the thoroughly modern knitter

i received a kindle for christmas!  what a fun surprise -- i did not expect anything beyond the usual socks and underwear this year.  and guess what the kindle does besides let you read books?  you can transfer pdf's to it and read them!  what kind of pdf might i be talking about?  knitting patterns, of course!  oh how exciting!  and what a savings of paper!

i immediately loaded my advent calendar knitalong pdf (combined, it's 62 pages! think of the paper and just the bulk of carrying all that paper around!), and i'm using the note feature of the kindle to track rows.

i needed a quick gift bag for a bottle of champagne, so loaded that pattern on there as well.  i used this pattern from paton's.  i've used it before, and love how they organize the stripes to be so random and wonderful.  i modified the pattern to use up some lamb's pride bulky yarn in my stash (with one color in worsted weight held double), so cast on 48 stitches and followed pattern C, using a size 9 circular needle.  the wider stripes often called for 6 rounds, but i knit 5 so the bag would not be too tall.  the narrower stripes i knit as written.  it felted down just perfectly, so the top of the champagne bottle is peeking out. 

it's very quick, very easy and really fun to do.  and of course, felting always seems like a miracle to me, and the fabric is quite sturdy enough to support and protect a full bottle of champagne.  and THAT is important! ツ

i'm felting, i'm felting...

what a world, what a world!
my crazy enormous hat felted down, as you can see, to a reasonable size.

it's still really large, but quite comfortable.  it's not supposed to have that brim, but i like it!  the colors are better than illustrated here -- they're actually quite restrained in an autumnally lovely sort of way.   bad hair days, i presently defy thee!

my official french market bag, in these dark days of me not being in the mood for knitting, benefited by getting its embroidery on.  instead of my customary daisy chain, i back-stitched my decor in order to get a finer level of detail.
here it is pre-felting:

and then post-felting, sitting upside down on the coffee maker with one of those square tupperware containers doing the blocking.  it fits perfectly.

you can still see a great deal of stitch definition.  why did i not felt it more?

1. i did not want it to get smaller, as the handles are pretty short when knit per the pattern
2. size 7 needles are really pretty small, i believe, for felting the lamb's pride.  i think i'd go up to 8's if i were to do it again.  this would help the stitches rub against one another and cancel one another out.  ッ  as it were.
3. the flash makes it look more stitch-defined than it really is. 
4. this one is a reminder for me for the future:  the bind-off sections could easily have a penultimate row of garter, to prevent so much curling.
5. well, i think that's it.

i'll take another picture when the bag is dry and ready for its close-up.  but this wicked witch loves her some paisleys, can you tell?  in my former days of gainful employment, the paisley was my favorite doodle.  before i was able to play solitaire on the computer while listening to a customer complain interminably, multi-colored paisley doodles on a desk pad soothed my bored and anxious brain.  i replicated that notion in yarn here. ッ

somehow i never figured out that all i had to do was click my heels three times...

crocheting in lilliput

it looks like a short, odd crochet hook, doesn't it?

(sorry it's blurry) here is that crochet hook next to a skein of bulky yarn.  i popped by a stitch in time yesterday to grab a size Q hook -- i really did not know they came that big -- in order to crochet up this cute hat from the purl bee.  the prefelted hat is ginormous!

it seemed like an excellent use of this yarn i received as payment in kind for a sample i knit up for a local yarn store.  sadly, i did not like the feel of the yarn or the fabric it knit into, so i've wondered what i would do with it.  it has almost identical properties to the yarn recommended in the bucket hat pattern, so i thought i'd give it a go.  i cannot imagine that this thing will felt down to a wearable size -- it's 48" in circumference along the bottom -- but it will be great-looking if it does.  i've never felted a crocheted item before, so that's an adventure as well.

a FO is in my future, i can smell it!   or is that just the wet lambswool...

searchin' for a rainbow

and i found one in these crazy hobo bags.

i have to say i have become addicted to this bag. the first one was an attempt at a sort of sophisticated, subtle, stripey thing:


the next one i hinted at in my last post, as it dawned on me as i dutifully knit stripes on the last one that i had some noro to use up and this could be even more fun.
i call this one sunrise, sunset bag.
here it is in its full noro glory, felted, and either lying on the table in or hanging by the door of my favorite lys abuelita's.

it was so much fun to watch those colors evolve -- the addictive chemical ingredient of noro -- that it occurred to me that i could do even more, so...

i have done a third one as well. i was supposed to be writing up the pattern for the class i will be teaching on sunday, 5/17 (woo hoo!), but i couldn't stop myself from exploring the possibilities with this easy/fun pattern. look, prefelted:


see how much yarn i had left over when i finished it? that's it, in between the handles. i was sweatin' it. out of 6 skeins of kureyon.
here it is, finished, in all of its sloppy, floppy, hobo, hippie glory:

there's no perspective, so what you can't tell is that it is the perfect shoulder bag size, roomy but you're not going to be pulling floor lamps out of it a la mary poppins.

i call this one the "i wish i still had the purple and teal paisley shirt that would totally have gone with this" bag. for every big giant square on the first two that i did, on this one i did four little ones. which makes it look like a hippie quiltie hobo bag for sure! love love love it! i actually bought a zipper for this one and may line it with a worn out pair (many exist) of my little boy's pants. (angela/alittlebird's idea)

i have experimented with the handles each time. i hate to commit to one, but i think the last one, which does not involve any crocheting, and makes a good-looking, sturdy handle, will be my handle of choice.

meaning that, for the class, i actually probably won't have an entire sample to show them.

that is, unless the discontinued noro i got online cheap shows up promptly via the comfortably reliable UPS, and i go ahead and make another one for the class. what? you think i need hobo bag rehab? what if i told you thinking about hobo bag construction was keeping my head from exploding?

i knew you'd understand ;-)

but has UPS' ups and downs delayed my creative knitting insane startitis? no. look what the new "wish i had the paisley shirt" bag holds:



see this? and this? and this?

no, i can't help it if they conspired to make me do this:



another look:


there is a leaf stitch in the nancy bush book. it forms a triangular scarf that increases 2 stitches every other row. you tell me why it shouldn't occur to one to substitute that for the boring stockinette in the weekend cardi? hmmmm? because, you say, one knows nothing about lace, and there's no pattern for the half-diamonds along the front, the part of the sweater everyone will be looking at? that one may have to rip out and reunvent those triangles four or five times? why should that stop one? it's over 100 st. per row by the time you get to the second screwed up triangle?? hey -- the cardi increases at each raglan edge 2 stitches every other row! it's a natural!

and the yarn is fantastic -- not heavy and clunky like kitchen cotton -- it actually drapes and has a sense of itself.

now if i can only finish this thing before the noro gets here, i'll be good to go. cloning is my only other option.

felted bag for the no fanny pack girl

detail of the prefelted bag -- very cute with the little beads, but i don't know that i'll do that again. i wanted to knit a pocketbook so that a fanny pack for the diabetes supplies was no longer essential. we'll see how it comes out...