, the jade anna dress, became top priority in January because I had a competition I needed to wear it to and because it took far longer than I anticipated (see previous post for details on the most recent ripping and resewing).  The date of the competition happened to be the ship date for this swap.  It was not my finest example of time-management.  So in the midst of the ripping and resewing, when my sewing machine and serger seemed to have taken up permanent resident on the dining room table and green threads had attached themselves to everything in the apartment, I made a project bag.

The frog fabric was purposefully purchased for this bag, as my spoilee collects frog-related things.  The purple was part of the fat quarters/scraps I purchased to bolster my stash in January.  I followed Shannon's helpful tutorial, adapting it only to make the purple strip narrower and to have an opening on each side for the drawstrings.  The entire time I was sewing this, I remembered how pleasant sewing with cotton is.  It doesn't stretch!  It doesn't shift!  It doesn't bunch up!  It stays where you put it!

Finished: Lace and Cable Socks

My last completed project of 2014, sneaking in less than two days before the year ends, was the Lace and Cable Socks.

The pattern is Wendy Johnson's Lace and Cable socks, found in Socks from the Toe Up.  I made the size medium pretty much as written, using two 2mm circular needles.  I did add a bit of calf shaping at the top of the socks, so that it would fit comfortably around my legs at that height.

Finished: Pun'kin Socks!

Two pumpkin stems . . .

  . . . plus 32 pumpkins and 32 hay bales . . .

Finished: Rose Crowns

This is the second handmade I included in my fairy tale swap package.  I have found that I like to come up with three or four handmade ideas for these swaps, because something invariably goes wrong in making one or more or them.  After the tammy, I knew I wanted to do something with roses, because roses are a feature of two of my partner's selected fairy tales.  I knew my partner had a small daughter, that she read fairy tales with . . . and fairy tale costume items then seemed like a good idea.

So I went to ravelry and did a pattern search.  I didn't like anything that I liked in the first couple pages.  Instead, I made up my own pattern for a rose crown.  The roses were made following these instructions, but using shorter starting chains to make rose buds.  I knit the headbands so that they would be stretchy, and simply cast on three stitches and knit until the bands were long enough, where long enough was fourteen inches because that seemed reasonable for a toddler girl. 

Then, the morning when I needed to ship this package, I sat down with some additional green yarn and sewed on all the roses.  It is important to crowd the flowers together at this point; otherwise they stick out funny when the crown is worn. 

Aren't they fun, though?

Finished: Sleigh Ride Tammy

When I received my swap partner assignment for the August Geek and Nerd Swap, I was a bit intimidated.  My partner learned to knit about the same time I did, and she likes to make the same things I make (hats, socks, the occasional shawl), but she is far more prolific.  I think she turns out three times as many finished objects as I do, and her items show the skill that comes from that sort of practice.  I wanted to make something a little bit special, even if I couldn't pull off giving her something that she wouldn't necessarily make herself.

So I made a tammy.

Finished: Brotherly Binary

 The binary scarf, she is finished.

I have knit the last bytes, have woven in the blue ends, and have knotted the grey ends.  As this is a tube scarf made of non-superwash wool, I am confident that time and a bit of felting will ensure that the ends stay put out of sight with that minimalistic approach.  I then finally turned the scarf right side out and added the fringe.

The pattern is Christine Dumoulin's Binary scarf, knit up with Cascade 220 sport yarn.  When finished, this project had consumed about 740 meters of yarn, which Ravelry helpfully tells me is the largest knitting project I have ever made.  It certainly felt like it as its bulk increased; the final unblocked length was 76 in/ 1.9m.  This scarf is longer than I am tall.  Luckily, it is for my younger brother, who is markedly taller than me.

I am proud of how this scarf turned out, and thrilled I didn't get bored with it.  The initial cast-on was followed by a long hiatus, but the entire scarf was knit in just over a month after restarting.

This completes my long stint of knitting scarves for my immediate family, a project which has taken most of the last year.  After I block the tilting ribs cowl and this guy, I will label and send the last of these projects to new homes.  Meanwhile, I am feeling the strong urge to go cast on a sweater for myself.

Finished: Triforce Project Bag

My swap partner also expressed an interest in a project bag, so I decided to sew a small one.  Sewing a bag or pouch takes a lot less time for me than just about every other project I take on, and since I had already decided go with a Legend of Zelda-themed box, I knew how I could make the bag go with it.

A Triforce Bag.

