Pretty petal baby hat

14 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts, favorite things, knitting Tags: , , , , ,


I had a precious little ball of pink sparkly yarn that I thought might be enough for  a baby hat…but not quite. I was in a bit of denial- I cast-on and started knitting, thinking that lace would stretch it out and I would get most of it done… yeah. No. Rip out and start over, with a bit more pre-planning.

I’m a little obsessed with the sparkly yarn- I have a pair of socks for myself, a pair of socks for someone who doesn’t read my blog, so I can talk about them all I want. I made a pair of sparkly blue socks for Kate as well. I love this yarn. It’s just so subtly sparkly- it isn’t ugly Christmas sweater sparkly, it just has a thin filament of sparkle spun in. Sigh. It is from Knitpicks, if there happens to be a sparkly yarn-shaped hole in your life. I think the gray would be really classy…

Anyway, I had a golf-ball sized chunk of it left, and a great-niece on the way, and I thought, what better use for this perfect little… shoot, not enough.  I wasn’t in complete denial, as I went along I considered ways of making it work. Maybe making it deliberately little- just a beanie? Nah.  Maybe a rapid flat-topped decrease on top, like a pillbox. Nah. Then I thought about it backwards and inside out- what if we considered the pink lacy part to be a cuff, to folded up over a white background? that way the lace would be more defined, and there would be some adjustability in the ear coverage.

My favorite lace pattern is Old Shale, also called feather and fan. It is easy to memorize, and makes the cast-on edge scalloped and ruffly. I originally got the pattern from The Twisted Sister Sock Workbook (not affiliated with Dee Snyder), but it is a traditional pattern- no one really owns it.

If you are considering learning a different lace pattern for a shawl or something, and want to practice, this could work as a swatch, and you have a hat at the end of (can you tell I hate swatching?)

This pattern is adjustable, either by using bigger needles and thicker yarn (perhaps for a big sister?) or by adding repeats to the old shale pattern- each repeat is 11 stitches, which makes about 1 and 1/4 inches in the circumference of the hat.

Some people test really well on being able to visualize and rotate shapes inside their minds, seeing how puzzle pieces go together, spinning parts around in three dimensions.  At least one of my brothers is gifted at this.  I am not.

I had to concentrate really hard to figure out how the heck I would turn this around so that the pretty side of the lace would show through the holes in the lace of the folded up cuff part, but I wouldn’t have to construct the entire hat backwards…. I am sure the mental exercise was good for me.

Then I was sitting next to the hillbilly goldfish pond, enjoying the sunshine, and had a thought. What if I just turned it inside out, and knit in the other direction? Yeah. That works. There is kind of a hole from going the other way, but since I changed colors there, the hole can get filled in with the woven-in ends.

Gauge is not super important here- baby heads come in a wide range of sizes- this is for a baby due in December/January. I would make it bigger for babies born at different times of the year… with my gauge, using this yarn and these needles the hat is 16 inches around. Your mileage may vary.

Squeeee!

Knitpicks Glimmer sock yarn in carnation

Knitpicks Stroll sock yarn in bare

size 3, 16 inch circular needles

Old shale lace pattern- cast on a multiple of 11, join round, being careful not to twist.

round 1 and 2 knit

round 3 perl

round 4 knit two together 2x ,* yo k 4x, knit 2 together 4x*

Cast on 99 stitches in pink and work old shale pattern as written for 3 repeats. (Making the third row perl makes it so the edge does not roll.) Then continue without perling the 3rd row until the piece measures 3 inches from cast on edge- which will be scalloped. Or, if you have a tiny amount of contrast yarn, go until you run out of yarn, as I did.

Switch to white yarn. Turn the piece inside out, so that the wrong side faces you. You will have to go backwards over what you have knit. There will be a slight gap, but you have to weave in the ends if you change colors, so the gap will be filled.

In the next row, knit two together 3x spaced evenly, 96 stitches so that you decrease to 96. Knit stockinette 4 inches, and begin decreases. Place markers every 12 stitches-* knit to 2 stitches before marker*, and knit two together, 1 row plain*. You will hit a point when your circular needle is too long, either add another circular, or switch to double pointed needles. Repeat these two decrease rows until 8 stitches remain- break yarn and sew end through all remaining stitches, then weave in ends.

Wash in wool wash and block.

Start on a hat in big sister’s favorite color…

Two shades of green, and a leafy lace pattern…

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Funky or Fugly?

