Where did the last month go?

This past month has been fun and very busy. I was able to attend a two-day workshop with Cat Bordhi and picked up some great knitting tips. I was also able to knit a pair of socks for my husband. I made the Dove sock found in her book New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One. Most importantly, they fit him.



The knitting workshop reminded me of Cat's Magical Knitting books with moebius bags that I had worked with a few years ago. I still wanted to see if I could net a moebius bag. And then it happened. I was traveling along Interstate 90 heading toward Worcester, MA. Suddenly, into my mind sprang the way to create a net bag with a moebius handle.



The most frustrating part of the whole situation was that I was driving and could not write down any reminders as to how to create the moebius handle.

The second most frustrating part was that I could not try out my idea until I had completed my trip to Worcester and returned home.

The funnest part was when the bag was finished. I placed my hand on the handle and without lifting my hand went up around the handle, down into the bag, up the "other side" of the handle, around the "outside" of the bag and back to the where I started, thereby proving that the entire bag had only one surface and one edge.








It seems that having done it once I could think of several different ways to create such bags.



I was invited to a bridal shower and moebius net bags would not leave my mind. So I gave in and made another one.

This moebius bag was created from the top down with a hole in the side.


The same bag is pictured with the shower gifts in it on the left and with onions in it on the right.
















The hole is present so the bag can be filled with something like onions and people can reach in from the side instead of the top or bottom of the bag to get the contents of the bag.











I also finished netting 5 doilies for my youngest son's teachers (as a thank-you for working with him this past year) . . .

Waltz

Lacy (large)

Virtue

Mystic

Midnight Sky

. . . and 4 doilies (one not yet starched) for wedding presents.

Prism

Celebration

Clusters (small)

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 (Softee Baby in Bongo Blue - a sport D.K. Bernat 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.

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.

Finished projects - first of many for the new year

And here I thought January would slow down. HA!

I have finished a few projects and finally taken photos.

First is the front of the "rag" quilt. . .



as well as the back side.


I found my hands were getting cold when driving early in the morning. So I decided to make a pair of mittens. My middle daughter showed me some she was making and I decided to make myself a pair of peek-a-boo mittens. I like the fact that my fingers can get out easily, but will need to make some adjustments with the opening. My hands do stay warmer than with the gloves I had.


Now with these projects out of the way maybe I can try to get some netting done. Maybe a net bag to hold my knitting?

Baby Gift Bag

Last week I was busily preparing to attend a baby shower this past weekend.




My standard gift for such events are three tea-towel bibs with ribbing at the neck. I received one years ago and loved it so much that I copied the bib to create my own pattern.

As you can probably tell, they are expecting a boy.









I also zig-zag around the edges of the small circle that is cut out. That creates small wash cloths the baby can hold.






This time also I decided to knit a small sweater and hat to accompany the bibs.








While I was finishing the hat I thought, "It's too bad that I don't have a gift bag to hold all of these items." About that time a light bulb went off in my mind and I knew what I would do -- NET a gift bag!

Of course it was impossible to use one of the bags I had already designed. My brain was already creating a new pattern.



I took the concept Alwen had used for the base of one of her net bags. However, I reversed what she did.

I started from the top of the bag with the handle and ended by decreasing to form the circular (well, actually a pentagon) base for the bag.










What really thrilled me was that the idea actually worked!

The only thing I would change would be to make the handle a couple of inches longer.








The ladies at the baby shower were impressed. One commented that the bag would be great for holding bath toys and another was heard to say, "... and she made everything, including the bag!"

Net Bags for Knitting

A couple of weeks ago, while I was working on my sweater, I got very frustrated. Because the cable pattern is simple and appears once on each sleeve and once on each front and not at all on the back, I decided to try knitting all five sections at one time, from five different balls of yarn on one long circular needle. It was simple until the balls of yarn got tangled. I tried hard to keep the threads straight, but it was not working well.

As I was sitting working on the sweater, I found myself wishing I could run the knitting needle through each ball of yarn to keep it close to the section of the sweater it belonged to, even though I knew that would not work since the needle would interfere with the way the yarn was pulling from the skein.

Then it hit me. A net bag could hold the yarn and slide along the knitting needle right next to the section of the sweater that needed that skein of yarn.




