The first frog was great, but he was more toad coloured than I wanted. So I decided to get on a new frog. This started by dying some yarn bright green and slightly lighter green. I think I measured ten grams from a skein of Titanium Sock yarn and then dropped it into a green bath. It didn’t exhaust entirely, so I dropped 10 more grams in to make some light green yarn.
As usual, the actual knitting time for a frog is very short, however, convincing myself to finish adding the arms and legs took several weeks yet again. I started him on October 22 and finished on November 26. The back, arms, and legs were done with a combination of the bright green sock yarn and DROPS Kid-Silk in 18 Apple Green and the tummy was the light green sock yarn and Søstrene Grene Mohair Blend in 1650 Blanc. He’s got wires in his arms and legs and is posable. I’ve not tried to pose him yet because I still want to make some clothes.
The original frog has since found a new home and I’m more than happy to have this one hanging out on the dinner table!
Some time ago, I bought some lovely blue fabric to make a new winter coat out of. I’ve even decided on the pattern but I’ve not yet managed to convince myself to actually start the project. Instead, I’ve been working on accessories for that non-existent coat. The plan for the coat is that it will be blue with yellow accents and while I’m not sure if that’s going to work out, I have started with that idea in mind anyway.
Since I knew I needed a scarf and potentially a hat to go with my to-be-coat, I dyed some yarn with blues and yellows. I chose Ultra DK and added a fair amount of bright blue speckles and both soft and bright yellow speckles on 22 September 2023. Somehow the yellow came through a lot better but I do like the specks of blue here and there.
Once it was dry, I had to find a pattern to use. The one I chose was the Apiarist Cowl by Claire Borchardt and I started knitting on November 12. I did make a fair few changes to the pattern since I didn’t like the ribbed edge that the original has. A seed stitch edge was included instead. The hight of the honeycombs is also one stitch less (mainly because I can’t count for shit and messed up the first one and decided to go with it).
This was a quick knit (for me) that was mainly completed on trains over the course of a month and a half. Finished on December 26 and since worn fairly often. It’s just a little bit tighter than the Linen Stitch one that I’ve been wearing a lot this fall and winter. Did I entirely forget that I made another one that would work much better; yes. It’s been living in a box since I had to move all my shawls, scarves and gloves away from the hallway where they had been living due to construction dust.
In my last big undyed yarn purchase, I included 10 skeins of ‘Thick and Thin DK’-weight yarn. It’s single ply but it varies in thickness along the length and therefore has an interesting sort of effect. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I was intrigued by how it worked. So I set off to dye it with some soft yellow and green sprinkles on 3 June 2023.
Once it was dry, I had to figure out what to actually do with it. I tried several patterns until I ran across the Seas Shawl by Puff Updater. It seemed like a fun, slightly involved pattern that wouldn’t mind the uneven nature of the yarn. You can still lightly see the waves made by increases and decreases, hence the name, I guess. I started on July 23 and finished it on November 19. It traveled with me a lot, together with an ever more crumpled piece of paper with the instructions on it.
After blocking and pinning out some points, it turned out a bit smaller than I hoped. I knew I would never really wear it as it was. So I decided to ask one of my colleagues if she was interested and it has now found a nice new home. The end result is only a small part of what I enjoy about knitting. It’s mainly the relaxing nature of knits and purls that keep me coming back to the needles.
Adding some details to stave off endless repetition.
To be honest, I don’t remember much about this shawl. I finished it a couple of months ago and from what I can recall, the knitting was very boring. However, it does have good colours, grey, white and black go with everything! And I have worn it out a few times since, so lets try to recap anyway.
My Ravelry notes indicate that I started this new shawl on July 1st, 2023 and finished it on 11 October 2023. Not too bad of a turn around. The pattern is Aranea by Erika Wine and I later incorporated Asscher by Christina Danaee into it because I was so bored. The yarn was the ‘grey-diation‘ yarn dyed in December 2022. The pattern is fairly simple, the only thing to remember is to make the ‘spokes’ by effectively knitting i-cord along the edges and three other spines. In the beginning, a stitch is increased on each side of each spoke every fourth row. Once you pass 40 stitches between two spokes, you start increasing every other row.
