Time Flies ...

"Time flies on wings of lightening" and "time flies when you're having fun" apply to the past month. The time has been filled with vacation, knitting, netting, reading, mundane house and family related chores, and work, even though I have not been blogging. Sorry.

So now for a quick look at some of what has been done the past month.



These socks from Cat Bordhi's book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One, can be worn with the rings scrunched down (left) or pulled up (right) .

Either way my 4-year-old grand-daughter loves the socks. She should since she chose both the yarn and the pattern.

The visit / vacation was just long enough to finish them.





Of course her year-old brother deserves a pair of his own, but for grandma's sanity, a different pattern from Cat's book.



I have been working on string bags - net with net handles - including one used as a baby shower gift bag for my middle daughter's youngest. This gift bag was made bottom up, with a pentagon increase for the base and two handles. Before you ask again, a pentagon increase base is where I start with 5 loops and increase to 10 in the second round. After that I add 5 loops to each round by increasing in each of the "closed" loops. That continues until I have the number of loops I wanted for the mouth of the bag. This time it was 40 loops. I finished it with just minutes to spare and so did not take a picture. I'll have to borrow it back to get a proper photo, unless she beats me to it and displays it on her blog.

I have also been busy decoding the doily sent me my Nancy Day. I used much larger mesh sticks, but I think I have figured out the center.

Nancy's is on the left and mine is on the right.

Her doily uses at least a 0000 knitting needle for the mesh stick, mine used a 3 knitting needle for the mesh stick.

I used size 10 crochet thread. I suspect her doily used 70 tatting thread.


Her doily center was about an inch in diameter, while mine had a diameter of several inches.

I would have continued onto the next portion of Nancy's doily, but there was a wedding on Saturday . . .



. . . and this was the present, so I needed to put an edge on quickly. I created the edge using some of the information gained in making the earlier portion of the doily.

One other project I have been working on is a sweater for my 19-year old son. The entire sweater is done in knit 4, purl 2 ribbing. I changed the pattern to work down from the neck instead of up from the ribbing. I have done down to about 6 inches under the arm and am taking a "break" and starting the sleeves, yes both at the same time, picking up stitches from around the armhole. When I have the sleeves at least 6 inches long I will try to take a picture. And ... since this sweater and another one need to be done soon (maybe next month), I better leave this blog and get back to knitting his sweater.

I love top-down sweaters, I think. I definitely love net bags

I was just reminded why I like to knit top-down sweaters. I finished the brown one I have been slowly working on for the past 6 months. It was made in pieces, from the bottom up. It's great except for a few small things like ...the sleeves hang down to my finger tips and the cuffs are not tight at all (which would compensate for the long sleeves, maybe, by holding the end of the sleeve to my wrist). So, now I have to decide whether to leave the cuffs loose and just frog the sleeves to where I can eliminate a couple to three inches, or just frog the sleeves completely and see if I can get the cuff to fit (maybe even making it circular instead of flat).

At any rate that sweater will have to be set aside for a few months. One of my sons is turning in his mission papers next week and if his list of things to bring on his two-year church mission is anything like those of his older brothers, he will need two long sleeve, single color, v-neck sweaters. Since clothing stores here in Massachusetts have already taken such things off the shelves in preparation for warmer weather (here's hoping that weather makes an appearance soon), I plan to knit them for him (just like his older brothers).

Naturally I don't want to make it easy on myself and do exactly the same sweater patterns as before (actually I can't, as I would have to tweak those since he is a size or two smaller than the other boys were). So yesterday I pulled out my patterns, bought some yarn, and began.

Of course I want top-down. Need you ask, after my opening rant? And of course the one pattern I really wanted to make for him is bottom up, with separate front and back sections. Thank goodness for Barbara Walker's Knitting From the Top and a wonderful daughter who gifted me that book several years ago. With the initial try-on, it looks like this sweater is going to work and fit him.

Maybe a picture later.

I have not been idle on the netting scene though. People have been asking me for a simple net bag and so my mind got busy and I came up with a net bag that is just diamond mesh netting along with increases and decreases. This one used size 10 crochet thread and a 1/4" mesh stick.



