Baby, baby, baby!

Recently there's been a lot of babies born in my circle of friends and family.  And of course being a knitter and crocheter, I've got to supply these newborns with their own first handcrafted woollies.

You may remember that in July my brother-in-law and his wife had a gorgeous baby girl who got this crocheted blanket, and then in August my brother and his wife also had a lovely little girl who got this hoodie and this vintage matinee coat.

Well now in September the last of the baby boom was born.  My friend Sara and her husband Will had their first baby, a wonderful little boy just last week.  And thankfully I finished this matinee coat for him just in time.

 Because they kept it a surprise if they were having a boy or a girl (even from themselves), I had to make an item suitable for either.  I figured the blue made it a bit masculine, but the lacy pattern made it a bit girly if need be.  Close up of the buttons:

This was from another vintage pattern from my collection.

As you can see, I didn't put on the collar, but the rest of it I followed exactly.  The shaping looks a bit odd, when laid out as I have it above, but hopefully once it's on the baby it'll look okay.  And since he's living in Alaska, he'll probably have need of the warm New Zealand wool!

More Vintage Patterns! (and more and more and more...)

I've been threatening to do it for awhile.  Well, the time has finally come, and I've opened an online shop to sell some of my vintage knitting and crochet patterns!  I've named it Clutch Instructions and I only just started yesterday, so there's not much there yet, but I promise, I've got heaps, so check back often.  For now, here are a few of the goodies.  Click through each photo to go to the shop listing.

No Longer Socks

Remember the Tyrolean Stockings I shanked?  Well, I've finally turned them into a useful finished item.

Leg warmers!

The transformation started with me snipping off the toes.  Literally.  I had already woven in the ends, so there was no chance I was going to be able to unwind it and save every last bit of yarn, so instead I got my sharpest scissors and cut the toes off.  Then I pulled out the entire foot to the ankle.

Frogging (unraveling) knitted work is always kind of traumatic, but the end result was worth it.  I put the stitches back on the needles, knit an inch or so of ribbing, and done!

Despite the screw up, this is probably one of my favourite finished pieces ever!  And Bic actually wears them, which is the best part.

Hats for Lisa Update!

At long last, I've finally updated my Hats for Lisa Fundraiser web page!  Thank you sooooooo much for everyone who has bought a hat and contributed so far.  It really means so much to me and Lisa and her family.  :)

Check out the new hats being offered!
My lovely Bickie is modeling this blue beret style slouch hat.

And Jen, an amazing woman and wonderfully generous friend, has donated these two colorful kids hats for the cause!

It's the perfect time to start planning for your head warmth needs for the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter, so get yourself or a friend a hat!

Vintage Knitting

So a few days ago this is what my spare room bed looked like:

In case you can't work out what's going on here, I'm blocking a baby cardigan I've been working on.  Plus, I'm organizing my vast collection of vintage knitting patterns.  And one actually leads from the other, as the pattern I used to knit the sweater is this one:

Unfortunately a lot of vintage patterns have no dates on them, but my best guess is that this one was originally published in the late 60s or 1970s.  See, the price is printed on it 9d, which means 9 pence.  Since this was published in Britain, that is the price it sold for in England.  If you look closely the 9d is crossed out and the price it was sold for here in New Zealand is written on as 12c (12 cents).  New Zealand currency switched to the decimal system of dollars and cents in 1967, so assuming this pattern was fairly new at the time it was first put on the shelf here in New Zealand, it would have had to have been after that.

Anyways, I love vintage anything, so needing another baby sweater for my soon to be born niece, I decided to tackle this pattern.  Vintage patterns can be tricky, as yarn weights were kinda different, and there are often errata that you have no way of finding out.  But this one worked perfectly!

And tonight i pretty much finished it.  All I have to do is sew on ribbons for the tie at the neck.  I'm not going to bother with trimming the edges with the gathered lace.  Too floofy for me.

One thing I had a problem with was sewing on the collar.  I had the same problem this time as I had that last time I had to sew a collar on a sweater.  I didn't know how to do it without it having a big ugly ridge showing.  So I took it along and asked the lovely and most talented knitter Joy of Kazzalblue and she set me straight.  Which just goes to show how much I still have to learn about knitting, even after 8 years!

But look at what a good job I did!

One of Joy's adorable creations - a Harry Potter themed finger puppet set - is the prize in a giveaway being run over at New Zealand Handmade right now.  Get over there for your chance to win!

