Cold Sheep and Stash Update - August

 

 

Wow, the summer has flown by me this year!  It's hard to believe it's the end of August and the weather is already cooler.  It wasn't cool on the day I modeled the above shawlettes though; it was muggy and hot!  It made for a speedy 5 minute photo shoot before "the boys" (my husband and son) went to play some tennis at our park across the street.  My son Sam was trying to distract me while Dan was snapping pics, but I think the photos came out alright despite Sam's best efforts.   The first shawlette (not quite a scarf but not big enough to be a true shawl) was a kit that I won from Luna Grey Fiber Arts.  Yes, I won something!  And a wonderful something at that!  I was so excited to win the lovely skein of sport weight yarn  from Luna Grey along with the White Dwarf pattern by Amy Miller.  What  do you think?  The color is similar to one in the Pendulum shawl (also designed by Amy Miller) I finished last month, but being a solid color I'm sure I'll get more wear out of it.  It's asymmetrical which I'm not usually drawn to, but I'm quite pleased with the result.  The second shawlette is a pattern by Ysolda Teague called Marin done in Three Irish Girls Kells Sport yarn in their Solar Flare colorway.  I loved this pattern with it's scalloped edge and center triangle (achieved with short rows), but was pretty nervous while knitting it that it was not going to turn out right.  When I did finish it was small, very small, hardly enough length to wrap around my neck.  But once it took a bath and was stretched and pinned out to dry it shaped right up to my expectations.  While not looking too happy in the picture, I am thrilled with the end product and know I will wear it lots this Fall and Winter.  Though, safe to say I won't be knitting many shawls/shawlettes in the future as my drawer is now quite full with wonderful choices of what to wear.

August is also the month of my son's birthday, so even though I had hopes of completing more projects it wasn't meant to be.  And when you can't finish a project what should you do?  Well knitter logic says "Start more projects!"  Crazy, I know, but that's just what I did.  First up is yet another pair of Taylor's Orange Toe Up Socks, and this time I actually did use a different color for the toe, heel and cuff.  The blue is some Yarn Love sport weight yarn that I over dyed with indigo (I guess you could say I didn't just "love" it - haha.  Sorry I couldn't resist,) while the orange is leftovers from Marin.  They are going along fine, but I'm a little bored so...

Yes, I started another project.  This pattern is a free one from Rowan and it needs concentration which is nice when your other project is simple but boring.  I used more yarn from my indigo dyed yarn stash (Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool which is a bulky weight) for this project along with some yarn I did buy (I know I am so failing at this Cold Sheep thing) from  Knit Picks called "Aloft" which is a lace weight mohair silk blend.  The Aloft really is the key to making this a soft fluffy sweater and is a MUCH cheaper version to buy than the recommended Rowan's Kidsilk.  What do you think about buying yarn to use yarn I already have - is it a good thing?  My team says Yes!

Last up, is what is going to be a very long term project (think years here) - a Sock Yarn Blanket.  Yup, you heard me right I am going to knit a blanket out of thin sock yarn on teeny tiny needles.  To give you an idea each of those squares is a mere 2 inches in diameter.  Uh huh, it's going to take an awful lot of squares to make even a throw sized blanket.  The idea behind the pattern is to use up leftover sock yarn which is a great idea for me as I always have left over sock yarn sitting around looking at me wondering why I don't knit with it (well maybe not that last bit.)  And, if you've read any of my posts before you know I love, love, love to use up every bit of yarn.  I adore scrappy projects, but I also adore balance of color, so get ready, yes, I bought a couple of skeins of sock yarn in oranges to balance out all the blue sock yarn I will be using.  Again, it's buying yarn to use yarn I already have, which is a bit of a slippery slope I'm finding out.  

Well, my going Cold Sheep lasted a whole 50 days before being reset yet again and is now standing at a mere 13 days.  Oddly enough, I think I'll make it through to the holidays without buying anything else as it's the busy season for my knitted toy business Simply Playing plus I already have all the yarn I need for my holiday gifts. Hmm...this was yet another long post so I think I'll try for a least two posts next month.  A girl can dream can't she?

Joining in with Linda for Creative Friday and Tami for WIP Wednesdays (but on a Friday)

Easy Recycled Gift Bag

I was sorting through our many photos, as tonight is my monthly Scrapbooking Night Out, and came across these two pictures which I thought I'd share with you all.  The photos aren't fabulous, but the idea I believe is one worth sharing.

 

We were invited to a 1st birthday party for a daughter of a high school friend and then promptly forgot about the party until the morning of.  We needed to come up with a gift and fast.  Luckily, I had a gnome doll already knit up and Sam chose one of his own books, Peter in Blueberry Land by Elsa Beskow, to give to baby Erica.  Now, all that we needed was to wrap it up, but  there was our true problem.  We don't use gift wrap.  I usually make a wrapping cloth or bag to give along with the gift, but all I had on hand was Christmas themed.  I didn't have any fabric, but I did have some old jeans that I had been using to patch the knees on Sam's pants (really all his pants knees blew out at once and I sewed 9 pairs in 3 days - whew!)  It occurred to me that I could just seam up the bottom of a pant leg and would have an instant gift bag.  So, I did just that and then finger knit some bulky weight yarn (on the car ride over to their house) to tie it closed.  I was so pleased I cannot tell you!  Now, we could have just gone out and purchased a gift bag and tissue, but it really goes against our principles on waste.  This bag was reusable and best of all recycled too!  If you have any old jeans on hand I recommend you give it a try.

