Knit Knacks: Boy's Scarf

 

Boy loves red. Red and elephants. So, he requested a red and white scarf with elephants on it. I found a chart for an elephant on ravelry.com, but it needed some tweaking before it would work. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

I cast on (with two strands of yarn) 20 stitches (both colors, 40 stitches total, front and back).

The checkerboard pattern was 4 X 4. At every edge I slipped the last stitch as if I were purling, to get that pretty braided-looking edge.

If I could change anything, looking back, I would have turned the elephant to being feet down on both ends of the scarf.

I realized, once I got to Boy's name on the scarf, that, unless I got creative, his name was going to be backwards on one side. That did not make me happy. So I started brainstorming, and created a chart that did different things on each side, rather than stitching a reversible pattern.

So, on this particular scarf, his name is on one side, and, on the other side, his name is there, but flipped horizontally in the opposite direction. (Sadly this means, on one side, the elephants are upside down when you read his name, something I fixed with NoWay's scarf.

I measured the scarf to be just a little taller than Boy himself. This seems to be a good length for him, particularly as I didn't want to do all the work and have it only fit for one season.

We live in a hot climate, so we don't even really need scarves, but Boy enjoyed wearing his scarf to school everyday.

chart for elephant 10 X  15 (I excluded the last stitch on the tail)
If you look at the pattern you can see the arrows to show which direction to read the pattern on each row. This really is essential, with double knitting, or it won't look like anything at all!

Knit Knacks: The Keith Scarf

Here's my sweetheart looking ultra self-conscious. I put the poor guy on the spot with this one.

It's fair.

Because, right after I finished his blanket (the insane one, remember that one? Perhaps this will refresh the memory) he told me what he really wanted now was a scarf with checkerboard blocks on it.

I had little time, but it was done for his birthday.

After the blanket, this was actually a pretty easy project. Using the double knitting method, it requires two balls of  contrasting yarn. I cast on about 30 stitches (both colors) and then knit five of each color, alternating yarns after every five stitches. In the double knitting stitch, this meant I was simply switching the yarns in my hand, so fairly quick and easy. 

Each block was 5 X 5, so I would stitch five stitches, switch colors, and repeat to the end of the row, for five rows, and then switch to the next color. It's fairly simple.

For the fringe, I put three strands of yarn per stitch. To get even length I wrapped the yarn from my hand around my elbow in a loop many times and then cut the strands in half, all together. 

My family liked it so much that all of the children requested scarves.

Today's A Big Day

Today my  first Kindle book came out. This is a very important book to me. It is near and dear to my heart and also personal enough that getting it out there is both exhilarating and terrifying. I think everyone can relate to some part of Tess' story, if only the experience of self discovery.

I may not be an "Empath", but many of Tess' struggles are familiar to me, as a person who struggles with social phobias.

It is my hope that this story will touch hearts, open minds, and express some of the growing pains that a 'sensitive' soul faces in life.

Knit Knacks: Keith's Blanket

When I came across the double knitting technique on YouTube, I could not go ahead and try something simple first. Of course not-- that's not how I do things. Instead, I decided I was going to make my husband a blanket for his birthday. At that point I had a month and a half to make it in, which I figured was plenty of time.

I knew that I wanted to do a bunch of Celtic motifs, as my husband loves everything Irish (hey, he married me!). I spent a LOT of time online, looking for existing patterns, and also looking at various clipart. I then re-charted every little detail and set to work.

The blanket is not perfect. In fact, if you looking at the Celtic knot work in the center, you can see where a line went wrong, and I was too far ahead, when I discovered it, to rip everything out and fix it.

This blanket took nearly four pounds of yarn, and is not overly big. It is perfectly reversible, as each motif was created, stitch-by-stitch, both front and back at the same time.

My husband actually picked out the colors and watched the whole thing unfold. (There was certainly no way that I could work on this and keep it secret from him.) I had my cheering section, with all my boys, who would applaud my progress, and help me stay motivated.

I had a little superstitious moment with this blanket, though. I would only work on it when I was in a positive mind-frame, while thinking about positive things. I wanted every stitch to be saturated with love and affection and positive energy.  Perhaps that sounds silly, but I stuck to that rule.

I used five different patterns to create my charts. It was interesting to read the charts, because I had to keep track of which direction I was going for each side. One side I would read the pattern -----> this way and then, on the next row, it had to be <------ this way. Otherwise things wouldn't match up.

 I knew, when I started, that this was going to take a long time to make, and it really got down to the wire. I finished it about a week before my husband's birthday. When I finished the blanket, I crocheted in double crochet with both yarns around the border, followed by three border rows of single crochet in white, and then a last border row of double crochet in the blue.

