The motivation for learning how to knit was actually borne out of my desire to figure out how to do crochet entrelac properly. I thought learning how to knit it would help things along. So, once I had the basics of knit and purl down, I tried out knitting entrelac. I learned how to increase, and decrease, and how to pick up stitches (though, I’m not convinced I’m doing that right yet – entrelac should look like rectangles not trapezoids). I taught myself how to do cables and knit in the round and change colours, too.

With all of this knowledge, it’s only natural that my very first finished knitting project be…

Wait… garter stitch?

Yes, my first knitted item ended up being a Doctor Who scarf for my brother-in-law.

For those not familiar with this pattern, it is the knit stitch, worked over and over and over again until the scarf is freakishly long (and then you add tassels). (Specs: Vanna’s Choice yarn in Brick, Burgundy, Charcoal Grey, Beige, Toffee, Mustard, and Olive. 4mm circular needles)

Even though I had to go out into the main hall of our apartment building to get a picture that showed the length, the scarf did end up a bit shorter than the authentic one worn by Tom Baker (the fourth Doctor). It was supposed to be 20 feet long, but mine is only 14 feet. I do believe it’ll stretch out over time, though!

Come to think of it, taking pictures of this thing was quite a challenge. Usually to display scarves I employ the services of my trusty sidekick, Roopurt,

but…

In a neat turn of good luck, a few days after I finished the scarf, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was launching her new book here in town. I, of course, brought the scarf to show her:

I think she was impressed. ^_^
(Also, I love that the people in line behind me are knitting while they wait to have their books signed!)

All is well now, so check out this scarf I made:

This is a Queen Anne’s Lace scarf using Bernat Mosaic yarn (Psychedelic colourway). I believe this pattern is available in many places; I found it as a free download on Ravelry (you need to be a member of Ravelry to get it, I think!)

It looks more complicated than it actually is. This pattern had a bit of a tricky bit, at least it seemed so to me! Whenever it says “work into the first (whatever)” it means to work into the one closest (to the left) of your hook. Clear as mud? ^_^

ETA: I posted this project on Craftster and it was declared one of the “Best of 2010″. Go me!

I’m a Craftster Best of 2010 Winner!

2. I’ve also started compiling Craftster-hosted “How To Crochet” tutorials here. There are only a few there at the moment, but that will change soon! Read the post and help out if you can!

3. I’m officially a “designer” on Ravelry (here I am – you need a Ravelry account to see this. Again, it’s free and rewarding!)

4. One of the main reasons I love crocheting is this: one day my feet were cold. The next:

Problem solved!
(yarn: Bernat Solf Boucle, hook: 6mm, pattern: winging it!)

For an idea of why I was going through so much trouble to make a mitten, well, here’s the one I made next to the one I try to cram my hand into every day in the winter:

Of course, the warmer weather will be here any day now (right? Right???), so this might be of limited use this year. But I’m happy with it all the same.

…

What do you mean, I’m supposed to make two of them?

I was really hoping for a lighter motif, but this one is quite dense in the middle, and it’s very heavy. It also curls inward, but I think it would do ok if joined to other motifs. I’d hesitate to tile this motif, as the resulting fabric would be really heavy… though, I suppose that depends a lot on the yarn.

And, hey look! Another hat!

And the other side:

Pictures don’t do the colours justice. I took a lot of pictures of this hat. In full sun, in difused sun, with flash, without flash, with indoor lights of various types… you’ll just have to take my word for it: it’s pretty. ^_^

It’s Bernat Satin again, about 3/4 of a ball of teal, and almost an entire ball of “Luxury Ombre”, which is the variegated yarn.

It’s the same pattern as my last hat, but I did 45 stitches to start instead of 50. It turned out a little bit too small for my liking… the brim doesn’t cover the whole of my ears. Ah well, I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.

This is how much of the variegated yarn I had left after making this:

Good thing I bought more than one. ^_-

Black side out:

Rainbow side out:

Level of difficulty: if you already know how to do crochet-on-the-double, this is really really easy. If you don’t, but you are comfortable with the Tunisian Simple Stitch, then you’ll find this pattern somewhat easy once you get going on it. If you don’t know either of those techniques, I recommend learning them on something easier (perhaps a scarf?) before attempting this. ^_^

Yarn: Bernat Satin, uses the equivalent of 1 ball for each side of hat; for mine I used 1 ball of black and small amounts of 8 colours.

