Layette #6 for Knitwits

First Knitwits FO of the year, Layette #6.

We'll start with the blanket, though it wasn't the first item in the set I completed.

Pattern: Shell stitch Crochet edging.

Yarn: Caron One Pound

Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Ocean

Hook: Size G

Started: January 20, 2016
Finished: January 21, 2016

Comments: I love the print on this fabric.

Next, we have the jacket.

Pattern: Super Natural Stripes by Fawn Pea

Size: 0-6 months

Yarn: Caron One Pound

Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Ocean

Yarn: Unknown acrylic yarn

Content: 100% Acrylic, light worsted weight
Color: Lime

Yarn: Red Heart Classic

Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Capri Blue

Needles: Circular size 5 and 7

Started: December 31, 2015
Finished: January 14, 2016

Comments: I really like these colors together. The Lime was just a little thinner than the Ocean so it came out a little bit smaller than usual, but it's still plenty big enough to fit a newborn. I also was a little short on Lime, so I did Ocean for the bottom welt, cuffs, and button/neck bands instead of using the Lime like the pattern instructed. I like it this way. Found the perfect froggy button for it too.

The front.

Back

Now the hat.

Pattern: Magic Coffee Baby Hat by Tracey Kay

Yarn: Caron One Pound

Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Ocean

Yarn: Unknown acrylic yarn

Content: 100% Acrylic, light worsted weight
Color: Lime

Needles:  Circular size 5 and 7

Started: January 14, 2016
Finished: January 16, 2016

Comments: I just did the one stripe of Lime in this one.

Booties for the feet.

Pattern: Seamless Garter Tassel Booties by Karen Strauss

Yarn: Caron One Pound

Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Ocean

Yarn: Unknown acrylic yarn

Content: 100% Acrylic, light worsted weight
Color: Lime

Needles:  Circular size 5

Started: January 16, 2016
Finished: January 23, 2016

Comments: There is something not quite right about the garter cuffs on these, but I'm not sure what it is. Not gonna worry about it. I did the EZ Sewn Bind Off  and I like it much better. Much stretchier and looks great. For the ties, I just made cord with Lime yarn.

I've already started the next set. This one will be black, lemon yellow, and gray.

We are just chilling for the weekend, working on home projects interspersed with watching things on Netflix. It's nice to not need to go or be anywhere. It was cold outside today, and snowed just a bit while I was out there doing some hot tub maintenance.  I was being reminded that it's still winter.

Live long and prosper. \\//

A Teddy Bear

I was going to do a WIP Wednesday post, but Blogger was down for a couple days, so I will save it for another day. Today I am showing off another one of my machine knitting toy designs.

Before I bought my first knitting machine, I got a few magazines to see what kinds of things I could make on one. Such beautiful things. One issue had 2 patterns that I wanted to make in the worst way. One was a blue plaid suit jacket with matching skirt. The other was an adorable teddy bear. Both were written for the 4.5 standard gauge Japanese made machines. However, I ended up buying a Swiss made Passap.

My Passap came with 10 free lessons (of which I got 6 before the shop owner closed up the shop and disappeared in the middle of the night. I went to my 7th lesson and discovered an empty shop. She was later found in another state-having fled there to get out of paying a lot of debt.) At one of my lessons I asked my teacher about making this teddy bear. She said "Oh no! You can't make stuffed toys on a Passap!" I thought her statement to be ludicrous and figured she just didn't want to be bothered with helping me figure it out. So I determined to figure it out myself.

Oddly, that magazine disappeared. At first I thought I'd left it at the shop by accident, but when I went back to look it wasn't there. I don't know what happened to it. I never found it, so I figured out how to make a teddy bear completely from scratch-after just 3 lessons on my Passap. It took me just one week. This is the result, Curly the Bear.

I took my first Curly to my next lesson so I could let that teacher know that stuffed toys can be made on any knitting machine.

