Junie Moon: knitting

Showing posts with label knitting. Show all posts

Monday, July 11, 2016

Easy Knitted Bath Mitt and Washcloths

After finishing my Cashmere ombre wrap and about to start knitting a lace shawl for my daughter, I really needed something easy and quick as a transition. Purl Bee’s Washcloths and Scrubbing Mitt project served perfectly.

I used Habu Textile’s 100% cotton Cork Chenille, one skein each of the colors Charcoal, Off-White, and Bleached White purchased at Purl Soho. Needles were US #3 double-points.

When finishing the first two washcloths, I realized there was enough yarn left to make a third cloth.

So, I knit a 2-inch row of Off-white, then a 4-inch row of Charcoal, and finished with a 2-inch row of Bleached White.

Despite liberating a bit of the Charcoal for my striped washcloth, there was still plenty of that yarn to make the bath mitt.

This was a relaxing and easy project to serve as a break between two long knitting missions. The cork chenille yarn is really nice and a great texture (kind of soft and crunchy at the same time) to use in the bath for exfoliation. This would also be nice in a spa gift basket.

Monday, June 27, 2016

Aquamarine Cashmere Ombré Wrap

Happy, happy, happy! That’s how I feel after finishing Purl Soho’s Cashmere Ombré Wrap project last night.

The yarn is 4-ply 100% Mongolian cashmere, hand-dyed in 8 graduated shades of aquamarine. Purls Soho offers three other colorways from which to choose if aquamarine is not your thing.

The pattern used was Seed Stitch.

I tracked each and every stitch of this project—the total is 72,750 stitches for my 20 x 68 inches wrap. That’s a lot of stitches, my friends. Admittedly it started to feel a tad tedious due to the seed stitch pattern, but my efforts give me the blessing of a cashmere wrap to cuddle in next winter.

Friday, February 28, 2014

February 2014 Knit the Sky Progress

The Knit the Sky project is proving fun. I’m really enjoying simply knitting a representation of what the sky appears like each day.

Here is my scarf now including the February section. The yarn is very soft and I can envisage wearing it around my neck at the end of 2014.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Twelve Months of Hand Knitted Socks February

My second month in my plan to knit a pair of socks each month is successfully completed.

I quite like these bright colors—makes Winter a bit happier in my mind.

The funky stripes are fun, aren’t they?

The socks blockers were found on Etsy. I love the laser-cut palm tree design.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Twelve Months of Hand-knit Socks in 2014

Despite living on the Gulf, winter this year descended upon us with rude arctic blasts that leave me and everyone else shivering. Socks are something I’ve had to add to my wardrobe, replacing the ubiquitous flip-flops worn here on Emerald Coast.

Flush with the success of finally conquering sock knitting last year without wonky toes or heels in the wrong place and other assorted mis-knits, I’ve decided to knit one pair of socks each month in 2014 and have already stashed a year’s worth of sock yarn to help me achieve my goal.

Source: Amazon.com

January 2014’s socks were made using a simple pattern found in Getting Started Knitting Socks (Getting Started series). February’s socks are already on the needles. Preparing for the possible return of such winter misbehavior next year by knitting socks seems like a good plan to me.

Monday, February 3, 2014

January 2014 Knit the Sky Progress

I’ve been faithful to my plan to knit the sky each day in 2014. This really is a lovely and thoughtful project—it’s nice to have a few minutes to just contemplate the sky each morning and what it means for my day. I’m more aware of the movement of clouds, the wind in the trees, and the calls of birds as they dart here and there. Watching the sky and choosing my representative 2 strands of yarns each day helps me celebrate the world around me in a very unique way—I think that could be construed as living in grace.

Here is my scarf with the January section completed. We’ve been having some nasty cold weather here lately on the Gulf coast, so lots of gray is being used. The beginning of February did have a couple of sunny days where I could use blue yarn. I’m looking forward to seeing my scarf evolve over the year.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Big Herringbone Cowl

It’s freezing here in Florida—as most everyone in the country is experiencing this week. The golf club cancelled our golf league play today, so I’ll do some errands instead. Compared to a lot of the country, I am indeed grateful our temperatures aren’t worse, but we live in Florida and this feels alien to our flip-flop wearing life.

While I knit and knit, along with my knitting friends here, we rarely get to actually utilize a lot of the winter wear we diligently make. I’m breaking out my knitted projects to wear while I run my few errands this bitterly cold morning.

I finally get to wear the Purl Soho’s Big Herringbone Cowl I knit.

Size US 17 circular needles and 3 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Cotton purchased at Unwind the Yarn Shop here in Fort Walton Beach were all I needed for this project.

The finished cowl feels like a special hug around my neck.

Resources

Purl Bee scarf blog post
Ravelry pattern
Unwind the Yarn Shop website
YouTube video of this project pattern here

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Knit the Sky

Isn’t the very phrase “knit the sky” lovely? It’s another way I plan to celebrate each day of 2014. The idea of knitting a sky scarf was conceived by artist Lea Redmond of Leafcutter Designs.

Source: Leafcutter Designs

The goal is to knit two rows each day using two strands of yarn at a time which represent the color of the sky where you live. For example, if the sky is a pretty blue but has lots of fluffy clouds, I’ll use the colors blue and ecru. I love this idea. It reminds me to be mindful of the world outside my window and is easily transportable so I can capture the sky wherever I may travel.

