NoWill

Step one: discover that the designer of Pocket Ted has other tricks up their sleeve!

Step two: fold a pipe cleaner/chenille stick into the properly sized armature:
 

 Step three: knit a cover for the armature, stitch a friendly face, cover the armature and seam:

Step four: make him friends:

Pattern: Frankie Brown's Bendy Bodies

Yarn: Patons UK Diploma Gold DK

Needles: 3.00 mm dpns

Knitting from Stash

A co-worker gave me a bag of yarn she'd found when de-cluttering her house, "from when the kids did crafts." Since yarn does not equal clutter in my universe, I was happy to take it off her hands, despite the fact that none of it was yarn I would have bought for myself. Yarn is always useful.


The novelty yarn gave me pause, particularly in partial skeins. I challenged myself to find something to make from the light green eyelash yarn, and came up with a miniature boa for my young niece. It photographs badly, but I think she will like it.

Yarn: a partial skein of Patons Twister (discontinued) in Lime
Needles: Size 15 straight needles
Pattern: Cast on 8 stitches and knit every row until just enough yarn to bind off

~~~~~

That led me to pull a project out of the UFO bin and finish it for my nephew. Made from leftovers from Saige, it was much more fun to knit than to stuff.

 

Yarn: Berroco Sox in Huddersfield (discontinued color), 1/3 of skein

Needles: 2.5 mm double-pointed

Pattern: Celestine Sox

~~~~~

To my utter amazement, I still had enough of that skein to make myself a pair of ankle socks. Despite their bright colors, all of which lie outside my normal palette, I love them dearly. Possibly this has something to do with wearing them to work on a day when the temperature was in the single digits, and having my feet stay warm. But more likely it's because I was able to make them match without even trying hard. I just made my standard toe-up, fits-me sock until I could see that the colorway was finally going to repeat, bound off and started the second sock where the repeat started. The photo is wonky, they are really the same length.


Yarn: same as above, 2/3 of skein

 Needles: 2.5 mm double-pointed

 Pattern: Figure-8 cast-on of 24 stitches, 12 per needle; increase every other row to 52 stitches; 52 rounds of stockinette later begin gusset increases using Wendy Johnson’s Heel Template for a Gusset Heel Sock; knit 13 rounds; make k2, p2 ribbing until the color pattern repeat is coming up; use Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy bind-off.

Things you do for the fun of it

I used to have a co-worker whose favorite expression was about doing things for "the sheer, glorious hell of it." Knitting is often like that. I gave up on embroidery decades ago because there was only so much you could do with the finished product besides stare at in admiration. Knitting is so practical. Knitting is so useful.

But, on occasion, knitting is for the sheer, glorious hell of it.

When JLM (my co-worker for whom no one had ever knit anything, the one I taught to knit, who brings me yarn from faraway places) offered me the leftovers from her experiment knitting with Japanese metal yarn, I took her up on it. I was just going to knit the equivalent of a gauge swatch, as I did with some silk hankies she let me try, but there was just enough yardage to tickle my creative fancy.

So I made a chain mail vest for the newest baby in the family.

And you really know all you'll ever need to about my family when I tell you that no one thought this was other than a fantastic idea.

 Yarn:  Habu Textiles A-177 Super Fine Merino
 Habu Textiles A-20 silk-wrapped stainless steel

Pattern: no idea after all this time; some top-down raglan cardigan, just bound off the sleeves right where they split off, continued on with just the metal after the wool ran out, and sewed it up the front making sure there was enough room for the typical baby mega-head. 

Shattered Silk

[If you're here for the Barbara Michaels novel of the same name, while I'm a big fan, this is not what I'm posting about.]

If you happen to have inherited, as I have, some lovely old lamps, and if their shades have not stood the test of time as well as the rest of them (shattering, in fact, as only silk can), you have four choices:

• you can buy what passes for a lampshade today, which is stiff and seems to be made of paper;
• you can acquire both the knowledge and the materials to make your own from Mr. Internet (but sadly, we can't download skill - yet);
• you can pay someone a slightly exorbitant amount to custom make a shade for your lamp (but even then, the shade that is the "right" size isn't always in the repertoire of modern lampshade makers); or
• you can mail your shade off, in all its tatters, to some lovely people in upstate New York, who after some consultation with you, will remake it using the original frame and new fabric, and ship it back to you, for a very reasonable amount given the awesomeness of their skills.

My new/old lampshade was waiting for me when I got home from work today, and was immediately re-attached to my grandparents' lamp (okay, I guess it's my lamp, but I don't think I'll ever think of it that way). I am SO happy with it!

Back to knitting:

Way back when I posted about my first pair of Olivers, but never went back and finished the story - I bought another skein, re-knit the foot-length, and they have been my husband's favorite socks ever since:

 Recently I made him a second pair - same pattern, same yarn, different color:

Pattern: Olivers
Yarn: Patons Kroy Sock FX, 3 skeins per pair,in Camo and Cadet
No mods. These socks look a little weird when empty, but fit like a dream!

And of course, there was just enough left over for a tiny nephew's cold toes:

Fortuitous mistakes

I ordered the Wrong Yarn a few months back. I thought the sock pattern I had fallen in love with called for sport yarn, so I bought a bunch of gorgeous colors (2 skeins each) of Comfy Sport (cotton) from Knitpicks. I was totally drawn in by the little "goodbye" flags telling me a color - a beautiful, mouth-watering color - was being discontinued.

Turns out, the sock pattern called for fingering weight after all.  Figuring out what to do with a mere 100 grams per color was a challenge that has been at least partially dealt with by whipping up a little red vest for my nephew, Mr. Dimples

I take really awful pictures lately, but here's more or less what it looks like:

  

Now I need to get it in the mail quick, before he outgrows it!