Tag Archives: Hand Knitting

pink cushions

15/09/2024 5:08 pm \ Leave a Comment \

Hello!  My latest knitting project has been some cushion covers… I’ve had two cushions on our front bench for years, which had became bleached over time to a very unattractive dirty-greige.  I took out the inserts and started planning some new covers…

I could have sewn new covers, however… well, why not knit up some of my wool stash instead?  You might recognise this orange-y coral pink cushion cover as my April knitting project.  It was a neck warmer but I really didn’t like it in the end.  I unravelled the whole thing and re-knitted it… and I much prefer it like this.  The resulting cushion cover was quite small so I had to downsize the cushion insert, however I really like it that the two cushions are now different sizes from each other; adds to the casual randomness of the appearance of them now!

This bright unicorn-pastel one was from a stash given to me by my daughter-in-law Lainey… anyone remember the Flurry yarn?  I don’t know about outside Australia, but here there was a short-lived fashion for wearing scarves made from this type of wool.  There was actually just over three balls of the same colour way in the box Lainey gave to me, which I thought could be enough for a cushion cover.  I felt it looked quite nice with the other cushion too.  The gods were smiling upon me, because there was the perfect amount for a second cover, with zero leftovers.  I knitting in the round, then grafted with Kitchener stitch at the bottom end,  I then stuffed in the old cushion insert and stitched up the top end with the leftover wool.  So no, you can’t get the cushion inserts out again without undoing a seam, but I’ll probably just hand wash the cover and insert all together and I’m sure it will be fine.

 

I photographed one of the old covers because it made me chuckle a bit… they used to be dark purple, and those dark purple circles are where the buttons used to be and thus were protected from the sun.  Also, because I’m very thrifty I saved the buttons too… guess which button was sewn inside the cushion and thus also protected from the sun?!

Some other maintenance issues:

I made these beige trousers a couple of years ago, using the Closet Core patterns Mitchell pattern.

They initially had got a pink wash, and then a deeper pink dye, and I proceeded to wear them about 10 times during their first year.  Then, after about 6 months in the wardrobe without getting another wear, now I’ve dyed them again; navy blue.  It’s like having new trousers!  btw, I’m wearing them with three different Booragoon tops in these pictures!  a white one, pink one, and navy one.  Honestly, I wear my Booragoon tops a lot!

Our Carolyn & Cassie Booragoon top pattern is available here

Maintenance issues 2:  I did a little mending recently which I though to take pictures of… I wear this dark pink T-shirt a lot and love the colour, the fabric is merino from the Fabric Store in colour Red Clay.  It’s so upsetting when a favourite T-shirt develops holes! in spite of lots of mothball thingies they still seem to find their way in sometimes…  Honestly, I’d buy more of this fabric and make another top if I had too, it’s such a favourite for me.

 

Anyway, I did some flower-style mending … it’s not too awful, I think and at least I’ll be able to keep wearing it.  I’ve learnt over time that it’s best to mend little holes like this early, before they grow bigger, which they most definitely will before you know it!

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little pink jumper

30/08/2024 2:54 pm \ 3 Comments \

I’ve knitted a little jumper… this is made completely from scraps and leftover wool from other projects and the (still) large bag of bits and pieces that Mum gave me a couple of years ago.  Something from nothing!  Seriously, my favourite sort of thing to make…

the unpromising beginnings…

I started out following a pattern, but before long ended up frogging and reknitting the entire thing  just following my gut instinct.  It’s a simple raglan design, top down, in the round, with double increases at the two sleeve junctions every row until the underarm, otherwise no shaping.  Top down meant I could keep knitting until I ran out of wool; which to be honest happened a little sooner than ideal!  Ideally I would have liked it a little longer, and with longer sleeves too, but well… c’est la vie.

To Craig, I’d voiced my concerns that I was going to run out of wool and he replied that I could just go and buy some more… so logical! But of course completely defeating the purpose of using up Le Stash!  Honestly, sometimes I feel like the stash-reduction project is maybe just a martyred pursuit… but, you know.  Also a virtuous one too, sometimes.  I used up every single scrap of yarn pictured above, except for one small ball that I decided the colour looked a little off against the others.

