Tag: Grey

Knitting Needle Case

Sometimes you just have to impulse buy a full set of interchangeable knitting needles with cables and other bits and pieces, right? Anyway, once that hurdle has been taken, you need a place to put all those needles and other bits. So off to the pinterest I went for some inspiration. In the end I settled on using the case from Sew Fearless as my jumping off point. Found some of the quilting fabrics in my stash, bought a bit of vinyl tablecloth and located a set of zippers to get me started.

It’s got a couple different elements. First, a center pouch with two vinyl pockets along the outside that close with a zipper. The pockets are split into two to house more of the cables. Then I added an additional zipper along the top (more storage!) and finished the pouch with the blue bias tape I used on my quilt. Then I created the needle holding section on the lining. Lastly, I added another zippered pocket, this time split in three, on the other side. There’s some elastic to hold pens and one other pocket that doesn’t have additional closures. The outside has a handle also made from the bias tape and I added some fusible padding. Lastly, I added a double sided zipper to allow some opening and closing.

So far, it seems to hold up and is quite easy to spot in my very chaotic sewing room. We’ll see how it works when I’m doing more knitting and will actually use it.

Baby Rabbit

I was browsing the internet recently and came across the cutest little rabbit: here. It was posted by From Britain with love as a free Easter bunny pattern. Of course I decided that I needed to make it a.s.a.p. So on Monday night, I started knitting. I finished knitting the body late Monday night, then on Tuesday I knit the legs and arms and went out to get eyes. On Wednesday I finally put it all together, notes here.

The instructions were a little hard to follow at times but knitting it was fun. Always nice to finish a knitting project so quickly. I think the finished project is really quite cute although I had a hard time getting the head to be the way I wanted it to. Tip for next time is also to not push the eye backs in as far as they can go. They should have a little more space.

I probably pushed my arm a little too far by knitting the entire body in one night, and I really should pay more attention to myself. It didn’t hurt excessively, but it was a little uncomfortable.

Arm Knitting

Since Tuesday, when the yarn was delivered, I’ve made a number of arm knit scarves. In almost all of them, I cast on 7 stitches provisionally, using an arm as crochet hook, and and arm as knitting needle. I would arm knit until I spotted a knot in the skein and finish knitting. I’d need about half a meter or more to kitchener stitch the stitches together.
This ended up resulting in a grey one and a yellow one that are slightly too long to single wrap and too short to double wrap.

For the double wrap blue-cream-green one, it’s a full skein and a little more of another skein. The remainder of that second skein was used for the doubled single-wrap version (right two pictures is the same thing). That was the only one that had 10 stitches cast on. These all did not take more than an hour or so each.

I’m finding that I quite enjoy arm knitting. It’s quick, easy, nice result and most of all, fun. I have another skein of grey and yellow and two of some blue/green/grey stuff that is less thick. So you might just see more giant knits.

Sweater with Leather

So I discovered that I apparently never posted by sweater with leather that I had mentioned during some MMM post this year. It’s a sweater with an asymmetric zipper that is based on sweaters like in these pins (one and two). I’d wanted something like it for a while, but I think I was scared to cut into it. I believe I based it on the garden party dress top, but it was February when I finished it, so I cannot remember much.

I do know that I got the zipper from my stash where it had been for years. I think I improvised the hood from looking at other pins, but I’m not sure again. I did add some leather bits to give it some more almost nautical look? There’s a bit on the hem, there are triangles at the zipper openings, there’s a bit on the zipper pull and I wrapped some around the hood-cord-ends. I’ve worn it a lot, it’s very comfortable and since its grey, it’ll go with anything. Here’s some action shots from where I wore it at a roller derby game.

That’s all there is too say about it really, since I don’t remember much. However, this way I can link to it if I need to, or when I want to rediscover the pins etc. So I guess you guys are the victims of my memory yet again.

Caps

I wanted more stuff to put on some people’s heads, so I made some!

It started with a knitted hat for a friend of mine. I used the same pattern as I did for the Watermelon Hat, because it’s very easy and very quick. The yarn I used was the few bits that were left over from the Grey Scale Sweater. All knit in one day, which I really shouldn’t do anymore, because my arm does not like that!

The next was made from the left overs of the Plaid Jumpsuit. I wanted to make another cap. I remembered that I had some sort of stiff plastic stuff that was supposed to be used for the bottom of bags. I figured it would also work as a cap. After searching around pinterest for a free pattern, I came across one from Blue Marguerite. I added a little bit of seam allowance, and it since it turned out too small, I needed to incorporate a band to make sure the thing stays on my head. I quite like this one. The lining is of cats, which I also enjoy.

The last one was a beret pattern that I found while browsing for the second hat. I found some black stuff in my stash, sewed up the size 56 hat in little to no time. Unfortunately it’s a little too big, so I need to add some more elastic to the rim to keep it on my head. I still think it’s cute though.

I’ve been busy with finishing some other knitting and sewing, so you may see that soon.

Mini Gloves

Mini gloves were a mini project that was completed in a night because I just really wanted to. The project was inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons podcast called Advantage. It’s one of many podcasts that I started listening too, but it’s one that I really enjoy because they have fantastic storytelling.

