Kiss My Knits!

You know what? I’m just not happy with the way the booties are turning out. I did a suspended bind-off for a nice loose edge to the foothole, but apparently that was too fancy for the pattern and now it’s *too* loose. There’s a row in the bottom of the sole that was done wrong, and while I don’t think anybody else would notice it, I’ll know. Then there’s the matter of those puckers.

Knitting’s supposed to be fun, and if I’m looking around, thinking “Hmm… what else can I make?” instead of picking this back up, then I shouldn’t be doing it. I think I’m going to put this bootie aside and try another design.

Ceosanna, Tessima, this is how that bag turned out. This pic makes it look a little bigger than it is, I think. I could probably felt it down some more, since it’s still a bit floppy, but I worry that then it will get too small. At this point, my options are to have this be the one I send my niece, or use a different bag pattern and just add a pocket into the design.

Thoughts?

ETA: Here’s another pic with a CD case so you can see size better.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do when you’re down in the dumps, or when you have fifty bazillion unfinished projects going on, is to make something cool. And so, I did!

When I was in St. Louis, I stopped by a yarn store (of course) and picked up some Crystal Palace Waikiki color 2852 and Squiggle in “shell”. I started a scarf, and kept it in the car seat beside me to work on when I got stuck in traffic. I finally decided I just needed to finish it, already. Here’s the result on. Here’s one a little closer up, and here’s the UNNECESSARY ZOOOOOOOM!

Ahem. Sorry.

I really enjoyed this! That Squiggle is fun stuff, nice and soft and shaggy and… well, squiggly. If they harvested Tribbles for their fur, this is what the result would be. (Actually, maybe they do.) I like the little poofs the yarn has, and the bit of shine that the Waikiki imparts. The scarf may have a little of that 70’s shag carpet tone to it, but who cares? It was fun, and I’d definitely make another Squiggle scarf in a heartbeat.

And now, on to those fifty bazillion unfinished projects!

So the shawl continues, but, I’m ambivalent about how it’s going. I randomly alternated the first two colors together so it wouldn’t be so abruptly stripey, but I’m not sure that it’s a good effect. Here are the colors. Here’s the shawl begun. Here it is in its current state. There are two more colors to go, plus a half a ball of the purple you see on the bottom edge. The first two colors blended all right, but I think it’s going to be an abrupt change in the middle there, and I’m not sure it’s going to work. I’m considering frogging it (ripping it out).

This really doesn’t seem like the kind of thing the intended recipient wears, so maybe I should hang onto this yarn for socks or something.

Opinions?

You may remember the pink felted bag I made, to which I had incorrectly affixed the handles. It was for a little girl named Brianna, and she had already seen the unfelted version, so I really did have to make another one correctly.

Well, it’s finished!

She said she wanted her name, so I put that on there, and she wanted some flowers. Flowers didn’t seem to look quite right with the name also on there, so needle-felted some spirally doo-dads instead.

This is the Fiber Trends “Flowers On-The-Go” tote. The pattern has been corrected since I made it the first time, but there’s still an error in the closure flap. Frankly, three errors in one pattern doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me to buy their other patterns, but I may give it a go. On the other hand, I feel like I’ve learned enough since I made the first one that I could probably wing it and make my own patterns. Here’s hoping Brianna enjoys it. Her younger sister has already put in a request for a blue bag, but this one with a pocket on it! Whee!

But not in a smutty way. Ahem.

Aaanyway, I whipped out another scarf, this one I call Coconut Streamers. Here’s a close-up so you can see the glitziness of it a little better.

Why Coconut Streamers? Well, it’s one strand of Trendsetter Coconut, the longest eyelash yarn on the market with little hairs about 2 1/2 inches long, and one strand of Ironstone Streamers, a ribbon yarn with a little glitzy runner beside a larger matte ribbon. Plus I’m starving and in no shape to think of more witty names. I think it looks a little rainbow fishy, but I’m sticking with Coconut Streamers, dammit!

This was 95 stitches, cast onto a 32″ circular #15 needle. When you’re doing scarves lengthwise, a loose cast on and bind off is absolutely crucial, so this was a cable cast on, knit for 13 or 14 rows, then a suspended bind off. That type of cast on and bind off gives a more elastic edge.

I may do another version of this scarf using Eros or Mosaix FX instead of Streamers for even more glitz. I figure that’ll catch some party girl’s eye at Simucon. 🙂

Behold! The Seven-Pointed Star! Called that because I massaged the math and worked seven points into the crown instead of the pattern’s previous eight. Also has a ribbed bottom to make it a little less girly. This one’s for a guy, which is why it looks so big on me.

