Knitting – Hopefully Creative

Believe: An MKAL the Lasso Way

Another mystery knit, now in shades of blue.

I must preface this by saying that I haven’t watched a full episode of Ted Lasso, so most of the jokes in the pattern went entirely over my head. Still, the experience of participating in Believe: An MKAL the Lasso Way by Mary Annarella was a lot of fun.

Three skeins of yarn in shades of blue and one in yellow — Clue 1

It required 4 skeins of yarn, one needed to be high contrast with all the others but those three didn’t need high contrast between them. I settled on dyeing them in three shades of blue and one bright yellow. The blues are a combination of Aqua Tropic as a base with either Teal or Turquoise added. For the yellow, I had to dye a second skein because the first one ended up too orange.

Unfortunately, the main knitting method for this scarf was extremely similar to the other Mystery Knit Along that I was participating in at practically the same time: Funfetti MKAL. However, this one had opposite increases and decreases from Funfetti so I had to pay close attention to which one I was working on. What was fun was that these sections were much more manageable and different. There are some repeat stitch patterns but all in all that went very well.

Two parts of a scarf in three shades of blue and one of yellow. — Clue 5

Since there are many colours here too, there were a lot of ends to weave in. The forums quickly shared a good method for weaving as you go. So that made it all a lot less annoying. Once there were two equal parts of the scarf, we knit points. Those two sections were then three needle bind-offed together to get a nice diagonal stripe across.

Backside of a scarf in three shades of blue and one of yellow. — Backside

Scarf in three shades of blue and one of yellow being blocked — Backside

I like this scarf. The colours are nice and it’s very long so I can wrap it und my neck twice and still have length leftover. This was very unexpected as I was not on gauge and expected the thing to turn out much smaller. The yarn is decent enough, but it isn’t as warm and cosy as the alpaca sock yarn that I tend to want to use. It has already seen the outside world and I expect that it will do that more often when the weather calls for it.

Funfetti Mystery Knit

Knitting a mystery rainbow scarf.

January 29 was the start of my next Mystery Knit Along (MKAL), this one was
Funfetti MKAL by : : : Katie Degroff Knits : : :. It called for 200 grams ish of fingering weight yarn, and then 200 grams ish of two or six or twelve contrast colours. I opted to split two skeins of Alpaca 4 ply into three, so I wound up with six colours. Since I just purchased new yarn dye in almost a rainbow, I figured that would be a great way to test those too.

2 large purple skeins and 6 mini skeins in a rainbow. — Yarns

2 large purple balls of yarn and 6 mini balls in a rainbow. — Yarns

The main colour was then a combination of violet and periwinkle. The contrasts were A: Neon Red, B: Neon Orange, C: Neon Yellow, D: Blacklight Blue, E: Aqua Tropic and F: Crocodile Green. Most of the colours work well together although the Crocodile Green does feel like the odd one out. Out of my new dyes, Croc Green, Aqua and Neon Yellow are my favourites.

When it came to knitting, it was a lot per installment. The construction was interesting. We started with a diamond shape with rounds in the different colours. Then we put that one aside and started working on a section where you increase in the middle but eventually start decreasing on the ends, so you end up with a ‘house’ shape. We did that for a few of the clues before going back to clue one and starting to add to that one too.

The final clue was to fill in two rectangles to connect the two sections we had been working on. This was quite satisfying because it was the last clue and a much smaller number of stitches. I was debating whether to do the colour changes at the end because it would leave so many ends, and while I decided to go for it, I opted out of the last colour and only did five colours. I think this worked fine.

The end result is a long rectangular scarf, with one of the short ends straight and the other side pointed. Since there are so many colour changes, weaving in the ends was a project in and of itself. It really is quite big. I don’t think I should opt for 400 gram scarves in the future. This one will end up being gifted away since I’m not enjoying the purple colour for anything I would wear.

Still, the MKAL was well organized. The forums were fun and the designer was very helpful. I just chose colours that I didn’t like even though the yarn I used was great.

Alien Mob

Leftovers can make cute things.

Sometimes you just want to make little things with leftover yarn. Right?

Meet the Alien Mob! A collection of 7 knit aliens in different colours, all made from the same pattern: Mini Alien by Barbara Prime.

There’s Blue (from this sweater), White (from this sweater), Yellow (from this cowl), Turquoise (from this sweater), Mottled (from this shawl), Grey (from this sweater) and Green (from this project).

Knit in the round, very few stitches, quick and easy. They have antennae from different offcuts of the Cowlopus leftovers. There are 7 mm safety eyes and a tiny mouth from the Highland Tea Cowsy. It was fun to just make some tiny bobbly creatures and not worry too much about them.

Tales of the Tundra

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif.