This is a lot of knitting stockinette and for some reason, my yarn didn’t want to run out. The shawl is supposed to end when there were 80 stitches between the spokes, but I still had a lot left when I hit those 80 stitches. So at some point, I wanted something, anything else to do but knit-stitches for an eternity. I found the Asscher pattern, which has a pretty cool eyelet pattern on the back and started incorporating those instructions in between the spokes. I deviated at some point and made an extra triangle. I also needed to keep in mind that the i-cord binding still needed to happen, so I kept weighing the yarn to make sure I had enough. Once I reached the end, I followed the bind off instructions and wet blocked it.
Since I wanted the lace design to stand out a little more, I blocked it with straight edges instead of the spiderweb intention from the original pattern. This was probably not the best idea because what I liked most about the Aranea pattern was the spiderweb effect. However, I’m definitely not making this by hand ever again. I had to force myself to finish it. It has turned out a pretty decent size and it’s definitely wearable. I now also know how that gradation effect in yarn will play out when knitting. I have learnt (again) that endless stockinette is not my forte and will try to keep this in mind with future projects.
Last year, when Karen and I dyed different kinds of yarn, one of them was colour-mix that has sat in my stash since. I do find that yarn very interesting and I thought it would look good with browns, so when I had some red-brown yarn leftover from the Fringe! scarf, that set my brain in motion. I put them next to each other and I thought they looked good together. I wasn’t sure I would have enough for something wearable, so I dyed another skein some lighter brown (and later overdyed it with even more brown) and started planning.
I found the Pirate’s Cove for LK150 by Christine Welsh on Ravelry when looking for machine knit patterns. It also had a video tutorial attached with it, which was really nice. The main idea for the original Pirate’s Cove was to use a thicker yarn and increase one stitch every second row on one side to create an asymmetrical triangle scarf. Because I used thinner yarn and my bed wasn’t too wide, I opted to increase one stitch every four rows to create a longer triangle. Different stitch or colour patterns were suggested at intervals, but the knitter can make their own choices of course. I chose to do the first section in the red-browns, then some striped red-browns & colour-mix. Next came some thin red-brown, brown and colour-mix stripes with eyelets and without eyelets. Some flat brown after and then increasing width stripes of colour-mix and red-brown. In the last section of colour-mix, I knit some triangles with eyelets. The final section was some straight brown.
Since the straight edges started curling, I followed the directions for a decorative edge in the pattern. I chose to do the edge in the brown. I was very worried that I did not have enough yarn, but I tried to do one side in a different colour and it was awful. So I pulled it out and just .. kept my fingers crossed. I did lose yarn chicken by about 10-20 stitches on the bottom corner, so I used some leftover red-brown to finish those last few stitches. You’ll only notice if you know, so ssshhh. This shawl has now made its way to Karen, as it should suit her Fall colours.
It caught my eye, I had to try, it’s now done, wearing will be fun.
Have you ever had the feeling that you had to make something after seeing an image of it? Well, I’ve had that feeling recently and this time it was due to a combination of slipped stitches and eyelets. I spotted the free pattern Argyle Sweater Vest by Kaitlin Barthold on Ravelry and it was love at first sight. Am I secretly eighty? Maybe. Do I care? No, that Argyle vest had to come live in my closet too.
So I first looked for some yarn. The pattern indicates that it’s originally made with a cotton bamboo DK yarn but that a good substitute would be a wool bamboo DK weight. I happened to have some of that in my undyed yarn hoard. I wanted to make a dark green vest, almost like the picture and I swear the yarn looked like that in the dye pot. However, once it dried, it was more.. grey-green-sea foamy than dark winter forest green. I decided that that was fine too. So I cast on.
I used this as a travel project, it went with me to Amsterdam, to the zoo and stayed in my house. I’d printed the instructions for the argyle pattern and meticulously referenced them throughout my travels (and while in my lazy chair). The pattern isn’t difficult, but it does require some counting and being able to read what you did the round before. Once I cast off the armholes, it became more like a guessing game of where to start the written pattern (I probably should’ve used the chart), but I think it all worked out well, argyle pattern wise.
There have been some modifications to create a more optimal fit. After 2.5 (instead of 3) repeats of the pattern, I started the armholes. I’m short, I didn’t want a dress. Then I also reduced the length of the armholes by 8 rows on front and back. The amount of ribbing rows in the neckline is different and I completely chucked the instructions for the armhole ribbing out of the window. It looked like you could drive a truck through those armholes before I redid them. So the second time around, I also took those in like the center front with a triple decrease.
