More Slippers In The Works

 Here are my latest makes:

This one is also made of Red Heart Super Saver using the same Russian YouTube pattern mentioned in the last post with an added outsole.  These are knitted from the ribbing down.

The Snow Heart Slipper from Sophie and Me can also be used as a basic pattern you can add different stitches or color patterns to.  I added the lacy section on the front and the picot edging around the top.

The slipper above has the same idea only it has an added lace panel down the front.

Another Tunisian slipper with an added tie.  With this make, I learned how to crochet a cord in an interesting and new-to-me method:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLE6N-RIvB4

Another Sophie and Me slipper, this time the Red Rib Wrap version.  Took me a little while to figure out the directions but it finally dawned on me what they were trying to say.

Still have more in the works.  By the time I am done with trying out slipper patterns, my girls will each have a whole box full to save for later years.

Slippers

Having decided that I have enough sweaters for the time being, I became interested in slippers.  There are lots of Turkish videos on YouTube about the lovely Tunisian slippers with pretty patterns on them so I started watching to learn how to make the slippers.  Very few of the videos have subtitles, so I had to learn how to count in Turkish and would watch the videos carefully to see how the crochet or knitting was done.  It took 5 or 6 prototypes to figure out the sizing using American-produced yarns, but eventually I had a pattern to fit each of my daughters.

I used stripes of silicone caulking on the soles for slip prevention and the younger daughter reports that it works well.

These are the practice slippers using a worsted weight yarn. The slipper on the right is humongous.

The first successful slippers were made to match a fleece robe I had recently made for my daughter. I

used I Love This Yarn Sport Weight from Hobby Lobby.  This yarn didn't come in the coral color I needed, so I pulled apart some 4-ply yarn I had to make a thinner yarn.  It actually worked really well.

 

The white slippers above were made for my younger daughter who likes strawberries.  They were made using a sport yarn from Hobby Lobby and a Size E crochet hook.

As a change of pace, the pattern for the red slippers is the Snow Heart Slipper by Sophie and Me.  This pattern introduced me to the idea of outsoles and how they give such structure to a slipper. I used Red Heart Super Saver for these slippers and a Size G 6 hook.  My older daughter says these slippers are great.  I made Duct-Tape Doubles of both of my feet to help when sewing on the soles as well as checking for fit.  I put on a pair of really old, worn-out socks, then wrapped several layers of duct tape around my feet.  The tricky part was cutting my way out of them.  I stuffed them with shreds from my husband's paper shredder.

This slipper is from a Russian video with subtitles and is knit using Red Heart Super Saver plus a random skein of colorful variegated yarn that is now missing its label.

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23cb9qhE5mo

 

I added an outsole to these slippers.

 

 

Experimenting with added soles, this navy slipper is a Tunisian slipper made from sport yarn.  I added a tie so the younger daughter could adjust them to her liking.  I photographed this version on my left foot double and that's when I noticed that I had overstuffed it making the bottom bulge.  This required foot surgery - I slit the bottom of the form open, removed some of the paper shreds and taped the incision back up.  Worked very well.

 

Right now I have three pairs of slippers in the works.  There are so many interesting patterns to try using either knit or crochet and different construction methods that you don't get tired of making them.

Appliques

Crocheted appliques are still holding my interest.  We were away to Oregon for about a week, and when we came back, I started right back in with the colored crochet threads.  Today there are two finished sets in addition to the Mexican inspired colors of the last one.  One set is all white for the neckline of a white top, and the other is green and pink tones.

This is like Irish Crochet without the background. 

I just finished this one today.  The central motif is from a Russian magazine, and I made up the rest.

Now all I have to do is actually sew them onto something.

Something Different

It's been on my mind lately to make a sweater that has Mexican peasant blouse embroidery on it.  Not wanting to spend months embroidering, the idea for crocheting the motifs instead of embroidering them seemed like a good one, faster and easier.  While shopping for crochet threads, I noticed that there are many more colors available.  Since Irish crochet is so popular in Eastern Europe, there are many available patterns for crocheted flowers and leaves and there are even YouTube videos to show how they are created.

