Somehow this episode became all about art inspired knitting or the other way around.
I talked about my current sweater projects and knitting a new skirt for myself. I also share about my first attempt at freeform crochet.
We’re available on both iTunes and Podcast Alley. Just check for “Cloudy with a chance of Fiber.”
My first attempt at freeform crochet
Filed under Art, Challenge, Craft, Creativity, Crochet, Knitting, Podcast, Stash, Stuff I made, Sweater, Techniques
You can participate in a live chat in twitter simply by including the hashtag for your chat in your 140 character tweet. (i.e. #knitchat, #lrnchat, #edchat, etc.).
This is a great way to connect with people who love the same topics as you do. In this case the general topic is knitting and fibercraft (specifically dealing with the challenges of holiday knitting/crochet/crafting).
Here’s a more detailed primer on “Twitter Chats”
1.) Get a Twitter account (http://twitter.com) if you don’t already have one.
2.) On Thursday November 18, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time) log on to Twitter and start chatting away (including the #knitchat hashtag in the text of your tweet. The chat will last approx. 1 hour long.
3.) The moderator of the chat, in this case me, will tweet the questions that will guide discussion. Don’t worry I’ll label the questions “Q1,” “Q2,” etc. and I’ll repeat them several times.
4.) Chat and respond away. Have fun 🙂 Please offer your own wisdom, wit, happy smileyness and lovely knit related comments.
5.) The last five-ten minutes we can spend time introducing ourselves and plugging our sites, latest FO (finished object) that we’re proud of etc.
6.) Also, if you’re shy, you don’t have to contribute to the discussion. Just type the “#knitchat” hashtag into the “Search” on Twitter and refresh every minute or so. Voila you will see the chat happening before you.
In Twitter you don’t need to be at your desktop or laptop computer. You can actually Tweet using a ‘smart phone’ that has a “Twitter Application” available. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time adjusting the screen size for Ravelry on my phone. Can you imagine having to manoeuvre in a chat room?
Also, I’d like to open the chat to people who aren’t necessarily on Ravelry.
Right, when the last thing I needed was another needle & fiber-craft. I took a two hour course on felting. I went in completely ignorant of how to shape wool fiber or roving into all sorts of forms, came out being able to put together cute little animals and creatures.
The ingredients needed for a successful felting are the following:
1.) Felting mat (usually made of a thick piece of foam or a wide flat brush with thick bristles).
2.) Wool roving or fiber (that is washed, combed and processed).
3.) Felting needle.
That’s it… no glue, no wires unless you’re creating an armature or skeleton to make your felted creation bendable and pose-able… though this sounds tricky & fiddly and perhaps a bit dangerous. Because essentially when you’re needle felting you’re taking the felting needle and jabbing it over and over again into the roving bits to shape them. For example in both the owl and the Totoro figures below, the body is simply just a rolled up wad of roving that has been poked and shaped into a body form. The ears on Totoro and the owls’ wings are smaller clumps of roving shaped into the appropriate form. I didn’t cut those pieces out. I basically poked and prodded at them until the wool took the shape I desired.
This is such a simple yet rewarding craft… even children (who are responsible and responsive to safety instructions) can master this skill within an hour or two. It’s a great introduction into fiber-craft. Looks like I may not have to knit or crochet everyone a present this year.
Want more ideas for felted cutestuff?
My 2nd Totoro - completed in less than 1 hour
Filed under Craft, Creativity, Dolls, Felting, Fibers, Gifts, Kitsch, Needle Felting, Toys
What do I do with all of this?
Two years ago, I didn’t buy loads of sock yarn at the Sock Summit, because I already had a serious butt load of sock yarn… including a bunch of Drops Fabel and Regia Sock Yarns which have become my fast favorites because of their durability and dependability (I sound like a commercial from the 50’s). I do sometimes struggle with making socks. You can see the sweater most of the time… socks you’re the only one who knows you’re wearing a work of gorgeous Aran artistry and cablework. So I decided to use Ravelry and my websearching skills to compile a list of things I could possibly create with the multliple boxes of sock yarn I have stashed away. I’ll try to post more as I find them.