08 Jun 2012 9 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts, design, knitting Tags: , , ,


See, the pink fading into brown, and then the baby poop green? I just don’t know.

I’m making a baby blanket out of Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. I love this yarn– it is from Japan, and has lovely color gradations- I made a cowl and leg warmers from a colorway with copper and greens and blues. I am working on a scarf in a colorway with deep purples and teals.

This baby blanket makes me wonder…on the one hand, it has bright pink and turquise…fading into brown. Then on the other hand it has purple and indigo and green…and green…and another green…a green that can really only be described as “macrame green.” Or avocado green- some kind of green from the 70’s.

I’ve been working on it a while, and I go back and forth between thinking it’s super cute…and thinking it is ghastly.

There is a kindergartner whose brother takes a Tae Kwan Do class while my kids do, and Erin, the kindergartener, keeps track of my progress. She is very interested in the baby, and the process of the blanket. She has serious doubts about the color combo, though.  She’s polite, and she’ll say she likes the pink, but then she gets a crinkle in her forehead. I get a crinkle in my forehead, too.

The pattern is from Knitting Wrapsody and it has an interesting construction- it starts with a square, which is divided into quarters, then triangles are picked up along each edge, then more triangles are picked up along those edges, then a rectangular border. Because of the way the colors fade into each other, sometimes the stripes on the picked up edges… clash. I don’t know. every time I look at it, I change opinions. So, look at the pictures- funky or fugly?

Alice really likes it- you’d think I made it out of catnip.

Yes, my legs are warm. Why do you ask?

18 Feb 2012 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts, knitting Tags: , , , , ,


The item of clothing that I get the most compliments on (and this is everything I own, not just stuff I’ve knit) is a Clapotis scarf made with Noro Silk Garden yarn. It is safe to say, that if you have seen me between the months of October and April in the last 7 years, you have seen this scarf. I predict it will be the item my children fight over when I die (figure out how to insert link here)
I love it, and while I think the pattern is pretty, I know the yarn is what makes it. Silk garden is wool and silk and mohair, so it has warmth, and a sheen, and a halo. It is produced by a Japanese genius who blends colors into one another.
During Christmas break, I had an idea for a striped baby sweater, using Noro interspersed with black. Actually, I can’t say I had the idea, because I am pretty sure it came from Pinterest, which I can’t really say, because no ideas come from Pinterest. They all have different sources and just go to Pinterest to rub against each other. It’s like a high school dance.
So, I ordered some Silk Garden Sock, which adds nylon to the original formula, for durability, and is thinner, so it is a bit cheaper. When it came, I couldn’t see it being another sweater- it wanted to be leg warmers.
When I was in middle school, leg warmers became a mainstream fashion trend, rather than just a…hmmm…who does wear leg warmers, usually?…Anyway, my luckiest friends convinced their moms to buy them leg warmers in purple, and metallic, and rainbow. Mine were cream colored and cable knit, which ironically, is a style that I like now…My mom understood something, then.
However, when I saw my 100 gram skein of Noro, I knew that it’s destiny was to become leg warmers for me. Modern Leg Warmers! So I can wear them to yoga, and camping. Yes, camping!

Back when leg warmers were stylish, my brothers used to ask me, "are your legs warm? are your legs warm?"

This was an extremely generous ball of yarn, also- when I weighed it when I was mostly done with leg warmer #1, there were still 67 grams left, and even after the second one was finished, there was enough for a small cowl. I used black sock yarn, I think from Knitpicks,  left from another project to make ribbing at the top and bottom as a frame. It is thinner, and has a different gauge, so I used different needles. I also got a little bored, so I added a cable to make things interesting. The color gradations in Noro are hard to predict- if it is important you to have identical twins instead of fraternal, Noro might not be the yarn for you.

I mostly wear flip flops in the summer, so I can slip these on when we're camping, and not have to pack more shoes.

Bored Cable Leg Warmer Pattern

On size 3 needles, cast on 52 stitches in a solid contrast yarn.Knit in 2×2 rib for 3 inches- this becomes a cuff you can roll up so you can put your flipflops on, or roll down to cover your toes.

Swtch to Noro and size 5 needles. Knit stockinette until bored. Or 6 inches, whichever comes first.

On needle 1. knit 4, perl 2 knit 4 perl 2 knit 18 til end of the needle. every 6 rows, cable front.

Continue until it is a good fit for your leg, then switch back to the contrast color, do a 2×2 rib for 2 or 3 inches and bind off with super stretchy bind off.

