Tag Archives: knitting

Knitted gifts

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You remember the 1898 knitted cap I made for Mr. Aitch with overdyed yarn?  Well, it needed some fingerless gloves for company.

I didn’t have enough yarn leftover and I knew I’d never get the same color to match.  That’s why it’s important to get enough of the same dye lot when knitting (or crocheting) any yarny project.  So I overdyed another skein of yarn but starting out with a totally different color.

Using the same brand of yarn and the same food dye colors, I wanted to get something that would coordinate with the original overdye.

I added some leftover Rit dye, a mixture of blue and black, from another project.  The blue and green food coloring just wasn’t covering that bright coral color.

Close enough for a contrast but still in the same family.

Original overdye

The new overdye

The fingerless glove pattern is the Don’t skid, honey! by Justyna Lorkowska.  The zigzags reminded me of smoke and Mr. Aitch needed a new pair to keep his hands warm when he smokes a cigar (in the garage in the winter). 

You can see the two colors on the palm.

Both together.

We’ve had some bitter cold temperature here lately and Mr. Aitch has worn the gloves inside to keep his hands warm while at the computer.

 

 

BFF knitted cap

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I loved knitting the 1898 cap so I knit another one in shades of grey.  Just because.

My BFF read about the cap and I offered to knit one for her if I could use yarn from my ever-expanding stash.

She is so not a grey person and picked the blue variegated one (second from the right).

As so another quick knit was born in three days.

The yarn is Cascade 220 Paints and I love the color BUT it pools terribly for this needle size and stitch count.  Pooling means that the colors  group together in pools rather than float nicely around the item.  Sometimes it’s a good thing and sometimes not.  I wanted the colors play together and not be antisocial and cling together.

The headband is knit first and I really liked the way the colors spread but then when I began the crown part, I was not too happy with the way they didn’t as you can see below.  If that would have happened on the front instead of the back, it would have been fine.

I ripped the crown apart and tried to knit with both ends to get rid of the pooling but I was not successful.  I had a similar solid light blue in my stash so I randomly knit a row here and there to break it up.

Colorful?

Yes!  Win-win!

1898 finished

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Another finished project – the 1898 cap is off the needles and ready for gifting.

As you may recall I overdyed some purple yarn with food coloring and vinegar because the color was too bright and I could change it.

Loving these colors!

I used a bright green one the back part of the headband so the recipient could tell the front from the back.  The back is smaller than the front by design but it’s just easier to tell the difference with a bright, visual clue.

Mr. Aitch (reluctantly) modeled for me.  He will find this under the Christmas tree next month.

The doubled headband was easy to knit and will really keep the ears warm.

Now should I add a pompom to the top?

The magic and the horror

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Spindrift shawl is off the needles. 

This is my first lace-type project and this pattern is a great choice for my first lacy-shawl experience.  Kudos to Helen Stewart!

The scrunched up piece of woolly goodness takes a deep breath and expands into loveliness just like magic.

Blocking makes the magic happen when a finished piece is soaked in water, rolled into a towel to absorb as much water as possible, then stretched and pinned into place.

Ahhh, the magic of blocking.

Then the horror of blocking appears while stretching and pinning.

Oops, a dropped stitch.  Right in the middle of the back.  Probably happened when I had to rip back to a life line and missed picking up that stitch.

I was hoping that this is just a BIG stitch.  Looks like a slipped stitch to me.  What do you think?  Some fiddly work is needed to correct this.

And what’s this?  A missed stitch?  Now how do I fix this horror?!

Seriously.  How do I correct this?

Super tight knitting here.  What’s up with that?

I knew things wouldn’t be perfect as I was a few stitches off towards the end even though the pattern has the stitch count listed after each row.  I was good up until the last few lace rows.  I used life lines throughout and I still made some mistakes that I wasn’t aware of until now.

I used less than one 100 g ball of Zauberball sock yarn in the colorway Bunte Gasse (color number 2310).  The color description wasn’t real telling and from what I could see in the sample I thought it would be blues, green, and yellows.  The red was a big surprise.  Now I love red but I’m not a huge rainbow-colored accessories kind of person so I don’t LOVE this colorway for me.

All in all I am pretty happy with the result and will gladly say “I made this myself” should anyone ask.  Or I’ll rip out the entire thing and make another pair of socks.

What would you do?  Fix or frog (rip-it, rip-it)?