I’ve fallen in love…
13 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Crafting, Crochet, Flower Loom, Knitting Loom
…with looming shawls…
Most of what I loomknit is for other people, it’s actually quite rare I make something substantial for myself. But ever since booking a cottage retreat with two lovely friends, I’ve had this dream of having a beautiful soft shawl to wear while I’m there.
Months ago in a cheap shop I found big balls of fluffy mohair, for ages I dithered about buying it, it wasn’t really much, £7, but still money for something that I had no plans for. Finally I bought one, figuring I’d looked at it so much I’d regret it if I came back and it was gone as the stock constantly changes.
I started looking at shawl patterns and knew that a fringed triangle shawl was what my imagination had me swanning around in. I already know the basic steps to create one, how to increase and decrease stitches to make the shape, but I wanted it to be a little prettier (and more interesting to knit) than a plan ewrap or garter stitch.
I finally saw the pattern I wanted, but it was in a book not available in the UK. In slight desperation, I left a comment on the pattern’s page at Ravelry with my predicament. The designer messaged me and very kindly sent me the pattern! We exchanged a few emails which was lovely as she’s a designer I’ve admired for a while now. Her blog, which has those tiny hearts I’ve been making, is here - http://loomlady.blogspot.co.uk/
I started a shawl in flag yarn, figuring that if I messed it up, it didn’t matter as the yarn was so thin and has been hanging about for ages. However, pretty soon it became obvious that although very delicate and lacy, it’s a lovely shawl.
I’ve named it the Rose Garden Shawl as the green yarn and the two different pink wools (one very much lighter than the other) look like petals and leaves. It will be given to my stepmum for her birthday in June and will match the dropstitch scarf I gave her for christmas.
It needs a little finishing off, I’ll be adding tassels to at least the three points, more if I have enough of the flag yarn left.
For the moment though, it’s on hold, as emboldened by the success, I decided to start the shawl for me. I have the hang of the pattern now, all that remains is to change it up a bit!! This shawl is being done on the long blue loom as I want a really big snuggly shawl and I increased the different section at the top of the shawl. I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough wool and I can’t get any more now. There was no way I could work out how much I needed, so I decided to just go for it knowing I could shorten it slightly if I found I needed to.
Fortunately when I reached the midway point, having wrapped the whole loom by now, I weighed the wool I had left and found 140g out of my 200g ball. Enough for tassels as well!! That made my day! I think that I had about 400 yards from 200g of mohair? I’m not entirely sure!
As soon as I started knitting it up, I started falling in love. The yarn is so soft… it’s just a pleasure to have an excuse to play with it! Although I found I kept stopping to admire and stroke the bit I’d knitted!! My husband got to practise his “yes, dear” face as I insisted on showing it to him every time there was a demonstrable difference (to me, I’m not sure he was always convinced there was a difference from last time)
When the colour change came in, that was it, I was lost and only put it down about midnight when my hands were starting to ache and I needed to go to bed! It was the first thing I thought about when I got up the next morning and the shawl was finished in 4 days!
I put on the finishing touches while at my cottage retreat and each time I wear it, I can’t believe that I made something this lovely! I’ve been asked to make a shawl for someone, and keep investigating lovely yarns to make shawls for birthdays and I’m already planning some christmas presents!
Since this photo was taken it has gained a few more tassels at the back and some small loomed flowers to add some weight to the back midpoint and the two front points. Because it’s so big, it can be wrapped around a number of ways giving different looks.
While I’m here, I can update on the items I made for a birthday present. The concept was every cloud has a silver lining. The items were made from grey wool that had some shine or sparkle to it.
Mock cable lace gloves (pattern made up by me), not made for warmth and sadly the fingers are a little squished as the bind off was too tight.
Brimmed beanie hat – Pattern by Isela Phelps - http://isela.typepad.com/loomknitting/2012/03/freebie-brimmed-beanie.html - this took me a while to do, but it’s a good pattern and I’ll be doing this again. I did alter the pattern as I tend to do!
Ruffle scarf – video of how to loom with ruffle yarn here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8PCnCIXL8E - although if you can needle knit, I think that would be easier! I couldn’t move the yarn to the back pegs as it wouldn’t stretch that far on my knifty knitter loom and tucking the ruffle behind the pegs on the purl row gets tedious. However, the end result is lovely! I have more ruffle yarn but will be looking to do something different with it.
You might be able to see that I twisted the yarn so the red and pink lines alternated randomly throughout rather than keeping it the same (where one of the colours wouldn’t then be seen)
So that’s it for now!
