Rainbow Bunnies!

Drumroll please.... :) Here they are! A cheery rainbow of bunnies.

All with pink pom-pom tails :)
I was out in the late afternoon sun photographing them & my neighbours came over to see them (as the rainbow was quite clear, even at a distance).

They're all about 4" tall (with some slight variations). I used Rebecca Danger's Bunny Nuggets pattern, & go into more detail about the modifications I used on the pattern in this post. I'm so happy they're done!

Plus, the rest of the DK yarn is in, so I can start to finish the Grandala cowl!! :)

Some beginnings...

Well, I've had a lot of ideas lately, & they've added up to starting three different projects, but as my crafting time is divided between these three projects, I have no idea when they'll be done! (Not to mention that there's a new set of Guild Wars over at Ravelry's Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild...) So I thought I'd share the works in progress.

At top is my lately-much-used basket of KnitPicks Swish DK superwash wool. I was inspired by Alice's Do You Dare to Wear Granny Square post to start my own granny square cowl. I decided to use her Grandala Square instead of a regular granny, though, extending it a bit to be the right size. (On a side note, my 9th-grader son has been studying geometry in school & decided to work-out the area of the whole Grandala, & then the areas of the circle in the middle & the square on the outside, just for fun. I wish I could do that...) I made green, blue, & purple squares, but have decided to wait on the rest (Alice used 7 squares for her cowl) until an order of additional colours of yarn comes in.

Also in the basket are one completed & one half-finished Bunny Nugget, which I found from following a link on Alice's blog to this blog.

These bunny nuggets are so cute, I just had to start making a rainbow of them for myself!

I did change the pattern, which has you make it on 3 double-pointed needles, bind-off the top of the head, knit the ears separately, then sew them on. I am a relentless fusser, & prefer to knit as much all at once as I can, rather than sew things up. So here's the orange one with the first ear still on the needle. First I made it on 2 circular needles because I prefer this technique (I used size 1 needles because I knit very loosely & this pattern calls for a firm gauge). I basically stopped where she has you bind-off, knit the first 3 stitches of the next round, put them & the last 3 from the other needle on a piece of yarn (you can see it there), do a 3-needle bind-off on the middle stitches, fudge the last bind-off so there are 3 stitches remaining on each needle, then continue around on 6 stitches for 15 rounds. After finishing the first ear, I pick up the 3 on each side on the 2 circular needles, plus one along the bound-off edge (which I knit together with the first stitch in the round) & knit the second ear the same.
Then I added button eyes,embroidered the nose, made the pom-pom tail, stuffed it, & sewed an overcast seam on the bottom. The bunny sits up because of the tail. I think I'll make the eyes with different buttons, so they have some personality :)

The third project is my next pair of lacy socks!

I am very psyched about these. I plugged the Vine Lace pattern from Barbara Walker's 2nd pattern treasury into my basic sock template (mentioned here) & I really like how it's coming out. One thing I'm discovering is how difficult it is to photograph lace knitting. When I got close (to see the pattern) with my flash camera, the flash made the picture washed-out, so I tried to use my iphone camera, but it's kind of dark. I'll keep experimenting, because this lace is so pretty! I'm using KnitPicks Stroll Tonal sock wool in Gypsy (which is on sale right now!) & I just really like it.

So much to do. I'll keep you posted as to my progress :) 

Lacy Socks: My Own Design!

While I was recovering from my back surgery in January & February I rediscovered my love of knitting lacy socks (as detailed in this post), & was particularly intrigued by cookie a's lace sock designs. This inspired me to design my own lacy socks again (I was particularly into this back in the early 90's when I first began to teach knitting & began spinning my own yarns). So I worked my way through Barbara Walker's A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns and charted-out on graph paper any lace patterns that looked likely. Since I usually knit my socks on 2, size 0 circular needles, with 64 stitches around, for a gauge of ~6.5-7 stitches per inch (my foot is a pretty standard women's size 7), I was looking for anything with a repeat of less than 16 stitches.

