Sheep On My Stuff

Another home-brewed pattern, but this one isn't quite ready for prime time yet.

I will grant you, it is a somewhat schlumphfy-looking bag. It's basically a prototype. It was also something for me to do with the leftover yarn I had once I was done with the Deep Purple Sweater. And since it was made in a wool I probably won't use again (and may not even be able to find again), I'm going to be writing down the pattern not for this yarn, but for a much more accessible felting wool, Patons Classic Merino. (It shouldn't take more than I have left, which is a little less than two balls. I hope.) I don't have a lot of experience felting, so I even made a gauge swatch for this. And I'm glad I did; this yarn reduces by about 33%, whereas the Patons Classic Merino reduced by 22% width-wise, but only by about 5% height-wise. (You can bet that'll require some different calculations as I work up the second bag.)

I am very pleased with how close to my mental image this bag turned out to be, though! And the flap was a cinch. Between this and a felted wool trivet, of which I do not yet have pictures, I managed to use up the rest of the yarn I had left from the Deep Purple project, which makes me very happy, too. And I'm getting better with the photos, I think, even if they're all being taken in the same windowsill. Credit to Jared Flood and David Reidy -- Jared Flood for the tip, David Reidy for the interview in which Jared gave the tip. (The tip was to use natural light, but try to get it sideways to your project rather than right behind it. It turns out the craft room windows are perfect for that.)

I finished a sweater!

I'm really happy with it. It's made with Sierra Pacific Glenisla, a 100% wool, feltable yarn which happened to be the Yarn of the Month at my favorite LYS. The pattern, worked from the top down, was really easy to follow and involved no (!) seaming. And, most importantly for me, it fits properly! (I made the 40" version; there's a smaller one at 36", and it goes up to 56".) I was a little worried about that, because I'm short, and knitting it for the first time, I had no idea how I would go about shortening the thing -- it's not constructed in a simple manner, as you can see.

The yarn could be nicer. It's just a little on the scratchy side, and I'm going to try washing it to see if that helps any. As for the pattern itself, I'd like more waist shaping -- another thing that I didn't have any idea how to implement the first time through. It looks kinda bulky from behind on me.

But ultimately, it makes me really happy. :) I'm really pleased with the way it came out, and I might be tempted to make it again at some point -- but there are so many things out there I'd like to knit that repeating a project seems silly until I've gotten through some others. My Ravelry queue is 117 items long, for heck's sake! And I have three projects on needles, and two I haven't started that have early December deadlines.

I also have a bit of leftover yarn from this sweater project, and an idea in my head for a felted bag to make with it. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can make it come out the way it looks in my head. :)

I had thought that I wasn't going to be able to show you a picture of the last-minute emergency rainbow squares I made for the charity blanket last month. By the time I remembered to take a picture, the squares looked like this:

However, luckily for this blog, the recipient (the person who's sewing the squares together) took some pictures of the squares as they came in! Hooray! And so here's the rest of the squares I made for the acrylic/synthetic blanket:

I got thirteen of those suckers done in a weekend, destashed all of my yellow, blue, and red Shine Sport, used up a bit of my Dark Horse Fantasy, and helped complete a blanket. :)

I have also managed to create six wool rainbow squares. Unlike the synthetic blanket, I'm not making squares with interesting stitch patterns; I'm just making stockinette squares and letting the color provide the interesting part. (I'm using leftover yarn from the rainbow sheep.)

Love comes in many colors.

I can't say what it was that made me think Adamas shawl, must knit, RIGHTNOWNOWNOW. It could have been the fact that I was dying to knit lace for myself -- not on a deadline. Or the Yarn Harlot's post. Or just the fact that it seemed like it'd be fun.

It was ridiculously fun, and as the pictures prove, this is a good house in which to be a sheep:

Do I know what I'm going to do with this shawl? No. Orange is not really my color, so... no, I have no idea. And yet it's finished and it's lovely.

I am really quite proud of it. :) However, the urge to knit lace hasn't gone anywhere. I'm currently working on the Flower Basket Shawl and Mystery Stole 4 (which I'm doing in grey with purple beads, and will be taking pictures of as I work through the clues). Hurry up if you want to join the Mystery Stole 4 group -- signups are going on through the 12th and then you're out of luck until the pattern comes out (and it won't be free then).

I'd like to be more environmentally conscientious than I am. One of the ways I've thought about using a reusable, rather than single-use, resource is by using reusable bags for grocery shopping. Ah ha!, I thought, perfect! I'll crochet some!

