AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Crossing the finish line

One of my friends ran the Boston Marathon this year. She finished faster than Tedy Bruschi (go her!) and did really well in her age bracket (heck, she was just over 4 hours, which to me is double awesome because my half marathon time is around 2.5 hours).

Less than 2 days before the race I decided that something like the Boston Marathon deserved something special, so I went and got some yarn and learned that skin tones are hard to find.

So, my finish line was almost 3.5 weeks after the race. I blame my ambivalence to sewing. Here is my friend's mini-me.

I finally finished her clothing, her laces, and her facial embroidery on Wednesday night and gave her a bit more spine. My hair technique (and any mistakes I made in the process) gave her a wonderfully full head of hair, which was a little too much for her neck and torso to carry.

Here she is, sitting at the office. Doesn't she look ready to take on the world!

Materials:
1 skein Panda Cotton
1 skein Debbie Bliss (I will update with actual yarn name/color)
< 10 yds Regia Silk (red)
DMC Floss (red and brown)
Scrap of white wool felt
Scraps of yarn (white and green)
Pipecleaner
Stuffing
Black tech fabric
Black thread

I need to refine my technique for making doll clothes. I used the same method as I used in ~1994  to make my houpelande for the Gods and Godesses Ball, and it just doesn't work. Not even for a doll.

My technique (or what not to do) is to place the doll on a piece of paper (I used an envelope for the shorts and a page from a grocery store circular for the top, so really any paper will do), and outline the doll. Then draw a wider outline around the doll in all dimensions.

The problem with this technique is simple. This doesn't take account for the depth of the doll (or person's body). It worked fine for my houpelande, because I was using a stretchy fabric. For a tech singlet and tech shorts, not so much. This angle doesn't make it clear, but this doll is having her circulation cut off by the right leg of her shorts. Whoops!

Just in case people ask, I did this doll completely free form. I remembered some of the techniques from making a monster doll last year, but for the rest it was almost completely based on sweater techniques. There is waist shaping, short rows for the bust, raglan shaping for the shoulders along with more circular yoke decreases, etc. My happiest knitter moment was when I used a bit of short row shaping to give her a chin.

I will probably knit more of these. A couple of coworkers think I should sell them, and I might. It's not like I don't have an Etsy store full of, well, nothing. It certainly fills the sweet spot of interesting to do, relatively affordable materials, and hard enough to make to not interest every knitter or crafter. 

Of course, I should work on my sewing a bit first. Knitting is easy. Sewing is hard! I have a ton of fabric, so this would also be a good way to use some of the more fun fabrics I have.

(I did try to find a pattern first, but I couldn't really find what I was looking for on Ravelry. If you see something awesome on Ravelry, let me know. Sometimes my searching fu just doesn't measure up!)

Iron Craft: They charge what?

The latest Iron Craft (number 4, though I missed the last one because I was too tired or lazy to get off my butt) was to make something inspired by an object in a catalog. I had just done a whole sale cleanout of the random junk mail, including catalogs, that I received and funnily enough didn't get any additional catalogs until after the challenge was over. So, I went to that hotbed of awesome (for ideas) and scary (for price) area that is Anthropologie and found these:

Source: anthropologie.com via Seanna on Pinterest

Oh, I don't know if you have $125 to spend on glittery loafers. I mean, without a word, they are certainly awesome and it isn't not like I haven't spent money on glittery shoes before. My glitter platforms get used at conventions and other times when I want to be both super tall and kind of ridiculous in a fun way. I love them.

I didn't want a multicolor though like this, and I had a bit of glitter that I wanted to use though I knew I didn't have enough for shoe coverage.

Saturday I went on a trip to buy supplies and a pair of crappy shoes. I just didn't have any shoes at home I could sacrifice to this noble effort.

I tried on a pair of shoes at Payless. Now, I have admittedly stopped going to Payless in the past year or two. For a while it was where I went for emergency shoes when I realized that I didn't have anything appropriate to wear to a wedding, but as at least one pair of those shoes were left in the parking lot that very same evening as being too uncomfortable to save I have been avoiding them ever since. I didn't care about shoe color, because I was intending to cover the entire thing. I cared about comfort and heel. While I love my heels, I don't wear them very often. I was hoping to have a flat or a platform. Sadly platforms aren't very popular now.