Joining in with Linda for Creative Friday on a Saturday!  

WIP Wednesday - I-Cord Rug

Do you remember this post on what I do with my yarn scraps?  Well, this project has been on hiatus for a while but now I'm back at it.  My intention is to make a rug out of felted I-cords made from all my scrap wool yarn.  All my super wash wool and cotton yarn scraps go to my son Sam for his creations.  Lately, he's making Popsicle stick "God's Eyes" as well as knitting bean bags. I just hate wasting such beautiful yarn you know?  But back to the rug.  Here are a few photographs of my 29 1/2 yards long I-cord wrapped up into a rug shape before felting.

 

 This is the shape I'm going for only a few feet bigger.  Yes, this will be a long term project.

 

 Here's a close up of all the pretty yarns.  I did a 5 stitch I-cord.

Now, I washed the yarn cord in my washing machine with soap (not detergent) and hot water agitating it for 30 minutes then I let it finish the full cycle. Well, it came out of the washer a tangled felted mess!  Ack!  I sat down and untangled it and noticed it felted rather erratically.  Where it was tightly tangled it did not felt well and where it was loose it felted just right.  Should I cry now?  All that time and effort and it looks a wreck.  I could have thrown it back in the washer again, but instead I decided to braid it hoping to even out the thicknesses and here is the result:

 Sorry for the fuzzy pics it's a very gray day today.  It measures about 15 inches in diameter.

 The braiding also evens out the colors giving them a more muted effect.

 I'm relived now that it isn't a total loss, just a different look.  Hopefully I can find a book at the library on how to sew braided rugs together.  Have any of you done that and if so do you have any tips?  But, in the meantime it's back to I-cord knitting my scraps.  60 more yards of cord should make a decent sized throw rug for besides a bed or in front of the kitchen sink.  I'll keep you posted!

What do you do with your yarn leftovers?

Venturing in the Realm of Footwear

Fancy title huh?  Yes, I am venturing into the realm of footwear via felted slippers.  Slippers are required in my son's kindergarten classroom as the children leave their shoes and boots outside the classroom door to keep their carpet clean.  And, since I LOVE to knit I decided to make his slippers myself.  I used this awesome pattern by Fiber Trends simply called Children's Felt Clogs (there is an adult version too) in which you first knit the slippers and then felt them in your washing machine.  It's a very easy to follow pattern, but lots of counting is involved so I worked on them after my son was asleep in order to concentrate.

My son picked out the yarn from his school's store where I volunteer two afternoons a week:  Lamb's Pride worsted weight wool yarn in bright orange.  While I was knitting the slippers I realized I didn't have enough yarn to make both of the outer soles and being the weekend I wouldn't be able to purchase any more yarn until Monday when school was open.  So, I decided to make a bold decision and frog (knitter's lingo for rip apart) a sweater of mine that I had knit with Lamb's Pride yarn and reuse it for Sam's slippers.  Strange decision to make, but it wasn't a very practical sweater and I'm trying to pare down my belongings in a BIG way (more on that in a later post.)  That yarn was blue which complemented the orange beautifully.

Now the issue was what to do with small bit of orange and a large amount of blue yarn I had left over after finishing Sam's slippers.  See, it just isn't an option to let them lay around waiting for a future project as I also LOVE to use up every little scrap of yarn from my current project, before moving on to the next one.  It's a just a weird little quirk of mine.  Then I had the idea, seriously it just popped into my head, to make some smaller pairs of slippers and sell them in my shop.  I have no idea if they will sell well, but I thought I'd give it a try since it fits into the Waldorf philosophy that also inspires my toys.   Below is a photo on how they turned out.

 

My son wanted his trimmed of all the fuzzy mohair, but I left these fuzzy as I think it looks so cute.  Have you ever noticed simply shrinking items makes them cute?  Well, they are now for sale in my shop soon to be followed by many other blue pairs.  Now I'm eying a pink sweater I don't wear so much  maybe pink slippers are in order?

What To Do With Felt Scraps?

Hello! It's been a while since I'd posted so I just thought some sort of greeting was in order. Now that that's done on to my new post.

I hate to throw away anything in our garbage unless I absolutely have to, so we compost, donate and recycle as much as we can. But, as you can imagine there are many things that do not fit into one of these categories. And, being a person who sews, knits, stitches, scrapbooks etc. I seem to accumulate large quantities of material waste. With larger amounts of yarn I came up with the following use you can read about in this post (it's gotten much longer since I posted) but the tiny felt and yarn bits have up until now been sitting around in ziploc bags hoping a future use would arise.


That use came to me when I was making the bed the other day. Our pillows have flattened to the thickness of pancakes. I want to replace them with wool pillows (we have one which I adore), but don't have the money. So, we have just been living with them as is bunching them up as best we can. Then I thought I'd make a wool pillow instead! Yes, I took out the pancake pillow from it's protective cover and filled it with years of amassed tiny, tiny felt and yarn scraps. Figuring they were all wool and naturally antibacterial so why not just try it and see.


Well the results have been good and we are now fighting over who gets the scrap pillow. I filled it about 3/4 full (loosely not packed) and it has the consistency of a down pillow but more firm. I highly recommend it to any of you out there with the same issue.


Now, all I need is a use for all my small fabric pieces and scrap booking waste. Any ideas?