Another finished (crochet) object

Babies, babies, everywhere!  My niece down south is snuggling the crochet blanket I made as we speak, and another niece is due in less than a month up north.  She'll be getting this little hoodie that I just revealed over on NewZealandHandmade.co.nz.

Since it ended up on the large size, I'm also currently knitting a little matinee coat, because I'd like her to be able to wear something handknit by me very soon after coming into this world!  This time the sweater is ending up on the very small side it seems, so I'll have to make sure I finish it in time and send it off right away, as the baby will probably only fit it for the first month or so.  I've got just the sleeves and the finishing left, so stay tuned for the post on that finished item.

Felted Forest Folk Giveaway!

I wish I could needle felt.  Remember my one attempt?  Well, my new friend Marie is a wonderful needle felter, and I might just have to hit her up for some lessons.  Over at New Zealand Handmade there's just 12 hours left to enter a giveaway of her adorable needle felted forest folk!

See Marie's  other creations at her Etsy store: Softearthart.

Knitted Socks

And finally!  A post about knitting.  Coming up to the end of May, I wanted to send my sister-in-law in Canada a birthday gift of lovely hand-knit socks.  I picked the Tyrolean Stockings pattern from an issue of Interweave Knits.  This first photo is the lovely example from the magazine.  Aren't they cute?  Don't they look comfy?

Well, I cast on and knit and knit and knit and knit for AGES.  And I tried the sock on every now and then.  And it seemed a little tight, but not too bad.  See, I was using yarn that was slightly heavier than the one called for, so I used needles slightly smaller to get gauge.  But it didn't quite even out right.  But I figured I have pretty big calves and pretty wide feed, so hopefully they'd fit my sister-in-law fine.  So I finished the first sock and was ecstatic!

Then I had to make the second one.  What a drag!  So I sped through it, never stopping to try it on, and apparently I knew the pattern much better and was working so fast through it that my gauge was even tighter and the second sock ended up about half an inch shorter than the first!  Yikes.  So I pulled it back to the heel and tried knitting looser, which worked to even it out a bit.  But even then my socks were a bit of a disaster.  I can just barely, with mighty struggling, just barely get them on.  And they cut off my circulation.  Not comfy at all.  :(

The leg part, though, actually fits my 6-year-old daughter quite nicely.  So my plan now is to shorten the foot part by a few inches, and she'll hopefully wear them through the winter.  And I ended up buying my sister-in-law a lovely locally made merino wool shirt from Soma which will definitely fit her fine.

Here are the finished stockings, modeled by my daughter.

 See how nicely they fit her calves?  They do look cozy on her.

But currently the feet are still too long.  So I can't yet put these in the Finished Objects pile.

Another non-knitting post

I swear!!!  I have been knitting.  But this is my other most recently finished project, so I really want to share it.

I had a new baby niece being born in the chilly depths of the South Island of New Zealand, so I thought what would warm her better than a heavy crocheted wool blanket.

Still being a crochet newbie, I used this simple pattern from this book I got out at the library: Cute Crochet for Tiny Tots: 25 Modern Designs for Babies and Toddlers.  The book is decent, the patterns are pretty basic, but that's good enough for me right now.  Sometimes you just want a simple project, right?

Sorry for the darkness of the photos, I forgot to brighten them before uploading, and I can't be bothered doing it now.  Anyways, the yarn is 2 parts o-wool organic merino (the green and purple) and 1 part Henry's Attic Gaia organic merino.  The Gaia is slightly heavier weight than the o-wool, but it worked out okay.  I followed the pattern exactly, and it took just slightly over 1 skein each of the o-wool, and just under 1 of the big skeins of Gaia.

Crocheting is wonderful for blankets, first because it's so fast, but also because the fabric it makes is twice as thick as most knitted fabrics, so the blankets end up super heavy and extra warm.  So just beware, you end up using a LOT of yarn on even little baby blankets.

New Zealand Handmade

I know I said there'd be knitting in this, my next post.   But I lied.  Instead I'd like to introduce you all to a new group effort I'm a part of: New Zealand Handmade!  It's a site and blog dedicated to promoting hand crafted item from this corner of the world.  I just made my first post over there, a crochet tutorial, so check it out!

New look, new start

Hey! It's about time for a new post.  Since it's been so long, and so much has changed in my life, I decided to change up the look around here.

And I have been knitting!  So let's start with that.

I finally FINALLY finished the seed stitch bag I started way back in 2006.

It looks about the same, right?  I had actually finished all the knitting way back when, I just wanted to line it (and bead it but I decided not to do that in the end).  So I never did the actual finishing work.  But having bought a cool old sewing machine, I had the motivation to kick this WIP to the FO pile.

