Knitting – Page 11 – Hopefully Creative

Purple Pterodactyl!

From the same book that produced the Plesiosaur, now comes the Pterodactyl!

It all started from the plesiosaur and when I showed it and the book around. One of my friends seemed to like it and really liked the pterodactyl that’s also in the book. I told her I’d make her one. She requested the colour scheme from the Dinobabies pterodactyl, Dak. He is purple/pinkish with a white belly. I got some yarn for my birthday that was a pretty good to pictures I found of Dak.

I knit mostly according to the pattern, although I did make some changes to make it look more like Dak. The instructions were followed for the legs, although black toes were knit. It was also according to instructions for the tummy, but guestimated where to start adding white to create the belly. I followed the instructions for the head (including errata), but decided not to change colour. I didn’t make the arms, although he did get strips of knitting along his wings to simulate arms. There are black fingers following the pattern for the arms. For the wings, I didn’t want him to have trapezoid wings, so I followed the pattern to where the fingers are, then I increased a stitch along the top in every row and decreased a stitch in the bottom every other row. This gave the wings more shape. He does have more of a tail than Dak, but less than the original. Last but not least, he’s got a neck! This was completely improvised.

Here you can see the knit-in belly and the toes, also visible are his arms. I added red buttons for the eyes. I really do think that the colour matches quite well.

These two really show the shaping on the wings (there is some!), and his little tail on the left. The right picture shows the neck, which he has, and that you can still move his legs around to suit the occasion. I think my friend liked him, so I’m proud.

I really like the book. I also started another one right after finishing Dak. That one is an Allosaur. I also made some small ones, where I took the body and legs from the book but improvised the defining features. You’ll probably see those around here too at some point.

Knitted Plesiosaur!

Last Christmas I got the book “Gebreide Dino’s” by Tina Barrett (“Knitted Dinosaurs”).
The patterns are quite fun, although they do not always resemble the original dinosaur that much. For some reason I decided I wanted to knit something fun last Saturday, so I decided to grab the book from my shelf and choose the one I liked the most. That turned out to be the plesiosaur. Now, I like the idea of the book, but either my version is crappily translated, or the patterns don’t match the pictures that well. I documented my problems on ravelry, here. But I’ll also state somethings here.

My dinosaur is 50 cm long from head to tail, the pattern indicated that it should be about 27 cm. However, I did make some changes that influenced its length and I think my translation caused some problems. From other people’s versions, I’m fairly certain that some part of the in- and decreases for the back are supposed to be in every row, but my pattern didn’t say that. I also wanted it’s head to be a little longer, so I added twenty rows to the neck. I also wanted it to have a more pointed tail, so I added some rows between the decreases there. Below a picture of me with Plessy, for scale.

Some of the bits have been in contact with sand. On Sunday I decided I wanted to knit the light green back fins in another location. So I put on my rollerskates and skated to the beach, where I proceeded to get some weird looks, but finished the back fins. I did modify the back fins a little. The picture with the pattern shows that the back fins are much smaller than the front fins. However, following the pattern the back fins would just be 2 rows shorter, without any other changes. I decided that would not do and knit the back fins until (non-existing in my pattern) row 13.

The instructions wanted me to add sequins to the back, but sequins and I are not friends. I decided so cross stitch some spots on his back with the belly yarn. I like this effect.

So while the instructions also state to sew the body first and attach the flippers afterwards after they’d been stuffed. This seemed like a stupid idea to me, so I attached the flippers to the body first and then sewed all around the outside. This worked really well, and I think it looks a little better.

I chose to stitch the eye-whites on as my fabric glue wouldn’t stick very well. I also used safety eyes, not buttons. I think it has the cutest face. I did want it to have a slightly more upward pointing neck, so I added some stitches in the neck to pull it together. If I put a glass under it as I did above, it almost looks like Nessy. As I’ve now finished my first dinosaur, it’s on to the second. The friend who gifted me the book is in love with the pterodactyl, and I just happen to have the perfect yarn already! But last and most certainly not least, that face!