A confession, if you have even read this far- here’s why I should write knitting patterns- people who are really looking for patterns don’t really want to see “knit in stockinette until bored” those are terrible directions. If you are looking for a serious pattern, I am sorry. But I am also lazy- it is hard to write serious patterns.

Knitting at the top 10 percent of my ability

30 Jan 2012 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts, design, learning Tags: ,


My Dad used to recommend skiing at the top 10 percent of your ability- his thought was that you wouldn’t improve if you just coasted along on the easy runs.
For the past several years, I have been skiing at probably the bottom 10 percent of my ability- teaching the kids to ski, then saying, “oopsy! time for hot chocolate!” or “brrrrr… lets go warm up!”

The knitting is finished, but the finishing isn't even started.

This past week or so I have been knitting at my highest difficulty level, though. It all started when I got a library book about the history of Bohus knitting, and kind of made up a yoked sweater pattern, based on a design from the book. Knitting it went smoothly enough ,I finished that in November. I put the sweater into a tote back next to my closet door because of what had to come next. steeking, which means stabilizing the stitches on either side of the center front, then cutting, thus turning a pullover into a cardigan. Scary.

Deep breaths, just snip, and it will be fine.

I committed this week to doing it, though, so I checked multiple internet sources, picked up button bands, and this morning, got out the brand new sewing scissors, and cut. Many sources recommend a glass of wine at this step, but seeing as how it was only 9:30, I decided against it.

The newly-knitted button bands will fold over the raw edge.

There will be a few more finishing steps, like sewing down the button bands and picking up and knitting the collar. I plan to park on the couch, watch some episodes of Downton Abbey. I hope to wear my new sweater this next week.

Fuzzy Purple Mittens

13 Jan 2012 4 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: , ,


It's so fuzzy!

January is for starting new things, right? Is that why I have started knitting a cat bed for the guest room, two pairs of lace socks, a pair of purple mittens, and a lace cowl?

The cowl and mittens are to match my new jacket (umm, is it new if I got it two years ago? yes, because my not-new jacket I got 11 years ago, and my old jacket was purchased in 1990) They are also kind-of my school colors- burgundy and silver. I am scheduled for parking lot duty soon, and I wanted some layers with a “be true to your school” kind of theme.
When I was planning the mittens, I wasn’t sure what yarn to use- I thought I would have to buy some, thinking, “oh, I don’t have any  purple, this must mean a trip to the yarn store.” Then the voice of reason said, “seriously? no purple yarn?” and I looked in my stash. Of course there was purple yarn.

There was a ball of solid purple mohair that I remember getting at the sheep festival a couple of years ago- no label anymore. I had started a blanket with it, but decided I didn’t like it. It has been sitting in a ziplock bag for 3 years. I also had some purple and grey mohair that I had gotten on sale, for the same blanket project. It was time to make something with them.
The mitten project is easy- look at http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall05/FEATmittens101.html for a quick tutorial- make a mini mitten, and you’ll learn everything you need to know. Knitting in the round, decreasing and grafting are the big skills. They go pretty quickly- I was able to make these during a couple of tae kwon do classes and a night of TV. If you are nervous about moving on from scarves or blankets, mittens are a good next move- useful, and people lose them enough that it makes sense to make them. I know I have lost multiple pairs of mittens, in a way that I don’t lose socks or hats. Or sweaters… I hardly ever lose sweaters…

 

March 17 edited to add: Yes, I lost one, about a month after I made them. Sigh.  I weighed the surviving mitten, and weighed the yarn I had left, and am working on another one (yes, I looked for it!) I wouldn’t have bothered, except they are predicting snow for Monday.

You can’t tell the difference from a galloping horse

22 Oct 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


I’ve been agonizing about this blue scarf (agonizing for me, which entails mentioning it once or twice, but thinking about it all the time) and I have finally decided to just suck it up, finish it, and wear the thing. What made me turn the corner was a friend posted a super cool video on Facebook, with demos of 25 ways to wear a scarf. I was like, man, I wish I had a sca….wait, I do.

The pattern is "Madeira" from Knitting in the Sun, in Gloss, a laceweight wool / silk blend from knitpicks, in Cyan.

My mom always tells stories about her grandmother, who worked for a milliner before she was married, and would make the most creative hats, but that same carefree style didn’t work for making clothes.

Actually, DH will tell you that this is not really Cyan. He's in the business, he knows.