And the lining turned out great!

I used the tutorial over here. Worked out perfect!

Okay this doesn't count as knitting, since I only sewed, but I'll get to some of my knitting in the next post.

Hats for Lisa

Wow! It's been awhile. I've been knitting. Heaps. (That's a frequently used word in New Zealand in case you didn't know.) But I haven't posted any of my items, because I wanted to save it all up. And now I'm ready for the big reveal.

I've been working on a fundraiser for my sister-in-law Lisa. See the details here:
http://www.clutchcreations.com/fundraiser/

The synopsis (if you're too lazy to click the link) is that I've been knitting hats to sell and auction off to raise money for Lisa since she's been dealing with breast cancer, a herniated disc in her back, a difficult pregnancy, a typically challenging toddler and a recently hobbled husband. All of that makes paying bills difficult, and I wanted to help. You can too, and get a sweet hat at the same time! The list of hats is here:
http://www.clutchcreations.com/fundraiser/hats.html

Click the link. You know you want to. I've only got 5 hats up so far, but I've knit 3 times that. It just takes time to get good photos and list them all. So keep checking back, too. Thanks!

I'm back

Yes, I've been gone for a long time. Actually, I'm still actually gone. In December I left my home of over 33 years and moved to the other side of the world. 6 months later, I'm still down under, and things are going well, and I'm getting some knitting done! Like this sweater.



It's the o w l s pattern by Kate Davies. I used my Ayany yarn, finally. I got this stuff years ago, and have started 3 different projects with it. Before this one, it was a long coat which I got almost done, when I decided since I wasn't making gauge it was turning out too tight and I didn't like it. That project sat in my knitting bag for over a year till I finally frogged it last month.

The yarn, a 100% merino bulky, hand spun by a women's cooperative in Kenya, purchase through a co-op (but now also available on Etsy) is nice and rugged. Due to the fact that different balls are spun by different women, there's variation in thickness through the project, but not enought to really show. I had 6 balls of green and 6 balls of brown, but for some reason I was constantly running short on brown. I even had to rip back after I got halfway through the owls because I was clearly going to run out of brown, but had plenty of green. I went all the way back to before the color-switch under the bust so that I could knit a few more inches with the green.

This turned out to be a good idea anyways, because the shaping of the sweater as written in the pattern is a bit odd. It asks for you to decrease and increase on either side of the spine, only on the back. But with the way the numbers worked out, you'd end up with many more stiches on the back than on the front as you get up in the bust region. I don't know about you, but most women I know have more going on on their front than their backs. My second time around, I moved most of the increases to the side, so that the front has more room, and it fits really well now.

I've actually knit quite a few items since my last post, but I'll leave it at this for now. I hope to show more of it soon though!

Yarn Gone

I'm moving to the other side of the world. And so I'm bringing my considerable yarn stash with me. But since it added up to 5 huge plastic bins, it had to be shipped, rather than taken with. So now I'm living without yarn. It's a sad state.

I kept one project to work on, but as it's a Christmas gift for a certain someone, I'm not going to post about it till it's given. That'll have to last me till I get there, and start a new and improved stash. :)

Block Granny Squares

That's what I learned from making this blanket for my brand new niece Rosa.



This is what the squares looked like pre-blocking:



This is what the squares look like after blocking and seaming and weaving in ends (aka Finished Object):


The pattern is the Granny Square Baby Blanket by Sohpie Britten in Complete Crochet: Techniques and Projects.

My first ever granny square project. It was a lot of fun, though it dragged on a bit. I didn't have much of a plan when I started. I only had two colors of this wonderful o-wool organic merino worsted weight yarn. So I kinda just changed colors randomly for awhile, then realized I'd want the finished product to be symmetrical, so I needed to start planning. I liked the way it turned out, but I think next time if I only had two colors, I'd just do all solid squares. There's just too much going on on this one.

So back to the blocking granny squares thing. So when I had done crocheting all 49 squares, I wasn't sure about blocking them. The pattern says to do it, but I didn't know what was the best way to do that. So I googled "blocking granny squares" with quotes. It came back with a few results of pages where people talk about the importance of blocking granny squares, but no directions how to. So I changed my search to "block granny squares" with quotes. And hoo woo! The results that came back. SO bizarre. 99% of the pages were weird porn pages! I don't know what that's all about. So I thought that I'd post this with the title, so if other search that, another real page about blocking granny squares will come up.

And by the way, the way I blocked my granny squares was full wet wash, squeezing out most of the water in towels, then just pinning the 4 corners, measuring to make sure each was the same size.