Hook: 6mm double-ended hook

This pattern is for crochet-on-the-double, using the Tunisian Simple Stitch. Each row has two parts, A and B, in A you lift loops onto the hook, in B you [b]turn[/b] and work them off

MC = main colour
CC = contrasting colour

Pattern:
ch 50 in MC

Row 1A – lift up one loop in 2nd ch from hook, and in each subsequent ch (50 loops on hook, including starting loop)
Row 1B – turn, pull a loop of CC through first loop of MC. *pull a loop of CC through two loops* repeat until 1 loop of CC remains on hook.

Row 2A – loop on hook counts as first loop, insert hook from right to left through vertical bar of the second stitch from the hook on the previous row, pull up a loop of CC. Do this for every subsequent stitch (50 loops on hook)

Row 2B – turn, pull a loop of MC through the first loop on hook. *pull a loop of MC through two loops* repeat until 1 loop of MC remains.

Row 3A – pull up a loop in the second vertical bar from the hook, and continue to pull up loops until there are 2 vertical bars left (48 loops on hook)

Row 3B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 4A – work loops on in CC (48 loops on hook)

Row 4B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 5A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (46 loops on hook)

Row 5B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 6A – work loops on in CC (46 loops on hook)

Row 6B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 7A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (44 loops on hook)

Row 7B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 8A – work loops on in CC (46 loops on hook)

Row 8B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 9A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (42 loops on hook)

Row 9B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 10A – work loops on in CC (42 loops on hook)

Row 10B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 11A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (40 loops on hook)

Row 11B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 12A – work loops on in CC (40 loops on hook)

Row 12B – turn, work loops off in MC

Row 13A – work loops on in MC, 40 loops from previous row, plus the 2 missed vertical bars from each previous row (50 loops on hook)

Row 13B – turn, work loops off in CC

Row 14A – work loops on in CC (50 loops on hook)

Row 14B – turn, work loops off in MC

One wedge made!

Repeat from 3A to 14B until you have 8 wedges

To finish, slip stitch to bind off both colours by *inserting the hook through the next vertical bar, pull a loop through it and the loop on the hook* until you reach the end. Do the MC first, then the CC. Leave LONG tails.

Use the CC tail to sew the last row made to the first row (try to join it with the CC of the first row if you can). Use the MC tail to weave in and out of the stitches at the top of the hat, pull tightly like a drawstring until the hole at the top is closed. Secure with a knot, then use the rest of that tail to sew the seam down on the MC side of the hat.

Weave in all ends.

To alter this pattern to fit better, or use a different yarn, etc. :

Make a swatch (I recommend making a scarf-sized swatch ;)) to determine how many stitches and rows you get per inch/cm. Measure your head, and do some math. ^_^

You can easily start with fewer stitches to make a shorter hat, do more “stop two stitches short of the end” rows to make the rounded-top part bigger, and change the number of wedges you do to fit a smaller or larger circumference.

To easily keep track while making this hat, I made sure that my “miss the last two stitches” rows always happened with the black yarn (MC in the pattern), and the CC rows were just repeating its previous row. It’ll make sense when you’re doing it. ^_^

If you need any help with this pattern, feel free to ask! If you spot any errors, let me know so that I can fix them. ^_^

And what do you think of the new blog layout? I’m still tinkering with it; let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work!

The other problem, which I suspect affects all types of blog is: computers suck sometimes. :P

I can’t do a whole lot about that last problem, but take a look at these not-Christmas-presents I made using crochet-on-the-double.

A pink and purple hat for Maddie:

Purple side, pink side:

One wedge shape (hat consists of 8)

And a matching scarf:

This yellow one is *slightly* bigger and is for Katie:

Side:

Flat dark yellow, flat light yellow:

The folks on Craftster seem to think these are pretty good (I’m glad I’m not the only one!), so why not give these as Christmas gifts? Three reasons:

1. I’m not entirely certain they’ll fit, as I’m just figuring out the pattern… and giving items made for testing a pattern you’re writing seems somewhat unthoughtful.

2. I already made them each something else.

3. If they were gifts I wouldn’t let myself blog about them. :P

Come January I’ll be looking for more test subjects, including adults, so stay tuned!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you my Appropriately-Sized-Mitten Prototype.

(This is the best all-over shot I could get before the batteries in my camera died. You’ll see a possible cause for this in a minute.)

Some of you may remember my first attempt to make a mitten (intending it for a *child* no less!)

(For an idea of scale think “oven mitt”.)

I was a bit wary of trying again; that is, until the temperature here dropped. I wore my winter coat the other day for the first time this season, and when I shoved my hands in the pockets I found one mitten. That’s when I remembered that I’d lost its twin last winter. I do have several other pairs of mittens, but they are still packed away somewhere. Clearly the answer here was to try again to make a pair. (What do you mean, “Why don’t you just unpack already?” Who’s side are you on?)

I grabbed some Bernat Satin and went to it.