At Blick (conveniently I found everything right in Central Square), I got a nice paint brush, some glow in the dark paint, modge podge, red glitter and an acrylic sealer. The salesperson I spoke to was very helpful at differentiating between the different products on the shelf and pointing me to things that would be appropriate for a craft project (aka, not the most expensive items).

On the way home I snagged a copy of the Boston Phoenix. I knew I was going to need some kind of newspaper to help keep my place clean, and what would be better than porn reviews and personal ads. And well, now I know where to send my friends if they are looking for gay MMA porn sites. Educational!

 
1. Finished Glitter Shoes, 2. All the Glitter, 3. Scuffed, 4. Glitter Shoes materials, 5. More Glow in the Dark, 6. Scuffed and Taped, 7. Mixed Glitter, 8. Scuffed and taped, 9. Painted on Glitter

Making glitter shoes is pretty easy. I followed this tutorial after seeing a pair of glitter shoes on Super Eggplant. The steps are simple.

1. Lay down paper before you make the mess and gather your materials. Hey, I need this step every time!

2. Using coarse sand paper or the coarse side of a nail filing block, scuff up the shoes. Now, my shoes were not leather like in the original tutorial, so I erred on the side of caution in how much scuffing to do. There were spots where I completely wore through the coating that gave it color. I would aim, especially with non-leather shoes, to just remove the initial shine on your shoes.

3. Measure out your glitter and Modge Podge. I used about 1 tablespoon of red glitter and a slightly smaller amount of glow in the dark glitter. It doesn't matter which Modge Podge you use. I used about 1/4 cup of modge podge to just under 2 tablespoons of glitter. You are going to have multiple layers, so you don't need a high glitter to modge ratio.

4. Tape your shoes. If you are really careful you might be able to skip this step, but I used painters tape to mostly prevent me from painting the insides of the shoes and the little heel in the back. I ignored it for the tiny bit of outer sole that showed. You can also use tape to create shapes if you only want to glitter a section.

5. Paint. I did about 3 layers, maybe even 4. I did the first two pretty quickly, but the subsequent layers needed more time for drying.

6. Additional decoration. Once I finished my last layer of glitter paint, I decided I wanted to add a little design in glow in the dark paint. It's pretty subtle and not super great looking (though not bad either). This could be a time to use a little stencil to make glow in the dark stars or free form drawings on your shoes.

7. Once it was completely dry I added acryllic sealer to my shoes. I did an initial coat and then about 20 minutes later a second coat. I let the shoes dry overnight.

8. In the morning, remove the painters tape and carefully use an exacto knife to clean up any wonky edges.

There you go! Glitter shoes! I think I might take my Vibrams and give them glitter toe nails, because it would be hilarious.

the last knit of 2011

Right before Christmas I started a new project, one that would be easy to finish and take me into 2012 with a win for lack of a better word under my belt. I started "Halo," a cowl that requires no pattern and thus no pattern was used.

I finished Halo on New Year's Eve early enough in the evening that I bemoaned my lack of knitting. Knitting at social gatherings helps to keep me from over eating. Instead I came in a very close second in a game of Scrabble. Our game of Scrabble kept devolving into ludeness. While there was lube on the board, there was a brief moment where I would have been able to empty my rack playing ovaries on a triple word score. I almost had gonads and another player almost had vaginas. A good evening with the game crossing the cusp of the year.

While I do sometimes wear the cowl all long and layered under my jacket, more commonly I wear the cowl twisted around my neck as a double loop. It is more compact, which works really well with the puffy (Uranus!) winter coat I pulled out this week when the temperature went well below freezing.

Specs:
Pattern: Halo (rav)
Yarn: Kidsilk Haze in Jelly (2 skeins)
I have about half a skein left which will probably become some kind of fingerless mitt or mitten liner.

I love this, though occasionally I do try to eat the mohair. As a flaw, that is pretty minor. It is comfy, warm and cheerful and what more could I need in my knitting for the first months of the new year.

My first knitting (yeah, I've already cast on something new) of the new year is the Abigail Tee from the Winter 2008 Interweave Knits. I'm using gift yarn from my husband (from 2007, so I really don't have an excuse for not starting this earlier). It is going to be spectacular when it is done, but right now it is a mostly shapeless amorphous blog of lace weight yarn. Delicious and sparkly but not vampiric.

