Double, double toil and trouble...
Okay, I'm probably exaggerating but these cutesy little witches were a little more fiddly that they might appear. I got the pattern as a PDF from This Cosy Life's Etsy shop, which specialises in Waldorf-inspired knitted toys.
The first challenge was that the witches in the pattern were made using wooden dolls from US store Hobby Lobby, which is kind of a long way from Lancashire. As a substitute, I ordered no less than three different types of wooden doll from Panduro Hobby. The 7cm high dolls with a 3cm diameter head turned out to be the best match.
The dress and hat are knitted on double-pointed needles, which regular readers will know, I still haven't mastered. Hence, I used the magic loop techniques with circular needles and a long cable. It worked pretty well, although you do end up with odd numbers of stitches on each needle.
The dresses and hats were made from scraps of aran weight yarn in my stash and were knitted on 4.5mm needles. I had to adapt the dress pattern a little as the shape of my doll was more tapered than the one the designer had used.
The trickiest part is the hat. It starts from one stitch, becomes i-cord and then moves into circular knitting. I'd almost got the hang of it by the third one.
The great thing about the pattern (and why I continue to persevere with knitting in the round) is that the making up was a breeze. For each dress, there was one end to weave in and then you use the cast off end to secure the dress around the doll's neck. The ends of the hat were equally easy to conceal and then I glued the hat to the doll's head using Bostik all purpose glue.
To finish, I added some small embellishments, starting with a star button on each hat - a different colour for each witch. For the dresses, one witch got three tiny Papermania spotty buttons, one got a pumpkin button and one got a bunny embellishment.
This is exactly the sort of project I like - quick, cute and a little bit spooky. Now, if I only I can think of something to do with those leftover wooden dolls....
Melx
Makes on the move...
I spent Monday-Friday in London for work last week so took a number of knitting projects to while away the train and hotel hours. Travel makes need to be chosen carefully in my opinion. You don't want anything that requires schlepping too much equipment and you need to avoid long needles in case you jab them into a fellow commuter by accident. I did end up taking three sizes of knitting needle though....
First up was the jewellery bag, which was a project for kids from Simply Knitting September 2011. I made in on 4mm needles using King Cole Galaxy. I'd never knitted with sequined yarn before and spent quite a long time pushing the sequins through to the right side of the work. The bag is knitted in one piece of stocking stitch with an eyelet row done with yarn forwards. I sewed the side and base of the bag together with mattress stitch. I did take along a tapestry needle so I could do making up as I went along.
I did the final finishing of the bag back home, adding some silver grey ribbon and two troll-style beads to fasten the bag. Quite stylish, I thought (and not at all like something a child could make).
The second project was a felted pin cushion from a free pattern on the Lion Brand Yarn website. For this, I used up the very last of my Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran from last week's bag. I made a simple stocking stitch rectangle on 5.5mm needles and then sewed up the sides.
As I couldn't really ask the hotel to felt my pin cushion, I did that when I got home - two 60 degree cycles. I then stuffed and sewed up the final edge. For decoration, I use a cute pumpkin button.
To make things extra complicated, I decided to make some pins to go with it (who does that?). These are Lucite flowers from The Bead Shop Manchester glued on to long dressmaker's pins with Araldite two part glue. Fiddly but quite effective.
Finally, I knitted this delightful felted purse, which was a kit from Sheepfold. I've made a couple of their kits before and they've always turned out really well.
This purse was made in pure wool DK on 4.5mm needles, mostly in stocking stitch. I just about managed to make the button hole, despite ending up with two holes at one stage. I felted the purse at home alongside the pin cushion and it came out beautifully.
The final step was to sew on the pretty floral button that came with the kit.
So, a productive week away. As well as my three projects I also got a chance to visit two awesome knitting shops in London - Loop and Tricolette. Purchased quite a few goodies and had trouble closing my suitcase for the journey home...
Melx
Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitful Makes
I love Autumn and the run up to Halloween. There are lots of spooky projects to make and I look slightly less weird than when I do this stuff in July.
My first Autumn knitting project is this felted shoulder bag. It's from a PDF pattern I found on Etsy from Arly. PDF patterns are great as they take up no room at all until it's time to print it out and make your project.
For the bag, I used some Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran I had left over from my knitted rabbit back in the days when I didn't know the difference between a 50g and a 100g ball.
The bag is knitted in the round on 5.5mm circular needles with a 40cm cable, giving me a chance to get out my super Knit Pro Rosewood interchangeable needle set. I found the first couple of rounds hard going - the cable seemed too big for the piece, but then it settled down to a nice relaxing knit.
For the top of the bag, I opted for 2x2 rather than the 1x1 rib in the pattern just because I find it a bit easier to follow the knits and purls. After casting off, I just had the bottom of the bag to sew together using mattress stitch (I confess to becoming something of a convert to knitting in the round after arguing vociferously that it was a ridiculously complicated way of going about things).
