Knitted Notebook Cover & Felted Crochet Bowl

Simply Knitting Issue 94

Nothing in a knitting magazine attracts me more than a patterned labelled "Quick and Easy". In some cases, of course, this turns out to be an outrageous lie but happily not so with Louise Butt's study gifts set from June's Simply Knitting.

There were 6 patterns in total, but I narrowed it down to the knitted notebook cover and the felted crochet bowl.

First up, the A6 notebook cover, which I knitted using Paton's Fairytale Dreamtime DK in a vibrant shade of orange. The yarn is 100% wool, but quite smooth to knit with. The notebook cover is knitted in a single piece with 3.75mm needles. There is a simple garter stitch / stocking stitch section for the inner cover and then a 6 row pattern for the main section.

The making up entailed sewing the sections at each end of the cover to form pockets to wrap around the covers of the notebook. This is where the trouble started. It turns out that 2cm is not really enough to make the cover fit snugly around the notebook of its own accord. I think you'd need nearer 6cm to make it work. Also, the main body of the cover was curling up a bit and not reaching the edge of the notebook.

So, blocking time. I can count the number of times I've blocked anything on one hand, so I wasn't terribly confident. Nonetheless, I ironed the reverse side of the knitted fabric to fold over the edges and flatten the piece. Then I used 10 paperclips to fasten the cover in place on an old A6 notebook. I then sprayed the lot with water (hence the old notebook) and left for 24 hours.

Next day, the cover was behaving itself quite a bit more, so I transferred it to my new A6 notebook. For security, I glued the cover with Bostik All Purpose Glue to the inside covers of the notebook.

Finally, I sewed on a Miffy fabric covered button from my stash my way of embellishment.

The crochet bowl proved quite a bit easier. It is made using Rico Creative Filz, which is a 100% merino yarn, especially designed for felting. I happened to have a ball in stash, so set off with my 6mm hook.

The bowl is mainly constructed from treble crochet. As my crochet skills mostly stop at double, I had a quick read up to remind myself of how to treble.

The bowl crocheted up superfast and I finished it in one session. I sent it for a 50 degree rapid wash in the machine and it looked sufficiently felted whilst retaining some muted stitch definition. To dry, I stuffed the bowl with plastic bags to hold the shape.

Now, I don't often save magazine patterns once I've completed them, as I don't usually make anything twice, but I'm going to hang on to these two as they will make pretty gifts. Might add a few centimetres to each side of the notebook cover though...

Melx