While deciding what to do over the winter break, I was browsing Ravelry to see if there was a fun Mystery Knit along. As we’ve discovered, I like mystery anything-alongs and knitting fits in too. The last mystery knit along that I participated in is still not done, the clues had too many stitches to keep up with in the last three sections, so it’s now a travel project. But that wouldn’t hold me back.

There’s a forum called Upcoming MKAL/MCAL Calendar that lists MKALs that are going to start. There I found Tales of the Tundra Cowl (Knit) by Mary P. Hunt. The MKAL was set to start on the 25th of December, promised daily clues and 12 installments. I figured cowls aren’t enormous, and the other patterns that Mary P. Hunt has made are very cool, so this was setting up to be a good one.

It required three yarns in DK weight with good contrast between A (main) and C (background) and some contrast with B too. I didn’t really feel like dyeing, so I dove into the hoard to find some yarn. I settled on Ultra DK in turquoise dyed in August 2023 for the main colour, Ultra DK with yellow spots dyed in September 2023 as the background and some DK 115 in orange from February 2025 as the contrast.

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 1

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 2

The pattern included some links to tutorials on colour dominance and jogless rounds and basically set us up for the project. This was super useful to just have in the document itself to refer back to.

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 4

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 5

Then the first clue dropped and we started knitting. The first section is corrugated ribbing, something I don’t recall having done before. However, it’s quite fun once you get into it. I got to use my relatively newly acquired skills with knitting left-handed to keep the yarns from tangling.

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 7

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 9

The second and third clue involved some pattern work where we made a cute design – it felt Scandivian inspired to me? And once clue three was done, we broke the B colour and continued with only two. I kept the blue in the left hand and the yellow in the right. I didn’t really see what was appearing as I was knitting it. I discovered the mountains from clue 4 and 5 only once I saw them in other people’s pictures on the forum.

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 10

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Clue 11

I was also convinced for a while that the snout was from a bear, although it became clear along the way that it was actually a wolf. I guess the pattern image was a good hint towards that. Many people decided to duplicate stitch the eyes in a different colour, but I think that would make mine demonic looking, so I left that off. At some point, a paw print appeared in the sky too. Once the ears were done, the last three clues were almost mirrors of the first three.

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Blocking.

Cowl in blues, yellows and oranges with wolf, mountains and paw print motif. Inside.

This project was great. I had a lot of fun discovering the pictures every day and most of the time there were only 7 rows to complete, which is totally doable. I did have to pay attention and count (not my strong suit), but with the help of the line tool in Adobe Reader, I managed to keep track of which row I was on. I’m definitely planning on joining more MKALs if they seem as doable as this one.

Houndstooth Mitts

Quick mitts for winter.

I wanted to make a small gift, and I figured that some fingerless mittens might be fun. Ravelry provided a fair amount of options and I settled on
Houndstooth Handwarmers by Ellen Gill. With favourite colours being blue and orange, I first thought of making them in those shades. However, I couldn’t bring myself to do it because it would be a bit much. So I added white instead.

Two houndstooth knit mitts on a blue blocking mat

The white was leftovers from my striped sweater, and the blue was self-dyed DK weight merino yarn. The houndstooth pattern isn’t too hard to do, but it did mean I had to continually check the instructions. There are four rows that repeat, and I chose to do them mirrored for one of the mitts as suggested by the pattern. The mittens benefitted from blocking a lot, as the houndstooth is a lot less lumpy now. All in all, decent pattern, and fun knit. I’m happy to report that the recipient enjoyed them.

Thin Stripes Sweater

Spiral striped sweater with a hint of yak.

I saw the # 18 Top down Pullover by Lana Grossa as free pattern on Ravelry and immediately fell in love. Too bad the free version was only in German and this pattern was quite difficult to understand. I became so obsessed with making it that I went online to find an English version of it and ended up paying for a whole stack of printed paper of all the patterns in the magazine it was published in. We’ll see if I make any more of the included items.

One dark gray skein, two gray skeins and two white skeins.

For the yarn, I dyed some MCN DK, a dk weight yarn with Merino, Nylon and Cashmere in a grey/brownish tint. I also used two more skeins of that yarn but undyed and two skeins of Tibetan DK, with Merino, Yak and Silk for the thin stripes and hems. I purchased the yarn bases way back, based on their listed gauge, before I even got hold of the English pattern. That’s how much I wanted it.

When I had my pattern and my yarn, I got to work. I believe I followed the instructions pretty faithfully up to the transition from dark to thin stripes. I messed up a little there but I think I managed to hide it pretty well. The pattern uses spiral stripes to get those thin stripes, which is such a cool technique. It did take me a bit to figure out how it worked though, so there are some increase errors in one of the raglan areas.

Thin Stripe Pullover neckline view on mannequin.

Thin Stripe Pullover dark gray to thin stripe transition.

