Teacher Gifts

It's that time of year again when my children look at me and ask for gifts for their teachers. So, for my youngest daughter who graduates from high school next week, I made four doilies for four teachers / counselors who had made an impact on her high school experience.

I did ask that each doily have 3,000 knots or less and that she choose from the doilies that I wanted to remake. Several of my doilies were made and photocopied before I got my digital camera. That was fine if the doily was less than 8.5 inches. If it was over that measurement, parts of the doily got chopped off in the photocopy. Since the doilies were usually given away as gifts, to obtain a full photo I need to remake the doily.

My daughter made her choices and I began. Everything worked just fine for Summer. I finished it, starched it, and displayed it for a knitting group I attend. They had never seen a net doily and loved it. I even let them choose which one I should start next.

Summer

They liked the partial photocopy I had of Eyelet and so I started it right there. Within a couple of days I had finished this doily also.

Eyelet

I decided to make Delicate since it had fewer knots than either of the others and should work up quickly. Then I could take two newly completed doilies with me the next time the knitting group met.

This doily hated me. It did not want to get completed. Usually I can net and listen to what is going on around me, so I took the doily with me to my daughter's class day. I really can't blame the first problem on class day since I was already on round 13 when I arrived there.

Somehow I missed adding one loop during round 11, which I did not notice until near the end of round 14. I decided to fix that spot by cutting back 3 rows in just that one area. I did not feel like cutting off 3 rounds of netting and there were too many knots to even consider untying each one individually. I was able to make the repairs and continue on round 14.

On round 16 I misread the instructions and did not notice until that evening when I was finishing round 19. I could have cut back to round 15 and tried again, but I decided to keep what I had and create a new doily pattern. After 3 false starts I decided how I would decrease to get to the "correct" number of loops.

Like I said earlier, this doily did not like me, or maybe I was just tired. At any rate, when I arrived at round 22 ready to start the edge, I realized that I had twice as many loops as I had wanted. There was no pretty way to decrease at this point in the doily. I decided that I had put enough effort into this new doily and did not want to cut back to round 15, so I went ahead and made the cube edge even though the doily was fuller than I like for that edge.

So instead of Delicate, I now had Party, which I took to the knitting group along with Eyelet.

Party

I also ended up with a new decrease stitch I decided to call Cupcake.





I was determined to complete Delicate, so I started again. This time I finished it with minimal trouble.

Delicate

* * * * *

This is also the time of year for weddings. So I have finished two more doilies for weddings.

Maypole (large)

Muse

It looks like I will have at least one more doily to make for an upcoming wedding.


Then yesterday my youngest said, "Mom, do you think you could do some doilies for my teachers?" As a high school freshman he has 8 classes plus shop, and there are just over two weeks before he is done with school. We may have to negotiate. . . .

Scarves, Scarves, and More Scarves

This was a fun scarf to make. Once I cast on 30 stitches and then went circular with a knit 1, yarn over, repeated around for the first round it was just mindless knitting. Good for watching a video with the family. I knit about 24 inches before I cast off.

Casting off was scary. The easiest way to do it was to slip a stitch, drop a stitch all the way around. Once that was done, it was just a matter of binding off loosely. The catch is that you have to drop the stitch that was originally a yarn over in the first round. If you do it wrong, the whole scarf falls apart.










The fun part is where you intentionally drop the stitches all the way down to the yarn over.

The scarf grows from 2 feet long to 6 feet long and the knit stitches expand.
















I folded the tube of knitting into a long, flat scarf and tied the tube together at the ends with the fringe. That way the scarf was double thick.













I wanted to see how a narrow 5 loop diamond pattern would look, so I decided to do it as a scarf.






I liked the way the diamond shapes appeared in the scarf as it goes from one diamond to two diamonds and back again.






I wasn't sure if I liked the way the edge turned out.

So I decided to try again.

This time I made the scarf a bit wider. This one goes from two full diamonds in a row to three full diamonds and back again.



Using black yarn, changing the edge to a single point, and adding width gives this scarf a different look than the red one.









