Omly Crafts

Comm Pad

2009-12-10T15:51:00.000-05:00

I need to play with my acrylic paint stash more. My housemate asked if I had any paint to do her comm pad for her Imperial Crew uniform. Obviously she had not taken a serious look at the size of the craft stash.

Plus she let me play with actually painting. I had a hard time finding a yellow I was happy with, but fortunately it is just paint. So I was able to just custom mix a color that was slightly better.

Elvin Bride Nearing Completion

2009-11-29T11:59:00.001-05:00

Sorry there has not been much blogging this month. I have been frantically knitting my Elvin Bride (of the green swatch) in hope fo finishing it by the end of the this month. Here is where I am as of this morning:

Almost done! Somehow this project didn't get it's fair share of WIP posts, perhaps because it doesn't go together in an intuitive way and doesn't look like much most of the time.

Tufts baby hat

2009-11-01T00:34:00.000-04:00

Along with the baby socks, I also made a matching baby hat:

Pattern: Baby Hat by Sandi Rosner
Pattern Source: Not Just Socks
Size: 6 months
Yarn: Mind's Eye Yarns Merino/Tencel
Yarn Supplier: Mind's Eye Yarns
Needles: US 2 / 2.75 mm

Modifications: skipped rolled stockinette edge and included a 2X2 rib at bottom of hat

Again, I do not like the rolled edge with ribbing,so I skipped it. The result is super cute though, and the garter rib is fabulous for hand dyed stripey yarn as it visually breaks up where exactly the color changes.

Tufts baby socks

2009-10-28T23:40:00.002-04:00

In addition to the 3 pairs of adult pairs of socks I made for Soctoberfest, I also finished this one pair of baby socks. These were super fast, cute, and at only ~80 yards of fingering weight, they are a great use for leftover bits of sock yarn.

Pattern: Booties by Sansi Rosner
Pattern Source: Not Just Socks
Size: 6 months
Yarn: Mind's Eye Yarns Merino/Tencel
Yarn Supplier: Mind's Eye Yarns
Needles: US 2 / 2.75mm

After I graduated, I asked Lucy if she could dye some sock yarn in the colors of Tufts University. The result has been sitting in my stash, waiting for just the right idea. The length of the color repeats looked just perfect for baby items.

So I took out my copy of Not Just Socks to check out the coordinating items for the baby sweater in there. (You may remember the smores sweater I made with that pattern.)

I made the same modification to these socks where I skipped the rolled edge, which I just can not bring myself to like if followed immediately by ribbing. Instead I jumped right into the garter ribbing. Besides the fact that these are really socks, not booties, I have no other real complaints about the pattern. They are cute and unisex. You could lean one way or another with color choice, but the pattern is just right either way.

Fall Socks

2009-10-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

The Fall 2004 Issue of Knitty is famous for a bunch of really great patterns such as Shedir and the Clapotis. This pattern has very seldom been knit in comparison (only 18 currently on Ravelry including this pair). They were the perfect solution to having just 170 yards of this gorgeous hand-dyed though.

Pattern: Lou Lou Comfort Socks by Amy Swenson
Pattern Source: Knitty Fall 04 Surprise
Yarn: Spunky Eclectic Super Sport in "I <3>

Modifications: I used a masterbed pathway heel because I found the short row heel too shallow and a then ribbed cuff with sewn bind-off rather than the picot edge. I think a picot edge is cute, but the version used in the instructions is not my favorite.

My housemate loves these colors but is allergic to wool and can't wear anything made from it, so I knit her a decorative mini sock with the leftovers. You can see the colors better in this one. They really are the colors of Fall in New England!

Pattern: Alpaca Sox Mini Socks by Classic Elite Yarns
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Modifications: cast-on 20 sts

Does this coound as 3 more socks for Soctober or just 2? Either way, I feel like I am making progress on the sock yarn stash.

Two Pair Down!

2009-10-23T21:36:00.003-04:00

Salvbard gets a fair number of my socks, and he is a good recipient in that he wears them all the time. So a few days ago when he came to me with two pairs with holes, I wasn't shocked. I was pleasantly surprised by just how much wear they got before they did wear out the toes. Fortunately I had a little yarn saved for each of these.