Current projects that will be blogged about later are – laptop case for my husband, WildFlowers Shawl, plus two secret projects that I won’t mention yet!
And I’ll leave you with a sneak peak of my WildFlowers Shawl – flowers made on the Clover HanaAni flower loom and I learnt how to crochet a chain to join them together.
Easter weekend crafting
13 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Crafting, Flower Loom, Knitting Loom
I took the opportunity to visit some friends over the Easter Weekend and because they have kittens that I’d not met, I decided to only take small knitting projects with me in the hope that they would escape the kittens attentions. For the most part, it worked!
I took my KK Flower Loom and made some more little hearts with various yarns, some worked better than others, still no idea what I’m going to do with these mind!
The link to make the little hearts is in my previous post.
I also made a headband in the leftover yarn from Claire’s blanket, with the prym sock loom, which I think turned out nicely, although it’s possibly too small to actually function as a headband.
To make up for that I made another one which functions fine! Plain garter stitch as I’m still getting used to the sock loom. It’s not the easiest to use for me but I think I’ll keep it.
Finally I took my Hana-Ami Flower loom (I don’t use the KK one as a flower loom, just as an extra small loom) in order to make some more flowers with a view to one day finally stitching them together as a blanket – as you might imagine that’s a very long term project – no doubt numbering in the years – but should look very pretty when finally done. I’m hoping it will also serve as an excuse to learn a little simple crochet to join the flowers together.
Just a quickie
01 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Crafting, Flower Loom, Knitting Loom, Stick Weaving
More for my own record really I guess. Crafting has been almost non-existent lately as I finish off draft two of the dissertation. Now that’s back with my tutor it’s time to turn attention back to crafting and think about what I’m wanting to do. I didn’t think I had any projects on the go, but when piling stuff on a chair I realised I did.
The “Breast Bag” is still part way through and I want to get some more bag sides knitted so I can practise making handles, it’s really not worked out, but meh, that’s not important. It will probably end up being a wool holding bag or something like that.
My stick woven scarf is getting ever longer, full of lovely random lengths of wool and will be the Longest Scarf in the World when finished. Maybe 10 foot long or something stupid like that?
I also started a scarf on the small knitting loom as I wanted to practise knitting a flat panel on it, this allows different textures of scarves to be made, this one is a simple garter stitch, but I could now think of ribbed scarves and other such lovelies. This might end up beinga Pay It Forward gift depending on how it turns out.
What I really want to do over the next couple of weeks is use my flower loom and make a number of square edged flower shapes and then see how they look when stitched together. It’s an eventual plan to make a throw from them, it’s also a way of using up odd scraps of wool. It’s a lot trickier and fiddlier than it would suggest so I’ve often found my dexterity and patience wearing thin.
Future projects - I have my Pay It Forward People to craft for and have decided to take a project I want to try and use the Pay It Forward as the motivation for making it. So what’s on the list?
Hot water bottle covers
Mitten
Slipper socks
oven gloves
pouches/bags
something for a baby
cabled mug-hugs (mainly as I just love the name of them and it gives me an excuse to learn how to cable)
This week will just be stick weaving as it’s relaxing and comforting and so far I’ve had a “bit of a week”, next week I have a mini holiday and am planning much crafting for it.
Work in Progress
21 Jan 2011 1 Comment
in Crafting, Flower Loom, Knitting Loom, Stick Weaving
I’ve had this post perculating for over a week, so it keeps getting out of date! Finally tonight I get round to loading up the photos for it.
Legwarmers – completed both now, see it being modelled and yes that’s my leg, control yourselves. It is extraordinarily unsexy in the extreme (the legwarmer, not my leg I hope!), but it is also warm and can be hidden under trousers and I’ve never been a form over function girl anyway. I wore them to work one rainy cold day, and they were lovely and warm. Result!!
Finishing the legwarmer meant I had to learn how to cast off, and the method I learnt involves:
Once you’ve got one loop on each peg and working the same direction as you have been, move the loop from peg two onto peg one. Slip the bottom loop off as per normal. Put the loop back onto loop 2. You will now have no loop on peg 1, and one loop on each other peg. You just repeat this all the way round, moving the neighbouring loop onto it’s neighbour, knitting off then moving it back. Makes a plain straight end to the project.
Bag – I realised last night that I’ve basically woven a large multi-coloured breast…. with this in mind I reccommend NOT using dark pink for the base of your bag!! Learn from my embarrasment!