I’m quite happy with how the yarns worked out distributed across the jumper, not too much concentrated across any particular section.  When it came to changing the colours, I knitted a few centimetres past the previous colour change before changing to the new colour, so that there wouldn’t be a build up of knots and bulky weave-ins concentrated in one area; and this worked well too.  I wove in all ends as I was going along, and am always thankful at the end of any project whenever I think to do this!  Seriously, a life saver!

The thing is… I already have a vaguely similar jumper to this one, that is quite precious to me since the yarn was a gift from a dear friend.  Do I even need another little pink jumper?!  It is actually not too bad looking, I think; and very warm, and comfortable to wear.  Serendipitously, Mum admired it the first day I wore it, so I may give it to her.

I’m also super happy I managed to finish this one a few days before my end of the month deadline!  Yay!  My knit/month pledge has turned out to be quite gruelling to be honest, and it’s difficult to fit in so much knitting.  To look on the bright side, I’m two thirds of the way through, and only have four projects to go!

Details:  I also made my ivory top worn underneath, and my jeans too…

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little sludgy cardigan

31/07/2024 11:54 am \ 3 Comments \

…once again slithering in under the wire on the last day of the month with my knit-of-the-month!  For July’s effort I made a new little cardigan.  This is yarn that I bought during our hiking trip to Italy 12 years ago! astounding really, I can’t believe it’s been that long!   there was a tiny little craft store in Menagio, Lake Como, and that’s where I found it.  I posted about that trip on my blog back here…

I’m so thrilled this yarn has finally been realised into a wearable thing, because it’s actually lovely.  It is Lang Yarns Maxi Tosca, col. 5706 which is genuinely made in Italy, believe it or not!  I was pretty thrilled to find homegrown produce, because souvenir shopping does not always result in such joys, sadly.  I bought 6 x 50g balls, and managed to use almost the whole lot while adding one extra pattern repeat to the length.  There is just a fairly small quantity leftover.

I chose an old favourite, the Miette pattern by Andy Satterlund; a pattern that since its debut was later rebranded as the Crumb and is now sadly unavailable.  Actually the designer has retired all her patterns and you can’t get any of them any more, which is quite sad.

I’ve made the Miette pattern five times now, customising slightly by the time I got to the last one, and referred to my previous notes to make this one the same way.  Namely this post.  The main adjustment I make is to switch the bust shaping to under the arm.  I did include the lacework but kinda regret it, if I’m being honest… in a variegated  yarn such as this it doesn’t stand out as much as you’d like, and then when you do notice it it somehow detracts from the loveliness of the colours in the yarn.  Definitely something for me to keep in mind for future lacework knitting…

Buttons!  is it weird to say the buttons could be my favourite part of the whole thing?  yes, pretty weird since I actually think my new cardigan is allover a very satisfying thing.  The buttons feels super satisfying though since I made these too… !

 

so you know I’m trying to use what I have rather than buy anything new… well I hunted through my, still rather large, button stash for nine matching buttons, and even contemplated using non-matching buttons but couldn’t even make that work.  I’d almost accepted that I was going to have to head out and buy new buttons but then remembered my modelling clay.  Yay!  I’ve used this to make buttons before, specifically for this coat here; and even to make the jewellery for my Queen Rutella cosplay, here.  I thought I’d been painting them once finished… however was rather thrilled when I realised the final baked colour of them was actually perfect for my cardigan as is.  Such luck!  I just painted on a clear varnish finish to protect them and bob’s your uncle!  SO happy with how they look on my new cardigan.

worn here with a ivory tee, sludgy skirt and tights, all made by me…

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2 seok (aka knitting bts stuff)

30/06/2024 1:10 pm \ 4 Comments \

Please say hi to 2 Seoks! aka my knitting project for June.