I made the little one first. Then, when I decided to write up the pattern and publish it I developed the larger size too. I have put this pattern up on my pattern blog. However, it is NOT written for the Passap. I got so many requests from 4.5 standard gauge machine owners that I convert it to their machines I went ahead and did that. It is the version I make available, for free, now.

The weather has been up and down. Wednesday was abolutely gorgeous. It got up to 74F degrees at my house. I was too busy to sit outside and enjoy it though. Yesterday it rained, and we're supposed to get lots of rain over the weekend (like we need more-the local rivers are almost at flood stage now). For right now, though, the sun is shining-for just a couple hours. I'm going to go take advantage of it and finish that second entrelac mitt I've been working on.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Birds

There has been major snow melt the past week, so there aren't as many birds coming to the feeder now. Here are a few that visited yesterday.

Female Red Crossbill

European Starling

Northern Flicker

Rufous-side Towee, also known as the Spotted Towhee (male)

Rufous-side Towee (female)

I have spent the whole morning checking and fixing links and code in my sidebar. Thanks to Ringsurf, all my web rings code had to be changed. If you have a web ring on your site through Ringsurf, you need to check it. They've completely changed the way its done and all the old code is no longer valid.

I thought I'd just mention that the tutorial link in the sidebar for Turkish Loop Bead Crochet is down. Eva, the owner, is computer handicapped like me and accidentally deleted her whole web site over the weekend. She'll have it back up in a few days-she hopes. Takes talent!

I did learn how to do the loop crochet yesterday. It took a bit for me to figure it out. The brain understood, the hands didn't want to cooperate. They acted like they've never seen a crochet hook before. I did get 6 inches of my first rope done. I will take photos and post tomorrow.

We had a wonderful Gotcha Day celebration. I roasted the biggest chicken I could find for dinner. It turned out magnificent! I outdid myself with that chicken. So moist, and full of flavor. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Morgan's most favorite food is roast chicken. He'd eat it until he exploded if I let him. For dessert, I shared a slice of banana cream pie with him. He much preferred the chicken I think.

Today I am taking my car to the hospital. It needs an oil change, and I need to get the rear window wiper fixed. Sweet Hubby broke it this winter when he was trying to be helpful by scraping the 2 feet of snow that was on my car off. Unfortunately, he scraped the wiper off too. I'll be KIPing- taking something with me. I expect to be waiting for an hour or two.

For those who don't know, KIPing is Knitting In Public.

The shawl is coming along nicely. The socks are not. I need to give myself a kick. I guess I'll be a good girl and take the sock with me today. But the shawl looks so much more impressive to a non-knitter.

Have a good day.

My Knitting History Part IV

Barbara G. Walker

The introduction of knitting magazines and books was a MAJOR life changing event for me. I knit shawls, sweaters, hats, and mittens by the yards. I seemed to have a natural gift for not just knitting, but creating too. I started designing my own ideas and knitting them.

The person who was the most inspirational to me at the time was Barbara G. Walker and her first two Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I found them in the local library my senior year of high school. Unfortunately, they were out of print so I could not purchase my own copies of these two fabulous books. I checked them out, and kept them checked out for well over a year by renewing every month. After graduation I actually got a part time job at the library, which made it a lot easier to renew. It was these two books that turned me into a serious knitting addict. It's mind-blowing to think that so many hundreds of patterns are varieties of just two fundamental stitches, the knit stitch and the purl stitch. I would spend hours just looking at the pictures and reading the patterns. They stimulated my creative juices to flowing like nothing else. Eventually, though, my boss insisted I return them so others could have a chance at them. Sigh.

That's when I wrote a letter to the publisher asking, yes even begging them, to PLEASE put them back into print. I must not have been the only one to do that because it was less than 2 months later that I was in my favorite book store and ran across them literally fresh and hot off the presses!

If you are of the nature and ability to get creative with knitting, I highly recommend Barbara's books. They contain patterns of every type of stitch you can imagine. We're talking lace, cables, purl and knit textures, colors, mosaics, ribs, etc etc all nicely organized in easy to find categories with pics of each pattern knitted up. She has even added 2 more volumes to the first two.

