Multicoloured – Hopefully Creative

Fall Shawl

Making a Pirate Scarf for a Kayaking Friend

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.

Forgotten Socks

Recovering a lost sock project and finishing it in three days.

Sometimes I take a look at my works in progress in Ravelry and decide that I have too many on. I then go to search around for projects that I either feel like completing or that need to be frogged. In this case, I frogged three and found one project that was already 80% or more completed. I’d forgotten I started them a day after completing the previous sock project in October 2021. It also uses the same self-dyed yarn but uses a different pattern. This pattern is called Hexenzirkel by Sonja Köhler and has a very cute zig zag cable pattern. The Ravelry project can be found here. I chose to do the pattern on the side of the foot.

When I recovered the project, it was in a bag with a print out of the cable chart with tick marks. Past me was more organized than current me expected, that’s for sure! I decided to complete a few more rounds of the chart and then start the 2×2 ribbing. It didn’t require much time at all to complete and I’m unsure why it ended up in a bag in the bottom of the box of shame. Hopefully I’ll get around to wearing these every so often, however, I expect a fate similar to the other ones. Nice to look at, very few wears because I’m just not used to hand knit socks.

Rainbow Socks

Double experiment with dye and with a knitting machine.

I recently acquired a Knittax S knitting machine and to thank the original owner, I am making him socks.

The yarn I’m using is Alpaca 4ply Sock: 60% Superwash Merino 20% Superfine Alpaca 20% Nylon sock yarn, purchased from Chester Wool. This yarn is so soft, I love it. It was hand dyed by using it as the ‘cleaning tool’ when making up some pots of citric acid with Eurolana dyes. The spoons that were used to put the dye in the pots, was wiped on the wet yarn. The distribution of colours is basically ‘which bit is still too white’. Colours are black, brown, grey, orange, yellow, soft yellow, red, magenta, violet, blue, navy, turquoise and green. They came out quite muted, but I do like them. When knitted up, they are more obvious than on the ball.

As for the socks, the instruction booklet for the knitting machine came with patterns in the back so I chose to make the basic socks for men. The pattern is in the images (in Dutch, translation for the image below). For the first try, I cast on exactly as intended, but chose setting 5 on the machine. These socks turned out quite large so I frogged them and started again on a setting 4 on the machine. The length that came out on setting 4 matched the book, so that seemed to have gone well. I’m not sure if I’m seaming them right, they feel quite bulky and I’m not sure that’s nice on the foot. I’ve also discovered that knitting takes about as much time as the seaming. The knitting is very quick, this machine goes a hell of a lot faster than I ever can by hand.

Image translations (left). *Hiel*: heel; *Ondervoet*: bottom of the foot; *Teen*: toe; *Bovenvoet*: top of the foot; *Beenlengte*: length on the leg; *Naad*: seam; *Verkorte toeren*: short rows; *Open steken*: provisional stitches.

After finishing one sock, I brought it to the original owner to try on. He claimed that they were indeed the right size and that the ridges of seaming wouldn’t be annoying. As he’s been wearing machine knit socks like this for a long time, I’m inclined to believe him. So then I set out the knit the second sock with the same settings. It took me a few goes and a lot longer than it should have but in the end, sock number 2 was finished. Before seaming it together it does look really strange and not what you expect. Once the seaming is finished however, it does look like socks. I’m amazed.

I really enjoyed the process, can’t wait to make more things on this machine!

Multicoloured Scarf

It only took a year and a half from cast on to bind off.

Exactly a year and a half after I started knitting a scarf, I bound off the last stitch. Why did it take so long, you ask? Well… Ehm, I forgot about it? It was in a bag in a box and I didn’t remember it existed until I did some clearing up and found it again. This is not the first time that has happened. I may be one of those people who start too many projects and don’t always remember to finish them.