I followed the pattern until separating the sleeves and even a bit further, put it on and thought it looked like a tent. So I frogged a whole bunch (also super interesting with spiral stripes) and separated for sleeves a lot sooner. I also didn’t add as many stitches in the underarm and I decided to continue the one raglan pattern p, k7, p down the body and the sleeves. I thought that was a fun little detail. Then it was on to a whole lot of stockinette knitting, three at a time. The separate balls of yarn were in the sweater which was held closed with safety pins. This worked really well.

Thin Stripe Pullover front view on mannequin.

Thin Stripe Pullover back view detail of white cross marking on mannequin.

For the bottom, I chose to do a 3×1 rib so I didn’t have to do a fold-over hem. I didn’t have enough yarn to make it in the same colour as the top, so I used the yak yarn for that. Seemed like a wiser choice than white cuffs, especially for such a klutz like I am. I did hours and hours of research on bind-offs, chose one, did it wrong and decided I liked it better than what it was supposed to be, so I left it. The final touch was hiding all the ends and stitching a little cross in the neckline to mark the back. I don’t own much brown clothing, but I do really like this thing. I hope it is as soft to wear as it is to touch!

Angus – Highland Tea Cowsy

Knitted cover for my teapot in the shape of a highland cow.

At some point, I found a bunch of knitted tea cosies on Ravelry and thought “I need one of those”. However, it wasn’t urgent enough to actually get myself into any sort of gear until around April this year. That’s when I set out to choose one of the tea cosies that I had favorited before. In the end, I settled on the Highland Cow Tea Cosy by K.M. Bedigan.

Knitted tea cosy in the shape of a highland cow with white horns, orange looped fur and dark orange ears and snout. Front view.

Knitted tea cosy in the shape of a highland cow with white horns, orange looped fur and dark orange ears and snout. Side view.

The first step was to dye some yarn. I chose to use a sock yarn, Krypton 4ply. I would need approximately one skein according to the instructions. That would then be split up into two colours, a lighter and a darker orange. So I threw in somewhat random amounts of yarn dye and liked the result. The light one came out a bit lighter than expected but it still looks nice with the darker one.

Two colours of yarn used to make a highland tea cowsy — First nose

Knitted tea cosy in the shape of a highland cow with orange looped fur and dark orange ears and snout. Test nose 1. — First nose

I did deviate from the instructions a few times. First was when it called for loop stitches (to create the little loops that make him look so hairy) to be along the same column. I chose to do staggered to create a fuller look, it also meant that I had to recount some of the shaping here and there. I think I added more rounds to the top of his head to make it fit. I also think my gauge was off the entire time so his proportions are a little different. I misread the instructions and made the details (ears and nose) out of the darker colour and not the lighter one, but this is more a happy accident and not a mistake.

Knitted tea cosy in the shape of a highland cow with white horns, orange looped fur and dark orange ears and snout. Closure view.

I made the nose in several iterations and eventually gave up on the instructions entirely. The first one was too small and made him look like a pig. The second one was the right size, but I’d angled the nostrils in the wrong direction. So after fixing that, nose three is what ended up on his face. I think the designer missed a pun when they named it ‘Highland Cow Tea Cosy’, so I’ve named mine Angus the Highland Tea Cowsy. We’ll see if he manages to keep tea at a nice warm temperature. Even if he doesn’t, it’s great to just see this little cutie sitting on the table!

Haberdashery Cowl

Knitting one colour at a time but still ending up with a continuous two-colour project.

This cowl has been my travel project since June 2024. This means that it was almost always in my bag and was mostly worked on while I was on the move. I mainly chose it as the travel project because it wasn’t too complex, but there was still some interest in it. Not endless stockinette but a slip stitch herringbone pattern. This meant that I only knit with one colour at a time while slipping stitches of the other colour to create the pattern’s chevrons.

Blue and white/yellow chevron cowl, edge and outside

I found the pattern because it happened to be in the pattern magazine that I had purchased to make this sweater (which hasn’t happened yet). It’s called the Haberdashery Cowl by Ashley Rao and came from Interweave Knits, Fall 2013. I did not pay attention to gauge and it shows. The original is very loose fitting and uses a button to close tighter, but my version didn’t need that. I think it’s because I chose a slightly thinner yarn too; self dyed alpaca 4-ply sock yarn in ‘white with yellow, orange and blue’ and ‘blue with dark blue spots’.

Haberdashery Cowl herringbone pattern on paper

Haberdashery Cowl, light blue and yellow striped knit cowl in progress

The pattern consists of a written section and a charted section. The charted section is published in white and brown, to correspond with the colours of the example cowl. However, mine was going to be blue and yellow and I kept getting extremely confused by the colours, so I redid the chart in excel in my colours and printed it. I added some tick boxes to the right so that I could remember where I was. I think it saved my sanity.