On a hat, you want the flower placed artlessly, casually, as if it just grew there, right on your hat. If you use that same casual artlessness on the side seam of a skirt, you have a problem. My mom always quotes my great-grandmother as saying “well, you can’t tell the difference from a galloping horse!” and declaring that whatever sloppiness in her clothing was just not that big a deal.

I never really understood if I was supposed to be on the horse, or the person looking at me was on a horse…or maybe the horse will be wearing my scarf. That’s a nice image. Anyway, I will artfully twist and knot the scarf I made, and declare that it is not that big a deal. In fact, it is really pretty.

Bear Sweaters

12 Oct 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: , , ,


My mom likes to take the grand-kids to lunch and shopping for birthdays. She has more fun doing this than shopping alone for something that might not be just right. The kids look forward to it, too.  She was in town recently, and took the Girl out for Chinese food and a motorized hamster habitat. I mean, a habitat for a motorized hamster. Then she took my nephew to McDonald’s and Build a Bear Workshop.

I hate going to Build a Bear, but I appreciate it as a distributor of magic.  I’ve recently learned a definition of magic as the “change of consciousness in accordance with will.”  When I heard that definition,  Build-A-Bear jumped into my mind. They help change the consciousness of their core customer base. Purchasing a bear (or monkey,which is what my nephew picked) involves a ritual of wish making and swearing fidelity and secret sharing that helps hold a child back in childhood. Some days it seems like the Girl has the pedal down to the floor trying to be a teenager. She’s  not wise beyond her years, because she doesn’t have the wisdom, but she’s too smart for her own good sometimes.  Somehow, a pink bear, named Pinky ,naturally, slows her down a little.

In addition to being an outpost of magical thinking, Build a Bear is also a money factory- My mom was appalled, “$3.50 for a pair of underwear, you can get a six pack of underwear at Walmart for 5.99!”

But this underwear has tail-holes…

World, meet Eliabeth. Elizabeth, this is the world. Sorry, no underwear...

It gives me an excuse to knit. I have made several bear sweaters, and they are pretty quick and easy. My nephew picked a brown monkey which he named Elizabeth, and when my mom told me about it, I cast on a sweater immediately.   Elizabeth’s monkey sweater may be a touch tight- I probably should have done a gauge swatch, but I hate to do them, especially when the sweater itself is so small.

I had leftover sock yarn- I don’t know exact yardage, but less than a full skein- there was some unrolling and starting in strange places on the ball to get the stripes to line up- if you use a solid color, you can just go straight. Certainly less that 200 yards of yarn, maybe around 100?

This construction method works for any size sweater, I have made them for myself, the kids, babies. I learned it from “Knitting without Tears” http://www.amazon.com/Knitting-Without-Tears-Easy—Follow/dp/0684135051/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318000347&sr=1-1   I checked it out from my local library.(also, I get no money if you follow the link- Amazon won’t do business with Colorado bloggers because of our tax laws)

Once you understand the technique for bears or dolls, you can scale it up.  If you have made hats, you can do this- the only tricky part is grafting the armpits, and you can find Youtube videos that show grafting. Just search knitting grafting, by the way, if you look for grafting armpits, you find weird stuff about hair transplants…

Percentage System Bear Sweater

Figure out the bear’s chest size- 16″ is pretty common. Don’t forget a little ease- extra space for the poor monkey to breathe, and dance, and move in.

Figure out the stitches per inch on the yarn you have and the needles you want to use. I was using fingering weight, and size 5’s, which gives me a gauge of about 3.75 stitches per inch.  I cast on 60, which I thought would be perfect, but it’s a touch tight. Oh well. With bigger needles and thicker yarn, 60 would probably be perfect.

I did about 1/2 inch of 2×2 ribbing. I changed to stockinette when the color changed, and increased 6 stitches evenly around.

Knit up the body about 4 inches.

Cast on 30 stitches for one sleeve- use two circulars  or double pointeds  I like the circulars better, but I couldn’t find any size fives available, so I used the doubles. Do the ribbing to stockinette switch the same way as the body, increasing by 10% when you get done with ribbing. I knit the sleeve until it looked about the right length and also matched up with the color changes on the body- it would have bugged me if the stripes had been way off. Did second sleeve same way.

Here’s the tricky part- put the sleeves and body on the same needle, with waste yarn on the 6 armpit stitches. So here’s how it looks- 28 arm stitches, 27 front of the body stitches, 28 arm stitches then 27 back stitches. Knit 2 rows, then at each place where the sleeves meet the body decrease 2 by knitting two together, then knitting 1, then knitting another two together. Do this every other row until you have decreased to 40% of the original body. Actually, stuffed animal heads are crazy big- I don’t think I did 40% on this one. I asked Pinky for help and tried it on her when it felt like it would be about right. Then I forgot to count, and I have already given the sweater away.