Christmas Ornament

Yes, I am aware of the fact that it is August, I haven’t skipped four months in my head. What I am aware of, though, is that fact that making things takes time. If you want to have a nice Christmas tree full of hand-made ornaments, it’s better to start in time right!

So what did I make? I knit a ball, in a yarn that varies between light silver and black, that’s why the colours aren’t even in the pictures. It’s supposed to be put in the tree, but it’s a little overly large I’m afraid. It’s bigger than my hand..

So for the next one I’m going to adapt the pattern to make it a little (lot) smaller. You’re supposed to knit it on 4 needles, but I’m incapable of doing that. I also don’t have four small needles anyway. So I decided to use a needle for knitting in the round, and this worked just as well. Started with 12 stitches in provisional cast on and in the middle it was 64 stitches, knit on 4.5mm needles. The next one will be more black, as that’s where the yarn’s at now.

Attempt at a Blanket

Quite a long time ago, I wanted to knit a blanked with different coloured yarn squares. I bought eight different colours and white and started knitting the white border. Then I started squares bordered by white. It was horrendous to knit..

It took forever to get as far as I got and I just gave up.

I stopped and started numerous times, but it didn’t really work, I wasn’t into it enough. So eventually, I knit a white border and started trying to get rid of all the yarn ends, there were two ends per colour and two ends for all white separators. It again, took forever to weave in all the ends.

This is the result! I do think that it looks nice, but there is just too much work involved to continue to create a full blanket. For now, I might add some buttons and create a little scarflet or something out of it. Or maybe just decorative trim on my chair? Any other bright ideas?

Winter Sweater in Summer

The Wibra is a Dutch shop that sells loads of different things. They also have a cabinet with different types of yarn. The assortment changes quite regularly, so I stop in from time to time to check if they have something interesting available. Not very long ago, I went by and found some yarn called Bella. It’s characteristics are 75% acrylic and 25% wool, about 62 meters per 100 gram and it should be knitted up on size 8-10 mm needles. I took some balls of the brown/beige-ish colour way because it looked nice.

Then I went online to see if I could find a nice pattern in a super bulky yarn that I wanted to knit up. I stumbled upon this pattern, 135-23 Ginny, on ravelry here. These are the notes for my project. I’m not very good at religiously keeping notes though. The reason I chose the project because I always seem to knit up stuff that leave my neck cold. This sweater had a really nice collar, and was knitted in the round. I decided to make an attempt at getting it to work.

So I knit up a swatch on my new size 10 circulars, bought especially for the project, and found my gauge too big. So I recalculated the pattern to suit my gauge. I started with a provisional cast on, from youtube. I also made sure to decrease a little extra to get a slightly more fitted look. I didn’t do the stripes because the fabric is busy enough.

I knitted/’drafted?’ set in sleeves myself, as the pattern wanted sew in, but I don’t like seaming at all. I roughly based it upon the tutorial found here. After knitting the entire sweater, the cuffs and hem were knitted. I cast off using this and this very helpful tutorials. I used about 5 balls to make the entire thing. Above is what it looks like. You can’t really see the collar very well, so I’m thinking about knitting a similar one up in a more solid yarn.

These are some detail shots of the neck and cuffs. I’ve worn it once now when it was quite cold, and really liked it. It’s nice and warm, it covers the neck sufficiently, but it isn’t boring. While I don’t know if I’d call it flattering necessarily, it doesn’t look massively too large for my frame I think.

I wore it a while ago as we’ve been having an official heatwave in the past week. I thought I’d died and gone to hell, it was that hot. So I, of course, had decided that I needed to knit another sweater, from this yarn type but in blue/green shades. That on my lap was even worse, but I hope to show you that finished project soon too!