Hehe, these are actually pretty hilarious; well, to me at least! but I probably should explain why;

so as mentioned previously I am a fan of BTS, and two of the members have the name Seok… pronounced “sock”.  Namely Kim Seokjin and Jung Hoseok.  In the fandom they are sometimes referred to collectively as 2 seok… anyway obviously I could not resist such a challenge!  2 Seok … as 2 socks!! haha, I’m giggling a little even now.  #nevergetsold #ohboyineedalife

I designed them myself because there is, as yet, no knitting pattern for 2 seok socks… maybe I should write up this pattern and post it myself?!  Anyway, I had in my, still very large, wool stash a ball of very fine gauge, pale pink yarn.  I would have preferred white, or even pale purple for this project, but anyway, pink it was and so pink I had to use.  I sketched out some pictures taken from online, some I thought were representative of Jin and Hobi, and made them into knitting charts.

 

I’ve momentarily lost my Hobi chart, but here is my Jin one… funnily enough, when I was knitting these I actually thought the Hobi one a better knitting design and the Jin one wasn’t going to turn out as well, but now they’re finished I feel like the Jin one turned out better.

I embroidered the designs in a purple-y pink yarn, leftover from these socks, and to introduce some sort of continuity to the socks, used the same yarn for the toe and heel sections.  This is also a good idea, because it is a proper sock yarn, whereas the yarn I used for the body of the socks is really fine and probably not up to the wear and tear you need in these areas.

Fun fact; I actually started these socks back in May of LAST year, and only picked them up again this month.  I know, I know.  I think I no longer have any current projects on needles still, but I still have that big stash to go through.  What to make next?!  Don’t worry, I have plenty of plans!

oh, by the way: I took a picture of Theo wearing the cardigan I made for him back in February… I’ll go back and put this picture in its proper post, but for now, ta da!  It gives my much joy to see him wearing it!

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purple cardigan

31/05/2024 8:42 pm \ Leave a Comment \

I’ve knitted a new cardigan!

This is cardigan A  from the book Japanese Knitting, by Michiyo, translated by Gayle Roehm.  The yarn is Jansen by Mod Vera, colour 80421344, it’s a yarn made for Spotlight which is where I bought it of course.  Not the most wonderful yarn in the world but I bought it anticipating the boredom of possible lockdowns during the early days of Covid.  It was a bit mohair-y,  by which I mean that it stuck to itself and had such a degree of fluffiness the needle had trouble getting between the stitches sometimes.

So yes, I said “new” above, but actually this is a project whose beginnings hark back to 4 long years ago…  I bought the yarn in a hurry and then began quite slowly.  I got the back and one front knitted then the cardigan lay undisturbed for a few years.   Yes, I’m so ashamed!  Anyway, progress was painfully sporadic before I picked it up again this month for May’s knitting project.  I haven’t forgotten my pledge to complete a project a month!  although it is going to be a more difficult task than I first thought.  If I hadn’t already knitted a fair chunk of this over the last few years it’s doubtful I would have been able to finish it.  As it was I was knitting like a maniac for the last week or so.

My new purple cardigan is thick and warm and I feel extremely cosy in it.  It has no closure so I’m going to have to pin it closed if I don’t want it hanging open, but that’s ok.  I like it open too.  I realised I forgot to take a photo of the back but it’s other plain, just stocking stitch.  All the interest is in those lovely, richly patterned sleeves.

I’m extremely happy to get this bulky project out of my knitting basket and into the wardrobe!  This was a good ten balls worth of wool, which is a substantial reduction of the stash.  It was a lot of work, but I’m so happy!!

I’m wearing it today with my Closet Core patterns Ginger jeans, and an old white tee that was an adaption of the Closet Core Nettie.

Aaaaand, apropos of nothing really, but I also have to confess that I’ve decided that I really do hate April’s project and am probably going to rework that one.  Hmmm.  How am I going to reduce the stash if I keep making such self-defeating decisions?!

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a weird new top

24/05/2024 12:57 pm \ 7 Comments \

Hello!  I’ve made a new shirt/top; it’s a little weird but it’s an idea I’ve had in my head for a long time and have been quietly working on realising it.  I’ve actually been making this shirt for over a month! it’s still not quite there but this iteration has helped me to firm up the idea even further, so it’s all good!  This will most likely become a new sewing pattern for our Carolyn & Cassie oevre…

I used a white slubby cotton that has been in my stash for ages, awaiting a good project.  I really love this stuff and have made lots of things using it in various colour ways over the years.  It’s originally from Fabulous Fabrics and I’m pretty happy that they still have it available in lots of colours to this day.