My nephew loved it, and Elizabeth seemed to like it, too. She’s very verbal for a stuffed monkey.

"OOH OOH! AAH AAAH!" that means she likes it.

The armpits for this are pretty tricky, but not impossible- they take grafting, which to me is like magic, (except not according to the above definition) because you are using a sewing needle to create a row of knit stitches. Take the stitches off the waste yarn and put them back on two needles. Thread the tail of yarn onto a large-eyed tapestry needle. Take a deep breath. Hold the knitting needles parallel in one hand. Then insert the needle knitwise into the needle in front, drop it off the knitting needle, and insert the sewing needle purlwise into the next stitch, but don’t drop it off. Then insert the needle purlwise into the first stitch on the back needle,  drop it off, and insert it knitwise into the next stitch. Repeat this until all six are off the needles. Check out Youtube- it is probably easier to see it than read it.  You can stitch up the roughly triangular holes that form at either end while you weave in the ends of the yarn. This same technique can be used for sock toes. I also used it for the sucky shawl I made but still haven’t figured out what to do about.

Process Sucks, Sometimes

17 Sep 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


I am obsessed with this shade of blue, aren't I?

I have posted here about cute knits and quilts, and things that came out just the way I wanted, and some things that came out surprisingly better than expected. Not today.
Back in May, I started a shawl, using a pattern from “Knitting in the Sun” The idea is, you knit one lacy end, then knit toward the middle, then knit another lacy end, knit to the middle, then graft them together.
The pattern was a stretch for me, the lace pattern was pretty complicated, but there was a nice boring part in the middle that I could do while watching TV. I figured I could get it done by the middle of June or so, since I had a fancy wedding to go to, where a bright lacy shawl would be a great accessory.
Yeah. So, process.
The first lace end was sloppy, I had to rip back a few times. I found I could not talk or even listen to conversations when I worked on it- I could only work on it during the times when the kids were out of the house and the TV was off. This slowed down my production. The second lace end was better, but not by much. There are sloppy parts, but not bad enough to rip back, so the sloppiness is forever enshrined in yarn.
So the middle, which was supposed to be a slow cruise turned into a slog. June came and went, and I found a different accessory for the wedding (Pashmina to the rescue!)
I want to emphasize that there is nothing wrong with the pattern itself-just my knitting skills. I don’t do lace very well, and a pattern where I have to memorize a different set of numbers for each row just doesn’t work for me.

I would do few rows, then put it away again in its ziplock bag.With no deadline, there was no push to finish. Somewhere along the way I lost count of stitches, then discovered the error and got back on track, so the rows of eyelets are crooked, like a goat path.

Or how I imagine a goat path might be, if it were knitted into a shawl, in Cyan colored wool and silk.
In getting back on track, I added stitches, so one side is 6 stitches wider than the other, where they are supposed to meet in the middle. I found this out, not by counting, that would be too easy.

You can see where the graft, which is supposed to be invisible, is, well, visible, and where I am half a dozen stitches off.

I found this out by actually grafting them together, a process so fraught with stress, that when I do it on the toes of socks, I insist on absolute silence from my children. It took me about half n hour, and when I got to the end, and realized I had extra stitches and no way I could think of to fix them, I nearly cried. I balled the shawl up and shoved it in the ziplock bag.
I used to work at a daycare center, and one of our mantras was “Process, not product.” meaning we shouldn’t push the kids to fingerpaint masterpieces, but that we should trust that the process of scribbling, or cutting and pasting, was more valuable than the artwork they made. The trouble with this shawl is that it was 100% product oriented from the beginning- I wanted a bright blue shawl, rather than I wanted to make bright blue shawl…
I still haven’t decided what to do- I have a little yarn left, so I could go backwards, even out the stitches, rejoin. If I wear it as a scarf, under the collar of my black coat, the sloppy join wouldn’t show a whole lot.

Here is the challenge of a blog- and maybe life. Not everything I do is perfect. I get frozen by perfectionism from time to time, not wanting to take a risk because everyone will find out what a fraud I am (fraud, not frog.)But if I never take a risk, I’ll never get better. But do I always have to be getting better? What’s wrong with a little stagnation going into fall?

