DenKnits 2.3 Giveaway!

DenKnits 2.3 Giveaway!

Darn Good Yarn tote bag winner is drawn

Finished objects:

• Miranda Sweater out of SWTC Karaoke bought from DBNY
• Lucy Hat out of Great Lakes Hand Dyed
• Entrelac scarf out of Cascade Yarns Souk
• Test Mitts for MelTran Designs out of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light
• Owlie Sleep Sack out of Universal Yarns Soleil

Works in Progress:

• Owlie Hat out of Universal Yarns Soleil
• Two Vanilla Socks out of Opal 4-ply and 6-ply
• Quick discussion on sock needles
• Blanket Squares Log Cabin style on random acrylic yarns
• Merging Ripples Shawl out of CJ Kopec Creations

Review of bamboo needles purchased through ebay from sfcdirect

Acquisitions:

• From the local yarn store in addition to the Opal 6-ply Sport and the Soleil in turquoise, another Soleil in pea green and Sirdar Baby Snowball in multiple colors
• Lollipop Yarns in Sweet Child o' Mine
• Quick discussion on my spinning history including the Ashford drop spindle, a DODEC wheel and now...
• Turkish Spindle from Cattail Knits
• Merino Fiber from TreLiz

I am trying to add this feed to iTunes...  If you have a moment can you help me out and see if you can find DenKnits there and if so can you see any videos?

Another 'How I Do It'... Recycled Sweater

I'm always interested in knitting with something different and finding deals in my hobby.  A great idea I'd read some about and wanted to try was reusing a sweater.

One day I found myself near by local thrift store and decided I'd read enough and should try my hand at this.  I'd tried unraveling sweaters we'd had in the house that someone outgrew or got a hole in, rather unsuccessfully.  Lessons learned included the yarn was very small (probably fingering or less) and the original construction created short pieces of yarn instead of long strands.  I decided I would look for heavy yarn (hopefully worsted or more) and make sure the seams were not surged.  I learned after reading some that factory sweaters are often made by cutting large pieces of knit material and surging the seams, which results in the short pieces of yarn I'd experienced myself.  A super cheap price was also a must, I wasn't sure how this would turn out so I needed a real deal!

I ended up with two sweaters that fit the bill.  One tan and the other pastel, they were $2.00 or less a piece and a large women's size so I would get a good amount of yarn out of the deal.  I've managed to find the time to work with the pastel piece so far and the pictures below will be based on that.

This is the sweater, a rather 80s styled pastel with brown

It even had puffy sleeve caps!

These are the inside seams, looked rather hand done

This is a sleeve section of yarn, I found out the brown was from one skein and the others a variegated skein 

This is the entire sweaters worth of yarn

I had one variegated ball and one brown ball for each sleeve, a front and a back

I soaked all the yarn with some Eucalan

And wrapped it around my swift to dry and hopefully get some kinks out

Then I wound it into a cake 

This is all of the variegated yarn from the sweater

In one huge cake

I left the brown yarn in hanks for now and got to work on a project with the pastel variegated yarn cake.  After knitting up a gauge swatch (gasp! This may be a first... but since this was an unknown yarn, it was a necessity) I went to Ravelry to see if there was an existing design; a top down raglan style top, in a girls size (for my daughter), that got a 4.5 st to 1 in gauge.  I wanted it fairly simple with a touch of interesting pattern.  As seems to be my usual result, I found one or two that were constructed and sized right but not having the patterning I was looking for, or some that had the patterning but were the wrong gauge or sizing, constructed in pieces instead of the round... on and on it went until I decided to just start from scratch on my own.

Remembering that the Vouge knitting book I'd bought a while back had a designing chapter I pulled it out and started reading, only to find that top down raglan style in the round was not covered.  After skimming through my other books and magazines I decided I had enough information to get started on my own.

I'm now maybe 1/4 into my second attempt and feeling like I may be on to something.  More than just in this top, I have an idea for creating a formula of sorts for making top down, in the round, raglan tops/sweaters.  This will need to be tested with another top before I can be sure, but I look forward to posting my formula soon!

Busy, busy, busy...

I've managed to finish the two requested items I discussed last time plus one other request!

First up, the brightly colored fingerless mitts with a matching hat:

Next I did the large mittens with a Breast Cancer Awareness ribbon stitched on:

The purple cabled slouchy hat was envied so another one in gray was knit up for another requester:

As far as personal knitting goes, the colorful fingerless mitts were also envied so I made up a second pair for my daughter.  Then I started on a second sweater for myself with some yarn I got for a great deal from DBNY.  At this point, the sweater still needs one sleeve to be finished.  I think the pattern turned out really nice and will be the perfect size once blocked a little.  Can't wait to get back to it and finish it up!  In the meantime I needed something smaller that I could take with me places, so I started up a simple shawl with some fancy yarn.  It is slowly progressing as I don't work on it except when I have free time outside the house.

As if a sweater on the needles wasn't enough, I decided to cast on for my living room afghan!  Ordered Brava yarn from Knit Picks in two shades of green and a brown and when it got here I just had to start...  I knew I wanted to do a zig zag looking pattern, kind of old school but a little Missoni.  I found a pattern on the Lion Brand website that had the stitch pattern to give me the zig zags and then I created my own sequencing of colors to get the Missoni look.  I got to about 8 color changes before I realized that after 4 color changes I had dropped one of the first stitches at a color change (before I'd tied the two ends together) so I had to frog back all that way... I haven't had a chance to get back to that because I got in two more requests this week!

First up was two items, a pair of short fingerless mitts in a gray color and a slouchy hat similar to the gray one above, but in a creamy off white.  It just so happened I had been developing a pattern for a cabled hat with ribs so I was able to perfect that and have it sold already.  I decided to go with a simple twisted stitch rib on the mitts and wrote a pattern for those as I went.  I realized after finishing the second mitt that they should really have a variation for left and right hands so I corrected that in the written pattern and ended up with two pairs!  I'll be able to post the second set in my Etsy shop, so no loss to me :-)  These items are finished and drying as we speak.

My next order is waiting for me to finish this to be cast on... another set of fingerless mitts (these must be really popular!) in black.  They are requested to be short, simple, and with individual fingers.  That will be a first for me, but I've been wanting to try for a long time so I'm looking forward to it.

And with that... I'm off to cast those on!