Category: Lucy

Rainbow Bright Side

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!

Proof of Concept Dyeing

Trying out some more dyeing ideas.

“What happens if you separate out random partial sections of yarn and dye those a different colour?” Was the question that spurred the 28 March round of dyeing yarn. I wanted to try and see if it would 1) be possible to even separate out different parts without making it impossible to ball up later and 2) whether that would then create a more random pattern. I started with two skeins of Krypton 4ply yarn and started pulling out random strands and strand sections. The majority of the skein was dyed with a low percentage of black. It’s more grey in appearance because of that. The strand sections that were left out were dyed a nice dark green.

The second skein was Alpaca 4ply sock and got the same separation treatment. I wanted to dye this a bright light blue/turquoise colour with the contrast being navy. However, part of the skein that wasn’t supposed to be navy fell into the pot so there are some more blue spots than intended. I also had another skein of Alpaca 4ply sock that was dyed in some leftover yellow dye. Later, some orange and brown speckles were put over the top.

The first and second experiment also had some leftover dye in the pot, so I wanted to test out the Tweed Effect DK yarn that’s been hanging out in the cupboard too. I took a full skein and started it on the yarn winder until about half was into a ball. Cut the skein and had two tweed experiments. The ball was unwound gain and dropped dry into some blue dye. It did actually take on the barber pole effect that was indicated on the website. The green experiment was not as successful. The yarn came out very uneven and without much barber-poling.

After these experiments, I’ve been able to answer question 1. Yes, it is possible to separate out without making it impossible. It did take a bit longer than normal because certain bits didn’t want to let go of each other. I’ve not gotten around to question 2 though. I’ll report back once these yarns have reached either the knitting machine or the needles!

Plaid Pants

Some nice, warm, plaid pants.

As a follow up to the previous post about the cape cover, these are the pants worn for graduation in January. I’d been leafing through pattern magazines and found a pants style I really liked in Burda Style 12/2022 model 1. It’s a wide legged pant with a diagonal overlap waistband. The legs have vertical pressed creases. I chose to do a Burda Style pant because it seems like those crotches work much better for me than Simplicity or Knipmode crotches.

As I was using a nice thick black and white plaid fabric for the pants, getting it cut out involved some real head scratching. I wanted to make sure that the plaid lines matched along the side seams and inseam, but also pockets and closure flaps. Since the bit of fabric that I had wasn’t overly large, I ended up cutting on the cross grain. The pattern didn’t come with back pockets, but I substituted some in anyway. Once I had all the pieces cut, I set to sewing. This went fairly smoothly until the instructions for the closure flap. I still don’t know what they actually wanted me to do, but I’ve done something and it closes, so I’m calling it good. It also doesn’t entirely match plaid there, but I’ve done a good enough job so I don’t think it’s super noticeable.

The front pockets are pretty regular. I followed all the normal steps and made sure to match my plaid there for maximum style points. For the back pockets, I followed a tutorial by Sewing Divas for non-sagging pockets. This involves making an extra fold in the side of the pocket closest to the wearer. So far, it seems to work. There are single welt pockets, and they are going over a dart. This means that you’ll see some slight discrepancy in the width of the plaid above and below the welt. This was unavoidable and I tried my best. I still think they came out pretty well.

All the insides are finished with the serger, so no fraying expected. The pockets are nice and deep. The fabric is lovely and soft. The plaid matches where I want it and overall I’m very happy with these pants. Did I figure out after the fact that they look quite similar to my other black/white plaid pants? Yes, I did. Do I care? Also not. They did require a bit of alteration after I’d worn it to graduation because I’d hemmed it a little short. That’s been fixed now, so they go out and about with me quite regularly.

Cape Cover

Stylish cape for those cold days

At the end of January, we celebrated the graduation of a small class. I was still considering what type of outfit I wanted to wear. Simplicity Naaimode 53, Model 12, cape caught my eye (also known as Simplicity 9185). The idea of wearing pants with a top and the flowy cape cover became really appealing. I searched through my stash for appropriate fabrics and found a plaid for the pants (staying predictable), a white fabric for the top and some black for the cape. Since the venue was not necessarily going to be the warmest ever, so I decided to use the last bit of magic black fabric for the cover.

The pattern pieces are pretty simple. One partial front with a deeper scooped neckline, one partial back with a shallower scooped neckline and a collar piece. The pattern said to extend the front and back on one side with 90 cm. Since I had very limited fabric, I decided to not entirely comply with the instructions. The pieces were put on the cross grain to make maximum use of the remaining fabric. This did mean that I couldn’t extend them as far as the pattern originally wanted. However, I’m short, so this was actually perfect. If the cape was any longer, I think it would become a trip hazard.