One of the characters that the four players have been running into recently is a member of the Hundreds and Thousands (i.e. fairies – I think). His name is Orlander and he’s been both a pain in the butt and useful to the players. At some point, one of the characters promised to knit Orlander mittens for winter. So I decided to make some tiny mittens for this imaginary creature. I found some patterns on Ravelry and sort of fudged something together.

One of the reasons for doing this was that I really wanted to finish a knit project. But the other reason was that the makers of the podcast really enjoy their fans. This podcast, together with another that I listen to called How Friends Roll, have started a mutual Discord (Discord is a free communication platform). I’m a member of the Discord and have enjoyed other fan-art too. So I decided to contribute in one of the few ways I know how to, by knitting. It was well received, so I enjoyed both the knitting and the reactions.

Three-Piece Suit (part 1 – Vest)

In the quest for a three-piece suit, I also needed a vest. I’ve found a liking for Simplicity Naaimode patterns since the seam allowance is already included in them. I’d remembered that there was a pattern for a vest in one of my magazines, so I quickly looked it up. It was in Simplicity Naaimode 18. There I discovered that I really liked the back of one of the patterns (model 59, bottom right) and the front of one of the others (model 58, top right). So I copied all the relevant pattern pieces and merged two together to create the perfect vest.

Since I wanted a little bit of interest, the vest is sewn on the ‘wrong’ side of the fabric. This side has dots instead of dashed lines. The main difference is that the vest appears a little darker. I made no alterations to the pattern and just sewed it together with the same lining I used for the jacket version 1. For the closure, I used some black & white ribbon and attached super small silver-y buttons on the edge. I want it to peep out above the jacket, but not below the jacket – hence the new jacket fronts.

I really love the twisted strap detail in the back, and I love the shape of the neckline. It feels quite flattering. I managed to understitch parts of it, which helps it to lie flat. All in all, I’m very happy with this part of my three-piece suit. On to the pants!

The Day of Three Shirts (part 3)

So the last shirt of Wednesday was I shirt pattern that had come in my possession after some extensive google translating. The pattern is 0880 from Papavero, Krawiecka bluzka błyskawiczna. I’ve had an account at Papavero for quite a long time, and in the past most of their patterns were free (yay!). Nowadays, they charge for downloading a pattern, so I needed to get my grabby little fingers on some Papavero credits. Queue me attempting, for the first time ever, to do a ‘world transfer’ from my bank account while google translating the instructions from Papavero and carefully attempting to pay 49 Polish Zloty. Two days later, it turned out that I was successful and I managed to buy this pattern and a few others, but you’ll hear about those once I start/finish the projects associated.

After what felt like forever trying to place the pattern pieces with as little owl-edge as possible, I succeeded. There are a few left over leaves in the side seams from the back pieces, but because I chose to use the wrong side of the fabric, this is barely noticeable. The remaining owls are going in the bin and this is another completed fabric. As for the project, I first sewed the sleeve hems, neckline edges and hems with the twin needle, and then I switched to a jersey needle for the actual sewing. I sort of tried to use the instructions, but in the end managed to wing it based on the pattern pieces and notches themselves.

The fabric isn’t really stretchy, so I’m hoping the neckline edge will shrink a little in the wash, although it is fine as is. I’m generally always impressed with the way the notches on Papavero patterns line up, and this thing fits pretty true to size, I think. Papavero publishes their patterns in a range of sizes, first height (I chose 156, I am 158), then size (I chose 36), then cup size (I chose X). The only small gripe I have is that the sleeves are fairly tight and I’m not sure how to keep the overlap from gapping, but I might just sew a few stitches to get that solved.

That was the end of the (epic) Three Shirt Day series, on to the next thing!

The Day of Three Shirts (part 2)

After finishing the first shirt, I wanted to finally tackle some Owl fabric I’ve had in the hoard since.. a long time. It was a bit of grey knit, with four framed owls on it. This meant that some fabric would need to be wasted in order to get an owl centered on any garment. If I would turn the fabric around, the back would still show a little of the owls through, so I couldn’t really just use the wrong side either.

After some careful placement, I did manage to get the front cut out. At that point, I’d already decided that wanted to try and cut another shirt from the leftovers on the grey only. This meant that it took me at least an hour of putting down pattern pieces and picking them back up and putting them somewhere else to get what I wanted. In the end, I decided that I wanted to have another owl centered on the back of the first shirt so that was that. I hemmed the sleeves, neckline, and bottom (and the edges of the other shirt) before changing needles and sewing the shoulder seams and side seams. If the placement would have been easier, this would have been a very speedy project. On to the third part!

Tiny Knits

I had to travel about 7 hours this weekend, so in preparation for such a trip, I downloaded a number of tiny animal knitting patterns. I figured it was more fun to bring a number of different balls of 5-10 grams in different colours, rather than one big ball in only one colour. In the end I managed to knit 5 little ones on the road and a pentapus before I left. The knit critters were  a crab, a whale, a crocodile, an alien and a pig.

All the instructions were followed completely, apart from eyes which were all made with a thick yarn knotted twice.

Teeny Crab by Amanda Berry and Teeny Whale by Amanda Berry.

Baby Gators by Anna Hrachovec

Mini Alien by Barbara Prime and Tiny Piggy by Amanda Berry

The whole gang together! I have some more patterns, so chances are that a mouse or a sheep or a chicken will join the flock…