The pattern uses braided yarn for the strap. I don't really understand braiding too well so I opted for a six stitch i-cord on 5mm double pointed needles. I then sewed the strap to the bag.
I knew this wool felted beautifully and my bag was a little bigger than it should have been so I sent it for a 60 degree felting trip around the washing machine to make it wonderful and soft (and hide any dodgy bits).
For some added structural integrity, I made a lining for the bag from a beautiful orange spider's web fat quarter I had in stash and some heavy weight sew-in interfacing. I machine sewed the sides of the lining and then slip stitched it by hand into place in the bag.
I did add a magnetic closure to the lining, but I have to confess that the two halves don't match up properly so the bag is slightly skew whiff if you use the closure. Magnetic clasps are terrifying to fit as you have to jab through the fabric with sharp scissors to make the hole for the legs of the claps and there's no going back once it's in.
For final decoration, I used a delightful ceramic pumpkin button from Injabulo and made a little tassel from three strands of yarn.
So, notwithstanding a slight hiccup with the magnetic closure, a good start to the season...
Melx
Mollie Makes Issue 2
I was initially a bit suspicious of Mollie Makes magazine as potentially a bit of style over substance, but now I'm in love with its cute projects and pages of crafty interiors and general loveliness. I even love the kind of paper it's printed on. However, I remain suspicious of the "thrifting" part of the "making, thrifting, collecting, crafting" strapline as I've spent a fortune on stuff I've seen featured in there...
Anyway, you know the rules. Subscribe to a magazine and you have to try and make at least one thing from it per issue. I'm a bit behind but last weekend I finally got around to Lori Marie's supercute Foxy Lady project from Issue 2. I do love felt makes due to the lack of fraying and the fact I can always make them from stash.
To get started, I enlarged the templates as directed on the photocopier at work, which took far too many attempts. I then glued the templates onto stiff cardboard and cut them out so I could draw around them more easily with my trusty disappearing pen.
The only colour of felt I changed from the magazine was the body. The project uses a rather odd mustard colour whereas I would say foxes should be orange. DH pointed out that real foxes aren't orange but a swift look around my collection of plush foxes (I have several) proved that orange was right.I used a square of Moda Freebird from a charm pack for the belly piece. The only really tricky bit to cut out was the eyelashes as the brown felt was too dark to see the pen. I cut them freehand eventually.
The magazine then suggested gluing all the features in place, which I did. You are then supposed to sew over the features with a small zig zag stitch. I started this with the glue still wet, realised it was a bad idea and went off for a bath whilst the glue dried properly.
I was quite nervy using my sewing machine on such small pieces so I confined my zig zags to the jowls and belly piece. I used a straight stitch over the tail tip. I then used two strands of embroidery thread to highlight the ears, eyelashes, nose and flower and fill in the flower stem as per the instructions.
I machine sewed the tail together first. Felt is all very well but the rights sides out part means your stitches show. I left myself a minuscule gap for stuffing, so that took quite a while. I was concentrating so hard when sewing the body pieces together that I totally forgot to sandwich in the tail and had to attach it later! I sewed up the gap at the bottom of the body after stuffing on the machine and then used scissors to trim any mismatch between front and back.
And there she is. A thoroughly cute, yet fairly easy project that I think gives quite a sophisticated result (would have been more sophisticated if I'd sewn the tail in correctly!). So more Mollie Makes makes in the future me thinks...
Melx
Make Jewellery Magazine August 2011
A break from the knitting this week for two reasons. Firstly, I am hideously behind with my jewellery projects. Secondly, I've been experiencing aching on the left side of my neck, going down my shoulder and arms, which my doctor tells me, shock, horror is the result of too much knitting! I need to take it easy until the symptoms go away and then improve my knitting posture.
So, banned from knitting, I decided to tackle Helen Cant's All That Glitters resin project from August's Make Jewellery Magazine.
I get my water cast resin from East Coast Fibreglass Supplies and its shelf life can be as little as three months. It's been a bit longer than that since I did any resin casting, so I had a quick, probably very unscientific, check and it seemed okay so I proceeded.
Helen's project involved encasing butterfly and flower sequins from Mei Flower in clear resin and then creating a glittery resin back. Quite a few pieces were illustrated in the magazine but I settled on the butterfly necklace, a ring and some earrings.
The butterfly mould I bought specially from Hobbycraft and I already had an assorted jewels mould from Metal Clay for the rest.
I have found that the trick with encasing things in resin is planning, so I played around with the sequins in the mould to work out a rough arrangement and how many I needed.
I wore my fetching full face mask to mix the clear resin and the accelerator to pour into the moulds. I then used a cocktail stick to add in the sequins and poke them into place. I then left the clear layer to set.
The next day, I mixed some more resin then added some purple transparent pigment and some purple glitter. I then poured the glittery layer onto the back of the clear resin and left it to set for a further 24 hours.
