Showing posts with label old knitting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old knitting. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

3 AM Whining

meow

Huh?

Meow

MEOW

MEEE-OOWW

MARRRRRR-OOOOOWWWWWW

MAAAAAA-MAAAAAA

What do you what Bert?

MAAAAAA-MAAAAAAAA MEEEEE-OOOWWWW

Bert, come and get in under covers. Chief and I are here in the bedroom.

Bert comes to the bed and silence reigns supreme.
++++++

The following conversation is a sample of a typical 3:00 am at our household. Why can't he just come to bed. Why do we have to go through the dramatic scene in the hall every stinkin' night!?!


Old Projects - New Pictures

This weekend I went around the house and took some pictures of my old projects for you to see. Some knitting, some other stuff.....
Let's go to the living room. Several years ago Knitters magazine came out with their cable sampler afghan. A couple patterns each issue. It was great looking but after making 5-6 squares I lost interest. I took a couple of the squares and made a pillow from them. The other squares are sitting around waiting for me to decide what to do with them. This is Woolease and I think size 7 needles.

Next up - this little guy was sitting on the coffee table from our knitting night. It's the Mason & Dixon baby sweater from their book. I never finished it cause I decided it needed a crocheted edge or something so, here it sits waiting for an edge and a closure. It least it was a good example of what garter stitch can make...

Over on the other side of the room is my Grandma's table. It's a great old table but has a bit of aged look. So- it got a crocheted tablecloth. I made this one about 4-5 years ago. I can't remember the pattern but had to "show it off". On the table are a couple of my stained glass projects. No, not the lamp- the candle holder and the little box. They were a couple of the beginning projects we made in the class I took with my friend.

I keep my house pretty cool so over several of the chairs are shawls people can put on if they get cold. I've showed you the Victorian Shawl before so here's one of the others. This is a simple garter stitch on big needles shawl I made 20+ years ago. I think it was Reynolds Kitten but I wouldn't swear to it. The blue thing behind it was an experiment in my machine knitting shop days. I tried scanning an Escher picture and knitting it up. It worked out pretty good but it was just a long rectangle so I threw it over the chair so the cats sit on it and when company comes - the blue thing is put in the closet - clean chair....

You've seen Sam the Ram, you've seen the Grandma doll, well I like making dolls. What can I say. They don't need to fit your body. Several family members have some of these dolls. They're from Cottage Creations. The first one is Solveig. She's from the Sven Scandinavian booklet.
These 2 are Bridget and Paddy from the booklet of the same name. All the dolls are made from Germantown yarn. Bridget's hair was knit wool, washed and dried and then unravelled to get the curls. And, yes, you guessed it. I made them about 20 years ago.


Starting to see a pattern here? I knit a ton of stuff back then. From the late 70s thru much of the 80s I worked at the Yarn Shed Friday nights and Saturdays for a friend of the family and I knit whenever I was at the shop I knit. After that time period I did minimal knitting until I started managing a sewing/knitting machine store and eventually had my own shop. So, most of my knitting is the past 3-4 years or over 20 years old or machine knitting.

Next time I'll show you some of my designs from my machine knitting days. Until then, let me know how to convince Bert to just come to bed and not wake me up to tell him it's okay to come to bed. That darn cat!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

20 Year old Christmas Sock

Well I survived the second day of Mom's surgery stuff. Today was fill in the pothole on her face day. She got a skin flap put on and it ended up taking a long time. I planned on 2- 2.5 hours away from work but it took 4 hours. But - we're done other than keeping it clean and getting the stitches out in a couple weeks.


So- here's the pictures I promised for several days.

1. The Christmas Sock - I started this about 20 years ago and just had the foot to do. It's a bulky wool - I still can't remember the name. Size 9 needles. There may have been a pattern at one point but the heel and foot were just me horsing around with patterns. After all -it doesn't have to fit.


Here's the 20 year old part of the sock. It aged well.



2. The Mitered Washrag. This is the Sugar 'n Cream stripes cotton. Size 7 needle. The basic miter square. I think I started with 70sts. I tend to throw stuff on the needle and just wing it so I'm really bad a details some time. I like the way this yarn stripes. Looks like I did more work than just knit!
3. Which way is up Cable Scarf.



Back over a year ago ( I was still in the other house) I saw a reversible cable scarf in a shop and thought - I can do that. I didn't have any time to really look at it other than to see the cable was done with k1,p1. But driving home I thought about it and figured the body of the scarf would need to be reversible "flat" stitches with a little bit of variety so. I work on it here and there and here's what I have so far.


Sorry the picture isn't better contrast. The basic pattern is:
CO 36.
Start with 6 rows (3 ridges) garter st.
3 garter st, k1, p1, 3 moss st, cable ([k1,p1]x4), 4 moss st, cable, 3 moss st, k1, p1, 3 garter st.

Do a left 4x4 cable every 10th row keeping the k1, p1 pattern.
Knit to desired length.
End with 6 rows garter st. I'm using Woolease on size 8 needle.

Final set of pictures is a present to myself. I ordered some stuff from KnitPicks during their move and it finally came. Yup, that's another sock book. Can't have enough even though I NEVER use any of the patterns but they're great inspiration.



I got some Options needles and cables. I didn't buy the full set because I have so many needles and I have the Boye Needle Master so I just wanted a few of the basic sizes. I also got the size tags.








I got some yarn. Wool of the Andes. I have absolutely no idea why I bought this. If I had a project in mind I can't remember. These aren't my usual color choices for stash so - got any ideas?

Once everything got out of the packing the Box Inspector got busy to be sure it was made to the proper specs.

Yup. Looks like we'll need to inspect this further. - Bert