The gift and effort were well appreciated. My husband wanted to put it up on the wall as a decoration piece, but I told him that I wanted it to be used. I didn't go through all of that to have it NOT be used. So, it is used frequently and, as it is nice and thick and padded, it also doubles as the spot where we set down the baby when I need a little break.

I would never recommend jumping in with this as the first project done with double knitting. I had a steep learning curve, and I had many moments, when I had to revamp my charts, or go back and take out rows of work to fix a problem. (Removing rows in Double Knit is complicated, especially when you are in the middle of a color switch!)

What JOY, Happy BOYS!

Is there anything better than I smiling baby? I really can't think of anything. I love that, despite his tummy troubles, Jellybean is a smiley little boy. He smiles when he spits up. He smiles while he's crying with a tummy ache. He smiles when he hears Daddy or his brothers.

Wow, I can learn from that! Do I great adversity and challenges with a smile? I think, most of the time, I don't handle things well. I get down and depressed, instead of being like Jellybean. I should smile through my tears, like he does.

 Wouldn't it be amazing and great if we all were content to be chubby and happy like a baby? To trust others to be there when we need them? To love everyone without question, just because they are there?

Of course, life isn't that simple. It's impractical to go through life expecting the things all babies deserve (and not enough of them get!), but I can borrow his joy for a little while, when I just look down on that beautiful, trusting, happy face.

Are you smiling yet?

Try to resist this face:

We have a saying in this house:

"Two Year Olds are DANGEROUS!"

"Who, me?"

You'd better believe it!

Double Knitting

There are two different types of something called 'Double Knitting'. This was immediately interesting to me, because, once you want to mess with colors and certain patterns there becomes a 'Right Side' and a well, ugly side. I don't really want to work hard on a blanket and then have it only attractive from one side. It would drive me crazy. I can totally see myself telling the boys they could only wear their blanket a certain way... nope, not for me. It doesn't really matter for socks, IMO, but blankets should be reversible.

Double knitting, in the first method, is also a great way to make a pillow case or something you want to open (bag, ipod case, lots of options!) The second method is awesome for completely reversible color work.

Method One of Double knitting is simply this: with one ball of yarn, cast on your stitches. knit one stitch, then, pretend you are going to purl and then (psyche!) instead of creating a new stitch you are just going to pull the old stitch onto your other needle. Make sure you do this placing your needle as you would to purl. This is called Slip Stitch Purl or SSP. Finish the row that way.

Now, you just do the opposite of what you just did: Knit into the stitches you moved over last time and slip stitch purl the stitches you knit last time.

To Cast Off you will want to out every other stitch onto a different needle and then cast off, so you don't seal off your bag.

Need to see it?

See? You are working two sides of a 3D object at once! Neat, isn't it?

Honestly, I didn't touch this one. It was, well, too boring. I wanted to play with color! Reversible knitting, here I come!

Method Two of Double knitting is much easier than it seems at first. The first thing you should know, to prevent any issues, is that 1) It doesn't matter what the last row had on it and 2) Forget color names, you will be working with Background Color vs. pattern color. As you turn your work it will get confusing if you are thinking colors vs. background/pattern.

Scared? Don't be. (Yes, I realize that 'first thing' was two things!)

You will need 2 balls of yarn, different colors.

There are different cast on methods for this technique. I ignore them. I simply cast on as I normally would, but with strands from both balls of yarn. I then ignore the colors of the stitches on the needle. If you are a stickler, you can do this.

Holding both colors, you simply knit one color, then purl the other color. This is just like the first method, but with two different yarns. Using a chart (you will need one!) you simply keep up the knit for the front of the piece and purl for the back. When you get to the pattern, just switch yarns, but keep up with the knit/purl pattern.

Yeah, you want to watch the video. Also view the other ones by this person-- so helpful!

At bind off, I simply did the normal bind off, but putting one stitch of each color together before doing the knit stitch.


I jumped in way over my head with this technique, but that's a story for another day. But here's a sneak peek.

Knit Knacks: Mr. NoWay's Blanket

Mr. NoWay's blanket is done in what you would call a 'moss stitch'. Again, it's one pound of yarn, worsted weight. Size 11 needles.

Cast On 120

*Knit 1, purl 1 repeat pattern all the way across the row.

Purl 1, knit 1 repeat pattern all the way across.

(Pay attention to your stitches from the previous row, you want the opposite stitch of the one in the previous row, or you will end up with Boy's blanket.)

Repeat from * all the way through until desired length.

I finished the outside of this blanket with a border of Double Crochet stitches. Just double crochet into every stitch all the way around. Double crochet three times into the same stitch at every corner.