Look! It's Spiderman!

My 4 (nearly 5) year old Elijah is 100% boy.  He's into Legos, superheroes, ninja turtles, dirt, and playing hard.  He's such a fun kid to have around, and he always makes me smile.  When I saw the pattern for a Spiderman blanket, I knew he would love it. 

It has a clever construction, started small in the middle and then increasing, with decreases and increases making points radiating out from the center like a web.  However, shortly after this picture was taken, I realized the instructions were insufficient and flawed, so I had to rewrite the instructions completely.  It was a major pain and I wasn't too pleased.  But I carried on and I'm glad I did.

After completion, the "spokes" of the web are crocheted in through the knitting.

I had the worst time getting the edges to keep from curling, and ended up making a 2-round double crochet border to help.  It still curls some, but Elijah will never know.  He saw me laying it out for photos and said "Oh my goodness!  It's AWESOME!".  Ahh....kids.

It is now proudly spread on his bed, ready for bedtime cuddling tonight.  This is why I make stuff.  To make someone smile.  Cuddling is a big bonus too!

Speed Knitting? Or not...

I'd like to think that I am a pretty quick knitter.  But I really don't know.  I don't TRY to knit as fast as humanly possible, I take my time and relax.  I'm usually watching TV or reading a book on my phone (if it's an easy pattern) while I'm knitting.  Kids constantly interrupt me, and they further impair my progress by clicking my row counter, stealing my tape measures, or chasing my dogs - who in turn jump onto my lap and send my yarn balls flying.

In addition, my style of knitting is not typical.  I am a "thrower".  Here I am knitting:

In the last knitting class I attended, some 4 years ago, I was quickly told that I knitted "wrong".  They put that working yarn in my left hand, and told me to force myself to learn that way.  "You'll be so much faster of a knitter that way, and your tension will be much more even".  I gave it the ol' college effort, but went right back to my old way when the teacher turned her back.  (I'm convinced there's NO WRONG WAY to knit.)

Regardless of barriers, I knit every day.  Knitting calms me, distracts me, and focuses random energy into something productive.  It occupies the creative section of my brain and challenges me.  It really doesn't feel like work.  More like therapy.

So today, curiosity led me to time myself.  I'm working on a shawl, which right now is in garter stitch.  Easy peasy.  On the needles are 329 stitches of fingerling weight yarn.  I started my stopwatch, and away I knit the whole row.

Here's what I got.

...which translates to approximately 578 seconds.  That's 1.75 seconds per stitch, or just over 0.5 stitches per second.  Now that I have this information....I'm not sure what to do with it!  HA!  Maybe I'll come back to this post in 3 years and time myself again.  I hope I'm faster!

Striped Mittens

I have been in designing mode for the last several weeks, and in preparation for beginning work on the new designs, I finished up a pair of quick mittens.  I love making mittens.  It's therapeutic.  Well, I guess that's a silly thing to say - all knitting is therapeutic for me.  But I love how mittens come together quickly and surprisingly simply.  There's no fuss of finger knitting.

 

These are knitted in 100% acrylic yarn.  The benefit there is they are washable and will wear well and retain their shape.  I love the gray and maroon colors.  Doesn't look like maroon?  Oh, well that's because evidently I'm a poor photographer.  Nothing I did make the color come out true.  But trust me, they're maroon.  The colors are sporty, and reminded me of something I'd wear to a fall football game, sporting school colors.  

I worked these entirely in the round with double pointed needles.  It's nice to be able to try them on as I go!

They made my hands sweat while I was photographing them, so I know they'll be warm.

Hooray for fall and mitten weather!  My favorite time of the year!

Whimmydiddle 2014

I was so thrilled to be part of the 2014 Whimmydiddle craft fair in Scott City, KS this year. I went into this fair as a rookie, and I learned so much.

The items I have made in the last year have mostly comprised of projects I planned around the stash of yarn I had on hand or what has been given to me. Because I wasn't sure what types of handmades would be popular, I made a wide variety and watched what was touched, talked about, purchased, and even taken selfies with!  I feel I now have a more focused idea of what customers in that area are looking for. 

The Whimmydiddle is a one-day fair. My parents live about 6 blocks away, so I didn't have to sleep at the park in my tent or get a hotel room, which was great. I went down 2 days before hand, sifted through baskets at Mom's, and planned my booth layout. On the day before, I checked in, was given my spot assignment (which was a good spot - under a tree and with the wind at my tent's back), and set up my tent and tables. I waited for the morning to set up my merchandise and details. 

So at 7 that fair morning, I arrived at the fair and quickly realized that there was nowhere to park my trailer to unload my crates. My dad and husband helped me immensely- and we carried everything all the way across the park.  By lamplight, we set up and arranged everything. 

Here was my booth just after finishing setup. As you can see, I took my small loom to demonstrate weaving. I really tried to be weaving nearly all the time, so no one would miss it.  I had SO many comments, questions, and attention while weaving. It was great to show people something they had not seen before. I was also surprised by the children and men who were interested in my crafting. I love sharing my loves with people, and showing the art and detail that handmade items require hopefully raises appreciation for handiwork.

We also brought in my aunt Cindy's alpaca fleece. 

In the blue tubs beside Chris, we had raw fleece from four different alpacas, in different colors. It was fun to teach people more about alpacas and allow them to feel how soft their fleece is. 