Crochet:
Knitting:
This ferret looks smashing in what appears to be Noro Kureyon Sock
Pirate Mittens (Available on Ravelry as a free download):
Pirate Mittens
The Beanis (warning may offend… what is it? It rhymes with ‘beanis’… you figure it out. No I’m not posting photo here.)
Honorable Mentions:
Filed under Aran, Craft, Creativity, Crochet, Fun Stuff, Gifts, Knit, Knitting, Pattern Links, Patterns, Project, Sock Summit, Socks, Stashbuster, Yarn
Rachel's Sock Yarn Blanket in Progress
Introducing… “Cloudy with a Chance of Fiber”
Two fiber and craft obsessed individuals from Portland, Oregon chat and explore what it means to live in a DIY nation.
You can view our show notes and link to the podcast here:
I’m still working on some of the technical details with the RSS and iTunes but for anyone who want’s to listen it’s up there :).
Datura Sock Yarns in Mauve, Grey and Aqua. Prize yarn is either the Mauve or Grey. Winner's choice.
Lily Chin's gorgeous crochet lace dress
The image above ( Lily Chin designed lace crochet dress found in the first issue of Interweave Crochet – 2004 under “Lace Dress”) and many others inspires me to learn and make more crochet garments that are fashionable and practical. I will always be a knitter, but in the past two years I’ve developed a burgeoning love affair with the craft of crochet.
I’m again teaching beginning crochet at the Naked Sheep Knitshop in North Portland. I get more and more excited each time I teach this class. It simply seems that crochet designers are really challenging the stereotypes of crochet as being the clunky and less graceful of the fiber arts. Gorgeous designs from Lily Chin, Doris Chan, Kristin Omdahl, etc have proven that crochet can not just be couture gorgeous, it can take the form of practical fashion.
“Beginning Crochet” can help learning fiber crafters attain the skills needed to start exploring the fashion options in crochet. In the last class, after we learned all the basic stitches and how to increase, decrease, and crochet in the round. We learned how to make basic lace in crochet. The students were very interested in learning how to crochet hats and berets so I taught them how to calculate increases in the round and develop your basic hat and beret like this one:
Crochet Beret with the Puffy Stitch
I actually adjusted Pretty Puffs Slouchy Hat for smaller gauge yarn so I could use Elsebeth Lavold’s Cable Cotton. In the class the students learned how to ‘do the math’ to figure out how to adjust stitches in a pattern to match their sizes and the type and weight of yarn they were using.
You can read about the basic structure of the course in a previous post and view some pretty examples of crochet stitch patterns:
https://natknits.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/learn-to-crochet-starts-july-20/
Here are the class details which you can also view on the Naked Sheep’s Knitshop’s Website. Hope to see you there 🙂 :
Learn to Crochet- Starts September 15th
with Natalie
$55
If you want to learn to crochet or just need a refresher course, this class is for you! You’ll learn the basics in just 3 classes and get started on the project of your choice!
Tuesdays ( September 15, 22 and 29)
6:30-8:30pm
Filed under Cotton, Craft, Creativity, Crochet
Raglan Sweater Made from Custom Yarnia Yarn 🙂
My most humblest apologies for being excessively tardy with posting this. I’ve been obsessed (obviously) with other things. I still want to help more people make their own sweaters before the end of the year. For me it’s helping us deal with the downturn one sweater at a time. Also, it’s wonderful to see the pride in people’s faces after they’ve made their first sweater.
Today. I”m going to review how to get those sleeves done! You can view the earlier episodes for my Raglan Sweater instructions here:
Raglan Sweater 1: Selecting your Fiber
Raglan Sweater 2: Calculating Stitches and Casting On
Raglan Sweater 3: Working up the Body and Arm Pit Gussets
I use the “Magic Loop” method for making sleeves all the time. You can knit a sleeve in the round and gradually increase the circumference of the sleeve from the cuff to the upper arm; therefore, you can knit it using the magic loop method to knit both sleeves at once. I absolutely love doing this for three reasons:
Here’s how I calculate the increases for the sleeves:
Measure around your cuff (Measurement A), and measure around the thickest part of your upper arm (Measurement B). The calculate the number of stitches you need to begin the sleeve based on your gauge with the yarn. For example:
I want to do the cuffs and hem in garter stitch using a smaller pair of needles. I know my gauge is 16 stitches for a 4″ swatch or 4 stitches an inch using these needles. The circumference around my wrist or “A” is 6. I’m going to multiply 4 x 6 and I get: 24 stitches. But I like my cuff a little bit loose so I’ll add 2 more stitches to make it 26 stitches for the cast on.