While surfing the web last night I found a really cool web site called The Walker Treasury Project. A group effort has been organized to knit larger swatches of every stitch pattern in the four volumes and publish color photos of them on this site. Although every stitch pattern is illustrated in the books, the photos are small, most in black and white, and in a lot of cases don't fully show the potential use of those patterns. Larger swatches can do that. Anyone willing to help can join the project. Info can be found on the web site on how to do so. I think I'll join. It sounds like fun, and I love to 'join' knitting things anyway.

Have a great day!

My Knitting History Part III

My First Sweater

When I was a senior in high school (1976) my mother brought home a magazine with knitting patterns in it. I did not know there was such a thing until then. I looked for the magazine, cos I know it's around here somewhere and I was going to scan the cover, but I can't find it. It's currently buried in a pile of boxed leftovers brought home from the closing of my store. I think it was a special knitting edition by Ladies Home Journal, or Womans Day. One of those two. The magazine fascinated me. Oh what avenues of knitting opened up to me. What wonderful things could be made with but two sticks and some yarn. The patterns were so awesome!

I found a particular sweater in that magazine that I just HAD to make. It was a simple sweater. Stockinette, with drop shoulders, big 3/4 length sleeves that had cuffs, a square neckline, and ribbon trim sewn around the neckline and along the sleeve cuffs.

Not knowing anything about knitting sweaters, I determined that I had to follow the directions exactly, right down to the same kind and color of yarn. Fortunately, my Mom found a store that had it. Germantown Worsted wool. Scratchy, and expensive. But I'd saved my babysitting money up and I had enough to get it. I took my new treasures home.

It took a few days to get up the courage to cast on those first stitches. I just kept fondling the skeins of yarn. After I cast on I discovered this sweater knitting thing really wasn't that difficult after all. It was just, basically, a bunch of short wide scarves sewn together. I even got brave enough to adjust the length of the sleeves a bit (I have short arms.) I enjoyed every stitch of that project. Weeks and weeks of dedicated knitting went by and finally the sweater was done. It fit me perfectly.

I decided to hand wash the sweater before that first official wearing. After washing, I carefully laid it out on the floor on a towel in front of the fireplace to dry. I remember it was really cold that evening, so I didn't think the sweater would dry otherwise. My parents had a thing about not turning on the furnace unless we were about to freeze to death. Usually it was the fireplace, and blankets. I had some place I had to go, orchestra practice, or maybe it was a youth club meeting, I don't remember exactly. What I DO remember is saying to my Mom to keep an eye on that sweater and turn it over a couple times while I was gone. I also remember she was in her favorite chair reading a Harlequin Romance. She said she'd take care of it.

When I returned home later that evening the first thing I did was check my sweater. It was still laying in front of the fireplace, dry. Oh yes, definitely dry. Too dry. In fact, it was scorched!! On the front! A fairly good sized section was brownish green burnt yarn. Mom hadn't looked at it once the whole time I was gone (curse those romance novels). I was completely devastated. All that work. That beautiful sweater, ruined! She apologized, of course, but I was never able to wear it.

Two things I learned:
1) Don't dry my sweaters in front of the fireplace.
2) Don't trust Mom to keep an eye on things.

I never left her in charge of my knitting again after that.

I still have it. I carefully wrapped it in tissue and stowed it away in a box that sad day. Every once in awhile I'll get it out and remember how much fun I had knitting it. This is a pic taken yesterday.

(Burnt spot artfully covered with sleeve)

Have a great day.

My Knitting History Part II

The Scarf Years

I think it's important to mention that one knitting lesson from my father is the only knitting lesson he ever gave me. When I got to the end of my first complete scarf I asked him about binding it off. He replied that he couldn't remember how and that's why he bought me the How to Knit book. Remember, I was 9 years old. It's a testament to how much I loved knitting that I persevered and stuck to it under the circumstances. I didn't know anyone else who knit, so I had no choice but to use the book. For some reason, though, I found learning from the book easy for me.