I drew up the design myself and it still needs a little work but I’m fairly happy so far.  My idea is to have a shirt with the traditional collar, collar stand and opening button placket to be offset over the shoulder.  I really like how this part of it turned out!  I made the sleeves not quite full length, and there is a short, bias bound slit opening and traditional cuff.  This may or may not change as time goes on, I’m not 100% sold on this.  I added two patch breast pockets to the front because it all looked a little bare without them, but the pocket situation is still a work in progress too.  Reset assured there will be pockets in some form or another though!  Most of my time has been in perfecting the collar and collar stand and I’m very happy with how this bit looks.  Although I forgot to button it all the way up while taking my photos here it’s still very comfortable fully buttoned up.  Hurrah!

I stitched on black buttons for a contrasting look; also from stash and originally from Spotlight probably.  These don’t really match each other but they’re all black and two-holed, and the same size so you wouldn’t really notice the difference without knowing.

I made the hem gently curved and love how this looks.

Watch this space!

I’m wearing today for me-made May here with my beloved Closet Core Morgan jeans and raspberry silk jacket made years ago using V 2894…

You can also see this jacket worn in 6 different ways in this post here… and wow, I’ve just reminded myself how long it’s been since I did something like that!  It was actually fun, maybe I should do one again!

Oh, and my daughter in law Kelly kindly sent me a few pictures of Arthur wearing his new cardigan, that I finished at the end of March.  He looks so cute!  In his words “it’s beautiful, like a rainbow”.  Words to totally warm the cockles of his granny’s heart.  What a sweetie!

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another little scrappy cardigan

23/03/2024 9:07 pm \ 6 Comments \

Hello!  I’m back wth my March knitting project; this one is of course a cardigan for my oldest grandson Arthur…

It’s the same Sirdar pattern that I used for Theo’s cardigan, one size up.  You might have noticed it’s the same colour pattern too… with seven double rows of each colour offset with each other.  When you start out with a plan like this, using scrap yarns, then it’s always going to be a bit of a gamble that the quantities of wool colours are going to actually be enough to see it through.  Fortunately I was very lucky again that it worked out!

Arthur has quite delicate colouring compared to his cousin; blond hair and blue eyes, pale skin, so I know these lighter, clear colours would be really nice on him.  I’ll come back and post a picture of him wearing it, come winter time. 🙂

In Arthur’s words “it’s beautiful, like a rainbow” sigh!  Higher praise is just not possible!

Now; when I posted Theo’s cardigan, remember I promised to post pictures improving how to join the sleeves to the body to continue in one piece without stretching out the underarm bit?

btw; I know this explanation is not going to make much sense unless you’re actually knitting a thing like this, but it’s mostly to remind myself if I ever need to do this again…

So, up until this point I’ve knitted the body ie. back and two fronts, in one piece and cast off the underarm stitches.  Each sleeve has been knitted flat exactly to the pattern to the underarm.  Then I take a needle and knit the right front and half a sleeve, then take a (long) fresh needle and knit the other half of the sleeve, the back, and half the other sleeve, then take another fresh shorter needle and knit the other half of the sleeve and the left front.  So; the three sections join up on the middle outer edge of each sleeve; and I commence knitting the cardigan from the armholes up, decreasing the raglan seams across the whole piece.  The only seams needing to be stitched at the end are the underarm and sleeve seams.

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fluffy blue speckles

10/08/2020 3:33 pm \ 2 Comments \

Oh hey!  I’ve just finished knitting a new jumper.  Perfectly fluffy and perfectly relaxed and slouchy, the most wonderfully comfortable lounge-able thing you can imagine.  This is the We Are Knitters sparkle raglan sweater, a design by Krysten Ritter, in the “sprinkle blue” colour way.  It comes as a kit with everything you need to make it all packaged up neatly  in a lovely brown paper bag.  It’s was the absolute hugest treat to come home and find this on my doorstep! a really delightful present to cheer myself up during a sorta low spell.