First up was the younger of the two pairs. After replacing the toe so that this pair could go back to live in the drawer.

This pair was made in April 2008 from souvenir yarn from Germany in April 2007. They are one of his favorite pairs, and get worn a lot, in boots no less. So these lasted 18 months despite quite frequent use, and they do not have seem to have significant wear anywhere else.

Leo-colored Socks

2009-10-21T23:35:00.002-04:00

More sock knitting has been happening, though mid-term preparations has been slowing down the blogging about them.

Yarn: Lana Grossa Meilenweit 50 Uni in color 1102
Yarn Supplier: The Knitting Kitten
Needles: US Size 1s/2.25 mm

Just plain old stockinette socks, but as we have established stockinette is good for stress. And self-striping yarn is good for stockinette socks, so this was perfect.

PoA Slytherin Scarf

2009-10-16T23:06:00.000-04:00

I have been sitting on this post for a month waiting to get better photos. I guess it is time to accept that that is just not going to happen.

After the move I needed a mindless project. And this was a project that I have wanted the finished product of for a long time, but it was too boring to knit normally. In this case, however, lots of stockinette in the round was just what the doctor ordered.

Pattern: Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban Scarf by Lauren Kent
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash (color 801)
and Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Superwash (color 01)
Yarn Suppliers: Woolcoot & Co. and Windsor Button respectively
Needles: US 8 / 5.0 mm

This knit grew significantly just after soaking and laying flat. Although it was not stretched at all, during blocking it easily gained 8-12 inches in total length. Now it falls just past my knees. I don't have much to say about the pattern; it is simple but well written. And now I have a super warm scarf to get me through the Boston winter.

Locust Socks

2009-10-12T23:22:00.003-04:00

I hope that everyone in the US had a great Columbus day. Even if he just "discovered" an already populated continent, a school holiday is still welcome. It was a surprisingly beautiful day, with that perfect chill edge of autumn. And that meant good light to take new FO pictures.

Here we are 12 days into Socktober, and I haven't gotten around to mentioning it once! Well at the beginning of the month, I cast-on a pair of socks in honor of the celebration. These would not have taken so long if I wasn't working on another pair of socks as well.

Pattern: Yarrow Ribbed Socks
Pattern Source: Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush
Yarn: Yarn Ahoy Superwash Handpainted Merino Sock
Needles: US 0 / 2.0 mm

Modifications: leg and foot done in stockinette with a wedge toe.

I started this pattern to try something new, but after doing the top ribbing I was unhappy with the way this variegated yarn looked in ribbing. I really wanted to try the german heel in this pattern though. It was fun to do, but not hugely different from a standard heel-flap. I would have done the french toe too, but I was just too tired to figure out how to convert it to 2 at a time magic loop whe I got that far.

This yarn was one I traded for on Ravelry for the huge leftover ball of yarn from my sister's wedding shawl. From that person I had the yarn name, but not the colorway, so I started doing some research. It is almost exactly like Yarn Ahoy's Sour Grapes colorway, but with brown instrad of purple. (Accidental over dyeing of purple with the neon green?) I have decided this version of the colorway makes me think of locusts, particularly like in this picture. (Obviously if you are bug-phobic don't click through.)

So are any of you celebrating Soctoberfest at all this year? I am hearing a lot less on the blog-o-sphere for whatever reason.

Little Red Sweater

2009-10-05T18:15:00.003-04:00

One of the challenges in the HPKCHC last month was to knit something that was made from at least 50% plant fiber. Looking around my stash (well virtually anyways in Ravelry), I noticed that I had 5 skeins of Cascade Pima Tencel that I had bought years ago to make a sleeveless top. Looking closely at the yardage though, I was sure I could get a small sweater out of it, especially if I was willing to have half or 3/4 length sleeves.

Pattern: 3-Hour Sweater
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel
Yarn Supplier: WEBS
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm & US 8 / 5.0

Modifications: You know there had to be a bunch, right? Especially since it was (loosely) based on a vintage 1930s pattern.