For the next several years I knit scarves. I became well known for my scarves. Anyone who knew me, or knew someone who knew me, got a scarf made by me. I made scarves for 2 reasons. I liked them, and I was scared to make anything else. Doing anything with a stitch pattern, or any shaping at all was incredibly daunting to me. It was a long time before I got the courage to move on to something else.

Once in awhile I did ribbing or stockinette, but mostly I knit my scarves in garter stitch with 3 colors of stripes. The local grocery store carried a fairly nice acrylic yarn called Love Knit that came in every color under the sun, and then some. I spent most of my allowance and babysitting money on that yarn. I loved experimenting with different color combinations. I made so many scarves that I actually wore off the blue coloring on the tips of my needles. My knitting got incredibly even in stitch construction too.

I still remember 'the pattern'. I'd made it up myself.

Materials: One 3.5 oz. skein each of 3 colors of worsted weight yarn. (A,B,C)

Tools: One pair size 6 knitting needles.

Finished measurements: Approximately 6, or was it 8, inches wide by 5 feet long, plus fringe.

Gauge: Not important (Never heard of it at the time so have no idea.)

Cast on 50 stitches with color A. Knit 20 rows. Change to color B. Knit 20 rows. Change to color C. Knit 20 rows.

Repeat this stripe pattern until scarf measures 5 feet. End with an A colored stripe.

Bind off. Weave in ends. Add fringe to ends if desired.

I actually started getting orders for scarves. People payed me money for MY scarves. It was very exciting. I didn't make much money. Just enough to keep me in yarn. Eventually, though, I saturated the market and ran out of folks to make scarves for.

In my senior year of high school I finally got the desire to make a sweater.

Next time, Part III, The Sweater

Have a great day.

My Knitting History Part I

I don't have anything to write about yesterday because it was a quiet, boring day for the most part. So I thought I'd write about my knitting history.

When I was 9 years old my father took me down to the local Payless Drug store. He bought me a pair of 14 inch blue Boye size 6 knitting needles, a skein of really ugly worsted weight acrylic gold variegated yarn, and a little book with knitting lessons in it. When we got home he showed me how to cast on and do the knit stitch. Then told me to knit a scarf.

Up until that day, I did not even know my father knew how to knit. So this was all quite a surprise. For years and years I wondered how and where he learned to knit because he'd never told me. My father is not one to talk about himself. However, whenever he did talk about knitting, it was stories from his army days about knitting socks while sitting in a fox hole. So I assumed that's where he learned. It wasn't until just a few years or so ago I found out he'd learned to knit from his father, who learned from his father, who learned from his father, on down the line. (I had no brothers, so I got lucky.)

Needless to say, I LOVED it! I worked on that scarf until I ran out of yarn. Unfortunately, I needed a second ball to finish it. I hated the color so much I never got around to asking for that second ball-so I never finished the scarf. Instead, I talked my Mom into getting me 2 skeins of purple and white variegated (see? I've always loved purple). With this new yarn, and my little How To book, I learned the purl stitch. I knit a whole scarf in stockinette stitch, and used the book to learn how to bind off. I was HOOKED.

I used to carry my knitting around with me in a little basket. I even took it to school and worked on it on the school bus and during my lunch break. It took weeks and weeks for me to knit that scarf. I don't remember what the other kids thought about this. I must not have cared.

Over the years I have often wondered why? Why did he decided that day to teach me how to knit? I think I might know the answer. Earlier that year I'd been hanging out in the Cherry tree in the front yard, eating cherries. The branch I was standing on broke. I fell out and landed flat on my back, fracturing it. The fact that I can walk around today is a miracle.

Injuring my back severely curtailed my physical activity, pretty much for the rest of my life. I think my Dad taught me to knit because he saw that I needed something to do while sitting around. Whatever the reason, I'm thankful for what he did because knitting has given me many many hours of joy.

Have a great day.