Red Diamond Sweater

A dud was knitted. *sad face*

I’d found this free pattern, the Diamond Girl Knitted Top by Julie Farmer, on ravelry here and decided that it would be awesome to knit, especially in red. So I cast on and found out that my cast on wasn’t nearly stretchy enough. I kept on knitting though, but eventually removed the cast on edge while keeping the already knit rest. I figured this was like a provisional cast on right? So I could always go back and cast off the edge later. I think I also was off gauge, so it knit up a little big. This is the link to my ravelry page about it.

I changed some of the sizing on the front, by decreasing, there is no shaping in this originally and there was very little in my version. I decided to knit up the sleeves full length because I absolutely abhor elbow length sleeves. They are too short to be warm and too long to be short and comfortable. I would be continually trying to pull them down or push them up again.

Once I sewed it up, I finished the hems of sleeves and body. I decided the knit some extra short rows on the back to cover the butt a little more. I decided to leave the neck alone. So, while I liked the picture of the sample, I’m not a big fan of my own version. I feel that it’s overly large and unflattering. See the example above. Ps. The white that shines through are the letters on my shirt. Below, I’ve tried to show that it needs quite a lot removed in order to be a little more fitted.

I don’t think I necessarily want to wear it very often. So might just donate it to somewhere for someone to love more than I do. I don’t feel like frogging the whole thing as the yarn also isn’t something that’s terribly dear to me. I also don’t feel like trying to fix all the bits I don’t like, as that would mean frogging it completely. All in all, this one just isn’t a success. Luckily the next one I knit, is a success!

Accidental Harry Potter Sweater

Red and yellow seem to become Harry Potter colours really easy and really quickly. I only found this out after I’d finished most of my sweater though. Truth be told, I don’t mind. I like the sweater, it is comfortable, warm, pretty and it has stripes. Those stripes were a complete pain in the ass to finish, but that’s the life of a (somewhat new) knitter, I guess.

The original pattern is $5 in Paris which is free on Ravelry, you can see my very limited notes here. I now also remember why I thought I’d blogged about it, I did post the pictures on Ravelry. Sometimes you’d think I’d forget my head if it wasn’t stuck on. I did already show quite a few pictures of me wearing it, just see the M M M ’15 posts.

For the sweater, I basically fudged a bit and math-ed with the stitch counts to suit my gauge and called it a day. Also, the stripes were sort of supposed to continue along the arms too, but I’d ran out of white yarn, and so made them completely red. I actually like it like this, so happy accident!

You’ve now seen the front and back, and they were so pretty, weren’t they?! But the nicest bit is the neck. In it is this cute little tag I bought from a shoppy. I finished the neck with elastic, as it became a bit stretched out during the day and sank further and further off the shoulder. I hate off the shoulder everything, so that was not an option. This solution works, and it’s a nice pop of bright red on the insides.

I will write about the graduation dress when I have some nice(r) pictures. And once the day is over so I can tell all about the possible thunderstorm coming our way.

Holes

Happy new January etc.

As you may or may not know, people in the Netherlands are allowed to ignite fireworks in their own backyard and/or street from 18:00 on the 31st of December until 2:00 on the 1st of January. Being somewhat easily scared and with a severe dislike of loud bangs, you can understand my dislike of the party. However, apparently, most other people do like it. Anyways.

Way back in 2014, I finished a new sweater. The pattern, or as they call it recipe was called the eyelet yoke sweater and can be found here. I had actually completely finished the body and part of a sleeve when I decided that it really was much too big and baggy and not what I wanted. So I frogged and started again, using the very unscientific method of not knitting 1 every 8 stitches. And some calculations to get the yoke to work out.

Left the frogged version, right the current one. See the difference?

Now, the eyelet yoke sweater sort of has its description in the name. There are eyelets in the yoke, aka holes. Once I’d finished the thing it was difficult to think of something to wear underneath, because there were holes that would show whatever was underneath. Eventually I had the brilliant idea to just wear a blouse. I own two and even though they are blue and white, I don’t think they clash with the red in the sweater. I’ve now worn it out and about, and forgot to take pictures every time, so that’s why it’s ‘late’.

Here is was after a wash, you can see on the left that the bottom is not the same length all the way round, sort of. And on the right the built-in shaping which I may have overdone a little.