The Triforce is pieced loosely following a tutorial I found on Diary of a Quilter, and the fabrics are 100% cotton quilting fabrics purchased at le Marché St. Pierre.  The main exterior fabric in particular reminds me of the background in the Temple of Light of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  The bag pattern comes from this tutorial, though I made a couple of minor alterations.  The largest of those was piecing the front of the bag to include my Triforce panel.  I also left two openings for drawstrings, one on each side, and only added interfacing in the bag's base, as I felt interfacing on the sides would make the bag hard to pull shut.

I think I was right on that last point.  The bag is a bit hard to close, though I expect it will get softer with washing.  I also think I should have used sturdier ribbon ties instead of fabric ones made of the quilting cotton.  Still, the bag turned out nicely, and it is big enough to hold a sock-in-progress or other small project.

Now I just need to make myself one, so I am not hauling my projects around in ripped plastic bags in my backpack.

Finished: Midna Mitts

Now that my swap package has successfully reached my partner, I can discuss my handmade items here!  The theme of this swap was fantasy, and my swap partner revealed that she was a fan of the Legend of Zelda video games, in particular Twilight Princess and the character Midna.  She also wanted practical things.  I have sadly never played Twilight Princess and had to look up who Midna was, but a little bit of searching for game images showed that she wears (in her true form) something that looks a little like gauntlets, or fingerless mittens.  So I knit a pair of fingerless mittens.

I found this ironic when I opened my package and she had also knitted me mitts.

The Midna mitts are based on Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts pattern in form, though I had to redo the thumb gusset increases to accommodate my row gauge.  The charts are my own, and are based on Midna's hair jewelry and the markings on her wrists and thigh.  The yarn is Lana Grossa Cool Wool Superfein, in the blue and black colorways.

Planning this project went quite quickly.  Knitting the first mitt did not.  I have minimal experience with stranded knitting, so I knit about half of a mitt as a gauge swatch.  This let me practice holding a yarn under tension in each hand as well as measure my gauge.  I discovered that working with one yarn in each hand means that each can be fed into the knitting at its own rate, which I needed for a pattern as random as the one I had (see evidence of wonky gauge on side of gauge swatch in above picture).  That was good, so when I got comfortable with that, I started the first mitt.  I later discovered that I put much more tension on the yarn held in my left hand (I normally knit Continental) than on the one in my right, and this was making my floats of the main color far too tight.  So I ripped out that mitt and started over again.  That attempt is what I called the right-hand mitt.

It actually doesn't matter which mitt is on which hand, as the shaping is top-bottom symmetric.  Switching them just changes which pattern is on the back of the hand.

Anyway, I finished the right-handed mitt about three days before I needed to ship my package, and had a bit of a knitting marathon weekend to finish the second one on time. However, when I had both mitts finished and right-side-out in front of me, I thought they looked extremely cool.

Happy Fourth of July!  I was born and raised in the US, though I have now spent most of the last four years living in Europe for study and work reasons.  It means that I don't get today off of work to celebrate, but it is a good day to be grateful for the legacy I have from my country.  Also, two years ago today, CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, ending a search of more than sixty years and an era in my field.  It is a good day to celebrate.

Finished: Pink Grapefruit Dress

It's all done and ready for dancing.  Rhinestones don't photograph well in my opinion, but hopefully you can see that there is more detailing of the roses on the side panels of the dress as well as the changes I described in the previous post.  This dress currently boasts Swarovski padparadsha ss20, crystal AB ss20, and a small amount of crystal AB ss30 as well as crystal AB sew-on stones.  It also has a few gross of Chrisanne's radiance ss16 crystals on there.

Now I am ready for it to be just a dress and not a project any more.  On to the next thing!

Finished: Tilting Ribs Cowl

Thursday morning I finished knitting the scarf for my brother.  Thursday evening I sat down to graft the ends together. 

 

The pattern (Tilting Ribs Scarf) is for a scarf, but I thought a cowl would stay out of my brother's way better, as cowls have no loose ends that can dangle.  To make the join as invisible as possible, I started with a provisional cast-on (the red yarn you see in my photos).  When I was ready to graft, I picked up the stitches held by the cast-on and unzipped and unpicked the crochet chain.  The Cascade 220 had managed to wrap itself around my red scrap yarn in several places, so some unpicking was necessary.

I then spent 40 minutes trying to sort out why I had picked up one less stitch then was supposed to be there.  I found it eventually.