these beautiful pond lillies are in bloom this week in our garden.. i think they must be for you. they are such a wonderful color and they only bloom at night (hey you were a midnight baby!)
here is your little gift.
i’ll give you my attempt at a tutorial of what essentially was inspired by a gift from my leigh. it is my treasured knitting needle case.
supplies:
1) cut 1 piece each of contrasting fabric 20 by 10in for the lining and outer piece.
3) fold the top of the inner pocket fabric piece one inch downwards towards the wrong side of the fabric. top stitch at the fold.
4) pin the wrong side of the pocket to the right side of the inner lining where bottom pieces meet. turn. working on the wrong side of the inner lining mark ¾ spacings from end to end-starting ½ in from left side and ending 1/2 inch from right side.
ollowing markings stitch from bottom to the pocket top. (twenty four mini pockets)
ngle. turn. iron and top stitch around whole piece to finish. miss opal has always been gender challenged. since we've had her we make it a point to buy her pink accessories (collar, lead etc).
she does not know she looks the least bit masculine nor does she know that she is really very overweight.
both became obstacles for me when i decided to knit her a sweater. of course i went out and bought beautiful bright pink wool. i picked my pattern- this simple lion brand “need for tweed” knit dog sweater.
besides the model is a boston too.
here is where the problems begin. the sweater is knit in two pieces, the top and the bottom. after knitting it i think it would be just as easy to knit it in the round and skip the dreadful seaming. i was pretty close to completing the top when the totally obvious was pointed out to me…. a plump round dog in a thick pink sweater is going to look something like a barnyard animal. (dare i say pig?)
oh my.
i ripped out a large enough amount to add a pattern- i was thinking stripes but the “what not to wear” tv series told me that stripes make you look wider than you are. so i opted for charlie brown zig zag in green and white.
so far so good
the top was completed and i was moving on to the bottom. the shape of the bottom piece is rather like a wine bottle. it is wide where the belly is and takes in decreases as you get closer to the neck.
i did my homework and worked out that miss opal had the body size of a medium dog and the neck size of an extra large dog. my final belly piece looked like a reversal of the original. but to my surprise it worked.
a few other mods.. i also added a ribbed collar so it would be easy to put on and take off and short sleeves because i thought it would look better.
i think she likes it.
happy birthday my friend. i am so sorry it will be late.
i want you to go forward this fall with something to keep you warm.
you know.... if you don't like it.... i am sure it will make a suitable tea cozy.
details:
denny hat by martin storey
queensland collection bengali x 4 skeins
needle us 9 / 5.5 mm
alterations:
c/o 105 sts (instead of 103)~ you have a wonderful head full of thick curls.
... and i love you
sheeze i must be the queen of blog neglect.
i don’t really have an excuse.
for any of you longhorn fans out there i copied one of my husband’s bowties (i used a 16” neck) and sewed up 5 bowties for our bartenders at work for a texas exes dinner.
1 yard of fabric makes 5 ties.
so all of you hook'em horns fans... no excuses.
on another note… i hit 3 ½ miles of semi paved scenic footpaths up hill to knitting etc. yarn shop. (the iphone gps app really should have topography information)
from the comfort of my hotel room with my feet up.
i am in ithaca and should be working on my ithaca laced leaves with the wonderful angora i bought from vancouver but i am so close to having completed my vancouver project.
at homespun i found an almost exact color match with ryc cashsoft dk (kingfisher)
today's formula: 2 skeins @ $20 per skein/3 hours = $14 per hour.... a little more expensive than the movies.... but look at what i came back with~
i have been working on the short sleeve top. i have finished the back and the size looked right so i started working the fronts (working both at the same time) and about 4 inches in~ decided there was no question it was going to be too big. i need to run out today and buy a tape measure to work on adjusting the measurements because mine did not find it’s way into my travel knitting bag.
(mental note for travel... a place where one can buy a tape measure is not the sort of vacation attraction i prefer to spend my time hunting down....)
what i have noticed with this yarn is that the hardest part of working with it is the cast on. if you pull the stitches tight it tends to separate and bunch the strands and for me i ended up with a inconsistent loose edge. i can’t be bothered with finding a solution because this pattern has a crochet edging that i hope will hide it.
i was surprised that it was easy to rip out the front pieces with out any problem though. so far i have not split any stitches (silent sigh of relief) which is common complaint with cashmerino astrakhan…..
motoring on
pattern: short sleeve top vogue knitting spring/summer 2005
double pointed needles. but the shower is a jungle theme… i know a giraffe is not really jungle "theme" but who could resist this cute guy? so i picked a fairly fluffy yarn that i think might give it a slight felted texture and i knit it on straight needles and added and extra stitch at the beginning and end for each piece that i used for seaming.
alterations to the original lion brand pattern
worked to 17.5in in length.
shaped waist with 2 sets of ssk & k2tog closest to arm hole split.
pattern:
- -II- -II pm - -II- -II
1st decrease:
- -II-II m -II- -II
2nd decrease:
-II-II m -II-II
Added the increase stitches to the next 2 inches (adding back the lost purl stitches)
started to knit the front bands with buttonholes but ripped them out. the holes were lost and i did not feel like reinforcing them~ decided to add pearl snaps instead.