Learning new tricks

I forgot to mention in the last post that I used this project to teach myself a lot of different knitting tricks.

After the lace section, there's a bunch of plain circular stocking stitch, which is just knitting knitting knitting. So I practiced my continental knit stitch. Then, you split the front and back, and there's a whole bunch of back and forth stocking stitch. Rather than learn continental purling, which seems like a PITA, I figured out how to do left handed continental knit stitch. So rather than knitting across a row, then turning the work to look at the wrong side as I purled across, I knit across a row, and then just switched the yarn to my right hand (since I was doing continental, the yarn had been in my left had for the knit across) and continued to look at the right side, and left handed knit back across. Got that? It's wicked cool. I'll have to take a video and show you some time. Saves so much time not having to turn the work and purl. I just have to practice more to make my stitches more consistent.

Learning new tricks is what I do to keep the knitting interesting. Not that it ever really gets boring. Well, it does a bit, during those never ended stocking stitch rounds. So if you're in a knitting funk and kinda bored of it, try a new technique!

Happy Belated Mothers Day!

Yes, that's right. I just got around to finishing this bamboo lace top for my mom that I started way back in May. It was meant to be a birthday/Mothers Day present, and then I got busy. But it's done now! And she likes it. She even wore it to choir practice, so she must like it a lot.

The pattern is the Lotus Blossom Tank by Sharon Shoji in the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits. I used Sarah's Yarn 100% Bamboo in Sage. Not sure how I feel about bamboo. It's really soft and slippery. Too much so, maybe. I've got the same stuff in pink and blue also. Maybe I'll make bags out of that.

Anyways. Here's my mom showing off the back.


And here I am showing the front.


Mom will be wearing a shirt under it, as the lace shows off a bit too much skin for her otherwise. It's really cute either way.

But something about the fit makes my arms look HUGE. And I'm not just saying that being all self-critical. Even my husband told me it made my arms look fat, which is not the kind of thing he normally says at all. But then he pointed out that it must be the design, because the same affect could be seen on the model wearing it on the Interweave Knits cover. She's not a large woman at all, but check out those upper arms! Weird.

Finished set

I made that way more difficult than it needed to be. But it's done! A hat/scarf/mittens set in Colourmate 100% New Zealand wool. As I explained before, I had run out of yarn with half a mitten left. So I frogged the scarf several inches to get enough yarn to finish. But I was a fool, and almost didn't pull enough back.

As I was finishing the second mitten, I could tell I was going to be really really close to running out again, so I finished it about 2 rounds earlier than the first mitten. When I was done I had about 12 inches left attached, but I also had about a yard left from the hat floating around. I'm such a dork, and the half inch shortness of the one mitten annoyed me so much, that I ripped it back to use the extra yarn I had to knit an extra 1 full round, and 1 short round after the decreases. Now I'm content, and the project is finished, and the yarn is gone. Yay!

Out of yarn

Not totally of course. You should see my stash... Yarn spilling out all over the place.

No, I'm just out of yarn for this one project. See, I made that bulky wool scarf I showed off in the previous post. Eunny Jang's Spectrum Scarf (without the spectrum), which I really liked because it's a reversible lace. I'm not a fan of scarfs that have a right side and a wrong side, as I've noted before.


I had 10 balls of yarn. The scarf took 7. I had three left. I decided to make a cute hat to match. Since I've been delving into crochet, I picked the Cloche Hat with Flower from Crochet in No Time by Melody Griffiths. I used size K hook, and I obviously didn't make the flower. I thought with the multicolored yarn it would be too much. Also, the pattern called for the hat to be long enough to fold up, but I liked it better without the fold. Check it out. It's so cute! And crochet is so fun and fast.



The hat only took 1.5 balls, so I had 1.5 left. I thought I'd make mittens. I searched far and wide for a good, basic mitten pattern for bulky yarn. I wanted to crochet first, but I couldn't find a pattern with the right gauge. In the end I found the Plaid Mittens pattern. Perfect gauge, awesome pattern. I made one mitten in no time at all.



Then I got worried, because the one mitten seemed to take a whole ball of yarn. I only had about a half ball left. I forged ahead anyways, thinking that worst case I could make them both fingerless mitts. This is how much of the second mitt I got.



Using the yarn I rip back from the finished mitt I'd be able to complete this one as a fingerless mitt, but I really like the full mittens, and wish I had just a little bit more so I can finish this one! So I've decided to rip the scarf back a few inches. Since it's 8 feet long, I think it can spare a few inches.