The resin set perfectly and I was pleased with the purple glitter effect. I had previously tried to used glitter with solid rather than transparent pigment and the effect had been rather mottled.
Now came my least favourite part, for which I roped in hubby. The sanding. We sanded the back of each piece wet with sandpaper starting at a 400 grade and work to a finer 1200 grade. Hubby also applied three grades of plastic polish to the clear side of the shapes (he has much more patience than me).
To get the shapes ready to make into jewellery, hubby kindly drilled holes in the top of the wings of the butterfly (a bit mean really) and then attached pegs to the earring shapes.
To finish the butterfly necklace, I attached a piece of the silver plated chain to each wing using large jump rings and added a jump ring and lobster clasp at the back to close. The ring cabochon was scored on the back and then glued to a ring base using Araldite two part glue. For the earrings, I added plastic star beads to make a longer drop earring and attached them to sterling silver hooks.
I think the pieces are very effective and haven't given me any sort of strain injury. I doubt I'll be able to keep way from my knitting needles for long though...
Melx
It came (very slowly) from out of space...
I first saw this cushion on a preview advert for a new pattern book for Patons Fab DK. Before I got round to sending for the whole booklet, the cushion and its matching children's cardigan showed up in the Irresistible Gifts to Knit supplement to September's Simply Knitting magazine. Handy non?
I feel a bit guilty about it but I decided to eschew the Patons Fab DK yard for two reasons. One, I didn't have any and my stash is getting out of control. Two, Fab Dk is 100% acrylic and so doesn't meet my yarn snob 50% wool criterion.
Instead, I decided to use some Artesano Hummingbird DK in Woodpecker, which is 100% alpaca and variegates through red, orange, yellow and green. I got it as a magazine subscription gift and have been looking for something nice to use it for as there's no way I could make the sock pattern it came with. For the alien's plain red arms and legs I used some Rowan Pure Wool DK I had in stash.
The cushion is knitted flat on 3.25mm needles and hence has taken me about three weeks to complete, which is an eternity for me. You make two body pieces and four arms and legs. I had serious motivational issues making the second body piece, which is why I'm not sure I'll ever knit socks. The body was fairly straightforward with some simple shaping and division for the eye stalks.
The arms and legs were pretty quick to make. I sewed them up with mattress stitch and then stuffed them prior to sandwiching them between the body parts for the final making up. I opted to back stitch the two halves of the body together as I find mattress stitch on shaped pieces difficult, plus I needed to sew in the arms and legs firmly. I left a gap at the bottom and stuffed with what felt like endless amounts of toy filler, before mattress stitching the gap up neatly.
The pattern used felt for the eyes but the templates weren't included so I decided to give that a miss and use two large plastic buttons I had purchased recently. My husband agreed with me that the mouth design from the pattern didn't really work so I decided to add a felt heart applique instead. I appreciate this is not functionally the same but I thought it was more atheistically pleasing.I sewed the heart on with oordinary pink sewing thread, overcoming my lazy instinct to glue it on.
The finished cushion is cute if a little odd. The Artesano alpaca yarn is really lovely so I'm glad I trusted my instincts on that one. I'm off to knit something nice and chunky now...
Melx
Extremely easy
These two cushions come from Rachel John's Extreme Knitted Cushion Kit that I purchased from Create and Craft TV for £29.99. Rachel has had a lot of publicity in the magazines and she even popped up on Dragons Den the other week, although she unfortunately didn't get investment. Mostly, I was seduced by the idea of being able to produce a cushion in 1-2 hours.
The kit contained 15mm high quality wooden needles, seven sets of yarn and a 12 inch cushion pad, plus the pattern. Four of the yarns were 100% cotton ribbon and the rest were wool.
The pattern simply gave you a choice between garter stitch and stocking stitch and told you to cast on 14 stitches using all your yarns together and keep going until the cushion fit around the pad.
I was a bit surprised, there wasn't more by way of instruction on how to handle all your strands of yarn, but I set off in faith and garter stitch and, actually, it was easy. My top tip would be simply to keep a firm grasp on all the strands of yarn, as you can leave one behind if you're not careful. Other than that, you just need to knit cleanly through all seven strands on each stitch. I can't believe I used to be nervous about knitting with two stands together!
Once I'd knitted enough, I sewed up the sides and top of the cushion with mattress stitch and there it was. I didn't time myself but I certainly finished in an evening. As there seemed quite a lot of yarn left, I made a second cushion of the same size using stocking stitch, again with good results.
Now, for confession time. I don't actually like the cushions. The inclusion of all the ribbon yarn gives them quite a rag-rug texture. I like my knitting softer and more cuddly. So, although I'd definitely use the technique again (I'm thinking it would be good for a throw), shortly after the photo at the top was taken, the cushions were banished to the charity shop. Cushion space is at a premium in my house so only cushions I love get to stay. Harsh but true...
Melx