The shaping of the bag is done after all the netting is completed. It could make a small gift bag. In my case, I'm using it to hold my crochet thread snoods.


I have finished a shopping-bag-size one, in addition to one with two handles as opposed to the tied handle above. If you're interested in the instructions for this rectangular bag with tied handle, click here and go to the bottom of the page to order an e-pattern.

Water Bottle Bag for use with a Walker

I had fun today. I delivered a net water bottle bag to a friend who is currently using a walker and wheelchair while recovering from foot surgery.

I had to be a bit creative in netting this particular water bottle bag. The problem was that there was no place on her walker to hang a water bottle bag using one of the net handles I made before. All of those handles worked on the idea that there would be a hook, peg, knob, or something on which to hang the bottle in its bag.

The walker had none of the above-mentioned items. It only had metal bars that were permanently attached to each other.








To solve the problem I decided to start the bag at the bottom using 12 loops over a 1" mesh stick.

Once the bag was deep enough I made one long strip of netting, 33 rows worth of plain diamond mesh netting over a 1/2" mesh stick using half the loops.

Once that strip of netting was finished I went back and did the same thing to the other half of the loops.








Once the bag was made and the bottle placed inside, all my friend had to do was tie the long strips of netting around one of the metal bars on the walker and her water bottle could travel wherever she went.

She also found that if she were in her wheelchair, she could tie the netting strips together to form a handle that could then be placed over one of the handles at the back of the wheelchair.




The past few weeks have been very busy, but I was gifted with an hour each day to do crafts while I substituted for a co-worker out on medical leave. Of course it was at 6 in the morning while my daughter was attending early morning seminary, but, thanks to that daily hour during the month of March, I have almost finished the wonderful brown sweater I started last fall. The early morning gift is now gone as I am out of the Facilities Management office and back to cleaning the meetinghouse during that time.




I love the cable stitch on the front and sleeve. The cables were the reason I asked a friend for the pattern.











Just after I lost my early morning craft time I was able to block the sweater and sew the front and back to the sleeves. I needed to do that before I could finish the band. The pattern told me how to make the band but neglected to say how many inches to make it. I needed to measure from the bottom of one front; across the top of one sleeve, the back, and the other sleeve; and finallly down to the bottom of the other front. I figured it out, and the band is almost done. Maybe this week-end I will be able to finish the sweater.

I was also able to finish a pair of baby socks found in Cat Brodhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Now to decide which grandchild they will fit. Probably one of the grandsons. I know, to be fair I should make a pair for each of them. Then the granddaughters will want a pair also ... some people wonder how I get so many projects started.

Beautiful heirloom net doily

Yesterday I open a package and found a simply gorgeous net doily. Nancy Day had sent it to me to see if I could reproduce it. It has about a 9" diameter and so won't fit completely on my scanner, but I had to try to let you see it.



The 8-sided figure in the center is only 1.25 inches in diameter.



Each of the 38 small circles that go around the edge are only 3/4" in diameter.



I am still trying to figure out how the person who netted the doily did some of the things that were done.



Like these small details which occur in the middle of the doily. These two diamonds only join at the bottom, but show no sign of a knot at the end of the diamond shape.






Too bad all the knowledge and skills did not get handed down. I know my great-grandmother had some netting techniques that her daughters could not remember how to do and so my grandmother could only say that her mother had joined circles together (maybe like the edge of this doily) but she did not know how to do it, so I do not know how either.


Looks like I am going to have to invest in a good magnifying glass so I can see what was done and maybe figure out how to do it again. Actually, I am kind of excited to try this. It will certainly not be completed quickly.

Knit Finger Puppets

On Wednesday, as my cold was coming to an end, I spent the evening knitting with a group of delightful women. Because my car had two other places to go that evening, my middle daughter gave me and her younger sister a ride to the shop where the group was meeting.

During the evening the other women asked my youngest daughter what she was making. When she showed them the finger puppet she was knitting, they all wanted to know where her pattern came from.