One of the hurdles I face as a lace knitter is that I'm left-handed. I learned a long time ago that I have to reverse the decreases in any lace pattern or the lace won't turn out right. Also, although following charts is a bit easier (since the decreases are indicated by way the decreased stitches slant), I still have to decide which way I'm going to follow them- from right to left (as intended) or left to right. It gets very confusing, although I was able to work almost all of cookie a's charts by working them right to left (which made her left sock my right sock). So, in some ways, it's a lot easier to just design my own, with charts that read left to right. (This has led me to put some thought into making charts that can be read from both directions- stay tuned for this...).

One lace pattern that seemed very promising was the "Japanese Feather" pattern, on pages 285-286 of The Second Treasury. I really liked the way that the lace makes wavy selvedges & thought it would look really neat in the round. It wasn't very difficult to plug the pattern into what I think of as my sock template & I was very psyched to get knitting once it was all charted.

This is the first sock finished & (as you can see from the top photo) I don't have much more to do for the second. I was really surprised by how easy it was to memorise this pattern, as it's 28 rounds for a full repeat.

You can see how the waves in the pattern turned-out- I really like it!

I used KnitPicks Stroll Tonal in the "Queen Anne" colour.

I tried to get a close-up of the lace but the camera flash made it kind of washed-out :(

Anyhow, I am very pleased, & have 2 more pairs of socks designed, which I can't wait to try out. If all goes well, I'll probably post the patterns for free on Ravelry. 

ipad cozy

Hello! We've just arrived home (late last night) from a 4-day trip to Florida to see relatives. You may recall that I've been bemoaning the lack of Spring here in the NE US, so it was lovely to be Warm for a few days. Of course, it snowed here this morning... But I'm remembering this:

It's good to hold some warmth in the heart, isn't it?

In preparation for the trip, I realised that I needed to make something to cushion the ipad in the bag I'd chosen for it to travel in. The bag is a Keen messenger bag made from recycled rice bags :) but the ipad rattled around a bit inside. So I crocheted a simple cozy from Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride bulky wool & a K/10/6.50mm hook. I wanted it to look a bit more interesting than the usual single crochet, so I used the extended single crochet that I learned when I made the Sycamore Poncho. I think it made a really nice fabric. I experimented a bit & then settled on a 25 stitch foundation chain, with 24 stitches as the width of the cozy.

I wanted defined edges, so I made the back, with a flap to wrap over (measuring it against the ipad) & 2 simple loops on the final row, evenly spaced. Then I made the front to just cover the ipad. I crocheted the whole thing together along 3 sides, added 2 buttons (mother-of-pearl ones that I bought a very long time ago), & it was done. It fits quite snugly inside the bag:

and it worked very well on the trip! The bag has 3 pockets for various cords (we were traveling with an iphone & ipod as well), plugs (car & wall converters), the back-up power source, & our earphones. It all worked really well & was lightweight to boot. The cosy took less than a day to make- good thing, since I didn't realise I needed one until Friday & we were leaving on Sunday!! 

More Dish-cloths...

I thought the 3-D-ness of this one might make it like a scrubby :)

Spring is finally springing here in the NE US, but it's been cold (brrrr) more than it's been warm. Even though the flowers are exploding out of the chilly ground, I'm still feeling the need for colour, so here are  more dish-cloths made from motifs & from the yarn leftover from the colourful crochet vest.

They're all from the Harmony Guide- crochet stitch motifs book put out by Interweave Press. I used an E/4/3.50mm  needle to make them & added embellishments to all of them to extend their size. The flower one is the smallest, about 7" across, & the others are about 8-9" across.

I am being particularly careful with the weaving-in of ends, since they'll get some hard use as dish-cloths, & I find hanging ends even more unsightly than stains as dish-cloths get older...

