Seamless...
I have been wanting to try one of Rebecca Danger's monster knitting patterns for a while. I was finally seduced by a PDF from her Etsy Shop of the delightful Penelope The Empathetic Monster. The slight snag was that I knew the pattern involved being able to knit in the round using magic loop on circular needles and three needle bind off, neither of which I knew how to do.
So, I headed to that font of all knowledge, YouTube and watched this video on magic loop and this one on three needle bind off about 20 times. For once, I decided to practice on something before heading into my big project. I proceeded to make a version of the gadget case in June 2011's issue of Knit Today magazine. I made it a little bigger than the magazine project and minus the beads using the leftover Rowan Handknit Cotton from my cupcake purse from the same issue.
A little while ago I bought a beautiful set of Knit Pro interchangeable rosewood circular needles and I used the 4mm needles with the longest cable to make the gadget case in the round using magic loop and I cast off using thee needle bind off (should really be four needle bind off as you need another needle to pass one stitch over the other on the third needle). It worked pretty well apart from a slight ladder on one side at the top before I got used to doing the first couple of stitches on each row really tight. I finished the case off with a lilac spotty button and a little crown embellishment.
Right, back to Penelope. I was so keen to start her, that I had to get the wool from my local market. I decided to work with chunky - the pattern allows for any wool weight with needles 2-3 times smaller than the norm you would use with that yarn. I ended up with some Sirdar Click Chunky in pink and a speckly green, which at 30% wool barely passes my wool snob test, but I think it looks okay. The yarn recommends 6.5mm needles so I settled on 5mm, again with the largest cable.
I made Penelope's body and all her extremities using magic loop. The only thing I couldn't manage was to make the rectangular base piece flat and then cast on all the extra stitches for the body in the round. I ended up knitting the base separately and stitching it to the body afterwards. The eye patch was a bit of a challenge, starting with only four stitches, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. I found the three needle bind off slightly fiddly on the ears and legs, but finally got it on the last leg.
I used safety eyes to complete Penelope's face and hand cut her mouth from white felt and glued it on. Obviously the techniques Rebecca uses minimises the sewing up anyway, but I finished up the ears, arms and legs with mattress stitch and attached them to the body.
As a finishing touch, Rebecca recommends tying a bow around Penelope's ear, which I just love.
I'm so pleased that I took the time to learn the new techniques to make this pattern. Not only do I love Penelope, but it's set me up to make loads of things I wouldn't have been able to do before. I've just bought Rebecca's Napoleon the Nervous Narwhal pattern, which I'm very much looking forward to trying.
Melx
Cute and fiddly...
I thought I would give the knitting a rest for five minutes and get some sewing done. I've been itching to get a project made from the fabulous new book by Amy Adams, Countryside Softies. The book came up in my recommendations on Amazon and I couldn't resist the cute fox on the front cover.
The book contains instructions and full sized templates for 28 little creatures, including an owl, a rabbit, a badger and a duck. I thought the style of the softies seemed familiar and indeed Amy also designed the Fancy Peacock I made last year from the Little Birds book.
All the countryside softies are made using a combination of printed fabric, craft felt and felted wool. The only flaw of the book is that it kind of assumes you have a ready supply of old woollen jumpers ready for felting, which I don't. I know I could do some knitting and then felt it, but that seems like a lot of work. Fortunately, Blooming Felt sells squares of felted wool that are just the right size for these projects.
After some deliberation, I decided to start with the mouse. The templates are provided full size so I simply photocopied the relevant page and stuck the pattern onto cardstock to cut out templates. I cut out the pieces in fabric and felted wool, trying to make sure I did the reverses correctly.
The body was the only part that could be machine sewn. I sewed the two body pieces right sides together with a gap for turning. The book recommends putting a pebble in the bottom of the body for ballast, but, not having any to hand, I used plastic pellets to stuff the bottom half of the body. I then hand sewed the base on. The book uses perle cotton 8 for the hand stitching, which I'd never encountered before, but someone recently gave me a huge bag of it, which was handy.