After cutting, the shoulder seams were sewn, the collar attached, the side seam sewn and lastly, it was hemmed. I was afraid it was going to be all stretchy and bubbly, but it pressed out great. It was great fun to wear it, a little bit of extra swoosh, but also nice and warm. I’ve been wearing it a fair number of times even since the event, so that’s pretty good.

Purple Eyelet Scarf

Flower eyelet pattern for a purple scarf.

After the success of the knitting machine eyelet scarf, I figured it was time to finally knit up a skein that has been in the stash for years. I’ve held on to the yarn since it was bought during the closing sale of a yarn shop. The intention was to make a scarf for a former colleague whose favourite colour is purple. I forgot what kind of yarn this is and I didn’t dye it myself. I did not use a pre-written pattern for the scarf, I initially just started knitting over 51 stitches and would see where it would end up. It wound up being too short so it was frogged for a second attempt.

Using a closed cast on, and skipping every second needle, I cast on 31 stitches. Then I knit 10 rows and hand-ribbed them. While keeping two columns of rib on the outsides, I started with an eyelet pattern down the center. The eyelet pattern was:

  • 4 rows knit
  • Transfer the first stitch to the left of center to the previous needle on the left and transfer the first stitch to the right of center to the next needle on the right.
  • 4 rows knit (to create 2 eyelets on the first row).
  • Transfer the second stitch to the left of center to the previous needle on the left and transfer the second stitch to the right of center to the next needle on the right.
  • 4 rows knit (to create 2 eyelets on the first row).

Repeat until there is just about enough yarn left to do 4 rows of finishing knit and 10 rows of ribbing. Then weave in the ends and block the scarf to a width of 15 cm on your pool-floor foam pieces. Next, hope that the intended recipient actually likes it.

And she does like it!

Rainbow Tie Scarf

An afternoon of quick knitting a rolling corkscrew tie scarf.

I’ve by now amassed a decent amount of dyed yarn in my yarn table, so I figured I should use some to actually make things. So off to Ravelry I went. I recently discovered that Ravelry also has knitting machine patterns so I looked through that category for inspiration. I found this Ringel-Enden- / Korkenzieher-Stola by Gabi gruen. It’s a really easy rectangle knit (no thinking whatsoever) that automatically corkscrews at the ends because of the nature of stockinette knitting.

So I found the rainbow and white speckle yarn and cast on 81 stitches onto waste yarn. When I had knit around 8 rows of waste yarn, I continued with the rainbow yarn. I made sure to leave about 2 meters or so. Then the machine and I just whizzed back and forth until there was again 2 meters of yarn left. I transferred the stitches from the knitting machine onto knitting needles and cast off both ends so they are symmetrical.

The scarf started to do the natural corkscrews as predicted by the pattern, but less pronounced because it’s not as wide as the original. Since I only had one skein, I cast on fewer stitches and it turned out a little shorter. I didn’t think it can comfortably wrap around my neck twice, so I found a different solution. I used some of the leftover yarn from the stripy scarf to quickly knit a tie. A white snap was applied, and I had a cute little closure. I was pleasantly surprised by how this yarn knit up. I wasn’t sure if it would be a hideous mess of too much colour, but the little stripes are less busy then I expected.

Penguin Embroidery

A little penguin necklace for those days that needle a little more joy.

One Tuesday, I was sitting in my house, enjoying my day off and thought: what will I do today. The answer turned out to be ‘browse for small embroidery patterns and make a tiny hoop necklace’. I’ve had these small hoops in the collection for a while, but forgot they existed so I bought more not very long ago and then promptly found the others. I hadn’t actually finished any yet, so now was the perfect time. I figured out how big the embroidery could be (14 by 14 stitches in the circle) and went on to look for ‘alpha patterns’. I think they are used for friendship bracelets, but it works well for cross stitch too.

The pattern I used was of a little penguin and made by RIVAI. You can find it here. I added some extra stitches to the bottom to fill the frame. I only used four colours, but they were very effective. The black penguin has a white belly, an orange beak and a light blue background. It’s just that little bit derpy that it becomes adorable. It also makes me think of the Pengu cartoon penguin, so that brings much joy!

Knitting Machine Scarf

Dyeing and knitting a stripy scarf.

Since the knitting machine entered my life, I’ve been looking for things to use it for. Recently I watched a tutorial about knitting a very pretty scarf on a knitting machine. It’s by Ingunn Hvatum and can be found here. The pattern itself is not very difficult, so it seemed like an interesting challenge. It did take a little bit of learning to achieve the eyelet edge smoothly, but that’s what practice is for!