However, once I retrieved the project, I set out to discover what it was. I did remember that it was a scarf, but had no idea how the pattern was knit. Luckily, past me did record the start of the project in Ravelry (14 June, 2020) and the pattern. Turns out that it was Tentaculum by WOLLWERK Simone Eich. It’s garter stitch with holes on the inside edge and decreases along the outside edge. There is some variation in the hole size in my project. It seems like I didn’t like the hole size at some point and made them smaller. However, I didn’t note this in the project and therefore didn’t remember when I picked the project back up again.

As the yarn is self-striping, I got very motivated to ‘finish’ colours and therefore sometimes knit too much. I really should try to limit my knitting as I’m very prone to arm injury. It was good that it was easy to pick up which part of the pattern I was on and detailed notes were not necessary. It’s quite soft and fluffy, which made it nearly impossible to take stitches back out again. They could sometimes almost stick together. I’m happy with the end result, the colours are nice and vibrant and I think it will probably be good to wear. It’s not been outside yet (mainly because I’m never outside either) and I’ve gifted it to someone else.

Rainbow Spot Socks

Using your self-dyed yarn to make some socks is very satisfying.

So next to having a stash of yarn just pre-dyed, I now have also accumulated a stash of undyed yarn. There was a temporary stash of self-dyed yarn, but I’ve knit most of that up by now. It made the starry night sweater, the red-black neck warmer and this new addition: rainbow spot socks. I chose some yarn called Blue Faced Leicester Superwash / Nylon Sock weight for my new sock project. The yarn was dyed using this tutorial by Nicole Frost.

The plan was to create a yarn with different coloured spots on a black background. So 10 cable ties were wrapped on the dry yarn, which I then dumped into some black dye in my pot on the stove. I let it simmer for a little bit and then put the newly dyed yarn onto some plastic wrap. The cable ties were removed and different dyes were squirted onto the still white spots. Red, yellow, green, turquoise and blue and those repeated. It worked out really well. This sock yarn was then wound up into two little connected balls and left to languish in the hoard for a while.

Recently, I decided that I did want to knit it up and see if I can still knit some socks, this time preferably some that I could actually wear. At some point in the fairly distant past, I bought the Fish Lips Kiss Heel by Sox Therapist. It’s basically a recipe for making a heel in a sock and uses a cardboard cutout of your foot to get the proportions right. I paired it with Two at Once, Toe-Up Magic Loop Socks by Knit Picks Design Team for the details on how to make a toe and cuff. First time, I knit about halfway up to my foot, tried it on and it was just too big. So I frogged the whole thing and started again. Sweet spot for this yarn seems to be cast on 10 stitches per 3 mm needle (20 total), and increase to 22 per needle, around 50-55 rows before the heel. These ones are a tiny bit loose in length, but perhaps some laundry will be helpful for that. I have worn them for a day and they were comfortable so I’m pretty happy. They did only take about a quarter of the ball of yarn, so I should have enough to make another pair – that I’ve totally already cast on… Hopefully I get those sorted soon too!

Christmas Knit Gifts

This post was written a while ago, but the post has made me wait until one of the gifts arrived in New Zealand, that took a while..

Poinsettia

When I was making and sending my Christmas cards, I wanted to include a little gift for a friend of mine who is currently in New Zealand. She’s bought poinsettias for the past few years and managed to keep them alive through to July or so, so I decided to make one for her to see if the Christmas spirit transfer. Sadly my card hadn’t arrived yet by Christmas, so I don’t know if it worked.

The free pattern for this little flower was found on Ravelry – it’s the knitted poinsettia by June Gilbank. It has you make six large green leaves, six smaller red leaves and some yellow stem bits. I ignored the stem bits and chose to do some french knots instead. This was a very quick knit and quite easy to put together. I liked the way she finished the back with a knot and very limited weaving of ends.

Friend of the Forest hood

The second gift was a hood – the friend of the forest hood by Gretchen Tracy. I’d been wanting to knit a hood like this for a while now and when I found some lovely ‘printed yarn’ (?), I decided to go for it. However, I was also making a very red coat at the time. I wouldn’t be able to wear this hood with it because it would clash something horrible. So I decided to gift the hood to a colleague who enjoys these types of fall colours.

