Knitting Dragonflies

Early in my time off, after my fall, in a drug induced state. I realized I couldn’t knit anything, well that involved a pattern. So I started with dishcloths, I soon had a grocery bag full of them and many happy co-workers and friends,   In the process I came upon many fun dishcloth patterns, from the blogger Dish and Washcloth Mania , you have to check out all of her links to other great bloggers with dishcloth mania, she has complied quite a fabulous list of patterns, as well as many great ideas of her own. Can we ever have too many? No, I think not. Soft cotton that just gets softer every time it is washed, nice! There is also a long list of free crochet bath related items at Crochet Patterns Central   After sending my DH out I don’t know how many times to get more cotton yarn, in whatever color caught his eye. I was ready to move on. I found several patterns for crochet bath poofs!. There seems to be two different way to construct these the hyperbolic crochet bath poof

When I bought the crochet book, The Happy Hooker, this was one of the projects I always wanted to crochet. I always want to see at least two projects in a book before I want to buy it. Checking on Ravelry at some of the versions that had been completed made my decision easy. So armed with cotton yarn and advice from several Ravelers I started the project. This was a a little hard to finish, I almost frogged it and used the cotton for dish cloths several times. But that could be due to the fact that I am primarily a knitter and not accustomed to reading crochet patterns. The cotton yarn was hard on my hands, and I can’t crochet very much due to RSI. I had to make myself finish this hat. It was most unpleasant crocheting with two strands of the cotton yarn I picked out. I would consider making the hat with another type of yarn. Yarn: Peach n Cream 4, 2 oz balls, held double through out. Hook: size G Pattern: From the book Stitch N Bitch crochet: The Happy Hooker, Yeehaw Lady Ch

In a continuing effort to tackle the stash bins. I gathered all of my yarn up that is left over from other projects. I am surprised to find that I am able to separate the colors into, yellows (quite a lot of yellow and gold), greens and blues, black and grey and reds. I have an idea to make a scrappy sweater, after searching for patterns and looking at my yarn I decide against that and decide to search for bag patterns. I had the Big Bag pattern by Maia Discoe , in my Ravelry queue. I think this would be a great stash busting bag if I can get the colors to work. Her bag has such a nice stripe pattern of various widths. After playing around awhile I decide that the blues and greens and yellows are my best color combination. The pattern is knitted with two strands of yarn, and I decide to carry one yellow strand along the entire bag. Hoping this will tie the colors together. While keeping the pattern stripes with the blues and greens. Amount of scrap yarn: I had approx 38 oz of ya

While going through my stash in my stash busting mode, I came across my first hand dyed, hand spun. Three bulky bright orange skeins of merino yarn (12 oz). It is still in there despite my many attempts to incorporate this yarn into, well, anything. I was reading Claudia’s blog; The Knitting Blog by Mr. Puffy the Dog ,  and she had an idea to make a shawl for visitors in her home. Our house is always on the chilly side, and I thought that was a excellent idea. Adding a bright wrap for visitors would be a welcome item indeed! Before dye                                       After dye post, see post here I finally decided that a big pop of color in the Baktus scarf would be pretty, whether under a coat, or over a summer top to keep the chill off, a super bright touch of orange would be perfect. I choose the Lacy Baktus version from  Strikkelise on Flickr . This was a quick and fun project. I forgot how wonderful it is to knit with hand spun yarn. Since the yarn is bulky,

I wanted to knit something somewhat mindless but with some pattern. After working on two sweaters that were almost all stocking net stitch, I was in need of some stimulation of the grey matter. (yes I’ve been watching some Hercule Poirot episodes ) by Agatha Christie , famous for her crime sleuthing knitting Miss Marple. Mindless knitting is nice but in moderation. Pattern is the Button and Lace bag by Amanda Jones from Simply Knitting May 2009. I wanted to use something from my stash, (due to the fact I’m in a stash busting mode) I found some lovely Araucania Nature Wool Color 43. (Kettle Dyed) Yarn: The pattern calls for 3 x 50 gm/101m balls Stylecraft Kon-Tiki Dk, I am making the bag slightly larger, and 100 gm is going to be plenty to complete it. Needles: size 9 circular Alteration: NONE I had some bamboo handles in my stash that I have been waiting to add to something. This would be the project! This is a fast and fun knit, a four row repeat that is easy to fol