Because if it was a vampire I would stake that shit no matter how gorgeous!

Merry Christmas!

Today has been an amazingly wonderful day. It started off with some gift opening (which included a terrific raffle prize from Gather Here), and then moved to pumpkin waffles, cooked eggnog french toast style. Victor got some Dog Nog, which made him so interested in drinking his water that he had a little accident. I made this trifle, using the Barefoot Contessa red velvet cupcake mix. I also cooked a few sides: garden pea risotto, mashed potatoes and these awesome biscuits from Smitten Kitchen (pictures of those tomorrow, because the excess was full of hilarity).

I didn't really give my husband much, but this year was the first year I did most of my gifting from Etsy. Soap for my MIL, lip balm, and some geeky things for my husband. While I had some good gift giving, my best was still this.

A simple envelope style pillow using a couple of tutorials (Kaufman fabric, because I'm not smart enough to write down what the fabric is when I buy it). The monkey is done in reverse applique, and while there are a number of great tutorials (like this one), I did something a bit different.

I free hand drew a monkey similar to the ones in the fabric on a piece of white felt and then cut the felt out as a template. I then outlined the felt on the blue fabric and cut out the monkey in the blue fabric. A bit of handsewing, backstitch actually, around the monkey and to secure the fabric and then I used this awesome floss I have from almost 2 million years ago to do a whip stitch around the edges to protect the fabric from fraying. The hand work was what took the most time. I finished the pillow early Christmas morning (1am-ish) on the sewing machine. While I am not the best at sewing I'm proud of this pillow and my husband seems to really love it too. Yeah!

I'm glad that I have tomorrow off. It will be time for some relaxing, sitting around, and cleaning up the mess from today.

the happy finish dance

Oh, it is finished! Finished!

See, the happy face (though it did take more than one picture to get a facial expression that didn't show how much I hate having my picture taken)!

I have been enamored of Oranje since I saw the pattern in the winter Knitty. Of course, I wish I was small enough to have knit one of the smallest sizes rather than the size 40.

My first fairisle project was a baby hat in a class with Mary Jane Mucklestone at SAW in June. I made Elinor's Mittens last month, and they were awesome and gave me to confidence to tackle a much larger project.

Oranje calls for Bugga!, but I just couldn't find 3 skeins I liked with interesting contrast colors. When the Camp Loopy challenge came up, I chose solids from the Loopy Ewe Solid Series (the purple) and Spud and Chloe Fine (the green and white).

These yarns came in the 50 gram putups rather than the 100 grams of Bugga!, so I ordered 6 of the purple and 1 each of the contrast colors.

6! Why did I buy 6 skeins? I did run out of white. I finished it off with some of the white from the blanket I've been working on (Cascade Heritage). I had some green left. And after all of the knitting and finishing was done today I had 2 whole skeins of the purple left and 26 grams. Mary Jane commented that I knit like her, in a way that conserves yarn but I have never seen it quite so clearly before.

2.5 skeins of yarn is two pairs of socks (my socks weigh on average 66 grams). Gosh. What am I making with all of this extra yarn!?

 

My arrows are a little wonky, but I love them anyway.

Things I learned:

Just hand sew the dang steeks. Sew them down by hand 2 or 3 times on each side but still do it by hand. My machine sewn steeks meandered. That made picking up stitches more harrowing than it needed to be. I ended up hand sewing after the rest of the finishing was over the steek edges near the worst areas.

I started this project by accident as a size 44 and simply decreased down to my size. I did not do any waste shaping. The extra fit at the bottom is a good thing, because this sweater is long. Of course, it would still look better with, umm, better foundation garments or losing 5-10 pounds. While the sweater is supposed to be close fitting, this sweater doesn't glide over my lumps and bumps. I love it anyway, and it is super warm!

Lastly, working 3 colors is not that hard. However, the length of my floats or something in the arrows made that a little wonky. I'm not sure if it would still be wonky if I knit it again. The three colored triangles were perfectly fine. I'm not sure I've actually seen a finished piece that does the triangles that way. Even the sample in the Knitty pattern is done in horizontal stripes.