Unfortunately, the weather turned bad before I really got a chance to wear it. As I am a lizard and it’s turned cold recently, I can’t just wear a button down without freezing. I’m currently debating whether I can make a button down / sweater to wear under this thing, but I haven’t figured it out yet. So for now, it lives on my dress form in the window, mesmerizing me from a distance. I do love argyle patterns so.
Frogs perching on lily pads make the best head gear.
I’ve been subscribed to Dot Pebbles a.k.a. Claire Garland’s newsletter for a few years now, and every so often I get a free pattern for a knit animal. These knits are always very life-like and look insanely complicated. I made the polar bear before and while it all worked out, I wasn’t sure it would while knitting it. So I’ve been eyeing the Frog pattern that’s been making the rounds on the internet recently. I thought I had received it a while ago in my free patterns too. Turns out that I indeed had and I really wanted to have a frog…
Since I really wasn’t sure if it was going to work, I tried to get similar yarns to the ones Claire Garland suggests. I got some drops kid-silk in my mailbox and dyed some fingering weight yarn in ‘toad-green’. The body and legs of the frog were going to be toad-green with apple-green kid-silk. It’s belly was undyed yarn with moonshine kid-silk.
Knitting the body is really fast. I only deviated from the pattern once, by skipping the mouth stitches. I couldn’t get them to work and it just looked awful. Once the body was done, I knit the legs and arms on. At that point, I decided that I need him to be posable so I found some armature wire in my stash and added that. When I make the frog again, I’m going to try to use the wire while knitting, instead of when it’s all done. That way, I can probably hide the ends without having to use so many bits of yarn. With the wire in, froggy can do push ups or sit awkwardly instead of just flop down.
So I had a completed frog when my mother sent an invite for her birthday party. The assignment was to wear ‘your best head gear’. I knew I wanted to wear my green Rita-cousin dress, so I wanted to make some sort of hat that would work with that. I also had this frog. 1+1 = 2 and I decided to make a lily-pad fascinator with the frog pinned to the top. The lily pad pattern was based on the left leaf from an image on the internet. I cut it out from the same green fabric as the dress, stretched over some foam. I then added some hair clips to the bottom. The frog was maneuvered into a normal sitting frog and safety-pinned onto the lily pad.
I love this thing. It’s adorable, it doesn’t hurt while wearing it, it’s got a frog, what’s not to like!
Relatively recently, in May, my brother Peter and his partner Cathelijne came to visit me. We’d planned to do some yarn dyeing just for them to see what it was about. We chose two skeins for each after deciding what I would make from the finished yarn and set to work.
My brother wanted to use the Natural Boo DK yarn, a merino and bamboo mix for a hat/scarf. His plan was to do blue with yellow resists. Surprisingly similar to my starry night sweater – I did not influence this! His yarns were left dry and he added tie wrap resists. A fair few, just to see what would happen. We dunked his yarn into a mixture of blue and navy dyes and pulled it out once that was all set. When we removed the resists, it turned out that if you put two relatively close together, you just get a larger resist. He then added yellow over the top with a syringe. It turned out pretty cool!
Cathelijne wanted to have a triangular scarf like my fringed one. I told her that would be cool, but I wasn’t going to knot all those fringes again, we’d figure out something else. So she settled on Quarter round yarn (fingering weight 100% merino) and would be doing one part grey with yellow and blue speckles in the white parts. This yarn was pre-soaked and once wet enough, we added a little bit of grey to the pot and created a nice construction to keep enough of the yarn white. Once the grey had set, we pulled it out, and she hand-speckled citric acid mixed with dye over the top of it. Most of the speckles are blue and yellow, but sometimes two landed close together and there’s a tiny green area.
All projects were knit on the knitting machine. For Peter’s snood, I cast on a fair amount of stitches on every alternate needle. I made a two eyelets a few rows in and then hung the hem. I continued until almost all the yarn was finished. The bottom hem was then sewn so it looked like the hung hem at the top. I also wanted to make a cord, and I figured, there must be a way that this machine can do i-cord. So I fumbled with the settings and zipped my way through probably several hundred rows to make a nice i-cord to thread through the upper hem.