So I took some brown waxed 1 mm cord I had been trying to find a use for and made a plain mesh bag.

When I saw that the idea seemed to work I made a second bag to check my pattern. I placed the yarn for the left front in one bag and the yarn for the right front in the other bag.














I decided that I wanted to try something a bit different for the sleeves.

So I chose some green 1 mm hemp cord I had recently purchased and made another bag. This time I used the eyelet or rose stitch.

Again I made a second bag to check out my pattern. Then I put the yarn for each sleeve into a bag and put the two bags on the circular knitting needle.








Now that I had a bag for the sleeves and the fronts, I thought I needed one to hold the yarn for the back.

For this bag I decided to use some #3 crochet thread. I thought I would try out a new stitch and chose ivy.

When the bag was finished, I placed the yarn for the back into the new bag. Since there is no need for a second bag I guess checking the pattern will have to wait.








So now I have all five skeins of yarn hanging onto my needle.


It may look strange, but it works just fine. No more tangled yarn!


Oh, yes. I have almost net the shawl back to the place where I had to cut off nine rows. I am currently three rows from the end.

Socks and Quilt

Some might think that no blog = nothing done on any projects. They would be wrong.

No blog = no time to take pictures or make blog entry.



My middle daughter has been helping me knit my first sock in years. I think I made two many years ago with worsted-weight. They were okay, but not great, so I did not start any more. Anyway, she has convinced me to try again. And earlier this month we were both at the same conference, so I brought my sock so she could talk me through the heel.



It was a great Time Out for Women, and I got the heel finished.







Progress has also been made on my 3rd son's high school graduation quilt. I know I'm slow, but progress is progress.

I have taken the 240 squares and made 120 sandwiches out of them.



I put a bluish print, a smaller batting square in the middle, and a red print in a pile, with the right sides facing out, and fastened them together with a pin. Now I get to sew an X (from corner to corner twice) on each square. That will fasten the batting to the top and bottom fabric.





Here are the squares with the bluish side up













and now the same squares with the red side up.









I have also worked on the net shawl (including cutting off 9 rows when I was 2 rows from the end -- stupid mistake that did not show up until then), and the sweater. Now I need to go watch the Red Sox in the World Series. I still hope to get something finished before the series is done.

Progress on Projects

I have been busy these past few days on a number of different projects. I just did not have the time (take the time) to document what was happening until tonight.

I have made progress on two quilts. I cut 240 nine inch squares for one quilt (back and front).





One of these groups will be the back and the other will be the front.

The squares will be paired with a back and a front with the batting in the middle.


The next step is to cut the batting into seven inch squares -- 120 squares to be precise.


The other quilt will be a map of middle earth. I am having the map blown up to 54" by 45" and then plan to transfer it to the quilt using iron-on transfers. Now I need to get the blank transfer paper.


I have progressed on the sweater. I have done the the ribbing and about 2 inches up from the ribbing. I am knitting all the parts at the same time.






When I am not knitting on the sweater, it is hanging in one of the net bags I finished recently.















Of course I worked on the net shawl. I decided to add eight additional rows before the border. At this point I have finished one and a half of those eight.


And finally, I wanted to do something quick, so I took a few minutes to check the directions of the crisscross bookmark.


I wonder, by the end of the World Series, which of these projects will be completed. Anyone care to make a guess?

Starting a new sweater and a net shawl

I really want to make a net antimacassar to go with my newly re-upholstered couch. The problem is that the yarn I want to use was originally purchased to make a sweater. There should be plenty of yarn for both, but I need to make the sweater first. I had requested the instructions from a knitting friend and want to show her I can follow through and complete the sweater. So this week I began.

I spent much of a two hour meeting I needed to attend with my daughter getting started. This is what it looked like at the end of the meeting.

I started at the very beginning with a gauge swatch using size 8 needles (size called for in the pattern). That swatch was way too big.

So I tried size 6. Still too large.

I thought surely size 5 needles would bring the swatch to the proper size, but no. It was not to be.

Eventually I was able to get the correct gauge on size 4 needles.

And that is why I hate trying to figure out my gauge for knitting. Of course I have to do it. Can you imagine how the sweater would have fit if I had not gone through all that. I don't even want to think about it.