Also, because my steek was a meandering drunken fool, I ate the first column near the patterning at the top for a bit to give me a little more safety in picking up stitches. It was fine, though it does mean that I am missing half a green arrow. While I am often a perfectionist, I left that behind with this project. I'm still learning. I have another sweater in the works from last year that also has colorwork that I've been putting off. I don't think I need to worry about putting it off anymore.

Iron Craft 33: Is Team Hufflepuff anything like Team Smack Bella?

(Apparently last week was supposed to be Iron Craft 32, so I have 2 of them. Not a big deal at all. Whoops!)

This week's iron craft challenge was to finish something that had been lying around.

This was easy. I have a ton of projects lying around.

See the unfinished projects. Heck I have a ton of projects that aren't finished that didn't even make it into Ravelry. It's true! I'm pathetic about the finishing stages. The lure of a new garment doesn't outweigh the annoyance of seaming.

The best projects are the ones that thus do not involve more than about 20 stitches worth of seaming.

So, one of the projects that was not on that list was the sweater for my husband. Team Hufflepuff, which was started at the movie theater (or right before) of movie 7 and was supposed to be finished for opening day of movie 8.

Yup, just over a month ago. The knitting has been done for a few weeks, but I was punting on the blocking and seaming. And it is completely understandable that I was. It took me most of an evening to crochet the shoulder seams (I was having piss poor luck with the other methods there and spent 2 hours seaming and picking apart at Gather Here, but at least I was amongst friends). Saturday evening was spent sewing the sleeves into the arm holes. Sunday evening was sleeve and side seam 1 (2 hours of Mars Attacks. Why did I want to watch that?) and Monday evening was sleeve and side seam 2 (ah, Will Wheaton was a much less painful experience). Tuesday was picking up stitches for the neckline and weaving in ends.

We photographed this last night even though it was late and it loses the full geeky effect. Better pictures later I'm sure.

The pattern is an amalgamation of the sweater from Charmed Knits and the sweater template from Handy Book of Knitting Patterns.

The yarn is Cascade 220. In a stupid turn of events I started this sweater (November 2010) having only bought 3 skeins of the grey Cascade 220. Wow. Mind numbingly dumb. I ended up buying 5 additional skeins in 2 additional dye lots. Thankfully Cascade's dye lots are usually really close.

I have about 1.8 skeins left (somehow I have 2 started skeins and one that is still unwound). Needless to say, this was not my best planned project ever.

This is also a project that could have used outtakes.

My husband has tried on the project at nearly every instance of the seaming. Things I missed with the camera: the Huffle Poncho, Michael Jackson wore one sleeve, right?, and Do you think this neckline is too much? Why did I miss the Huffle Poncho? It was hilarious!

With all of the yarn left, I wonder if I should make an actual HufflePoncho for my husband or if he would disown my sorry arse! As it is, I will be making with the remaining black and gold a Hufflepuff version of the Elinor's Mittens. The cables are happily unisex enough and the pattern sized enough to fit many a person I know.

Mittens of Majesty

Mittens of Majesty: These thick woolen gloves do not restrict the wearer's manual dexterity.  They generate a continuous endure elements effect which protects from the cold only.  They also grant a +5 competence bonus to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility and royalty) checks.  Finally, once per day, the user may use mass suggestion as an 11th-level caster (Will DC 19 to resist).

Moderate abjuration and enchantment; CL 11th; Craft Wondrous Item, endure elements, mass suggestion; Price 87,780 gp.

My husband has been calling these mittens of magesty as I have been working on them for their complicated-looking pattern, and their purple and gold color.

I started these mittens closer to the end of July than I would have liked, because these were for Camp Loopy project 2. I was busy trying to clean up the last of the knitting for my husband's sweater. However, last Thursday (August 4), I finished the first mitten at the Pints and Purls night at Gather Here, and immediately cast on for mitten 2. The second mitten took me until Saturday evening to finish.

The pattern for these looks complicated, but in the end these are very simple cables combined with the simplest of colorwork. If you were afraid of the cables, you could get an awesome impact just doing the stripes on the front and the tweeding on the back.

These mittens were my first colorwork project since taking the class with Mary Jane Mucklestone at Squam.

These make me ridiculously happy!