So anyway, I’m not sure how to fix this disaster, or if I even want to at this point. I really love the color, and the feel of the yarn, but I can’t face working on it right now. Time for another sock, maybe. What are your thoughts?

Handmade Athletic Socks

06 Sep 2011 4 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


They are clean now, but you know that these socks will spend half their lives in a wad on the floor anyway.

I mentioned a while ago that the Boy had asked for white hand-knit socks. I couldn’t resist asking him if he minded adding some stripes. My brothers used to wear these striped athletic socks when we were kids. My mom usually tried to color code, one brother got red stripes and the other got blue. The Boy requested red and blue stripes, so he can channel 2 uncles.
If you are interested in learning to make socks, I have to recommend ” Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles” by Cat Bhordi.http://www.amazon.com/Socks-Soar-Two-Circular-Needles/dp/0970886950/ref=pd_sim_b_3 It is a super helpful explanation of how to construct socks. It isn’t a beginning knitting book, but if you know how to make scarves and hats, and are ready for the next step, this is a great place to start. I consider her basic ribbed sock to be the perfect sock- the ribbing helps it fit perfectly around the instep and stay up on the ankle. It is also easy to memorize, so you don’t need to bring an instruction book with you everywhere you go.
That sounds weird- I consider socks to be the ultimate portable project, and I knit riding in the car, waiting for food in a restaurant, or in the waiting room at the eye doctor. Maybe I’m a little obsessed.

Many athletic socks are just tubes, but I chose to put a turned heel on these, because they are more comfortable that way. The ribbing makes them very elastic, so they are a good fit now, as he grows they will stretch around.  I made the toe a different color so I can take it off and knit a longer foot at some point in the future. Boys grow. Girls do, too, you know. I haven’t adjusted a sock yet, but it is much easier to knit an inch of length onto a sock than to make a whole new one.  Time invested in these things is an important consideration.

My day job has started back up again, and I’ve been running around back and forth to my school functions, and kid school functions, and the blogging has gone to the back burner.  It isn’t for lack of ideas, just time. And camera batteries… Look for tomato posts, and jam posts, and posts about the theory and practice of getting rid of foundation plantings, coming to a device near you!

Unventing Slippers

17 Mar 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


The Yarn Harlot referred to thrummed mittens a couple of weeks ago, and I had no idea what they were. Google to the rescue- it is a technique where a piece of unspun wool is tucked into stitches to make the inside of mittens, or anything, extra warm and fluffy. It was pioneered in Labrador, where they need the warmth, apparently.

The loop of fleece that peeks through adds warmth and cushion.

I wondered about slippers- I had made a pair for myself, and a still-unfinished pair for the girl, using the French Press pattern  http://frenchpressknits.blogspot.com/2009/10/happy-slipper-day.html  These are knit in pieces, sewn together then felted. Felting is when you take wool items and wash them- the moisture, heat and agitation of the washing machine makes the fibers grab on to each other. It shrinks by around 25 percent, usually, but it is an inexact science. The pattern is well written, but I was disappointed in the ones I made. My French Press slippers are comfy, and they fit, but they are kind of lumpish. The girl’s came out too wide, and I will eventually cut them, and re-sew them. My mind rebels at it- because even after cutting them up, it is probable that they will look lumpish.
So my idea with the thrummed slippers was to have them basically be a sock pattern that fit me, then as I wore them, the um, moisture and heat and agitation from my feet themselves, would felt the fleece inside.
My first attempt was too big- a hobbit might like them, but ,well…I ripped it out, carefully saving the bits of twisted wool in a ziplock, and invented a slipper pattern that is very ballet shoe-like. I started at the toe, and thought, what would happen if you went back and forth on the sole? for every row I did on the toe, I would do 3 on the sole. I tried it, and it worked pretty well. Then I had to duplicate it on slipper number 2.
Elizabeth Zimmerman, patron saint of knitting, invented the term “Unventing” for when you create a way of doing something, then find out later that someone else had created it before you. I am sure someone else has designed this pattern, and maybe better than this, but I am really pleased and proud with how these have come out.

The thrums inside my pair have begun to felt. They work really well as a liner to my Crocs.

This also forces me to find out how to make a perma link, or something, so I can offer this on the sidebar as a free pattern. Before I can do that, though, it needs a name- cute, catchy, memorable, not nasty… please offer any suggestions in the comments.

The girl also wants a pair- chinese red yarn, neon blue thrums.

Can’t resist a special order…making another pair helps get the pattern dialed in,also. Writing knitting patterns is surprisingly hard.

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