You start with three stitches and every second row you create an eyelet and make the scarf that little bit wider. This is done until you are halfway through your yarn (in my case), or if you follow the instructions until you have engaged all needles. Once you are halfway, you knit 4 rows and then start decreasing one stitch while still creating an eyelet. Once you have three stitches left, you bind off.The last instruction is to crochet a chain and thread it through the eyelets.

For this scarf, I used one skein of self-dyed 100% merino wool (Quarter round by Chester Wool), which is around 400 meters. The skein was dyed a light grey while keeping a small section out of the dyebath. After the grey had set, the white area was overdyed with a mix of navy and green dye which resulted in a sort of petrol colour. Some orange transfer can also be found from the rainbow skein that was dyed at the same time. The aim for this one, though, was to do dark green, but I do like this end result. At some point, I accidentally cut through a thread so I ended up with two balls of yarn, one about 97 grams and one 10 grams. After knitting the scarf, any yarn that was left over was dyed with the petrol stock to make the crochet chain for the eyelets. All in all, a happy accident.

Once the scarf was knit, I had to block it because it was rolling over on both the eyelet and the neck edge sides. I thought it would be a right angled triangle, but while blocking that turned out to be wrong, so the point is a little more obtuse than I figured it would be. I still like it a lot. Once the crochet chain was attached, I still had a little bit of yarn left over, and I decided to add tassels to the points. Not sure how they will do if this thing ever sees the washing machine, but that’s a concern for some other time. For now, I’m just going to enjoy wearing this cute triangle scarf.

Clothes Pin Bag

Updating the clothes pin bag with skateboarders.

My previous clothes pin bag was sadly becoming more and more difficult to access with the opening raveling slowly away. Since I do need to keep those pegs somewhere, I set out to make a new bag. I’d pinned and saved the pattern in October of 2021, not specifically for this purpose but because I thought it might come in useful at some point. It’s the Best Nest Organizer Basket by Nancy’s Notions and I followed the YouTube tutorial for it. I did make the front just a little bit higher so it could hold more and added a longer strap.

The fabric was some leftover red linen-y stuff for the outside, thin batting in the middle and for the binding and lining a cotton with skateboarders and rope jumpers. I’d initially intended the cotton to be a shirt, but I wasn’t actually sure I would ever wear it, so I think this is a much better use of it. I mostly followed the instructions although my quilting was probably a lot less dense that they would’ve intended. Reason for that was that the timing on the treadle is enormously off and it’s in repair, so the electric machine was used. That machine’s bed is different, so quilting isn’t as easy. The thread was a contrasting yellow that matched the little skateboarders. It also made me play thread chicken, and I won, twice.

It came together quite easily, although I still thoroughly hate making bias tape. The cutting and measuring and marking and pressing and all that jazz is just not up my street. It does look better with this matching bias tape though, so I’m happy I persevered. I also played bias tape chicken and sort of won. There are some parts of the long strap that don’t have a double layer of bias tape, but there isn’t a soul that’s going to spot that, so I’m more than happy with it. I think this thing is really quite cute and it should perform its job. We’ll see in just about 8 years whether it will have held up as well as the previous one did!

Leftovers Hat

With the last of the leftovers, made a jaunty hat.

After the success of the Nutmeg leftover sweater, I set out to finally get rid of the last bits of that yarn that had been hanging out in the stash for way too long. So on New Years Eve, I got the knitting machine ready, and cast on some stitches to see what the settings needed to be. Turns out that it was impossible to knit this yarn when casting on on every needle of the machine, so I had to skip every alternate needle. This did mean that while knitting, it was very wide but it would shrink in width and expand in length when off the machine. Since I was fairly uninterested in actually doing a super good job, I just cast on the maximum amount of stitches that would fit and figured it would probably be fine.

I was actually inspired to knit this thing by this video. While looking for a tutorial for a triangular scarf on the knitting machine, one of this channel popped up. After I watched it, it moved on to this new video and I decided to watch that too. I didn’t do any of the special things, but I did get the idea that rectangle hats were a thing. So after the cast on, I just knit until there was no more red yarn, then I switched to the white until that was all gone too. Next up, blue and because I didn’t think it was long enough yet, I also added two of the leftover tiny balls of grey. The rectangle of knitting was taken off the machine and I used knitting needles for the cast off. Then I sewed the sides and top together et voila, hat!

Since there is no further stitching in the hat, you can just fold over the bottom grey edge any way you want. I’ve been doing a fold in such a way that there is a three layer bottom and no purl is on show. Of course, you can also just fold it over and have purl visible. The points of the hat can be back to front or side to side or at any given jaunty angle. In the end, I used 45 g of grey, 15 g of red, 15 g of white and 37 g of blue. This means that I now only have 34 g of grey and 27 g of black leftover. We’re getting to the bottom of this particular yarn stash!