I cast on 134 stitches in the round, rather than the smaller suggested number and in pieces. I also used a smaller needle size than suggested because of the "paparazzi effect" many Ravelers had complained of when using size 10.5 needles.

I extended the bottom ribbing to for from the beginning of my hips to the start of my bust, then switched to stockinette just before starting the arm holes. I changed this to have a scoop neckline instead of the one suggested in the pattern. And rather than using a set-in sleeve, I adapted this to have a raglan shoulders by using a crocheted provisional cast-on for the sleeve stitches. This also allowed me to knit the sleeves last, making them as long as possible with the yarn amount I had.

The result is a very fitted sweater that I could try on all along the process to make sure it fit the way I wanted it too. It also, not surprisingly, took significantly longer than 3 hours to make. Totally worth the time though, it was still very fast!

My only complaint was that the yarn, which is lovely and soft, not to mention an amazing color, produced huge amounts of fuzzies that are now covering basically my entire house. My girlfriend who lives with us even found some in the shower one morning, even though the sweater had not ever been in that room. Washing it helped, and putting it in the dryer by itself helped even more. I still don't trust it enough to wash it with other things yet though.

Mitered Mittens

2009-10-03T23:50:00.000-04:00

I have been trying for the last year or so to knit more from my book stash. I have all these wonderful pattern books, and I really wanted to be using them. Additionally, I have been spinning again the last few months, which has motivated me to think about knitting my handspun.

So it was only natural that these two thoughts would collide. The result is a pair of super-fun mittens. This yarn was spun back in July, and was a single stand of handspun plied with a strand of silver sparkly sewing thread. It is always neat to watch how handspun will knit up , and the way the roving had two strands of differently colored pencil roving held together gives this a heathered look, similar to what it had been if I had plied two singles together.

Pattern: Mitered Mittens (May) by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Pattern Source: Knitter's Almanac
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Yarn: my handspun

Modifications: My mitered sections were only slightly larger 13 stitches each, because my handspun was finer but I have small hands. I did a shorter cuff because I was worried about running out of yarn in the same color sequence. Also I made a thumb gusset similar to the ones done by Kathryn Ivy. And finally I did a more rounded area by the fingers.

I was a little worried when I spun this yarn that the sparkle would be too garish, but it really just adds a little interest and fun. This pattern was great for really highlighting an interesting yarn, and I could see myself making it again.

NICU hats

2009-09-24T11:50:00.000-04:00

After my newest niece was born, she spent several days in the NICU due some health worries. The men and woman at Brigham and Women's Hospital were amazing, and after she stabilized she got to go home much sooner that most of the babies in there. My sister mentioned the idea of making them some thank you baskets (of her making) possibly with some hats for the babies there.

When Ms. S had her visit there, she was given a tiny ribbed hat like this pink one on Mr. Blue (the bear). This shape was great because it was very forgiving of different sized babies and could be rolled up as needed. This round of hats are on the large size, since they had very few that could fit a 7 lb baby. The small ones would fit a slightly smaller baby though.

These are super addictive to make since they go so quickly. And they are a great use for even scraps of nice acrylic. It is important that they be made of something that can be washed and dried on hot for the hospital's use. Most of these are in "boy" colors, but I can see myself making a bunch more in other colors.

Green Swatch

2009-09-23T23:41:00.004-04:00

Swatching before starting a project? Who is that, and what have they done with Omly?

I am seriously considering making Elfin Bride by Jennifer Stafford, but there is a lot of knitting done on the bias so not only stitch gauge, but also row gauge is important. (It is a really neat construction if you have a moment to flip through the gallery.)

Plus this is sort of like knitting from my book stash, which is always a good thing. How can it only be sort of? Well, the author includes pictures of this sweater in Domiknitrix, but they ran out of time in space to put the actual pattern in. So this pattern is available for download at the website (linked above) with a password from the book.