I started by using the same pattern of stitches I used on some coffee cup cozies I made last year:

ch 13
sc in second chain from hook, 11 more sc across, ch1, turn.
12 sc, back loop only, ch 1 turn (repeat this as many times as needed. I did 30, but I think that was a few too many)
hold the last row against the first row, and sc them together to form the cuff.

Next I sc around one end, doing on sc at the end of each row of the cuff, and joining. I figured this would be easier to work with.

I then lifted up 36 loops to start the Tunisian Knit Stitch part. To work Tunisian in the round you need a double-ended hook and two balls of yarn. The loops I lifted up were green, and I worked them off with red. Because I’m like that. ^_^

I kept trying it on as I went, so I could keep an eye out for the thumb placement. To leave a hole, I did 6 yo, and skipped 6 stitches, then kept on going. It was a bit tricky working those yo off, but I managed. It seemed to work ok, anyway.

Trying it out; I did this a lot while making this mitten!

And the back:

Once I passed the thumbhole, I kept going with the Tunisian Knit Stitch until I almost reached the tips of my fingers. I then did a series of decreases that I don’t really like, so I’m not going to do them that way next time. ^_^

I did a few more decreases once I felt it was long enough, then did a sort of drawstring gather that didn’t really work too well. I ended up “fixing” a lot of the problems it caused when I was weaving in the green end.

I went back to the thumbhole and worked it the same way as the rest of the mitten, just with fewer stitches. I picked up 6 sts each on the bottom and top of the hole, as well as an extra stitch on either side.

I was quite pleased to see how well the stitches blended in.

I didn’t quite make the thumb long enough for my liking (I was terribly excited that I was nearly finished. Also, I really need to get a shorter double-ended-hook if I’m going to keep making mittens this way; 14 inches is *way* too much for 6 or 7 stitches!)

I do like how I finished the tip of the thumb, though, and will have to try it for the tip of the fingers on the next one. I did a few decreases on the last round, then bound it off with slip stitches like you would when finishing any other Tunisian project. Then I used the long tail I left to weave through the slip stitches and pulled it closed like a drawstring. This worked much better!

The really fun part about this mitten?

It’s reversible!

A closer shot:

Things to do on the next one:

- don’t decrease on the hand part until a round or two from the end
- longer thumb
- some kind of stitch around the bottom of the cuff for a more finished look
- find a stitch for the top of the cuff that won’t leave little holes
- join the Navy

Almost finished! It just needs a few more rounds for the border.

I really wish I could get an accurate picture of the colour on this blanket. It’s something to see! I’ll try to take the finished picture outside and see if that helps.

I stopped at the store on the way home from work today and picked up some scissors that are not only awesomeness defined, but I think they’ll allow them on the plane in my carry-on, too.

“The children are right to laugh, these couldn’t cut butter.”

And the big news:

I finished something last night! I am now the proud owner of a double-thick short scarf. When I got home from work today I thought to myself, “What would be the best background for a totally black scarf picture? If only there was an abundance of whiteness that also represents the function of the item…” Stupid snow.

One finished project down, a few hundred left to go…

This green section is the point of no return. If I finish it off with three rows, then I’m stuck with that pattern. If I do 6 rows, I can do the math sequence suggested by Beth. It’s OCD vs. Geek! Who will win?

Who are we kidding? OCD wins every time. On the up side, it also make me have to make one in the math pattern. That’s just too cool to pass up! The other up side is that I get to plan it out and do it on purpose. Huzzah!

Naturally, I’m not only working on one project right now. The blanket is my work project. It gets worked on at lunch and maybe on the subway, if it’s not too crowded (right-o!).

My home project is a quick little scarf. You see, I have a scarf already. It’s a long scarf, and it’s quite pretty. But it’s a bit unwieldy sometimes. I’ve been in a short scarf mood lately, but without a short scarf.

I have a plan in mind for a really nifty scarf, but it’s going to take a while to execute, so what to do in the mean time?

Why, make a fast and easy short scarf to work in the mean time!

I wanted something that will match the hat that I’m going to make for myself, so Patons Melody on a Knifty Knitter loom it is! Well, scarves made on the looms with just a straight e-wrap stitch (my fastest stitch on the loom) tend to curl, and I didn’t want that. My solution: I’ll use the small blue loom and go all the way around. That way I have a scarf with double-thickness for extra warmth!

There goes the “fast” part of the equation! I’m not sure how my logic let me believe that a double-thickness scarf would work up fast, but there it is.

And here’s the scarf in progress!

I know it’s a bit of a departure from my usual “It’s dreary out, let’s go nuts with colour” attitude, but no worries… the hat will make up for it. ^_-