I had to confess that I had created the basic pattern about 2 and a half years ago. They all wanted a copy of the instructions. Since they were willing to test the instructions for me, I went home, found my handwritten instructions and entered them into the computer. Then to see how to explain attaching the skirt, I made another one.



For Christmas 2006 I made my young granddaughters some finger puppets and you can see some of them on my finger puppet webpage .

Socks, Socks, Socks

Either my days have been blessed with fewer hours than usual, or I have been busier than usual. Blogging has taken a back burner for most of the month. Time to show and tell what has been going on in my life -- at least as far as crafts go.

I have made a few sock over the past 40 years, but only with worsted weight yarn. My middle daughter is very persuasive, so, many months ago I started a pair with thinner sock yarn. I finished the first heel in October. I wanted to knit both cuffs at the same time to get them the same length, so I started the second sock shortly after that. Well, I finished them both a few weeks ago.


Now with these socks done, I could start the learning socks in Cat Bordhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I was given some leftover yarn by my enabling middle daughter (I still love her),







and the Little Sky Sock - the first learning sock- was soon finished. Amazing how much quicker baby socks knit up. (Especially when the yarn and needles are bigger.)








That meant I was ready and eager to start the second learning sock. I decided to use my
leftover sock yarn this time.






Little Corilolis worked up almost as quickly, so quickly in fact, that within a week I had finished 3 pairs or socks. (Of course 2 were baby size, but I'll try to ignore that.)










Now I thought was a good time to get back to work on my brown sweater -- supposed to be for fall, now to be for spring.

I even spent enough time on it to reach a point where I need to begin shaping the sleeves and armholes. Then the week-long school winter vacation started, I came down with a cold, and life seemed to get busier. Oh well, cold is now gone and vacation is almost done.

Shrugs and tiny mesh net bag

I've decided it's easier to find time to knit and net than to blog. Time having been at a premium this past couple of weeks, it got filled with knitting and netting and no blogging. So to make amends . . .

I saw a picture of a shrug recently in Lace Style called Retro Redux Shrug designed by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark. I liked the look of it and wondered if it would keep my arms and shoulders warm. So, I found some unlabeled worsted weight wool I had been given and gave it a try.
















I was pleasantly surprised at how warm it did keep my shoulders and upper arms.


My next thought was, "Can I create a net shrug?"

So I dived into my left-over-from-other-projects yarn and grabbed some fluffy type of yarn. Using just a plain net stitch, I came up with a pattern that will serve as a springboard for other shrugs.














My biggest problem was that I used up all the yarn I had in that color and type of yarn. The shrug will work, but in the future I will want to add more length to the sleeves, and more of an edging to the rest of the shrug. I also have some ideas for fancy stitches and shrugs.

I was delighted with the way it kept my arms and shoulders warm, while at the same time it didn't get into things while I was cooking or cleaning like a cape or shawl would.




I finally got the heel turned on the second sock and now I can work both socks at the same time and not need to worry about one being longer than the other.


I guess at this point in time knitting socks is not exactly on the top of my list of things to do, since the heel of the first sock was turned back in October. I do hope to finish these sooner rather than later, since I really want to get into Cat Bordhi's new sock book and I am insisting that I will finish this pair before starting one from her book (which I got for my birthday).









Oh, yes. One other project that has been gradually making progress. The very tiny mesh net bag.

I finished the circle going from the center to the edges.


It looks like an oval because it is not stretched out evenly.




A bit of pinning took care of that problem.














Then I needed to create a foundation loop in the middle of a circle. I took some crochet thread and formed a square in the center of the circle (seen here from one side, and then the other).



(No I didn't change the color, the computer / camera did. The bag is still a lovely shade of light purple.)










The white doubled crochet thread becomes the new foundation loop. The orange stitch marker indicates where the first circular netting round began.



Now it is just a matter of netting around and around until the bag is as tall as I want to make it. Then I will net some handles.

The mesh is small enough that size 2 knitting needles will not go through the mesh, although size 1 will barely. The mesh stick is a 0000. I am hoping to make it large enough that it will hold a ball of sock yarn and the needles as well as the socks being made.