I has been quite a while since I finished knitting an adult sized sweater, yet I have a couple of sweater quantities of yarn in my stash. I would like to be finishing more than one a year until I run through the sweater-quantity stash.

Watercolor Hat

2009-09-17T23:40:00.004-04:00

Knitting with handspun is always an adventure. Sometimes you just have to accept the quirky, irregular nature of it, and this hat does a great job playing up the watercolor painting of this yarn, both in color and texture.

Pattern: Robin's Egg Blue Hat by Rachel Iufer
Needles: US 10½ / 6.5 mm
Yarn: my handspun
Button Suplier: Windsor Button

This is a super cute (and free!) pattern for bulky yarn. The seed stitch band (done flat through the rest of the hat is done in the round) is particularly good at mixing up variegated yarn. And it is a great chance to use huge, fun buttons.

Dyeing In the Ball?!

2009-09-14T23:49:00.003-04:00

I am pretty sure I originally spun this yarn in 2006, but I can't find any reference to it in my archives. It started off just as a white fleece, which I spun into a crazy thick and thin bulky two-ply. Then I tried to dye it with cake dye, but I didn't have a concentrated enough die bath and/or the wool was not fully wetted. The result was disappointingly pale areas of blue and pink on a white yarn.

Then I decided that I really wanted to knit this yarn, but I just didn't love the colors enough to do so. Solution? Overdye! (Sorry, I really wish I had a pre-over-dyeing picture. As I said, I thought I had blogged these before....)

I had been wanting to try this technique for dyeing a yarn directly in the ball, and this seemed like a good oppurtunity. It is not just an illusion of the photograph, the top of each of these really is a little greener and the bottom a little tealer. (Is tealer a word? I guess it is now.)

You will see this yarn again shortly as I have already cast on with it.

Peach Preserves

2009-09-09T21:09:00.001-04:00

I have started some really neat knitting projects (to be discussed in the upcoming days), but I have also been busy in the kitchen recently. Our new home has two lovely little peach trees. Unfortunately they have not been taken very good care of, but even so it was such a good year for peaches that we have gotten a fair amount of fruit.

Have you ever noticed how many people in the knitting community are also interested in things like canning?

I set to work and was able to put away a micro batch of peach preserves entirely from our peaches from our yard. Salvbard claims they taste even better because of where the fruit is from, but I will say they are pretty tasty either way. Plus the color is beautiful.

PS. Did everybody notice that today is 9/9/09? I had to aim to post this by 9:09 just because.

Wedding Afghan #2

2009-09-07T22:32:00.000-04:00

My brother and his new wife are successfully married. It was a beautiful ceremony, and I was happy to have been able to celebrate it with them. It also gave us the chance to give them the second wedding afghan. (The first you may remember went to another brother early this summer.)

Pattern: Cross Your Heart by Lesley Stanfield
Pattern Source: Adorable Crochet for Babies and Toddlers
Yarn: Ella Rae Classic (18 skeins) and some Valley Yarns Greenwich
Hook: G / 4.00 mm

The original pattern is meant to be a baby blanket, but the pattern gives no yardage requirements or suggested size. Knowing I had more than 4000 yards of the Ella Rae in my stash though, I figured that would be fine.

The only problem was that the more I thought about it, the bigger I wanted this blanket to be. Both my brother and his new wife are generously sized people, and I wanted this to be big enough to be comfortable curling up together under. Ultimately it was big enough to quite comfortably cover a twin bed.

Unlike the example in the book, this was done mostly in just two colors: the grey and green Ella Rae. Then the edging around each block was done in a brighter blue that I had bought a cone of at Webs a while back. That gave it just a touch of interest without being overwhelming once the grey seams went on.

This was actually a fairly fun project. I memorized the heart motif fairly quickly. I am not sure how long these took since I just sort of did them on the fly whenever I had downtime. But I found that I could do 10-12 of the blue edgings in an hour once I had. So given the number of squares that meant I spent more than 16 hours just putting on the edgings.

The major downside to this pattern was the seaming. Since each square was only about 4"/10 cm there was a lot of seaming to do. Each of the seams going the short way took half an hour (so another 7.5 hours there), and I didn't dare time myself to see how long the long seams took each.

