Knitting Box – Page 7 – I knit, I sew, I blog

Popping in

… to say hello!

Ahhh, I’ve been slack in the blogging department again, haven’t I. I haven’t gone anywhere, really, just that the time (and words) keep getting away from me. Well there have been good and bad…

Good — Going to the Craft & Quilt Fair at Darling Harbour, and went home with a nice stack of fabrics and yarn (yep. yarn diet? what yarn diet??).

Bad — Father-in-law got admitted to hospital for heart problems. It was quite a scare. Had to cancel going to the WWKIP get-together as a result.

Good — He’s much better now, thankfully, and steadily recovering. As a bonus it has brought the family closer together.

Bad — Annette getting sick and being in a grouchy mood for a whole week.

Good — Going to dinner with a bunch of crafty ladies, where I scored this beautiful scarf made by Marina. It’s made of very soft (and pretty!) flannel, and feels really nice around my neck. The fabric is from eQuilter I was told, which I haven’t come across before, so will have to check that out. Looks like a massive store!

Another good — A new hat for me, the Rose Red hat!

Pattern: Rose Red by Ysolda Teague. I made the medium size.
Yarn: Seasoned Spice Yarn Bee #120 in ‘Azalea’, from Spotlight.
Needles: 4mm circulars.

The yarn was a surprise find. I knew I wanted a red hat (red for a change, seeing that multiple people have pointed out to me that I always wear blue 🙂 and I have to say I like the change!) but I was having trouble finding just the shade of red that I want. Then one day while pottering around in Spotlight looking for something else, I found this little shelf tucked somewhat further away from the knitting section, with various yarn lines called “Yarn Bee”. And of course I couldn’t walk past undiscovered yarn without checking it out first 🙂 This particular yarn immediately called to me. It’s 70% wool/30% soybean, and there’s some silvery strands spun together with the red. Doesn’t quite show in this photo I’m afraid, but trust me it’s pretty. It wears quite well too so far.

Pretty red, great yarn and fun-to-knit pattern, what more can I ask for, really!

30 June 2008

Hello winter

Tangled Yoke is done! Tangled Yoke is done! Yay!

Tangled Yoke

I gave myself a deadline of 1st of June (which is when winter “officially” starts around here) to finish this cardigan, and that was just when this was finished. With the weather getting colder and colder it’s about time really.

Tangled Yoke

Some details:

Pattern: Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang, published in Interweave Knits Fall 2007. Great, well written pattern. I loved knitting this. Everything just fell into place. No need to fudge numbers, no need to wrestle with it to make it work. Just mindless knitting mostly, with the exception of the interlocking cables at the yoke. Even then it wasn’t so bad, I love a good challenge.

Although, it wasn’t without casualties. I did have a miscrossed cable, which I didn’t notice until several rows down the track. As much as I enjoyed the knitting, I wasn’t going to rip back (have I mentioned that at one point in the cables section there were over 400 stitches on the needles?). So after I finished the cardigan, I fixed the miscrossed cable with the Yarn Harlot’s “draw on” method that she described on this post (scroll down to the “desperate measures” section. Indeed.) which does not require ripping back. It worked!

Tangled Yoke

Yarn: 6.5 balls of Rowan Felted Tweed in ‘Whisper’ (colour #141). Love this yarn. It was a bit prickly to begin with, but after a wash it softened up a lot, and produced this lovely warm fabric with a nice drape and a soft halo of fuzz. I think the alpaca content gives it extra warmth. I love how it’s cozy and warm without being heavy (the yarn itself is perhaps just a bit thinner than DK or 8-ply weight).

Needles: 3.75mm for the most part, 3.5mm and 2mm for yoke and button bands.

Tangled Yoke

And a close up of the buttons…

I just love this cardigan. I can see myself wearing this a lot!

2 June 2008

Vintage love

This post on Suzy’s blog reminded me that I meant to blog about these vintage knitting pattern booklets that Donna of Chookyblue sent me a few weeks ago. Donna found these in an antique store and got them for me! Thank you again Donna, you’re so sweet!

I love these, I think the patterns are so charming. Donna sent me two booklets, these are the fronts:

And backs:

These booklets are so old, just holding them in my hands feels like holding a piece of history. They don’t have any publication dates printed on them, but the geeky part of me wanted to know just how old these are. They were printed in Australia, by Patons & Baldwin Wools, so they’re not one of the British Patons ones. The prices are given in the old currency, which means these were printed prior to 1966 (Australia adopted decimal currency in February 1966). Patons Australia started printing their booklets in colours in the 1950s, so these black and white booklets are older than that. My best guess would be sometime in the 1940s.

(My sources for these are this discussion on Ravelry and this informative post by Taphophile. If you know more, do let me know!))

Inside, the knitting instructions are pretty much the same as the way they are written nowadays. Except for this line that was printed at intervals throughout the booklets.

It says, “STOP.—Have you checked your tension?” (tension aka gauge). Very wise indeed.

These will be one of my treasured possessions I’m sure!

31 May 2008

Cushy

Finishing one small project can really motivate you to start another! Not long after the pram blanket, I whipped up these two cushions for the reading corner in Annette’s room. I love the clouds fabric (from here), I think it’s just great for these cushions.

For the back I used some ribbed t-shirt fabric that I found in the bargain bin at Spotlight. I have lots to learn about sewing with this kind of fabric (hello Sew U Home Stretch?). I had some issues with stretching in the beginning (as I expected), but I think it worked out quite well in the end. Phew.

28 May 2008

Cheater cheater

Close up

I’m on a sewing kick at the moment. My poor, poor sewing machine had been neglected for so long. It’s been calling to me again this week. I think it started when a friend had a baby, and I thought I’d make her a pram blanket. I liked the super quick + easy baby quilt from the Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts book, but I ended up making a rather modified version of it. The size is a lot smaller, which is pram-sized (this one measures about 20 x 20 inches) rather than cot-sized.

Quilted pram blanket

This was indeed a quick project. I feel like I was cheating in so many ways. Firstly I didn’t do any binding, and secondly the fabric has done all the work for me with that faux patchwork 🙂 (Found it at Spotlight, if anyone’s wondering. The backing is a polar fleece that I also got from Spotlight.) But hey, I’ve been wanting to make a quilt for so long (what was it, oh, two years ago that I first fell in love with quilts and patchwork — which was one of the things that pulled me into sewing in the first place), but as we all know Procrastination is my middle name. So I see this as “baby steps” toward getting closer to making a “real” quilt of my own 🙂

All wrapped up

23 May 2008