This pattern by Pamela Wynne (I've also made the February Lady sweater) is awesome. The instructions are clear, the charts have a good legend which makes following them simplistic. The hardest part of this project are the first few rows of the color pattern, because you start the thumb chart and the cable charts at different times. I have yarn to make at last one more pair of these (though I do not know if I have enough yellow left for a second pair).

Pattern: Elinor's Mittens (project ravved here)
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Purple Jewel Heather and Goldenrod
Started: July 24th?, 2011
Finished: August 6, 2011

a monster in the office

Last week I finished making a monster toy from the latest issue of Knit Simple. M. Monstre joined me at the office and then hopped into a backpack to go to a little girl. Such a great step in life!

Of course, M. Monstre had much more humble beginnings.

Yeah, that's a hand up my butt. Leave me alone!

Needless to say, such an auspicious beginning led M. Monstre to a career in politics. Starting this career was a little challenging. People don't hire monsters as a matter of course. So, M. Monstre decided to start small with kissing hands and shaking babies (I did try to explain that it wasn't how it is done, but M. Monstre was having none of it. Thankfully, there is no muscle strength in M's arms to hurt a fly) and came in to work with me to find a new home.

M. Monstre took a look around the office and enjoyed a nice latte from downstairs. Pleased, M. Monstre spent a bit more time imagining life as CEO and President of the world and then hopped into a backpack to start a career to span many a child.

I tried to tell M. Monstre that children don't provide lattes, but I could be wrong. I don't really know that many 6 and 7 year old children. Maybe they play coffee shop and serve "lattes" to each other. Or maybe that is only the children of coffee afficianados like me.

M. Monstre did care. Children are more important than lattes after all even to monsters. And office chairs are not as much fun as a future with a little girl or boy who will show them all that they can be. And dreams of the future are best shared with those who will take your dreams and expand on them until you could never believe that you ever dreamed so small.

Welcome to a new child's life, M. Monstre. I hope the journey goes well for you.

Pattern: Malcolm the Monday Monster (rav link)
Yarn: Berocco Plush
Needles: Size 8 (5.0 mm)

Started July 28th (picked up the yarn after work) and finished on July 31st for knitting and stuffing, and August 4th for sewing on the mouth. Rav project details.

Fun times (super tired edition)

This weekend was Intercon K, and despite a few misgivings about some of my games I had a lot of fun. I got to be a computer, a crazy person who loved only the Cthululoid-style horrors, and a demon set on tempting the leading figures of the world to hell. 

One of the best things for me about Intercon is costuming. It's playing dress up mostly for adults (there are some teens and pre-teens in the games especially as the con attendees have gotten older and have had children). Not everyone costumes, but for some of us it is almost half the fun. A lot of my costuming is makeup based, because it is relatively easy to find, doesn't take a lot of room to carry, and is very reusable. However, for one of my costumes I did some knitting (and a minor amount of sewing).

Sinner G was a computer I was playing in my first game. For that I made a pair of arm warmers and a yarn wig. I was going to make a dress as well, but as my yarn wig was taking me almost till the start of game, I was just as happy that I didn't bother.

The yarn wig was a short hat (I might have done better if I had followed my instincts with the decreases and made a slightly deeper hat), so it didn't cover my hair quite as well as I would have liked. I applied individual strands of yarn to the hat with a crochet hook. I was treating this like the instructions I had read for making a traditional wig with a cap and strands of hair. 

I started the hair at the nape of the neck with a couple of rows of yarn crocheted in (like latch hook). I took the yarn and folded it in half, inserted my crochet hook through a full stitch, and then pulled the yarn through. Each strand of yarn equaled two pieces of "hair."

Near the end I followed some of the instruction on this tutorial. Then I cut the hair so it would be even and close to chin length and used the cut strands to fill out some of the areas close to the nape of the neck. Knitting the hat took only a day or two of commutes, but hooking in individual strands of hair took about 6 hours. If I hadn't done the clumps of hair at the end, I would have expected it to take about 2 more hours to ensure the coverage I was looking for.

I decided that I didn't completely like how I had hooked the hair in the bang area, and to shorten the amount of work I needed to do I sewed a small headband out of the dress material and then sewed it to the hat. 

I used the black and silver scarf only to make it so I paid less attention to the wig and more attention to playing the game. It was like a security blanket. Not necessary and between the hat and the arm warmers I was probably the toastiest person in the room.