Instead of the pattern’s suggested garter stitch, I am knitting my Sky Scarf in moss stitch:

Cast on 41 stitches.

Row 1: K1, *P1, K1; repeat from * to end of row.

Row 2: P1, *K1, P1; repeat from * to end of row.

Repeats rows 1 and 2 until done.

A small 2014 calendar freebie and some colored pencils have been added to my Sky Scarf kit and are being put to use to track my progress in written form by simply making two squiggly lines in the colors of the day’s sky.

This conceptual knitting project pattern is free (see Resources below), but I did opt to order their yarn kit which contains five different colors of 100% baby alpaca made in Peru: Caribbean Heather, Sapphire Heather, Silver, Charcoal, and Ecru.

My two rows are already knitted for today—adding on to those I knit on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately for those of us living in Florida’s Panhandle, we’re experiencing gray wet days, so my scarf is not very colorful yet. Blue skies are coming though!

Resources

Sky Scarf by Leafcutter Designs

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Summer Sand Dollar Knitting

Summer is coming and I’m getting ready for it. Here’s one of my summer-readiness projects.

I made a complete set of washcloths from a pattern found on Ravelry. It’s the Keyhole Sand Dollar pattern by Maryann Walsh and is a free Ravelry download. I took a couple of my finished cloths down to the beach to photograph as any excuse to be at the beach makes me happy.

Although I mean for these to be used in our bathroom at home, I generally take a washcloth to the beach with me in a baggie with some ice cubes. The ice cubes melt pretty quickly which leaves me with a refreshingly-cool wet cloth to wipe my face. I do the same thing on the golf course in the summer.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Sweet Baby Blanket

Now that I’m officially considered a senior, my opportunities to give baby gifts have diminished. My peers are past the baby-making years and my own babies are done with family building. In a way, it’s somewhat like my reaching towards the end time in life and being cut off from the beginning of life—a demarcation which makes me feel odd.

So, I was excited when one of my friends had the blessing of welcoming her first grandchild in the world—a little girl named Savannah.

Using an idea from my friend Sara at Unwind the Yarn Shop in Fort Walton Beach, FL, I cast on 150 stitches using U.S. size 6 needles and knitted one ball of yarn for 26 rows (13 ridges) before switching to the next color. This is simply knitting of every row.

After finishing the last color, the color scheme was reversed. The yarn is Rowan Handknit Cotton. The first set of blocks color order (in parentheses are the number of skeins I purchased for the entire blanket):

Slick (3)
Mist (2)
Shell (2)
Celery (2)
Ecru (3)

Second set of blocks:

Ecru
Celery
Shell
Mist
Slick

Blanket done, I started thinking about creative ways to embellish it. I crocheted a simple scallop edging in Ecru around the blanket. After the edging was done, the blanket was washed and blocked.

Next, I decided to add the baby’s monogram in the center of the middle section (the wider Ecru-colored portion).

The monogram was made by braiding the Slick (hot pink) color of yarn and forming the three letters which I’ve hand-stitched to the blanket.

Here is Savannah’s completed blanket.

The blanket was carefully packaged in a pretty box and shipped off to Atlanta in time for the baby shower.

I loved making this gift and feel it connects me back to the beginning of the life cycle—nature’s own creative project.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Going to the Dogs

Do you sometimes peruse Ravelry just for fun? I do and discover lots of fun patterns to try. One such pattern is the Renaissance Felted Dog Leash by Leigh Radford which is offered for free at Classic Elite Yarns.

I made two of the leashes for my son’s very sweet black Labradors, Ninja and Cammy. This was an easy project and my first effort in felting. The metal swivel-head snap-hook thingie was purchased at Ace Hardware.

The leases are very strong, something I was concerned about as Ninja and Cammy are not lap-dog size. My son reports the leashes work very well.

Needles: Size 9 U.S.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon (purchased at Unwind the Yarn Shop in Fort Walton Beach, Florida

Resources

Monday, March 25, 2013

University of Arizona Knit

While Spring is technically here, we are still experiencing some really cold weather. That is also true for one of my son-in-laws who is stationed near Montgomery, Alabama.

Casey is a graduate of the University of Arizona which is located in Tucson where I lived before we relocated to Florida. He asked me to knit a hat to represent his school.

After we carefully chose just the right yarn colors together, I made him his hat by just using a basic knit cap pattern. The school’s patch was found on eBay. Now he has something to wear on these very cold mornings we are having in the south.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Blocking Wires Kit

My blocking wires are still in Tucson. One of these days, my husband and I will manage to get all my stuff here. In the meantime, I need the wires to block some of my finished knitting projects. Instead of buying a new set, I decided to make my own blocking wires using wires purchased at a local welding shop.

I cut some wires in 36-inch lengths and some 18-inches long. There’s more to the process of making the wires, but you can find free tutorials online and there’s no sense in my repeating someone else’s work. A box of T-pins and a yardstick were added to my arsenal of blocking tools.

In order to keep the wires from getting bent and to provide a way to store them, I sewed flannel bags with a twill hanging strap.

Source: Amazon.com

Interlocking play mats found at Lowe’s work great as my blocking pads. The mats may also be found at Amazon.com.