Measurement “B” is 11″ (4 stitches x 11 = 44 stitches). There for I have to increase the circumference of the sleeve by 46 stitches. I usually increase a both the beginning and the end of a round of stitches (a total increase of 2 stitches per increase row). So this would mean I would have to increase a total of 23 times over the length of each sleeve. You can calculate the number of rows you would need to achieve the length based on your gauge. Take a brief look at the example illustrated below:
Using “Magic Loop” to knit two sleeves at a time:
I usually start the first few rows of each cuff separately (sometimes on double points) then I put both cuffs with the yarn tails on the same sides onto the circular needles. Knit both sleeves at a time. Make sure to do your increase rows on both sleeves as you knit up the sleeve.
If you haven’t seen or tried the “Magic Loop” method there are a number of helpful tutorials on Youtube that can help walk you through the process. I’ve embedded one of my favorites here:
Filed under Craft, Garment Design, Garter stitch, Knit, Knitters, Knitting, Stockinette, Wool, Yarn
I’m done.
I came away from the Sock Summit with a respectable but not an extravagant haul. Some of my favorite finds were two skeins of yarn from “Creatively Dyed Yarns.” I apologize for the graininess of the photos, I will try to take photos in daylight soon and post them here. I’ve become a big fan of the speckled dye job. I was just imagining really pretty socks coming from both of these yarns, but there’s over 500 yards of fiber so either skein can become just about anything including a crocheted scarf.
Creatively Dyed Yarns in Luxury & Calypso
Check out the "character" of the dye/coloring
Sorry he looks sort of sad here trapped in a plastic bag, but I found the most adorable pattern for a “bendy” bunny. I actually did a better job photographing his monkey friend. The title of the pattern is actually called “Harry Rabbit.” He looked very alive in a muppet-like way… staring at me from inside the bad. Okay, that’s kindof creepy, but I couldn’t resist. The pattern comes fromCiD Hancom Designs with two pink eyes, bendable wires for arms and legs and a square of pink felt. I purchased this from the “The Fold’s” booth. I almost bought the monkey, but stopped myself when I realized I’d never have the time to make him.
I also purchased some tussah silk & dyed pre-drafted roving both for spinning, and two sets of circular square needles (no that’s not an Oxymoron. They’re from Kollage. I plan to knit with them and hopefully write a brief review soon.
Harry Rabbit
Chimpanzee
I didn’t purchase these from the Sock Summit but instead at the Naked Sheep during their “Sock Summit” promotion. During the entire Sock Summit weekend if you mention the code word “Sock Summit” you get 15% your entire purchase. I was able to purchase the slate gray and plum colored colorways. Bob and Meghan kindly named the plum or mauve after me (blushing). I’d actually begged Meghan to make a mauvish color which has become one of my favorite shades. I’m sorry I’ve been Anglicised and I call it “Mohhhh-ve” instead of “Mahhhh-ve.” 🙂
Filed under Amigurumi, Craft, Dye, Dyeing, Dyeing_yarn, Knit, Knitting, Sock Summit, Socks
Amazing… needles the size of a human hair! What a Labor of love. Did you hear that the removed the Jonas Brothers from the 3-D theaters to reinstate Coraline! Yes…. that’s much better.
[Youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muce8MVqTaU%5D
Also, I’ve been feeling a little down in the dumps. It always helps me to listen to the “Pastoral Symphony.”
(Video is over 30 minutes long… but the music is worth it).
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGb-Kjy0S0]
I would love a knitting machine like this but I doubt I’d be able to afford it right now:
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZm6hUXgYnU]
I can dream can’t I?
Podcast – Cloudy w/ a Chance of Fiber
I am addicted 