Subheading

Showin' some love to the sheer awesomeness of homemade gifts



Friday, April 15, 2011

FO Friday - an Amazing matching set

Yay - I have a finished object to share!
I finally finished the Amazing mitts, from the Semplice Mitts pattern by Knitpicks.  They turned out really well.  They are soft and warm, and without anything too fancy to distract from the color changes in the yarn.  The pattern was pretty simple, except for the ambiguous directions on where to place the stitch markers for the thumb increases.  I hope the recipient enjoys them.

And here is the matching set, along with the convertible neck warmer.

So overall the pattern + yarn combo was a success - the patterns were both pretty mindless, and the color changes in the yarn kept it interesting enough to complete.

Check out the rest of the Friday FOs over at Tami's Amis!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Shrink Film ....Success?

Refusing to be beaten by the shrinky dink film, I gave it another try.  The problem I had with the first attempt was that the film curled up on itself and welded together that way while it was still in the oven.  A tip I read somewhere was to place a sheet of vellum on top of the film while it was in the oven, and that was the magic trick that made it work.

So I started by drawing out a name, cutting it out, and adding a hole punched at the top to attach it to a keychain or zipper.

Next I let my son color in the letters - we used Prismacolor markers, and the markers on the film are pretty messy. 




Since my son loves anything Spider-Man-esque, I took the thin pen side of the markers and added in little spiders and webs into the red letters:

Onto a sheet of vellum it goes.  This was an 8 1/2"x11" sheet, for an idea of the before size.
With another sheet of vellum on top to keep the film flat.  Sorry for the printing - this was scrap vellum I salvaged from some mail, thinking vellum is a terrible thing to waste.
And... whadya know?  It shrunk down and didn't end up in a hot little curled mess!

You can even see the little spiders and webs in the red letters, which is really neat.

The finished size is about 3" tall, so it probably shrunk down about 50%. 

There was a little bit of curling even as the film cooled, and I'm not really sure how to keep that from happening.  The black marker looks a little caked on, as you can see on the "e" above, but touching it, it does not actually feel flaky.
This stuff is a lot of fun to play with.  My son is so excited to have his name that he helped make, he even carried it to bed with him.  All kinds of ideas are swirling in my head for the next shrinky project.


Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Knitting, Crochet, and Swatching! Another WIP Wednesday

Yup, that's right.  Swatching!  It used to seem like a waste of time, but as I've been knitting more involved projects, it just seems worth the effort.  So in between other already in progress projects, I started a stockinette swatch for the Myrtle cardigan.

The swatch is from a recycled Talbot's sweater in a wool/cotton blend.  (For a pretty nifty tutorial on stashing on the cheap by recycling sweaters, check out this site.)

I followed some advice in a recycled yarn group on Ravelry, where the more seasoned recyclers suggested not bothering to straighten the yarn before knitting with it.  So I washed the sweater, unraveled it into balls, and knit straight from the balls.  The yarn, at this point, is pretty kinky and the swatch stitches are a bit sloppy.
However the Myrtle pattern calls for larger needles and a lacy pattern that will require aggressive blocking.  So I'm reserving judgment on the kinky yarn until I tackle the lace swatch and *double gasp* block the swatch.  The yarn may very well straighten out with blocking, so we'll see.  *Fingers crossed*

And much overdue is a birthday owl:


It looks like a bowl at this point, but the top two stripes already have some decreases for the neck area.  For some reason my crochet rounds never line up, are they supposed to be this far off?...

Finally, the Amazing mitts are excruciatingly close to being finished.  Just a thumb and a half to knit and some ends to weave in!

Here's the rest of the WIP Wednesday posts!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Rub a Dub Dub - Hand Washing Knit Sweaters

I hate to admit it, but I can be pretty lazy about hand washing knits.  It's such a pain to fill the bath tub soak the knits, and then have to gently wring out  the water without causing too much agitation.  But then as I was gathering up some baby gear to clear out of the house, I re-thought chucking the old non-contoured baby tub.  It's perfect for soaking knits!


It fits two adult sweaters pretty comfortably.
It also eliminates some of the headache of wringing out the water - there's a plug at one end that lets a good amount of the water drain with no agitation at all.  What water remains can be gently squished out and then the knits are ready for blocking and drying.