I feel that there was not enough height to my display, and that more mannequins would have been nice. Many items are hard to imagine in use. A hand mannequin would be nice too!

By the end of the day, my back was sore from my weaving, I ran out of weft spools, and we were dusty from the wind. But we tore down, packed up, and drove the 6 hours back to Oklahoma that night. It was a long day, but I met some nice people, had fun, sold some stuff, and learned a ton. I'm already planning next year's fair!  

Folding my Voyageur

I have really loved my 15", 8 shaft Leclerc Voyageur table loom. There are so many possibilities with the added shafts, and it doesn't take up much room. 

Today, however, I needed to have it fold - one of the reasons I got this loom. I'm taking it to Kansas with me to demonstrate weaving at the craft fair.

I started by warping and beginning the weaving. I wanted to have it ready to weave on the body of the project, but also I wanted to familiarize myself with the pattern so if I was distracted or pulled away from the loom, I would know right where to start again. 

Steps to folding a Leclerc Voyageur 

Step 1: loosen the warp to allow for the folding and remove any weights on floating selvedges or previously broken warps.  

Step 2: loosen any red screws

Step 3: fold up the front arm, allowing the beater bar to rest vertically between the castle and front beam. 

Step 4: place the securing bars from the front beam onto the loosened red screw near the top of each side of the castle and tighten down.

Step 5: lift up the rear beam and place the securing bars onto the red screw on the lower part of the front beam. Tighten to secure. I found that I needed to raise shaft 8 to keep my current large warp from interfering with the frame of the 8th shaft. 

Step 6: tighten down all screws

Step 7: remove the handles from both the front and back beams and secure the beam with the provided screws. 

Step 8: place the loom into the bag. 

I'm now ready to travel with my loom, so wish me luck!

3 Color Pinwheels

I ran an experiment with my table loom - I wanted to see if I could feasibly use some of this huge supply of acrylic yarn I have to make a woven scarf.  I picked three colors: gray, blue, and red and came up with a draft:

I use iWeaveIt program that I have on my phone and iPad.  It allows me to make my own drafts and use ones from weaving databases like handweaving.net.  Once I'm done modifying it, I then can either print a copy to have by the loom to use as reference, or actually use my device and track my progress - helping me to never lose my place.  (Ha.  I have two kids.  Like I never lose my place!)  I can also pick my colors, which allows me to see how the colors will interact.  It's very handy.

I never took any pictures of this on the loom :(.  It wove up very quickly, and I deem it a soaring success.  I'll be using more stash to make more scarves soon.  Here is the finished product:

Isn't it pretty?!  May be one of the nicest things I've made with acrylic! 

Honeycomb Baby Blanket

With my rush to finish fair items, I totally skipped over telling you about this project I finished.  It's not that I deem it less worthy, really.  :( Poor blanket.  Anyhow, it was very satisfying to finish this blanket.  It really was fun to knit.  Sometimes knitting blankets can be tedious because of their size, but this one never seemed to drag on.

The nice thing about it is its simplicity.  I used 3 colors of Red Heart's Baby Yarn, which has been discontinued.  Now I readily concede: I really hate Red Heart.  That statement could probably be truthfully expanded to include all acrylic yarn.  But I do admit it has its uses.  Acrylic yarn is the least expensive.  It is completely synthetic (think PLASTIC), so is machine washable and dryable - which is ideal when you're making kids' items.  It's always available in lots of colors, and can be found even at Walmart.  My mom ALWAYS works with it.  I think I'm a yarn snob *insert slightly guilty feeling*.  My grandmother gave me a TON of this yarn to use.  Waste not, want not - right?

But anyway, I'm off my line of thought.  3 colors of Baby Yarn: pink, blue, and a variegated white/pink/blue.  I decided to use the pink and blue as alternating honeycomb colors, and utilize the variegated to be the border of the combs.  I like it. 

I hesitated at first to make a blanket that included both pink and blue - because a lot of people feel firmly that pink is for girls and blue is for boys.  But let's stretch our imaginations, people.  My favorite color is blue.  I'm a girl.  And this combo of colors could be used for either sex!

Now, the honeycomb may look like a detailed stitch pattern, however it is simply slipping 2 stitches of the honeycomb border past 6 rows of the pink or blue honeycomb "body", if you will.  When the next border is started, you just knit across, finishing off those slipped stitches.  It's fun but not complicated.  I didn't need a pattern.

 

I had a sizeable blanket after using most of a skein of each color, and decided to move on to make a border.  As I was knitting this, I really wished I would have built a border onto it as I worked - by starting with 10 rows of garter stitch at the beginning, ending the same way, and putting 10 stitches of garter at each side.  But hindsight is 20/20 - so I needed to add a border after finishing it.  I decided to crochet.  There are enough crochet stitches in it to make the border wavy.  I finished the last row of the border with THIS MUCH yarn remaining!!!  SKIN of my TEETH!

Here are more finished pictures:

I'd like to make more blankets like this.  Wouldn't rainbow colors be cool?

In the meantime, I am not beginning another knitting project for now.  I have about 10 more rows before I finish my son's Spiderman blanket.  I hope to be project-less in time for the WHIMMYDIDDLE in 8 days!!!  I've started gathering all the stuff I need and I'm getting excited (with butterflies, of course!)

Tomorrow I'll post one more project completion - a weaving one!

Have a great day!