I just wanted to do something with a DR connection for Simucon. I’ll probably make the hats I take there with seven points just as a little inside noodge to the game.

Well, I had a long car trip this weekend, so I managed to finish up the “Flowers On The Go” tote and show the unfelted version(note dinosaur for scale) to the young lady who’ll receive it as a birthday gift.

This was a challenging pattern. Not necessarily challenging because it had me doing new things, but because I felt it was unclear in spots. It had two outright inaccuracies, one involving the number of stitches picked up for the bottom band, and the other involving the three-needle bind-off which attaches the handle to the top triangles. I wrote to the author of the pattern this morning, and she confirmed that yes, they fixed that about a week after it was released, but I guess I got one of the old copies. The author, Bev Galaskas, was very nice, though, and eager to fix anything else that seemed odd.

Nonetheless, it came out of the washing machine and looked really great! My husband thought it looked like a miniature sweater. It took 2 1/4 skeins of Lopi and a lot of time and effort, but it was all worth it. I just needed to block it and let it dry, then needle-felt the young lady’s name on it, and…

and…

CRAP!

I attached the handles sideways. In other words, instead of running parallel to the long side of the bottom of the bag, they were perpendicular. ARRRGGGGHHH!!!

Why does this matter? Think about holding a paper grocery bag closed. You don’t bring the short sides together, as that would be awkward and bulky, and would gape. If you carried it at the end of your arm by your side, it would bump your leg. So you bring the long sides together. The mistake I made brings the wrong sides together. And of course I placed the flap for the button based on where the handles are, so that’s wrong too.

That’s not really something you can fix easily. Frankly, I think I’m better off just re-doing the whole damn thing tonight. I guess I’ve learned a lesson about double-checking EVERYTHING, because it didn’t occur to me that I should watch the order in which I was doing the triangles and i-cord, but now that I look back, obviously it was going to make a difference. Grr. Well, live and learn. My ‘bright side’ disposition leads me to say that at least I can use this bag as a canvas to practice needle-felting on.

Okay, so I go by one of my local yarn stores to get a $1 stitch holder (aka glorified safety pin). While I’m there, I’m carrying my booga bag, and everybody oohs and aahs gratifyingly over it. Then the yarn saleslady motions to me and says, “We’ve got some new stuff in the back room, haven’t even put it out yet!” She takes me back there and lets me caress the yarn. Hmm… I come in for a one dollar thingie, and they want me to caress the $19 skeins of Big Kureyon. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to feed my habit. Suppliers are the same everywhere! I’m doomed!

Ze Booga Bag, she is mostly done!

The knitting was actually pretty easy, once I figured out how to “pick up and knit twisted” the stitches along the bottom. The most boring part was doing the i-cord for the handle. I didn’t realize until I got to that point that I had to knit 8 freakin’ feet of it. Skinny, but time-consuming. Good waiting room work, though.

Here’s the bag pre-felting. At this point, it’s all knitted, the ends are woven in, and it’s ready to go into the washing machine. The box on the chair is the box I had planned to put inside it to block it on. In this case, blocking means putting the bag snugly over the box and letting it dry to give it a nice flat base and sides.

Here’s the bag after one go-round in the washing machine with a pair of jeans and two towels. It’s getting a little smaller, a little fuzzier, and losing some stitch definition. I didn’t put it in a zippered pillowcase as recommended, because I wanted the stitch definition to really fade, and I figured the extra friction would help.

Here’s the bag after a second go-round, this time with a little bit of detergent which I thought might speed things up. I think it did, as you can see it’s much smaller now. However, it’s also really shiny because the detergent didn’t rinse out well. So I put it in a zippered pillowcase (I didn’t want it to fuzz up much more) and tossed it back in for another brief go-round.

Here’s the bag still damp from its brief third and final go-round in the washing machine, blocking on its box. It’s good to know that the Kureyon shrinks more lengthwise than it does in width. It’s probably down by a third of its size. After this picture was taken, I picked off the fuzzballs. The bag will stay over the box until it dries, which could take a couple of days.

This project has been very fun, and I’m ready to tackle more felted items! Just in time for warm weather, it’s a fun knitting thing I can do that holds up well to use in any season! Whee!

UPDATE!

The completed bag. Obese cat for scale.