Thursday, June 26, 2008

Random Rainbow

I’m not sure what to think of this yarn I made.



I guess I should start from the beginning. I got this sheep 2 shoe kit from The Fold at MSWF. The roving in the kit is incredibly soft and I absolutely loved spinning it. I didn’t exactly follow the directions of how to divide the roving and spin it.



Ok, I didn’t follow the directions at all. I divided the roving different then what it said and I 2 plied it instead of 3. That’s because I spun the singles thicker then what I should have imo for socks.



I have been playing around with this yarn. First, I knitted up a swatch. The swatch was not bad. The colors gradually changed from one color to the next but this was done with a cast on of only 15 stitches. I knew that once I casted on enough stitches to actually make something with, the colors would not gradually change. I decided to cast on for a sock anyway. Oh my, the colors are all over the place. There was a kind of striping from darker shades to lighter but no real pattern to it.

So I then decided to use an entrelac pattern.

This might be acceptable but the yarn is still a bit thick for socks to me. I’ve decided to frog it and set it to one side for awhile.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Shirred Shirt

Awhile back when we went to Disney Dax saw a shirt that she thought was cute. I of course took a picture of the shirt and told her I would try and make something like it. Here is a picture of the shirt she liked.
I wasn’t sure how the top of the shirt was gathered and then I saw a tutorial at kuky ideas. It’s called shirring. I keep thinking of Lord of the Rings every time I say that word. Anyway you use elastic thread in the bobbin of the sewing machine and use normal thread in the top. From the tutorial it sounds like it is suppose to draw the fabric up automatically but I couldn’t get it to do this. I had to pull the elastic thread, like for gathering. Also my sewing machine was not too pleased with having elastic thread in the bobbin. Occasionally the thread would get stuck in the bobbin case and brake the top thread. I would have to clear the bobbin area of the thread and start again. It didn’t do this to me a lot but enough for it to be annoying. I’m not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or if my sewing machine just didn’t like this technique. I have a babylock esante ese.

I used McCall’s pattern 5050. The modifications I did were the shirring, I also didn’t gather up the sleeves and I put the bottom elastic casing in a little lower then on the pattern. I did originally put the casing where the pattern suggested but it gave the top too much of a maternity look. So I dropped the casing below the seam line where the purple fabric meets the blue. Actually it’s right on top of the seam. This helped gather the purple fabric making it drape better. I also cut about 3 inches off the length.

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If I did this pattern, with this method again I would try and use a lighter weight fabric. I also wouldn’t pull in the elastic around the neck line as much as I did. All in all, I think she likes it.

We went to Targets yesterday to get the spiderwick movie on DVD. I noticed when I was there they had the top that we saw on the person at Disney. It was on sale for around $7.00, hmmm.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Brown BFL

Thank you so much for all the nice comments on the bayerische socks. I really do appreciate them.

I finally finished spinning and plying the brown BFL that I got from Misty Mountain Farm.

I really enjoyed spinning this. It just took me a long time because there was a 1lb of it.

I Navajo plied it and managed to get 642 yards. At first I was a bit disappointed in the yardage. I thought I would have gotten much more out of this roving, but then I started knitting with it. First I used size 6 needles, then 7, 8, 9, 10 ½, it wasn’t till I got up to the sie 10 ½ needle that I actually started liking how the stitches looked. I went ahead and knitted a little more with a size 11 needle. It looked so much better with the larger needles and it felt so much softer.

So after calculating the stitch per inch this yarn could go for a bulky yarn. I got about 3 ½ stitches per inch with it, yeah. Now I’ll probably go to ravelry and spend a good bit of time looking for patterns that might work with this yarn.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Bayerische

Yeah, they are done and I really like them!
I present to you my bayerisches.



Specs
Pattern: Bayerische, This pattern isn't as bad as it looks. Once you get past a few rows it becomes much easier to follow. The pattern requires you to k1tb before each chart but it is not on the chart, so I had to write it on my chart to remind me to k1tb. I loved this pattern so much that I can see doing them again as a gift.

Yarn: Regia Silk. I did love knitting with this yarn but I also noticed that it has fuzzed up a little bit so I am concerned that over time it might turn into a fuzz ball. We’ll see.

Needle Size: US Size 1 (2.25mm). The pattern called for size 0 needles but I decided to use a size up. I’ve done size 0 needles on socks before and have found them to be to snug. If I had to choose I would rather my socks to be lose then tight. But I didn't need to worry, the size 1 needles worked out well for me.

Today was the last day of work for me. Summer vacation has officially started!