After trying a few different patterns, I now have a small binder full of patterns and a box full of finished motifs:

Here's a preliminary placement idea:

Today I drafted out a pattern for a yoke-front pullover 3/4-sleeve tunic sweater with crocheted edgings.  This is all part of the plan to have pretty sweaters to wear around the house in cold weather instead of not-very-flattering sweatshirts.

Despite being sidetracked by all this crocheting, the pale plum sweater had been blocked and is read to be sewn together.

A Royal Blue Knit That Worked

Years ago I knitted a Royal Blue cardigan for myself and it just went wrong somewhere.  It looked horrible on me but OK on my daughter so I gave it away.  This week I tried making another Royal Blue cardigan and it went wrong too.  However, this time I was determined not to let the cardigan end up badly.

I made a mistake following my own directions (forgot to read one paragraph about adding extra rows above the sleeve band because the garter-eyelet band was narrower than my usual 2" ribbing) and the sleeves ended up too short for the 3/4-length I wanted.  This made the whole sweater look square and clunky.  I stewed about it for a day or so, then cut the bands off the sleeves, added length by knitting another inch, then grafted the bands back on.  I crocheted a wide border onto the body of the cardigan and a narrower band onto the sleeves and neckline.  Then I tried it on and hooray, it looked fine.

This a a raglan cardigan with waist shaping at the sides.

Here's a closeup of the bottom edging.  I wasn't sure how crochet would look tacked onto the garter border, but it looks quite nice.

The sleeve crochet border is a band of picots from the wider edging pattern. In this photo you can plainly see where I added the length, but it isn't noticeable in real life.

I was wondering if I would have to fudge the spacing to make the border come out even in the center front, but it just worked out by itself.

Now I have a Royal Blue cardigan that I like and that fits correctly, and it should get lots of wear.

Macaw Sweater Finished

Sewed on the buttons and finished up this sweater yesterday.  The yarn is Red Heart Super Saver in the color Macaw.  The sweater took 5 236-yd skeins with a little left over.  As usual, this yarn works very well in the knitting machine (LK 150) with the bands knit by hand.

The sweater has 3/4-length sleeves and waist shaping on the sides.  The bands are 1x1 rib and the buttonhole band is stabilized on the edge with backwards crochet.

Next in line is the royal blue jacket which is a pattern I have made three times before.  I've made a pink one, a navy one, and a green one.  It's a nice change to do garter borders and they give the cardigan a more boxy, jacket look. Several have a garter/eyelet border which I really like.  Here's the green one:

There are plans to make a coral one of these too and the borders are already knitted for that one.

On A Roll

After sewing and sewing for a long time, I finally went to the knitting machine and got it ready to get back to business.  In two weeks I knitted up 4 sweaters whose ribbings have been waiting in the knitting basket for, in some cases, years.  Here's the holder full of the sweater parts:

This session every sweater I knit is a raglan.  In the holder are a pale plum empire cardigan, a royal blue eyelet/garter bordered cardigan, and a variegated plain cardigan.  All of these sweaters have 3/4-length sleeves and all the patterns were self drafted.

I have been sewing together the latest knit which is all finished except for sewing on the buttons.

 I like variegated yarns and this one was one of the prettiest I have ever seen.  It's been a long time since I put together a sweater so I had to remember all my little tricks and methods.  This time I made sure to write down everything I did, like how many rows are in the bands and the spacing of stitches to pick up the bands, etc., so I won't have to reinvent the wheel next time.

There are at least 7 more sets of ribbings ready to be knit into sweaters, so I have lots of pleasant knitting ahead of me.  In addition, lots of ideas for pullovers and tunics are percolating so I may be drafting up new patterns soon.

Lavender Lace

My daughter gave me this knitting pattern book by Hitomi Shida for Christmas and I am finally trying out one of the patterns (#50).  This will be a cardigan with an empire waistline with lace on the lower part and stockinette on rest.  I'm going to knit the lace pattern portion by hand and hang the pieces on the knitting machine for the stockinette portion.  I don't usually hand knit from charts so this is going pretty slowly.  I imagine it will speed up as I get used to reading the large chart and quit losing my place and knitting the wrong row.