Blue and white/yellow chevron cowl, edge and inside

This thing is also pretty cool on the inside. The beginning of round is just visible on the left where I made the yarn cross over each other. I did block it because the bottom edge was very tight, it’s loosened some with the blocking. Of course I’ve finished this winter item just in time for Spring, it was over 20 degrees Celsius yesterday. So I don’t know how much wear it will see in the next few months. But I am happy that I managed to finish it and I’m ready for a new travel project!

Turquoise Sweater

Machine knitting a self-dyed sweater with big sleeves.

I’ve been wanting to make a wide sleeve, long narrow cuff sweater for a while. But the search on Ravelry didn’t want to provide me with sweater options that I liked, so I continued looking. Eventually I stumbled on a 30s sweater pattern from Etsy that looked promising. I purchased it and promptly found out that it wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. The instructions don’t say anything about the ribbing that’s used in the pattern images, for example.

Front of turquoise sweater on me with arms up to show the sleeve buttons

In the end I settled on dyeing four skeins of crazy eight dk yarn with spruce and teal, plus some black speckles. The original patterns requires you to knit the bottom hem first, and then increase to the front and back panel, same with sleeves, cuff first and then increase. However, when I started this sweater I didn’t have a ribber attachment for my knitting machine yet, so I started with the back panel above the hem. I’d figure out how to do the hem later.

4 skeins of yarn 'crazy eight DK' dyed with dark green / teal and black.

Sleeve detail of ribbed turquoise sweater with 8 buttons.

The front, back and sleeve panels are basically the same. With the only difference being that the the front panel needed to be cast off sooner than the others. Presumably for a lower neckline in the front. After having knit those four giant panels, I only had about 40 grams of yarn leftover. That didn’t seem like it would ever be enough, so I dyed another skein. This one turned out a little lighter, so it was good that I was only supposed to use it for the hems and cuffs.

Front of turquoise sweater on a mannequin

Side of turquoise sweater on a mannequin

I have since also acquired a ribbing attachment for the knitting machine and set about learning how to do the cuffs. It took a few tries, but it’s definitely quicker and more even than hand knitting. I kitchenered the ribbed sections to the corresponding body parts and left sections open for buttons. The overlapping edge gets stitches picked up in a regular interval, where some stitches are not picked up on purpose for the button holes. Then a garter edge is knit for some stability. Buttons are attached on the other edge and that allows all buttons to be functional.

Neckline detail of turquoise sweater with 5 buttons.

Neckline of turquoise sweater on a mannequin

I decided to increase the neckline height at the front to the same level als the sleeves and back piece. I still don’t know how they expected things to line up with them not being the same height. But fine. It’s now done, and I really love the colour – it doesn’t show up on camera accurately at all, but in person it’s great! It wears well, even if the sleeves are somehow just a little bit too short.

Doggie DPN Roll

Finally a place to store my double pointed knitting needles.

So, at some point in the distant past, I got hold of some DPNs, double pointed knitting needles. DPNs are needles that are used for knitting small things, or things in the round, or i-cord. I used them for the dragon, for example. As I am wont to do, this meant the start of a DPN collection. I never set about to find storage for them though, and that was a problem. They’ve been left in plastic bags, pen-things, stabbed into a cardboard box and I’ve found them in all kinds of places. But no more!

I set out to create a storage for them that was similar to my interchangeable knitting needle storage. Found some fabric in the hoard that had cute dogs on it, some semi-coordinating fabric for the needle pockets and got to work. I first had to sort all the DPNs into size and length to figure out how many and how big the pockets would be. I ended up with 19 different needle size/shape/length combinations from <2.0 mm to 9.0 mm in diameter.

Full view of DPN holder with plastic covers, green dotted needle pockets and dogs in the background

Since the doggy fabric was a specific width, the case would be a maximum of that wide. The height was determined by the longest DPNs I had, so it turned out around 37 cm. I cut out the front and back from the doggies and some batting for the middle. Then cut a long strip of coordinating dotty fabric to into the pockets. Sewed down one end and just started putting the DPNs in and sewed the pocket down so they fit somewhat snuggly.

The interchangeable needle storage has a plastic flap over the top to stop the needles falling out. This works really well, so I decided to implement it in the Doggy case too. Since there is such variation in length, and I didn’t think to split first by length then by width, there are actually two plastic covers, one for the shortish needles and one for the longer ones. To combat the ones on the end falling out, so I made a tiny flap on the side too. I sewed down all the flaps, and bound the edges of the whole thing. Made some spaghetti straps from a coordinating fabric, wrote the sizes with a textile marker and called it a day.

I love this thing and it has already brought so much joy!

Tag: Knitting