Having got the body sorted, I stitched on the tummy patch then made the ears. The ears and other extremities are made using blanket stitch. You get a bit of fraying with the raw edge of the cotton but I think that adds to its rustic nature. The book says you can use FrayCheck, but I don't like the finish on something this small.
The book uses tiny buttons for the eyes and nose, which I think are terribly cute. The whiskers were made from three knotted strands of perle cotton 5. I sewed the two tail pieces together and then attached them with a button to the back of the mouse.
As I'm rather idle, I used a ready-made Papermania bow for the mouse's head rather than making a felt flower. I sewed an additional rosebud to the tail to hide a dodgy bit of sewing. The book uses a felt heart on the body for personalisation, but, lazily, again I glued on a little apple motif.
I think my mouse is rather effective despite the fact my hand sewing is a bit rubbishy. I'm really looking forward to making the other creatures in the book - I have already cut out the pattern for the bumblebee...
Melx
Knit Today Issue 60
I am seriously behind with my projects from the magazines I subscribe to. I'm supposed to do at least one project from each issue but I'm having trouble keeping up with my own aspirations on this one. I finally decided to get a grip with June 2011's issue of Knit Today.
This is Katina Killey's (hi Katina if you're reading) Pencil Perfect project. It looked fun, quick and easy and I was even encouraged to try it by Knit Today's Knitting Horoscope (I'm an Aquarian) that proclaimed, "it's time to take pleasure in simple things".
I decided to reduce the size slightly and make the pencil case into a coin purse by casting on 30 stitches rather than 45. Like Katina, I used Rowan Handknit Cotton, opting for a pretty shade of pink I had in stash. I haven't done much knitting with cotton but I like the crisply defined stitches you get, although I did have to watch my tension. The project is knitted on 4mm needles with a patterned front and a plain stocking stitch back.
Having completed my lovely knitting, I was then faced with the horror of the zip. Despite the fact I have been sewing for considerably longer than I've been knitting, I still loathe zip fitting. I decided in the end to sew the zipper on through the right side of the cast on edge for the front and back of the purse. If you use ordinary sewing thread and small stitches, it's not realIy visible, but it is easier to see what you're doing that working on the wrong side of the knitting.
I then needed to cut my pink zip down to fit the purse and, having cut off the stopper, managed to pull the zipper off and my poor husband had a fun 20 minute re-attaching it. Once that drama was out of the way, I mattress stitched the sides of the purse together and finally sewed together the cast off edges on the bottom of the purse. I then sewed on a cute little cupcake button.
Katina suggested adding a lining, which I made from some cute Beatrix Potter pink cotton fabric. For extra robustness, I added some sew-in interfacing and stitched three sides of the lining together using my sewing machine. I folded over the top of the lining and pushed it inside the purse. I slip stitched the lining by hand to the zipper tape as per the method I often use from Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. My purse feels really substantial now.
For a final luxurious flourish, I made a zipper puller using a beautiful glass strawberry shortcake cupcake bead from my favourite lampwork artist By Keiara. I mounted the bead onto a sterling silver eye pin between two red Swarovski crystals and then wrapped the loop. I used a jump ring to attach the cupcake to the zipper.
So, I feel much more on top of my knitting now, although there are another two projects I want to get done from the same issue. Sigh....
Melx
I feel like a proper knitter now...
As part of my 2011 drive to extend my knitting skills, on April 17th I attended a course called Colourful Stitches at Purl & Jane in Skipton, a delightful new knitting shop about 40 minutes drive from my home.
The course covered intarsia, slip stitch technique (or to how cheat at Fair Isle as our teacher, Jane, put it) and Fair Isle proper. I got into trouble during the intarsia session for wanting to use my knitting bobbins rather than wind my own small skeins of yarn to use for each section of the piece. I also discovered that I have, for almost a year, I've been winding my yarn the wrong way round my needle for knit stitch. You would have think I'd have noticed, but no. Doh!
At the end of the 6 hour session, I had a sampler of each technique and slight cramp from too much knitting. The course was excellent value at £45, including a lunch at a lovely local cafe plus drinks and biscuits. I would definitely recommend both the course and the shop if you're passing Yorkshire.