I decided to knit all the sections (back, fronts, and sleeves) at the same time. I just finished the ribbing today and began the first few rows of the cable pattern.

I also began working on the circular net shawl. I'm in the middle of round 10 and hope to finish that round and maybe two more during the last of the Red Sox ballgame. Maybe I will have a picture of that tomorrow.

finished stole and revised oval bookmark

I took a dive today and followed the general directions I had been given about how to block knitted lace. It worked! Now I have a beautiful stole to wear. Thanks to Melanie for the pattern and to the helpful fellow knitters at Creative Fibers for support and blocking instructions.




I had to take a few minutes and do some netting. I needed to check the directions for my Ballerina bookmark. It was good I did, since I found a few instructions that needed to be changed.



I really wanted to devote some time to making a couple of string bags with net handles. However, since I ran out of time today, I guess I will try to do it next week.

Mystery stole 3 and old books with netting

The past two weeks have been very busy what with getting two sons ready to college. During that same time I spent several days creating a picture type music book for the younger siblings of several of my piano students and my youngest daughter has been busy tearing apart the couch (and re-upholstering it under the directions of the mother of my piano students). So, though things have been busy my projects have not moved as quickly as I had hoped.

That being said,

I finished Mystery Stole today!!!


Now I have to learn a new skill and block it.

As for netting:

I found a site to look at -- Nets and Netmaking at the Pineapple Knot Forum

and the following old books that MIGHT have some fun netting patterns:

The Ladies Knitting and Netting Book by Miss Watts (1840)

The Illuminated Ladies' Book of Useful and Ornamental Needlework by Mrs. Henry Owen (1844)

The Ladies' Work-Table Book (1844)

The Practical Companion to the Work Table for Knitting Netting and Crochet work by Elizabeth Jackson (1845)

The Work-Table Magazine by Mrs. Mee and Miss Austin (1847)

Parlour Recreations for Ladies (1848)

Plain Needle-Work (1852)


Isn't the internet wonderful! And a special thanks to the wonderful people who digitized these and other books.

Mystery Stole continued

I have been trying to keep up with Mystery Stole 3, but life keeps getting in the way. So, I have not quite finished the 5th clue. I've completed row 87 of clue 5 (which leaves about a dozen rows until I can start clue 6).



I took the stole with me today (oops, today has become yesterday) to the Family History Center where I was to help the people who came in with the genealogical questions. Last month when I went in no one came during the entire 4 hours I was there, so I had hopes of getting most if not all of clue 5 finished. This month though there were a number of people who came in needing help. I was glad to help, and it is exciting when they find a family member or documentation on their family, but I only progressed about 10 rows on the stole.

I think the next shawl I make will be netted. I've alomost decided to take a pattern from one of my doilies and change the size of the mesh sticks to make it big enough for a shawl. Anyone have any suggestions as to which one?

Gauge - Knitting and Netting

I thought about gauge this past week. It is something I frequently ponder while working on knitting projects that use small needles like the mystery stole 3, or a pair of socks. I am so relaxed when knitting that I usually have to use needles several sizes smaller than suggested in whatever pattern I am using. This is not a problem unless the pattern calls for small size needles to begin with, then I end up using extremely small size needles, which is what happened with the socks I started yesterday.

That is one of the things I love about netting. While there is a need to be aware of gauge in netting, it is not dependent on the mood of the netter. It depends on the size of the mesh sticks. Below are two doilies, Crystal Shards (large and small), that illustrate the principle of gauge (as pertains to netting). The instructions for these two doilies are identical except for the size of the mesh sticks used. The small doily is 8.25 inches in diameter and the large one is 13.75 inches in diameter.

MS3 - clue 2

I finished the second clue of mystery stole 3 (just before the third clue arrives). I had to see what I had been creating, so I split it between two straight needles. I like it. I am also impressed with myself that I have been able to follow a knitting chart.

Mystery Stole 3 - chart A

Last night Lucy, my middle daughter, and I joined with several others at Creative Fibers in Connecticut. While there I was able to finish chart A. We'll see what this week brings, and if I am able to keep up.

Mystery Stole 3

I guess I am already to begin mystery stole 3. I have made my swatch -- two of them actually. If I can just decide which look I like. I used a size 2 and a size 0 with my yarn (2/25 Merino Lace).