Other projects in the works are the oblong mat for the coffee table (really an old handmade trunk with a flat top that my husband's great-grandparents used when they immigrated to this country), another pair of socks, and new for me, crocheting an edging on a fleece afghan that my husband requested. I'll have to get one of those rotary cutter blades that cut slits around the edge to crochet into.  The spouse wants an afghan that is almost 3 yards long so he can nap on the couch in supreme comfort. 

Socks

Didn't feel like knitting for a long time because I was sewing and pattern drafting for months and months.  I made myself 5 shirts and several vests over the summer, then went on a long car trip, then it was the holidays, and now I'm back to knitting socks.

These socks were for my eldest daughter.  The yarn is Sock Ease, color 204 (Lemon Drop) and they are knitted on Size 1 needles.

I've also been crocheting a rectangular mat for the old trunk that serves as another side table to the couch.  It matches the round mat, but I got really tired of crocheting when I was about 2/3 of the way done so it is now languishing in the same bag the round mat languished in before it was finished.  Quite a few of my projects have an obligatory languish session.

Round Mat Finished

It fits nearly perfectly.

Now to pile a bunch of stuff on top of it.

Mat Coffee Dyed

I looked up coffee dyeing on the internet but in the end, I just used a big pot of water and put in some instant coffee, maybe a little over 1/4 cup.  The solution was heated to the simmer point. The mat was soaking in a bowl of water to make it evenly wet so the dye job would not be spotty, and then, after squeezing out most of the water it went into the pot.  Wish I could tell you how long I soaked it, but truth is I got busy and forgot it, so maybe an hour went by.  After rinsing the mat well in a bowl in the sink with many water changes, it went into the washer to spin.  Now it is on a drying rack and after it is dry it will get a nice pressing to flatten it out.

Before:

After:

I like it, the green is more acidy and less apple, and it matches the background on the cushions better.  Before I dyed it it fit on the table top perfectly, so here's hoping it didn't shrink much.

Close Finish

The plan for today was to go down to the JoAnns and buy some more purple thread because there was clearly not enough left. I thought I may as well finish the yarn I had and lo, there was enough, just barely.  There are only about 4 yards left, but a close finish is still a finish.  Now the mat just has to be tea dyed, or maybe coffee dyed, and dried, and it will be ready to put on the side table.

Cold Spring Needlework

Last year we needed a side table for the living room so got an inexpensive round-top one from IKEA.  It needed a mat on the top so I started crocheting one.  It seemed like a good idea to practice tapestry crochet but it was hard to find the right colors to match the cushions on the couch.  The couch is an interesting green color, a much more acid green than shows in the photo. 

 

 The crocheted mat languished in its bag by the couch for months before I finally picked it up again, but now it only needs about two more rows and an edging row.  The white and the colors are a lot more bright than the cushions, so when it is done I'm going to try tea dyeing it a bit.  That should be fun and should work fine since the threads are cotton.

When this is done I'll be able to take the shaggy placemats off the table and things will look neater.  After all that work, not much of the mat will show anyway since my husband keeps a rather large coffee table book up there.  But at least I will have finished something.

Knitting Again Finally

Just didn't have the urge to knit for a long while since I was busy pattern drafting and sewing, sewing, sewing.  Finally I picked up a pair of socks I was knitting for A and before I knew it, they were done:

These were knit on Size 1 needles using Trekking (XXL) color 100 from the deep, deep stash. For the first time, I made no attempt to match the uneven stripes which seemed to be pretty random.  It felt so good to finish a knitting project that I immediately started another sock.

Knitting for Fall

Now that the construction work is done and the garden is in, the hot weather season will soon be here.  In spite of this, the knitting mojo has come back unexpectedly.  We have been traveling to a wedding and for business, but once we got home again to stay put, I started knitting the ribbings by hand for future sweaters:

 I don't like ribbings knitted on the machine much so I do them by hand and then seal them up in a quart-sized zip lock bag until I get around to hanging them on the machine and knitting the rest of the sweater.  The ribbings in the picture will all become cardigans.