And it was truly such a joy to knit!  unply-ed, unspun “fleece type yarn and giant fat needles meant giant fat stitches too, so it knitted up super fast.  Quick gratification, for sure.

And how beautiful are these wooden needles?  They look so cool… so much prettier than my old metal ones.  I wondered if they’d be a tinier bit “stickier” than metals; and yes they were, but not so much as to be annoying or a problem.

The yarn is We Are Knitters “the meriwool”; absolutely gorgeously squishy stuff!!  100% merino, and supposedly treated with a superwash treatment to make it machine-washable.  This is awesome news because I already dropped a bit of chocolate on it… whoops!  I didn’t risk the machine was yet though, I’m too frightened!  I just gave it a spot hand-wash just very gently rubbing wool-wash into the chocolate-y smudge and the spot came out alright.  When I do get brave enough to toss my sweater in the machine I’ll come back and update on whether this worked out just fine or whether it was disastrous… but I’ll be allowing myself a few more wears first, just in case!

So; there was a slightly negative thing with my kit… when I checked out the requisite five balls for my size I noticed that one ball was from a different dyelot than the other four.  This one ball had noticeably less blue sparkles in it that the other four balls.  Not too much of a problem, I thought; I’ll just use that one divided evenly over the sleeves; as in, two rows of the majority dyelot, two rows of the odd-one-out, and repeat; for each sleeve.  This worked out ok, I think but as I was doing the front and back of the sweater I couldn’t help but notice that as well, one ball of the majority dyelot seemed to have considerably more blue in it that even its fellow three balls from the same dyelot.  You can see this at the top of the sweater in the lower picture, below.  It wasn’t obvious when you were looking at the balls together, but once I’d knitted practically the whole ball it did start to stand out a little bit.

above, I’m wearing it back to front compared to the below picture…  the pattern front and back are exactly the same as each other so you can wear it either way, which I really like btw!  I’ll probably wear it like the below picture because I prefer the way the sparkles appear on this side…

Oh, the other thing I’m posting about here is this skirt… this is the Sabrina skirt by Forget-me-not patterns that I made last year in a lovely orange-brown herringbone wool that Mum gave me once.  I recently added pockets to this, as posted here, and now I’m posting it again to point out that I’ve shortened it too.  This involved a fair amount of unpicking an intricately stitched walking vent, just so I could stitch up again closed. Lol, the things we do!  However, I’m much happier with it this length.  I really like my winter skirts to be on the shorter side, and realistically I’m never going to wear this thick woollen skirt in the warm weather!  The other, hidden bonus is that initially I stitched the burgundy-coloured lining hem in orange thread, a. because it’s the thread I used to sew the skirt in and I couldn’t be bothered changing it, and b. I didn’t have any matching burgundy thread at the time anyway.  Now I DO have some burgundy thread, so once I trimmed the lining I stitched the new hem in matching thread.  Yay! for tiny good things!

Look, with regards to the uneven-sparkle issue with my sweater; it’s fine really: I’m not actually bothered because I’m really very happy with it, and I even like that the body is a touch more blue than the sleeves and therefore has a slight visual point of difference.  Sometimes I’m a bit more obsessive about how an apparently random distribution of decorative elements can then appear not so random in the end result; a foible of the design process that a regular person probably wouldn’t even notice but which can at times send my weird brain into a frenzy of debate about whether I should unravel the whole thing and start again.  However, I shall NOT do this, because I knit for joy, not self-flagellation… and I am content to just enjoy my sweater for what it is.  Which is fluffy and warm and pretty and wonderful.

    

Details:

Sweater, the sparkle raglan sweater design by Krysten Ritter, in a kit from We Are Knitters
Rust skirt; the Sabrina pattern by Forget-me-not patterns in an old herringbone wool passed down by Mum? I think? shorted and with pockets added.  initially posted here
Turquoise skirt; adapted Burda 2/2015;109 denim from my NYC holiday, details here
Black tights, my own design, black stretch polyester, details here

yeah, unless it was pointed out, which I JUST DID of course! you can’t even really tell in real life.  I’ve really got to learn to not point these things out…

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