By the end of it, I was quite ready to be done. There was some extra excitement though, since I ran out of the grey yarn. I only used 8 skeins of each color on the squares, but I used a full 2 skeins on the seaming with not quite enough left to do the other edge in single crochet.

Modifications: I followed the instructions pretty much exactly. (Shocking I know!) The only exception was that I couldn't find the book among the boxes to see what the final edging was supposed to be, and I opted to do a half double crochet border in the green, while I did the seaming with the grey (in the recommended single crochet edging).

Final verdict? Cute pattern, which was fun to do. Ultimately it took way too long though, because I opted to make it huge. Good thing I love my family so much. I wouldn't mind using the heart motif in another project, but I would would love to do less seaming in whatever I did it in.

A different sort of heart problem

2009-09-03T21:50:00.002-04:00

Please excuse the crappy photo quality. This image was taken shortly before some ripping, and I didn't want to wait for better lighting.

Do you notice anything odd about the orientation of that center heart? Obviously I was too tired to be seaming when I put that one in. The good news is though that I am almost done, even given the ripping out. A FO post to come shortly, and none too soon as the recipients are getting marred this weekend!

Book Covers

2009-08-21T12:26:00.002-04:00

Today's post is not about my own creative efforts, but those of a friend I met through the Creative Mom Podcast group.

Ok so I spend a fair amount on the bus. Now of course a lot of that time is taken up by knitting, but I am also an avid reader. So I was really excited when I saw that Jessica of Ocean of Creativity was making fabric book covers.

I actually received these more than a year ago, but I kept waiting for her to post more in her Etsy store. I haven't seen her do so, but if you were interested I bet she could make some more if you contacted her.

I can't say that I am terribly skilled when it comes to sewing, but I absolutely loved the idea of these. Generally most of my books are library discards or donated library booksale finds. Good reading, but they aren't always in the best shape. So I contacted Jessica about the possibility of sending her some much loved fabric that I wasn't going to do anything with, and I have to say I am thrilled with the results.

She made me one one in a hardback and one in paperback size (I would say up to 350-400 pages, but I bet you could request one that accommodated a thicker paperback if you wanted). There is a ribbon at the top of the spine that you can use as a bookmark, and a loop of fabric that goes through a ribbon loop at the side to hold the book closed while it is in your bag.

I am a tactile person, and I have to say that my first impression is that these really have some thickness to them. They are fully lined and in the case of the hardcover it has an extra layer of interfacing that gives it some substance and added protection.

Which leads to me to my next question. It is the end of summer. I am doing a lot of chilling on the new couch reading since it has been too hot to knit much. What have you all been reading this summer? Anything you would recommend?

Changes

2009-08-19T23:52:00.006-04:00

So last summer I was spinning some of this beautiful merino/tussah silk blend. In fact I even blogged when I finished the first skein. After finishing one ply and then plying it on itself, I had that lonely skein that had to wait a full year for me to get around to finishing the rest of it.

In that time I have done a lot of spinning, particularly early this summer. Right after my spinning wheel's accident, subsequent surgery, and then repair it took a while for me to get the feel of how the tension worked. It was a lot touchier, which meant it was hard to get just the right tension on the flyer.

So here are side by side, the two skeins I ended up with from this roving. (You can click on the picture to make it larger.) The one on the right with the green ties, is the one I finished this summer, while the one on the left that you can't see the ties is the one I finished last summer. The newer yarn is a lot more even, but also softer spun. I know that my roommate really likes the first one, which has a lot more twist to it.

While I tend to think of myself as a product knitter/crocheter, I am a process spinner. I am far more interested in actually doing the spinning than what specifically what I end up with when I am done. (In fact I have knit with very little of my handspun. Maybe that should be a goal for this coming year.) So the change was interesting, but I wonder if could make the first kind again anymore... Any advice from other spinners out there?

Welcome, welcome

2009-08-16T19:51:00.000-04:00

While I have been off unpacking boxes, my sister has been busy creating something amazing. Welcome Ms. S to the family!