I’m using two strands of stripey wool at a time to make a stronger knit but its still looser than I ideally wanted, but this is an experiment that I’m mostly making up myself, so it’s all teaching me good things.
Namely it’s teaching me to make the next one differently…
Have also now taught myself the purl stitch, and by default that means I know the garter stitch as that is simply a row of simple knit then a row of purl. I’ve been experimenting with these stitches in the bag so the sides are a mix of different stitch styles, but it doesn’t seem to matter whether I knit or purl or garter (see me use the lingo!). Because of this, I’ve gone back to simple knit stitch as that’s quicker.
The BreastBag is very stretchy with loose sides, so it might need to be lined to stop stuff getting caught, or I might try and have it as a static container. Still have to figure out handles, but there’s a bangle bag pattern I’ve found, so if I get hold of two large round bangles/plastic hoops, then I should be able to knit those into the pattern for handles. There are other ideas out there too.
The next bag will be from a pattern! I’ve seen a few, been collecting patterns from the web like a crazy person and am ready to start a proper pattern soon. This might be the reason why I’ve started another weaving stick project… more on that later.
Flower Afghan – Trying a border around the flower in the hope it will make it easier to sew the flowers together, again, all experimental, and a lot harder on a flower loom as it doesn’t have the groove to put the hook in making it harder to get and loop the wool over. I’m not convinced about the border, I was hoping to find a way without having to crochet one which is what the various patterns I’ve seen suggest. No pictures as it’s too small to make sense of.
Scarf – This might be the first scarf that I’m making for me from the outset. Usually I make for others. Often I keep for myself the projects that are practises or don’t match up with friends. Sometimes I fall in love with something when it’s done and keep it. This time I’ve planned it from the start. It makes it feel very special. It was inspired by a friend who wanted a long thin scarf, but got one for xmas after I’d gone a but mad buying wool (which wasn’t his fault!). So I’m making myself one, all my favourite scraps of wool will be in it, the bits that aren’t long enough for other projects. It won’t be symmetrical or a pattern like the others, just stripes of pretty soft wools I like.
New Year New Crafts
07 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
in Crafting, Flower Loom, Knitting Loom
I started two projects on my knitting loom already. These are my knitting looms:
And I got them from Argos for £14.99. To me they look identical to the Knifty Knitters that all the sites mention and Argos was the best price (as I was in the shop and didn’t pay postage).
First project was just to start using it, and will end up being a rather garish looking pair of arm/leg warmers in bright sparkly pink.
The same wool used in Marion’s snuggly scarf in fact. They were done with the simplest of stiches; wind the wool around the pegs till you have two loops on each peg, then lift the bottom loop off the peg over the top loop. When each peg has one loop on it, push that loop to the bottom, wind the wool round again and repeat.
I have yet to learn how to finish this… but once I do, the second one should only take a day to do.
The second thing is I started making the base for a bag. This uses the loom in the same way as a flower loom, and then you weave until it’s all full. I stupidly started this on the biggest loom I have, meaning it’s going to take AGES!!!!!
The weaving is lovely though, there’s a lovely texture to the material (as that’s what’s basically being created), and I’m keeping my interest by changing the wool so it will be a series of stripes.
Hopefully once the base is done, the sides of the round bag are knitted simply (although I might make a tighter knit by having 3 or 4 loops on each peg before lifting the bottom loop off over the top.
Again I have no idea how to finish this (much less any fastenings or handles…) but I reckon it will be a while before getting to that stage anyway!!
Until I know what my Dad bought me from Amazon (have several items yet to arrive from my wish list and there were many loom books on there), I’m loathe to buy any loom knitting books, so am working on what I can find online and common sense. Mostly the former. I hope to be able to make useful things, shall see how my skill level progresses. From the bag bottom weaving I’ve decided that I’ll be making a set of coasters as I just like the way the weaving looks!! Luckily I have an additional round loom from a “fun with wool set” present, which will be perfect for that! That will be started soon.
Today saw me starting the Afghan Throw I want to make from the flower loom. I have a Hana-Ami Loom http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hana-Ami-Flower-Loom-flowers-ribbons/dp/B0035RS8OK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1294326526&sr=8-3
Which although expensive (a simple round loom can be found for under £5), gives me a wide range of options as the looms are square, round and hexagonal in both small and large sizes, so for this afghan I’m making large square flowers as they will be easier to sew together and they will have a second smaller flower in the middle – whether that’s also square remains to be seen, I’m currently experimenting.
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