Monthly Archives: March 2012

Restart #4

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I bought my yarn last Saturday and cast on for my iPad cover.  I opted for muted colors.  Cascade 220 in lemon yellow and celery heather.  The celery is a bit more muted than this photo.

Cascade 220 4147 lemon yellow

Cascade 9407 220 celery heather

I’ve started and ripped this out four times.  Maybe I’ll be happy with these results.  I decided on a houndstooth pattern…for now.

Will this work out for me?  Or will there be a fifth beginning?  (Or the beginning of another fifth!?  Myers’s Dark Rum® and Coke®.  Yum!)

It’s felted

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I cast on for my first CCM hat on Saturday, March 17 and finished the knitting on Wednesday, March 21.  I would have finished it sooner but I miscalculated my yarn amount and ran out of yarn.  By about a yard or so.  I ripped it back to the row before the decreases and all was well.

The yarn is a llama and wool blend and sheds like crazy!  We have a septic system and I was afraid it would clog things up so I decided  to felt it by hand with a 5-gallon bucket, hot water and new plunger.

I should have taken pictures but I did this in the bathtub Thursday evening.  It was unseasonably hot and I was working up a sweat.  The lighting was bad.  Trust me the pictures wouldn’t have been good.

I added about 4-5 inches of hot tap water to the bucket, threw in the hat and started plunging.  I changed the water every 15-20 minutes and filter out the loose fibers before letting the water go down the drain.  After an hour (yes, an HOUR) of plunging, I had gotten pretty far but the hat was still too big for my head.  I got my exercise that night!

I have a small head.

I put the hat in a mesh bag, tossed it into the washer with some old jeans and ran it through one wash cycle on hot.  When I pulled it out of the washer, it was fairly dry.  I shaped the hat and let it dry overnight.

It was lumpy and had some thicker spots.  I emailed Carrie and she suggested I re-wet the hat and reshape it.  I filled the bathroom sink with hot tap water and dunked the hat in.  Bingo!  It finally occurred to me that the hat wasn’t dripping wet when I took it out of the washer and that’s when I realized it had gone through the spin cycle.  That’s why my hat was lumpy and thick in spots.  I worked with the dripping wet hat to get the lumps and bumps out and now it’s better.  Much better.

I went to my LYS (local yarn shop) on Saturday afternoon and bought a cotton/rayon blend to embroider a design on the brim.  Not sure what I’m doing just yet but Carrie’s gallery inspires me.  I love leafy and spirally things.

Stay tuned for the embroidery surprise!

Thursday update

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Well, I finished all the knitting and weaving in the ends on my CCM Hat.  Sorry no picture as I finished it last evening and the lighting was not good.  I will take before felting and after felting pictures so you can experience the transformation with me.

I had just enough yarn for the hat with less than two yarns left from each skein.  I worked on it feverishly Tuesday evening only to discover I was going to run out of yarn before completing the hat.  So I ripped it back to the row before I started the decreases and ended up with enough yarn.

Then I’ll need to decide what I want to embroider on it and find some suitable color/yarn. I think I want an all-around design.

Second update: I thought I only had a few more squares to knit on my sister’s Garter Stitch bag and I knit four squares while taking a break from knitting the hat.  I still have a few more squares to knit.  I miscounted.  A lot.  Then the i-cord edging.  I’m not sure if I will use the leather handles I bought for my bag but were too large or if I will knit the strap like I did for mine.  The bag will be larger than my bag so the leather straps might work out OK for this one.

I’ll be lining this bag with the same lime green I used for mine.  If you’ve made one of these bags and tried to line it, you will know it’s a PITA.  A Royal PITA.

Third update:  Last but not least I am gearing up (mentally) to start my own iPad cover.  This one just doesn’t work.  It’s my first attempt at Mr. Aitch’s tablet cover.

I have a few ideas and they are all very different from each other.  Some are subtle, some are bold, some are just not going to happen.

My CCM hat

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When my brother and I went to the League of  New Hampshire Craftsmen’s Fair in Sunapee last August, I fell in love with the felted hats made by Carrie Cahill Mulligan.  So I bought myself a belated birthday present last November: A Felted Pillbox Hat pattern and yarn kit from Carrie Cahill Mulligan.

I had other knitting to do and kept putting off the hat knitting.

Until Saturday.

Nothing like waiting until Spring to knit a wool hat.  But considering we didn’t really have a winter here, I’m still enjoying this quick knit.

The colors I’m using are Bronzed Metal (bluish) and Sycamore (greenish).

The kit came with two skeins of Classic Elite Montera yarn in my choice of color, the pattern and coordinating satin ribbon to sew on inside the brim for comfort and stability.  This is the first time using this llama and wool blend and it is heavenly.

I usually start out on double point needles as I find it easier to keep my stitches from twisting for the first 2-3 rounds then I switch to circular needles.

As of right now I am almost half way done.  The blue Bronzed Metal is almost used up and I have about 4-5 rows done with the green Sycamore.  If I would have remembered to bring my knitting bag home with me today, I’d be working on it now and have a better photo of my progress.