I'm curious. Which scarf do you prefer? Or do you like one from last week better?

Shugs and Scarves

Last week was school vacation. Before the two children still at home left on an end-of-the-week youth conference I had my youngest son help me photograph some of the projects I recently finished.

I seem to be in a shrug mood lately. I've finished three recently. I love how they keep my neck and shoulders warm without getting in the way of what I am doing.


This is a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. It was the first time I made a long sleeved shrug.

Just right for cool spring and autumn days.











Back in February at the very end of my entry I mentioned that I had been working on some scarves. I meant to take pictures of them, but life kept getting in the way. So once the end of the week arrived and the children and my husband were gone (taking the car with them) I had time to photograph some of them.

I don't have time to show all of them right now, but I will show 4 of them with their different edges. I like some of the edges better than others. Which do you like best? Please leave a comment.



The following scarves were all made with Bernat Glow-in-the-Dark yarn.

Each of the scarves uses about 72 yards because that is how much yarn was in each ball.

They would work great for a child. To make one for an adult would require closer to 140-150 yards.

This is just plain netting with a touch of fringe on the edge.





















This scarf was made using what I call the Ivy Stitch and instead of fringe I used the Rigging Edge.
















This Cube Stitch Scarf has a bit of Ruffle Netting at each end.
























Here is the Eyelet Stitch paired with an Ice Cream Cone Edge.

Sweater and Shrug -- Knit and Net

It's been a wonderful month. I actually finished several projects that have been patiently waiting for their turn.

When I last mentioned my brown sweater it was April, 2008. At that time I had finally finished it and sewed it together only to discover the sleeves hung down to my finger-tips. Since the sleeves were knit from the ribbing up, I was not sure what to do. Because I had other things to make the sweater got placed in a bag and "forgotten" until the lady who gave me the pattern asked about my progress. When I told her of my problem she said it would be easy to fix.

She told me to cut one of the stitches on the edge of the sleeve and pull that piece of cut yarn all the way across the sleeve. She assured me the old ribbing would come off the rest of the sweater and I would then have live stitches at the new bottom of the sleeve where I could attach new yarn and knit the ribbed cuff. According to her, I could even reuse the yarn that was part of the old ribbing.

I believed her because she showed me with a sample piece that it was possible. I did not feel brave enough to try it on my own. So eventually our schedules meshed. Within an hour both sleeves were on circular needles ready to have a new cuff knit. It did not take many days after that before the ribbing was finished to a more comfortable and usable length.


It has been nice to wear this sweater on those cool spring days when a coat is too warm.


* * * * * * *
More than a year ago I tried to net a shrug. The biggest problem with this project was that I ran out of yarn and could not find any more in the local stores. I was not even sure what yarn it was. Thanks to the Internet I not only figured out what yarn I had used, but was also able to order another skein of Red Heart's Light and Lofty #9261 (Citrus).

Then the shrug sat because I was trying to decide what to do. No, that's wrong. I knew what I had to do, I just had to psych myself into the right frame of mind to do it. One sleeve was tighter than the other one and both were tighter than I really wanted. That meant I had to undo all the knots I had tied around the body of the shrug and both sleeves. I had to undo enough knots to bring it back to when it was just a rectangle.

Eventually I untied the knots and made the rectangle several rows longer. Then I redid the sleeves and the body of the shrug below the sleeves. This past month I finally finished it. I love to wear it. It was worth the few hours spent untying those hundreds of knots. I am surprised how warm it keeps me even with all those holes.

Diamond Netting not Diamond Mesh Netting

There is a netting stitch, "Diamond Netting With 5 Loops," that I have been meaning to make for many years. The stitch pattern is formed by combinations of long loops and short loops.

Each time I tried the stitch it did not work out the way I knew it should. I didn't know if the problem was with me or with the instructions I was using. The instructions from The Dictionary of Needlework by Sophia Frances Anne Caulfeild and Blanche C. Saward were originally published in the early 1880s.