Thanks for giving me a wonderful reason to keep making baby items, sis. She is beautiful.

We Haz House!

2009-08-09T09:18:00.003-04:00

Don't worry. The blog hasn't been abandoned. As I hinted at previously we were planning to move. And I didn't want to jinx anything by posting about it in advance, but indeed we just bought our first home. We closed on July 31st. As you might imagine the house has been a maze of boxes since, though they have slowly been whittled down.

The internet person is coming tomorrow to transfer service, so if I can just find the box with the camera cable we will be back in business shortly.

Orange!

2009-07-27T23:14:00.001-04:00

For some reason I haven't really been knitting socks in recent months, but it just doesn't feel like summer without it. So on a hot day last week I started this pair of Broadripples, which is a pattern I have meant to try forever.

Pattern: Broadripple by Rob Matyska
Size: 8" cuff, women's US size 9
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Fixation Solid color 7192
Supplier: Mind's Eye Yarns

I have a fair bit of Cascade Fixation in my stash, but in the past I found in mildly annoying/unpleasant to knit with. I tend to knit tightly (stress!), and I could not master the tension that everyone told me to relax to when using this yarn. The needle size I ended up using was huge, but this has been my best knitting experience to date with this yarn. I may be using it again soon, in light of this discovery.

Evening Star

2009-07-25T23:42:00.002-04:00

As we have continued to get clammy, wet days, I am still spinning. Doing this much spinning back to back has been really great for improving my spinning skills. This is probably my most even single while still getting a fairly lofty yarn.

Yardage: 210 yards/192 meters (4 oz/110 g)
Weight: worsted
Fibers: merino and tussah silk plied with metallic polyester thread
Roving Supplier: Mind's Eye Yarns

I loved the purple-charcoal of the original, which reminded me of the evening sky. To emphasize that impression, I wanted to try including a strand of metallic thread, similar to the last yarn I spun, but this time with the thread included with two singles instead of one.

That is where I ran into a little bit of unexpected difficulty. Since the thread was so much thinner than the single, it tended to move towards the core of the yarn when I used an even amount of tension on each of the strands. Sample, sample, sample! (The spinners equivalent of swatching.)

There is still a fair amount of variation of tension in the thread as I learned, but what I ended up doing was let the two singles begin to get a little twist around each other just before (maybe half an inch/a centimeter) the thread was plied in. This worked ok, but if anyone knows of a better technique I would love to hear about it.

Stripy Hoody

2009-07-20T16:32:00.004-04:00

When last we left off discussing this sweater, I was worried about running out of turquoise. You see I was using the Wildfoote double stranded to more closely match the 6-ply since it is so fine. Well of course that meant I was using it up at twice the rate!

And indeed I ran out about halfway up the hood. Not to be deterred I broke out the calculator and figured out how many of the turquoise stripes at the bottom of the body I would need to remove to finish the hood. Then I carefully put in a provisional line, made an incision and then ripped out before that point. After this was done I could then reverse direction and knit down a new set of ribbing. If this makes you break out in cold sweats just thinking about it, have no fear. I am a trained professional (or something). Besides, I have photographic evidence that it turned out fine.

Yarn: Brown Sheep Wildfoote Luxury Sock & Opal 6-ply
Needles: US 3 / 3.25 mm
Pattern: Hooded Striped Top by Debbie Bliss
Size: 12-18 months
Pattern Source: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino

This is a pattern I had been wanting to make forever. Usually I have a ton of things I want to make for little girls, but not as many for little boys. And this pattern is great for any babies at all! I love the buttons and hood combination, which really seems useful having had a little one that size once.

If the body seems a bit wide and short, it is not because of my unorthodox knitting method this time. The pattern really is designed that way. While some of that is necessary, since the thought is that this would be an overlayer, I think if I make this again I might narrow it a smidgen.

Having said all of that though, I love this pattern. Even if it is worked in pieces, and seamed, that did not deter me in the slightest. I love the classic look, and the stripes means I can make this out of less than 2 sets of socks worth of yarn.