The arm warmers and hat were both made made of Vanna's Glamour. For costuming I don't really care nearly so much about the quality of all of my materials, especially for things like knitting. Even a lower quality yarn works surprisingly well. That said, the Vanna's Glamour was fairly low on the splittiness scale and worked up well in my favorite size 0 and 1 needles. I prefer working with sock weight yarns even if they take longer to knit.

This pair of arm warmers had a simple ruffle at the hand end and a bit of ribbing with a ribbon threaded through at the top. While it is hard to see in this picture, the arm warmers went to approximately my elbow.

Between the arm warmers and the wig I used 3 skeins of Vanna's Glamour plus about 4 or 5 grams of a skein of white that I used as highlights in the wig. All told, less than $13 for costuming (though I'm not counting the white for this, because I have enough yarn left to make a pair of fingerless gloves or a hat).

I was sparkly and the only thing that would have made this costume perfect is my very tall sparkly platforms. The platforms haven't seen much action since the last time I was in an all silver costume more than 8 years ago. That time I was a robot dog and was sporting silver liquid makeup, which was probably one of the worst costuming decisions I had ever made. Not because it didn't look good, but it was not meant to be worn for more than 4-5 hours at a time. I was wearing it for 12-14 hours for two days and my skin was a little unhappy at the end of it all. Also the makeup would rub off on things, which made eating anything and exercise in seeing how well I could not touch things, because my hands were completely covered in makeup.

But sparkly! I will probably bring the arm warmers to work, though they will look ridiculous with my short sleeved black shirts. I'll be warm at least!

4 day shawl

I am part of the Loopy Ewe Dream in Color club. Or preorder. Sheri orders a whack of Dream in Color Yarn of the Month, and those of us on the preorder list get to decide whether or not we wanted the yarn or not. If we don't, it goes back into the inventory and someone not on the preorder list can buy it.

I didn't buy January's yarn (and I don't remember why), but February's yarn was awesome.

Starry - which is sock yarn with silver in it. In a glorious red and pink combo called Honeymoon. These yarns of the month come with the pattern, and as soon as I saw the pattern I loved it. I knew it had to be mine.

My yarn arrived Friday night. I unwrapped it and petted it for the evening.

Saturday, I wound it into a ball and started the lace portion of the shawl pattern.

Sunday, I finished the lace portion and picked up the stitches for the next section. I hosted a superb owl party and started the short rows.

Monday, I finished the short rows and started the ribbing.

Tuesday, I realized that I had fewer stitches than called for. I decreased away the 2 stitches to put me back in pattern (it is ribbing there and very flexible). I then knit, knit, knit. Late last night, I washed and blocked my shawl.

Wednesday. I am wearing it. It dried over night even when blocked double. It is awesome and sparkly and I love it. I almost want another skein, just so I can knit it again. Maybe a blue sparkly yarn.

I will be wearing it at the chocolate shop when I work there over Valentine's weekend (tomorrow, Friday and Monday). It will be awesome and festive and I will be happy and back to knitting on my rotation.

I'm wearing it today in pretty much the same way as the picture, but I have a shawl pin with me to wear it more as a shawl. It is great that way too, but when I'm sitting down (or working with chocolates) I don't need anything dangling down to get in the way.

I am always cold, so this is excellent. Of course, my only black shirts that are left (I guess I'm doing more laundry tonight) are either a turtleneck or a sleeveless black top. Thankfully I have a black shrug that I can wear.

It's a very knitterly day here.

Also, I found the macro function on our camera. I don't know if I have the skill to use it well, but I have made an attempt. I got 3 blurry pictures and 2 less blurry pictures. Of course, they looked almost the same, so I dumped one of them onto Flickr and am ignoring the other one. Even with a gorilla pod and a self timer I can shoot super blurry photos!

Now it is back to the rotation. This month it is mostly being divided between the Paper Dolls sweater and the February socks. Both are pretty far from being finished, so I have plenty to do.

and Iron Craft? Well, I couldn't find my yarn for my project idea for that until after I got this yarn in. I can only do one super project a week, and this week it was definitely shawl love.

Love. Not to be confused with Loi'e.

Also, love a project simple enough to work during an exciting hockey game!