  Are you goal oriented  or a seat of your pants style knitter? Occasionally I knit with a deadline, usually a specific event. But as a rule I knit on a whim, it is the one thing in my life that I use as total enjoyment. So I have never given myself goals. I have recently been rethinking this. I was inspired to finish as many UFO’s as possible and destash. Refusing to purchase anymore yarn or fiber….until….I can’t stand it anymore. As a result, I have gotten an amazing amount of knitting done, and have lost my need to find the “perfect” yarn or pattern for a match, after all it is just yarn, (I know *gasp!*) So I’m rethinking this strategy. After an injury, that I am still recovering from, I was amazed at how much knitting I could accomplish, (of course what else was I doing?). This began a UFO attack, that turned into a big stash bust. Soon I had set a goal to knit a top down cardigan in two weeks, I took me slightly less than three, but this was the ah ha moment for

  1. You may be a knitter if, during a really bad movie you start looking at all the sweaters and knitwear and critiquing them in your head. 2. You may be a knitter if, you are constantly deciding if it will viewed as “rude” if you knit _______. (at a reception, meeting, church……) 3. You may be a knitter if, you can walk up to a total stranger, because you know they are wearing something hand knitted. Twenty minutes later you part, with info on the yarn, pattern, problems encountered during the knitting of it, and email address. 4. You may be a knitter if, you wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about knitting. 5. You may be a knitter if, you use the same adjectives to describe yarn as you would your favorite dessert. Have some of your own! Share them here…. Now go do some knitting Technorati Tags: knitting , knit

I started this shrug, quick knit but then never got around to quite finishing it. (photos are taken before I had everything woven in and shrug blocked) This was the beginning of my orange phase. You know how you keep buying the same colors, again and again? Well I decided to buy the one I would lease likely pick out. This was the beginning of a love affair with orange, suddenly everything I picked out was orange. I had orange fiber, I was dyeing orange yarn, buying orange clothes… Pattern: Lace Stitch Shrug, Designed by Melissa Matthhay, size M/L made, size was good. Yarn: Nashua Natural Fiber Sassafras, 50% cotton, 50% acrylic (ribbon yarn), 7 balls (I bought 8 balls and did use a fraction of the 8th) Needle: size 10.5 US circular, or one straight for body and a circular for ribbing. Gauge: 13 sts to 4 inches. Alterations: The only thing I did differently was add about 3 inches to the ribbing around the shrug, so it would fold back around the neckline. It was a f

  My DH bought me a Starbucks coffee cup, and the bag was so cute, and I was feeling creative. I decided it was the perfect size to carry some knitting projects to work and back. So I found this tutorial on how to harden paper bags , (with dilute glue), by Lauren Volk. So with a little addition of some stitching, (I stitched over the base of the handles to make them stronger) and I glued a few photos on (careful to remember less is more, don’t succumb to the Bedazzler syndrome, no one with a Bedazzler can put just one stud or rhinestone on an item)). I wrapped some ribbon yarn around the handles and secured it, and painted the whole thing inside and out several times with the glue mix. I did cut a cardboard base to glue into the bag. Careful to set the bag up and shape it as it dries, and there is a fine line between just enough glue layers and too many. (too many make your paper bag brittle) Happy with the result I decided to find some fun fabric and line it. I just trace

I’m in the mood for swmmer and color! Flowers, sun and hot days. Along with tanks, sun hats and skirts, we will need a bright pretty bag, or tote. How about knitting one of these? From I Live on A Farm, a nice study market bag This bag is from Annie Modesitt and was published in Knitty summer 03, I like the raffia, it has such a nice texture. From the Island of Misfit Patterns, Baby’s Got a Brand new Big Bag  (pdf), I think we could even carry our knitting in this! Looks like a good stashbusting project! Hello Yarn has a great Skull and Crossbones tote , I'm casting this on today! And I fell in love with this little Morning Glory purse by Kerin Dimeler-Laurence May your needles fly as fast as Dragonflies… Technorati Tags: knitted bag pattern link , knit , knitting