The bamboo earflap hat was based on a pattern from Clearwater Knits, Earflap Hat by Irene Woods. Since I used a different gauge and a different head size, I recalculated everything. It was started on the knitting machine with e-wrap cast on on 134 stitches, then 18 rows of plain knit, then the flaps were created over 32 stitches from stitch 13 inwards. It was basically like a big sock heel. Then 18 more rows and the hem was hung. Then I knit until I almost ran out of yarn, pulled it off the machine and knit up the top by decreasing in 12 sections. I left two stitches out for seaming up the back. Lastly, I put some fleece into the flaps for added warmth and added braids to the bottom of the flaps.
For the triangular scarf, I used exactly the same pattern as for the fringed scarf, but I left off the fringe. When I got to place where you need to start decreasing again, I did a row of decorative eyelets to mimic the ones that would be along the spine too. I then finished the scarf the same way as my fringed one and put it out to block. Once it was fully blocked, there was still some yarn leftover to make some cute little tassels. There’s one on each long end and two on the point.
All in all, I think this was fun to do with family!
Almost stripy scarf in blues, with little eyelets along the way.
Another knitting machine experiment. I wanted to see if I could make a triangular scarf that wouldn’t grow as fast as most of the ones I’ve tried before. As such, there wasn’t a published pattern involved with this, just one I made up as I went along. The yarn was Alpaca 4ply sock, dyed with one side dark blue and the rest turquoise on 28 March. The scarf itself was started on May 2nd.
The experiment was quite nice, and you can really see the effect blocking has on pointy things. The scarf has a much better point after blocking even though the edges continue to curl a little. I’m not sure I mind though. I really like the striped effect that this dye job created.
This is the pattern:
CoR e-wrap cast on 6 stitches from 70L to 65L.
Knit 3 rows (CoL).
*Transfer the second and third stitch on the left, one needle to the left. Transfer the last two stitches one needle to the right (this creates two eyelets and one increase). Knit 4 rows.*
Repeat ** until there would be 11 stitches between the eyelets on the increase row. In that row transfer the middle stitch one needle to the left to create a decorative eyelet. Knit 4 rows. (Decorative Eyelet Section (DES))
Repeat ** 3x (15 rows from last middle eyelet); and repeat DES (the decorative eyelet will be two needles to the right.) Once there are enough stitches between the side eyelets, make decorative eyelets by transferring the 10th stitch from the center eyelet to the needle on the left.
Repeat until half of the yarn is knit.
Create the second half by e-warp casting on 6 stitches on the right and reversing all shaping.
Use a three needle bind of or some other method of attaching the two sides together.
Nice pops of colour and texture on otherwise plain grey.
I saw the The Bright Side scarf by Lori B at some point last year when I was looking for scarf patterns on Ravelry. I was immediately intrigued. It looked like such a fun idea to have different coloured bits of texture in a scarf. This was one of the projects that I really wanted to make and finish. So on November 1st, 2022, I died some Chester Wool Company Alpaca 4ply Sock yarn in a nice light grey while leaving some yarn out of the dye pot. A short rainbow gradient was then applied to the undyed section and further steamed to set. It hang out in my house for about two and half more months before I finally picked it up and started my Rainbow Bright Side.
This was my travel project from January 14 until February 19. It was in a plastic bag in my rucksack and traveled with me on daytrips and to the office. I would sometimes do some knitting on it at home too. The pattern is very simple, there are some edge stitches on both sides, but in the middle just knit (and purl on the reverse), if you come across some rainbow stitches, purl them on the knit side and knit them on the purl side. You’ll end up with a giant crescent shape at the end. As the rainbow was dyed on the skein on one side, there’s approximately the same amount of stitches between each section of rainbow. As the width of the scarf changes all the time, this means that some interesting pooling can occur if the circumstances are just right. It’s very fascinating to see how these develop while knitting.
As you end on the widest part of the crescent, I had a hard time estimating how much yarn I still needed to finish. In the end, I won yarn chicken by about 4 cm and felt very lucky about that. I really didn’t want to take that many stitches out again. After winning chicken, the scarf was wetted and the blocked. I tried to pull it into an aesthetically pleasing shape on my pool mats. I think it worked. The point of the triangle is not in the middle of the scarf, which means I can wrap the short side around my neck once, but the long side twice. It also goes with a lot of different things because the colours are both neutral and bright – at least in my opinion. It’s already seen some wear, and I’m sure it’ll come out more often!
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