The left is the finished version of the bit with the holes, and right the frogged version. There is a little difference but not much.

Below you can see the thing on me. Excuse the horrid lighting, it’s winter, I feel like I’m in perpetual darkness with all the storms, rain and other light-blocking weather features.

And this is my ravelry project.

Another Hat

What do normal people do when their ears are cold? They find something to cover their ears, something from their cupboard maybe? Not me, oh no, not me. I decide to turn the scarf I’m knitting into a hat, that was much faster than walking to the closet, not …

However, the hat making exercise had good results, if you ask me. I was knitting a scarf from a thick acrylic yarn (100 m per 200 gram), 15 stitches or 17.5 cm wide, in seed stitch, I think. I had finished about 40 cm of scarf before I transformed it into a hat. The method I chose was simple, measure the head and knit that much in seed stitch. Then I picked up stitches along one of the longer ends and knit 4 rows of 1×1 rib and bound off in a stretchy bind off. I seamed the back together and ‘gathered’ the top edge with the leftovers of the seaming yarn. I then made a nice little pompom because I still had yarn left over. I attached the pompom to the yarn and had a nice, warm, slouchy, green hat.

My forehead and nose are still extremely interesting. I get it. Anyways, it’s a much richer deeper green in real life. However, the light in the winter is crap and the flash didn’t make it much better. So trust me that the colour is actually pretty wonderful.

And this is the back seam (somewhat to the left of the centre in this picture) and the cute pompom on top. It actually dangles on a bit of yarn so it can bounce around and everything.

I still have a top hat that I need to update in some way. It’s really old and quite dusty and dirty, so you may get another hat post in the future. But don’t keep your fingers crossed. I’m slow in starting daunting projects.. I do have another knitted project that I need to show, but because I’m celebrating the holidays soon I might not get around to it.

In the spirit of Christmas or whatever holiday you prefer to celebrate, I wish you some very nice days and a fantastic new year. Enjoy crafting and being hopefully creative!

Knitting a Lady

To me, Myrna is a girl’s name. I think I actually know one although I’m not sure of the spelling anymore (primary school seems so long ago..). However, when I saw the OAL posted by Lladybird (here), I couldn’t help but be impressed by the pretty red knit that fellow Outfit Along (hence OAL, I guess?)-host Andi had made and designed. I wanted one, for sure. So I bought it on Ravelry, I believe that was my first time purchasing anything there, and it went well..

For some reason I decided that grey would be the best choice, although I now believe I should have just started a red version. My original Ravelry notes are here, if anyone is interested. I had to cancel on the first attempt because the armholes almost went to my navel. But by sizing down and removing 8 rows where there were no increases or decreases I managed to make something that actually fits, it doesn’t help that my row gauge is of by about a mile. I like it a lot, although I cannot help thinking about running a thin ribbon through the holes or something.

I learned a new method of knitting sleeves, with short rows already attached to the bodice. I do not wish to return to the old method of having to set in sleeves that were separately knitted ever again. I found I wasn’t dreading the whole sewing sleeves on part, so I’d like to adopt this method as favourite, so far anyways.

The weather on the day I finished this grey thing was weird, one moment cloudy (left) and one moment extremely sunny (right). This made picture-taking even more difficult than usual. But below you can find the front of the thing, and then the front again.

Next we’ll see the back with the cute little hole in it, I adore this feature!

Here it is inside and out (I think, I weaved in the ends so I don’t know for sure anymore), you won’t be able to spot the little ribbon I sewed along one of the button bands for stabilisation. In a later picture this will visible clearer.

This is the set in sleeve, I did a good job I think.

Also that ribbon and the buttons I chose. I like how the buttons almost disappear.

I am very proud for actually finishing this thing, and in so short a time period too! Ravelry says I took a month and a half. Of course it helps that the sleeves and the body were short, but I enjoyed knitting this thing on the round needles. I have cast on another one, I’m not sure yet if that will get finished, but I hope so!

Category: Knitting