Monthly Archives: November 2009

Scarves!

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Sock Yarn Scarf

I have a confession to make, I love making scarves.  I really love to make scarves.  Seriously.  There are many, many posts here bemoaning the fact that I have to make a thousand scarves every year for Christmas and griping about how much I hate them, but I’ve realized something.  I just hate to knit scarves.  I love to weave them.  I can warp my loom and weave an entire scarf in less than a day.  I could crank these things out like crazy if I had more yarn (don’t remind me that I actually have an entire room of yarn or fiber waiting to be yarn, I always need more).

So, first up here is this blue scarf.  It’s three or four kinds of leftover sock yarns in shades of blue, black, gray, purple and white and the weft yarn (the yarn that goes side to side) is black lace weight wool.  It’s about six feet long, excluding fringe, and around five or six inches wide.  I just knotted the fringe and kept it nice and long.

Another Woven Scarf

This scarf is a mix of about five or six different black yarns with some gray DK weight superwash wool and a few strands of metallic silver eyelash.  The weft on this is some black rayon chenille.  This scarf is really long, I didn’t measure my warp, I just made it really long and figured it would be okay, and it’s probably around eight feet long with the fringe and six or seven inches wide.  The yarns are wool and wool blends (either with acrylic or nylon or mohair, there’s some Lamb’s Pride Bulky in there some where).  I love all the texture on this one, especially where the yarns change from a bulky to a thinner yarn.  I just hem stitched the ends and cut the fringe to about six inches.

Another Woven Scarf

Here’s a close up of the texture.  That metallic yarn is so hard to photograph.

My coat is finally dry.  I need to get some buttons and it needs steamed or pressed or something, there’s so bits where the felting is uneven so the fabric is bumpy but I can fix it.  I’ll probably wait until next week to take pictures of it.

Almost There

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My Coat

See why I was so worried about Heroine being too big?  I finished knitting it on Friday and did all the seaming over the weekend, I’ve been so anxious about felting this coat that I just wanted to rush and finish it before I decided to rip the whole thing out and knit the size smaller.  This morning I shoved it in my way too small garment bag, stuck it and a couple rubber balls in the washer and turned it on for a heavy-duty 45 minute cycle on the hottest setting.  That’s what I’ve found works best in my front-loader.  It felted perfectly after one trip through the wash and it fits really good, yes, I tried it on wet.  It fits like a coat should, it’s nice and roomy and hits right at my hip.  My only compliant is that the sleeves are a about a half inch or so longer than I would like, no big deal.  As soon as it’s dry I’ll take some more pictures.

Sunset

We’ve been having some beautiful sunsets this fall.  I loved this when the orange and red and that tiny hint of blue.

A friend of mine has been learning how to crochet and some of the people she works with knit or crochet so we’re going to start getting together once a week or so.  I wonder what they would say if I lugged my loom in?  Or my wheel?  I might try it sometime.

Herringbone Sweater

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Herringbone Sweater

I took some time this week to do all the sewing and finishing on my Hollywood Herringbone Pullover and it is done.  No modeled shots, I’m sick, I look sick, and I feel too sick to get dressed and go outside and take pictures of myself.  I did go outside, though, since it was warm, just in my pajamas. 

I love the sweater laying flat like this.  It looks so cool with that low neck and the little wooden buttons on the sleeve but I’m not loving the fit.  I should have gone ahead and made the next size down (I keep forgetting that I’m smaller than I think I am), I would like the neck to be a little higher and the sleeves could be an inch or so shorter, but it doesn’t look bad and it’s really comfortable.  Actually, after I did all the finishing and let it sit for a couple days the sweater relaxed, I guess you could call it, and shrunk up a bit and it looks pretty good, the fit isn’t like the sample on the model in the magazine, mine is a bit looser.  I like it and I’ll wear it, this is a nice cozy sweater that would look great with a pair of jeans or dressed up a bit more with a skirt and some cute shoes.  Overall I am very happy with how it came out.

Herringbone Sweater

Here’s a close up of the buttons, they’re just cheap wooden buttons from the craft store.  I had thought about painting them a bright color with some shiny paint, like a lacquered red, but I just decided to leave them, simple is best sometimes.  You don’t really need the buttons on this sweater, this seam could be sewn up like the other side and have a regular raglan but the detail is nice, I’ll probably never even unbutton it, which is good since the button holes are really small.

The yarn, Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool, really surprised me.  The color is beautiful, I love that heathery brown, and the yarn itself is very soft to the touch and it’s not too itchy, it itches my arms a little but not bad enough that I can’t wear the sweater.  The yarn comes in these huge skeins, over 400yds, and since I got mine on sale the sweater cost a little less than $40 and used a little less than four skeins.  The natural color is the same that I wove my shibori scarf with and it takes dye beautifully.

Here’s the details or you can see more on my Ravelry page: 

  • Pattern:  Hollywood Herringbone Pullover by Kate Gagnon Osborn from the Fall/Winter 2009 Knitscene
  • Yarn:  Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool in Nature’s Brown and Natural
  • Needles:  US5/4mm US 8/5mm
  • Started September 13 finished November 3
  • Modifications:  None, but if I made it again I would make the neck higher and go down a size.

I have a couple more sweaters in the queue (I just wrote queso instead of queue, did it again, must have cheese on the brain) I’m finishing up Heroine and then I’m going to start on the Alpaka Tunic by Deborah Newton (Fall ‘09 IK).  I bought some Berroco Ultra Alpaca in this dust gray blue that I’m going to use for the Tunic.  I’m kind of nervous about starting it because I keep thinking I didn’t buy enough yarn even though I’ve done the math on it about fifty times and it’s right.  I don’t know what my deal is, it’s probably because the tunic is so big and the yarn was so expensive, it was an early birthday present to myself because I love alpaca and would wear it all the time if I could.  I keep trying to take pictures of Heroine but it just looks like a giant pile of green on my desk, this thing is seriously huge, and I can’t get the pieces to look like anything resembling a coat.  It’s a mess but I know that end the end it will be great.  All this will wait until next week to be blogged because I have lots to catch up on like, I’ve woven scarves, plural!, and started a pair of socks and I’m going to dye some yarn, I have almost half the money I need to buy my loom, all kinds of stuff.  Did you know I’ve only knit one pair of socks this year?  That must be remedied and soon.

Have a great weekend, I’m going to spend mine in bed, watching movies, playing Plants vs. Zombies and getting over my cold.  And doing lots and lots of knitting.