And, even if it's a cold Spring outside, I have a warmer one in my kitchen:

Forced forsythia & other branches to help the season along :)

Colourful Crochet Vest

Hello again! I finished this vest about 3 weeks ago, but it got lost in the sauce, blogging-wise, so here it is at last :)

It's one of four sweaters/poncos that I started last Fall & then put aside for a few months, due to the holidays & back surgery. Some time in March I got in a finish-up mood, and it was really fun to finally see the child of my brain come to life. I made it to extend the life of some of my dresses, which always get kind of tired & spotty over time, especially around the bodice. I wanted something light enough to wear over the dress without my getting over-heated, & colourful enough to distract from tired-dress syndrome. I thought that maintaining the bright colours for the full length might be a bit much, so planned for the skirty part to be in one, harmonising colour.

I chose to make it in KnitPicks Simply Cotton Sport & used an E/3.5mm hook. The bottom colour is Prussian Blue, & the rest is made in enough colours that I didn't have to repeat any of the motifs exactly :) I used Motif #020 from もチーフ＊エジング300, the wonderful book of crochet motifs that I use all the time. The skirty part is my own design. I used 3 skeins of the Prussian Blue for the skirt & 1/4 to 1/2 of the other 12 or so skeins. (The leftover yarn explains the recent dish-cloth explosion around these parts...)

I was a bit nervous wearing it for the first time, so I asked a friend if it was too "young" for me... she replied that it has that colourful-hippy-60's look (which goes so well with my long hair :) & in her opinion it looks fine on me. Whew! 

It was a lot of fun to make (& finish!!) & it does the job I hoped it would. What more could I ask for? :)

My New Rug!

I'm quite excited, as you can tell by the exclamation point :) My front door rug, a once-lovely rag-rug,  has been in a state beyond disrepair all winter, unable to be washed because it would disintegrate if I did. I have been thinking, in the back of my brain, for some months about the replacement but all I knew was that I wanted to make it myself. Then I had back surgery in January & my mind was on things other than rugs... While talking to my friend Momo some weeks ago (by skype, since she's in Japan :) she showed me the new kitchen mat she'd crocheted from cotton yarn, & it hit me that I could crochet my new rug. Up until now I have knitted them all, log-cabin fashion, in garter stitch with 3 strands of cotton worsted. This sort of rug would be too thick to fit under the front door when it opened, which was another hitch in my rug-ruminating. So it all slowly came together in the weeks following my conversation with Momo (thanks!!). Crochet stitches are thicker by nature than knitted, so I wouldn't need triple strands of yarn to make a sturdy rug. I wanted something absorbent, so cotton was indicated, & machine-washable, since they all get washed regularly. Last week I finally decided to order yarn for it & chose KnitPick's CotoLin sport weight, in 2 shades of red. I estimated I'd need 6 skeins total, 3 of each colour.

photographed against a lighter floor to show contrast...

Our front hallway is floored with tiles that were painted long-ago, & it was painted red when we moved in nearly 18 years ago.  We've had it repainted in a chocolate brown (to better match the woodwork), since we discovered that the layers & paint can't be removed to restore the tiled to their original glory :(
Part of what had been holding me up was the question of colour(s) for the new rug, in light of the dark brown floor. The old rag-rug was basically an indigo colour, which I loved, but it wasn't really distinctive. I thought it would be nice to have the new rug be pretty, & the contrasting colours of red really look nice together. I was just going to granny it, but my research into crochet motifs that make good dish-cloths led me to try using motifs at the centre. I chose motif # 023 from the wonderful book of crochet motifs from Japan, and as I made & attached them I measured it against the old rug, going for the right rectangular shape (I used a size G/6/4.0mm hook, too).  Then, when I had the right centre rectangle size, I just grannied it the rest of the way, finishing (when I was just about out of yarn) with a round of single crochet for stability. My estimate worked well- I have 4 tiny balls of yarn leftover. I soaked it & lay it flat to dry, & it measures ~23"x33".

here it is in front of the door

I really like it!!  It was fun to make, too, with the motifs being technically interesting & then the mindless granny bit soothing. Somehow I feel like I've leveled-up, rug-making-wise. Maybe it's a good thing my kitchen rug is getting scruffy... (hee, hee)