It knit up real easy and quick. I still have the last two colours of the ball left (grey and some more purple) and another ball but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet. So I guess that’ll be a story for another day.

Sir Octopus

The pattern designer from the previous knit gift had a sale on buying three patterns at the same time. So that is what I did, next to GOGEE, I also got a pattern for Dandy Sir Cephalopod and Bonbon. DSC is an octopus with a top hat and a monocle, I had to have it. Bonbon is a cute little rabbit, it will probably see my needles fairly soon.

On to DSC, I used the same yarn as for the GOGEE and got to work. First you knit the eight tentacles, which you finish with a three needle decrease. Once all eight tentacles are knit, you start the body, at some point, the tentacles are three needle decreased onto the existing body. This is a really easy join that only leaves you with eight tails to weave in (YAY!). The remainder of the body is then knit up, eyes are added a moustache is sewn on and then the head is closed up. Before finishing, a length of yarn is glued around one eye for the monocle. The pattern is wonderful and easy to follow. I really enjoyed knitting him.

The most difficult part came with the moustache. I didn’t have a moustache button available. It was Sunday, he had to be completed by Monday and all shops in the vicinity were closed. I had no choice but to bust out my trusted fimo clay. The (metaphorical) cobwebs were wiped from the pasta machine and it was put to work. I drew a moustache on some paper and traced it on my flattened fimo clay. Holes were punched and the clay was baked. I also decided that none of the safety eyes I had in the stash were large enough (see above, he just looks silly with tiny eyes). So with the remaining moustache clay, I made some half domes that I squashed onto smaller safety eyes. These cover-eyes were also baked and then glued to the smaller eyes. I learned again that I cannot be trusted with superglue since I got some on my finger.. again.

Once the eyes and moustache were added, I closed him up and knit the top hat. Since the octopus itself was quite .. busy in his colour scheme, he needed a neutral hat. So I got out some grey and got to work with that. When he was finished he couldn’t really stand on his tentacles, but if you perch him just right on a cup, he looks ever more wonderful. He’s currently living in the office on the desk of the birthday girl, so I still get to see him. She’s still deciding on his name, but it’ll definitely start with Sir.

Knit GOGEE

So, since the interchangeable knitting needles arrived, I’ve been longing to knit again. Just looking at other people’s projects in Ravelry is not sufficient to curb my knitting cravings, or so it seems. This meant that I have started knitting again. I’d already started on a rabbit, which is now packed up in the corner of shame since its body is way too large for its head and I’ve not been in the mood to unpick. I’m also knitting a hidden dinosaur scarf that it still waiting on more yarn (I was an idiot and didn’t read the instructions on how much yarn to use). But I recently finished two different knit gifts. Today we’ll discuss the first.

Now, you may have wondered what in the world a GOGEE is, I don’t blame you if you did. GOGEE stands for Guardian of Good Energies Elf, it’s a pattern created by Susan Claudino-Aguilar. The idea is that you knit it with purpose so that it catches all the good will you knit into it. It’s a little creature with arms, legs and a pocket on its front. I thought it was super cute and if I made it, it would be a wonderful opportunity to put in some good energy and a positive message for a friend of mine.

From the pattern page, I’d discovered that this was an updated version of the Voodoo, You Love Me pattern. Since I really like the zombie-esque-ness of the Voodoo pattern, I decided to make some modifications to the GOGEE to get the best of both worlds. I knit up its arms, legs, pocket and body exactly as described in the pattern. I did not knit the ears, since I didn’t really like them and when I came to the last couple of rounds in the head, I decreased quicker without additional knit rounds to create a rounded head shape.

Once the knitting was finished, I sewed a little mouth and added a felt heart on his front. A little message was written and put into his pocket for any bad times. He’s quite cute if you ask me, if a little floppy. For some reason his head is larger than I expected, even though it’s the same size in the pattern pictures. In any case, he now has a new home and I hope that the recipient can look upon him with some fondness!

Tag: Multicoloured