Then I remembered that I meant to make some more pullovers.  I have sewn together the pink pullover, and the black and the aqua, but the purple pieces are still waiting.  In the meantime, I started a sage green pullover with a patterned front panel.  After the front ribbing is knit, I pick up the middle section, add seam stitches to the sides (and seam stitches will be added to the center edge of the machine-knit side portions), and then I knit the patterned panel by hand.  This is fun to do, and I get to try out some of the stitch designs in my Japanese pattern books.  Here's another sweater that also had the center panel done the same way:

The original pattern had lots of twisted stitches, but since I don't like knitting those, I just used regular stitches.  I also added a small cable to the sides, and it is turning out very well.

We have been having one of those peculiar cold (but unfortunately not wet) California springs, but most people are really glad.  News reports say that El Nino is coming back to the coast, so the chances of good rainfall next fall and winter are good.  I hope they are right.

Update:  Finished up the purple V-neck pullover! Also cleared off the table in the sewing room and set up the LK150 that has been boxed up since the construction.  Ready to knit.

Still Here

It has been about a year since I wrote anything here, but I have been making things here and there.  We have been doing some upkeep and construction on the house, and we also took a big trip last fall, so I found my opportunities for knitting were put on the back burner.  I have been sewing together some sweaters lately, and finished up a pair of socks:

I have a yellow cardigan that just needs the buttons to be sewn on, and I still have to set up the knitting machine again after it was boxed up during the construction.  In the meantime, I have been getting the garden in and sewing a lot. 

More Baby Sweaters

This little Wonderful Wallaby has been around for about 10 years or so.  I originally made it for a girl at the office but forgot to send it off.  It languished in the sewing room for years before it turned up again.  Now it is in the Baby Gift Box.

I have been tinkering with this pattern to make it doable on the knitting machine since knitting this one by hand.  The dark red sweater in the last post is the pattern I came up with.

This next sweater is also an old old sweater.  I made it back when I was knitting items for a Christmas boutique, and it was supposed to have a zipper up the front.  The front edges had been crocheted to get them ready for sewing the zipper, but I never got around to putting the zipper in.  It seemed to me that the zippers now have a section of plastic with sometimes sharp edges at the corners on the top area of the zipper, and I didn't want that anywhere near a baby's face.  Finally, I ripped out the crochet, which was a finicky and lengthy job, and added a regular button band.

A sweater like this is a good way to use up scraps of yarn when there is not enough of one color for the whole sweater.

More Items For The Baby Stash

There has been a little clean up in the sewing room, and I unearthed about five unsewn baby bibs that can be finished off and added to the baby gift stash.  In addition to that, a few sweaters have been finished up.

This was a first design version of a pullover hoodie.  My goal is to use up a lot of leftover yarn scraps.  This version is usable, but the slope of the raglan is too steep and the hood is not tall enough.  The front opening depth is good though.  This was knit entirely on the machine except for the garter stitch border and the ribbing.

 

 

Here's version two, a success except that the front opening needs to be deeper.   I miscalculated the row count for the opening but it still works.  It just made it impossible to hang the whole hood on the machine at the same time, so there is a seam up the back.  The seed stitch was also done on the machine which is possible but finicky though it didn't take as long as I expected.  I always test the baby sweaters (these are all Size 2) by pulling them over my own head.  If the sweater neck opening is big enough for me, it will certainly work for a toddler.

Baby Gift Box

I've always thought it would be a great idea to have a box of completed baby gifts ready to go for showers or new baby gifts instead of rushing around at the last minute.  I've thought about this idea for at least 20 years and am finally doing something about it.  My daughters are at the age when lots of friends or co-workers are having babies, and it can be expensive to buy all those gifts.  I have lots of leftover yarn, lots of patterns, and a current baby item mojo, so I have started making items for the gift box.  First thing completed was a sweater from the book Kids Kids Kids:

This makes a cute sweater and an interesting knit.  The shape of the sweater is very different before it is assembled, but it all works out in the end.  Next I tried out some baby booties patterns and ended up crocheting some accidentally large footwear:

These were from a pamphlet I have had for years, but ended up big enough for a really large toddler.  I tried another pattern and produced a short, fat bootie that was a frogged failure.  After that, I decided on baby socks and had success:

 

This pattern is available free online at http://www.cu-needleworks.com/patterns/kids/baby_socks_1/baby_socks_turned.pdf 

 There are still three pullovers in the sewing room that need to be sewn together and a cardigan waiting for its buttons.