Well. The patterns around for crocheted market bags tend to make these enormous things that stretch so far they drag on the ground if I'm carrying them on my shoulder. And they take a huge amount of yarn. Not what I'm after.

I decided to try designing something that takes the natural stretch of a simple cotton yarn into account, and this is what I came up with. It's a granny square bag with two short handles. Experienced crocheters should be able to extrapolate how to make larger (or smaller) bags (and handles) just by looking at the pattern; instructions aren't given for changing the sizes. This is the size I like, and I think it's a good one. I've taken a few of these to the store and come back with comfortably-sized bags of groceries. And if they get messy, you can throw 'em in the washer and dryer with your towels.

Please follow the link to my Small Market Bag pattern! Like everything on this site, it is Creative Commons licensed; please feel free to share and distribute (as long as you keep my name and website attached). :) Many thanks to Wyoming Knott, Sorcha, and Moonrose for testing the pattern for me!

Sent out today: six squares for a rainbow afghan (which raised money for the same charity as the Rainbow Sheep!)!

My pictures are horrible and awful, because the good camera is currently in Las Vegas along with SheepLad. However, here they are anyhow:

From left to right, the stitch patterns are: the 'prismatic' diagonal herringbone from this scarf on Feather and Fan, stockinette, seed, an unvented garter rib, stockinette, triple rib.

The windowpane shawl's going great -- so great I'm eyeballing early August for its ship date instead of late August or early September. If I can get it done before I go on vacation (WHOO VEGAS!), I can ship it out then. Otherwise it's staying home; I'm not gonna take it to Vegas, of all places. Who knows what could happen?

Anyway, in order to keep track of how fast I need to knit to make my target goal, I've made another spreadsheet.

(For those of you curious about formulas and such, it's a Google Doc!)

Since it spirals out from the center, I actually counted the number of stitches, not the number of rows, so as to be able to divide them out equally. There are over 92,000 stitches in the shawl! Will I make it? If so, it's going to be close.

You remember how I had a Sneaky Sheep in my flock? Here, I'll refresh your memory:

Well, it turns out Sneaky Sheep has been going on missions. So far he's managed to infiltrate the study, while I was raiding Tempest Keep:

...the bathroom, as I was brushing my teeth...

...my bedroom window, as I was going to sleep...

...and now the kitchen cabinets!

(For fun and prizes, find the bonus sheep in each of those pictures. There are eight, plus an "extra".)

I do have other things going! I've been working on shopping bags, and two friends have graciously agreed to help me test a pattern. (It's crochet, requires about 300 yards of not-too-stretchy yarn, and roughly an H hook -- mileage varies.) I'm also working on a shawl project, but it's a gift for someone; as such, I won't be posting pictures of it until it's complete and in the hands of the recipient. :)

In the beginning there was one white sheep:

Who eventually was joined by one grey sheep:

And life continued as usual. Then I got it in my head to make a rainbow sheep... and I bought some grey variegated yarn... and and and and...

And then I started knitting sheep for charity. Eventually the flock looked like this:

Yarn used for nearly all the sheep: Cascade 220. The camo sheep is made with Patons Classic Merino. Needle size: 6.5mm (US 10 1/2).

The front row have gone to their new homes, raising money for the California Marriage Equality initiatives; the back row... those are mine, and now I need to find places to display them. :)

Surprise, surprise! I finished something that wasn't a sheep.

Not to say that it isn't wrapped around one.

Yarn used: Dark Horse Fantasy. Needle size: 4mm.

I was surprisingly pleased with this scarf. Dark Horse Fantasy is definitely the nicest acrylic I've ever laid hands on, and I'd work with it again, no problem. And the pattern came out lovely! So lovely that I decided to do something I've never done before -- I wrote up the pattern.

Yes, it's basketweave k3p3 with a 4-row repeat and 3 stitches of knitted-on I-cord border, and yes, a knowledgeable knitter can simply figure it out by looking, and yes, it felt strange to write such a "simple" pattern up... but I found myself thinking that maybe I should do it anyway. Not everyone in the world can hear the above phrases and turn those into a pattern!

Like everything else on the site, and every pattern I'll ever write, now and in the future, it's Creative Commons licensed. If you're curious what that means, I encourage you to check out this page, where I provide a few links and clarify my personal feelings on Creative Commons licenses as they apply to my patterns. :)

It is entirely possible I'll have another pattern up next week -- this one for a crocheted grocery bag -- but it might take me a little longer. My charity auction is finished, and it's time for me to cast on for a shawl. Wooooooooo shawl! :D

Thursday, be on the lookout for sheep. Some sneaky... some brightly colored... all very proud, and most of them (though not all of them) members of my personal flock. :)