Last week I felt I had time to try the stitch again. I wanted to use this stitch in a scarf. I picked up a small ball of scrap yarn and began. By the time I reached row 9 of 13 rows I could tell that something was wrong. Since I could not find any other description of the stitch, I decided to try the Swiss Netting (which was 4 loops instead of 5) found in The Art of Netting edited by Jules and Kaethe Kliot. I hoped that by working through the 4 loop pattern I would learn how to fix what was wrong with the 5 loop pattern.

I wanted to know how the stitch was actually put together and not just follow the instructions blindly so I began with a couple rows of plain netting and then did row 1 of the pattern. At this point I stopped, cut the thread and began again. This time, after the beginning rows I did row 1 and then row 2. Once again I stopped, cut the thread and began again. I worked to row 3. The next piece of netting took me to row 4 and so on through the 10 rows of the pattern. It took some time, but when I finally finished row 10 I knew how the pattern worked.

I learned that for me there was more to the pattern than just long and short loops. There were actually three different ways I created the long loop and two different methods I used to form the short loops. I found it helped to describe the type of loop I wanted and the type of loop I was netting into. With these insights gained I wrote down instructions that I could use to repeat the pattern.

Photo of one repeat of Swiss Netting or Diamond Netting with 4 Loops.

I felt pleased with what I had accomplished and decided to see if I could figure out the Honeycone or Single Diamond Netting stitch pattern. I had done it once years ago, but since then I had not felt confident in my ability to work with long and short loops. I was surprised at how easy this 4 row pattern was after the Swiss Netting.

Photo of 4 repeats of the Honeycone or Single Diamond Netting stitch

I now had a better idea of what the long and short loops did and how they interacted with each other to create Diamond Netting. I decided to try the Treble Diamond Netting stitch. Using a combination of the instructions given in The Dictionary of Needlework and my new-found knowledge I was able to figure out the Treble Diamond Netting stitch. Several times I had to put the netting on my lap, see what needed to happen next, and decide how to accomplish it.

Photo of 2 repeats of the Treble Diamond Netting stitch

I was delighted at how everything was coming together. I had now made (with the help of some instructions) Single Diamond Netting, Treble Diamond Netting (which had 3 loops) and Swiss Netting (which had 4 loops). Now to get daring. On my own I would see if I could make Double Diamond Netting (which would have 2 loops). I didn't know if such a stitch existed, but I decided there should be one and I would make it. So I did.

Photo of 2 repeats of the Double Diamond Netting stitch

By this time almost a week had passed and I had run out of excuses for avoiding making the Diamond Netting With 5 Loops. Once I began it did not take me long to discover that part of the problem was with the instructions. Rows 2 and 3 were printed with the same instructions. That is what gave the pattern 13 rows instead of 12 rows. All the repetition and the practice I had given myself in the earlier samples certainly helped. Now that I knew where the long and short loops belonged it was fairly easy to figure out each row.

Photo of 2 repeats of the Diamond Netting with 5 Loops stitch

It was such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when I finally cut the last thread and looked at the finished sample of Diamond Netting with 5 Loops.

Sounds fun

I saw this blog post and figured it would be fun to play - so I'm in!

The first three people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It’ll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it’s going to be.
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! Who’s in?

More Net Doilies

With a wedding in November, December, and January, I have been busy making doilies. Since all three of the weddings involved family - two nephews and one niece - I used patterns designed by my grandmother (their great-grandmother), Esther Peterson Bott Freeman. (Of course, I was not as busy as one of my sisters who had a daughter married in December and a son married in January.)

In alphabetical order the doilies are:

"Decor - small"

(about 14.5 inches in diameter)

"Midnight Sky - large"
(about 14 inches in diameter)

and

"Starfish"
(about 14 inches in diameter)

Oh, yes. There was another doily I made for a wedding last summer. Since it was not for a family member I used a pattern I had designed.

"Ice Crystal"
(about 8.5 inches in diameter)

I was planning to show some of the scarves I have been netting during the January, but since I don't have any photos taken yet, I guess I will have to save that for another day and another post.