After the course, I was looking round Jane's shop to find something to make with my new-found skills. I was delighted to discover that Jane of the shop was actually Jane Ellison, who designs for, amongst others, Mirasol. I duly purchased Jane's Mirasol Accessories Collection pattern book and bought the yarn for the Mollymawk bag (and for a couple of other things, but they're still in my backlog).
The bag is made with three shades of K'acha yarn on 4mm needles. The striped pattern is done using the slip stitch technique and the cute lamas are knitted using Fair Isle proper. I hope the reverse of my knitting doesn't look too messy:
Once I had knitted the main part of the bag, I decided to do the making up so it wouldn't be too overwhelming at the end. For the first time ever, I blocked my knitting as it was curling up quite a lot. I pinned the piece to my ironing board, sprayed it with water and left it to dry.
I thought my button hole was dodgy so I actually sewed it up around my fancy button (a czech glass one from The Bead Store). I think the flap is fine without a functioning fastener as the button is fairly heavy but I can add a press stud later if need be.
I lined the bag with a cotton print before I sewed it up. Lining knitting a pain because of the stretch. I slip stitched the lining to the wrong side of the knitting by hand but it's still not very neat. I mattress stitched the sides of the bag together, although one side is higher than the other if you look carefully.
Finally, I moved onto the strap, which continued in the striped pattern, and it seemed to take forever. My bag turned out a little smaller than the pattern said (perhaps my tension was tighter on the Fair Isle bit), so I got to shorten the strap a little, but it seemed to grow very slowly.
Eventually I got there and needed to sew in some ribbon to stop the strap from stretching. I have to confess, dear reader, that I sewed the ribbon to the wrong side of the strap using my sewing machine. It was about 20 times quicker than doing it by hand and the machine stitching hardly shows at all on the right side of the knitting.
Finally, I back-stitched the strap together, turned it the right way round (easier said than done) and sewed it to the bag.
This is my new hardest-ever project and, despite its many imperfections, I'm rather pleased with it. I'm also doing my knit stitches correctly the right way round now...
Melx
My own private bunny army...
I'm currently working on quite a complex knitted bag, which I hope to be showing on this blog in the next week. However, I've reached the strap and it's all starting to drag a bit. I did 48 more rows today and it still doesn't look any longer...
So, I allowed myself a little break to make myself one or two (ok, nine so far and counting) of these tiny knitted bunnies from a fabulous free pattern from Mochimochi Land.
I saw the pattern featured on favourite blog Supercute Kawaii and really, really wanted some tiny bunnies of my own. Now, I love Mochimochiland and I have Anna Hrachovec's book Knitting Mochimochi. Unfortunately, I've never felt up to knitting anything from it because the designs are mostly on spindly double pointed needles and often start with a very small number of stitches, which I'm not quite ready for (although I remain optimistic).
The bunny pattern was in the same style but I decided that their cuteness deserved a bit of ingenuity. The ones in the pattern were made with 2.25mm DPNs with fingering weight yarn. I went for 2.5mm needles and double knit. In fairness, I did use DPNs because I don't have any straight 2.5mm needles and the DPNs are nice and short. I knitted each bunny flat in stocking stitch. I had to alter the pattern a bit to get the increases and decreases all on the knit rows and I added an extra row for seaming. I joined the bunny with matress stitch on its underside whilst stuffing with a bit of toy filler. They came out at about 2cm long.
I made the ears as per the pattern with a two stitch icord that you simply thread through the body. The tail is embroidered with a few stitches in yarn. I made my eyes from small felt circles punched out with a Crop-A-Dile and glued to the bunny. If you look carefully, the zombie green bunny has embroidered crosses for eyes instead.
Once I made one, I couldn't stop and I can't usually bear to knit anything twice. I used some pastel Rooster Almerino DK for some of the bunnies and Rowan Pure Wool DK for some of the brighter bunnies. There are some scraps of variegated yarn and some King Cole in there too. The trick is not to let the stitches get too tight and to avoid splitting the yarn.
Assuming I can bear to part with any of them, I thought they would make cute gifts for friends. Endless fun for very little time and zero cost, so thank you Mochimochi Land.
Melx
