Carousel Socks

Carousel Socks

Pattern link is here:

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hipsulaisen-karuselli

What an unusual sock pattern!  A few gals at my local knit shop were knitting these Carousel Socks (Pattern name on Ravelry: Hipsulaisen Karuselli) so I decided to join them.  I used some scrap sock yarn which was all yarn from my Mom’s stash of yarn. Thanks Mom!

The colorful yarn is Red Heart brand “Heart and Sole with Aloe” (colorway: Congo) and the solid navy blue yarn is Knit Picks “Stroll”.

The sock is knit from the center of the heel out and you begin with six stitches.  From there, you knit a relatively flat hexagon by adding stitches every other round. See below:

Then you fold the hexagon up on itself and sew a seam.  You are sewing together two sides of the hexagon. 

Two of the remaining sides of the hexagon become the cuff and the opposite remaining sides of the hexagon become the toe.  

My socks are just a tad bit baggy in the heel area.  When I knit my hexagon, I kept knitting until each of the hexagon’s six sections had 32 stitches. Perhaps if I knit this pattern again, I’ll knit until there are just 30 stitches in each hexagon section for a slightly snugger fit.  I think I will likely make these odd socks again. They were fun and actually went quite quickly.  

Here are a few photos to show you how unique these socks are.  They do not look much like socks and they look as if they should not fit a human foot, but they fit pretty well as you can see.

Bojagi

Bojagi 

I have had this really nice yarn from “Ewetopia” in my stash for quite some time. The colors are called “Citron” and “Aster Blooms”. I purchased the yarn to make a pattern called “Spectra” but fell out of love with that idea. Truth be told, this yarn would look very nice in the Spectra pattern.

Then I found a pattern called “Goldfish Memory” and I started that pattern using this yarn along with some speckled hand dyed yarn.  It looked terrible together.  So I frogged it. The yarn lingered in my stash.

A few weeks back, I was looking on Instagram and I saw a shawl knit up in a pattern called “Bojagi”.  The lady who posted the shawl goes by “KAYTHEARKY”.  

Long story short, I went and grabbed this yarn, cast on the “Bojagi” pattern, and then just knit, knit, knitted merrily along until this project was done.  It was such a perfect and fun knit.  You start off with a little garter stitch, stitch some mosaic stitch, make some beautiful lace, switch back to mosaic stitch, and then race to the finish in garter stitch. It is very unusual for me to work on just one project from start to finish and complete a pattern like this in 12 days, but that’s just what I did because the pattern was so fun.              

It was kind of hard to photograph this project. I think the photos do not do it justice.  It’s really pretty and the yarn is dreamy, squishy soft.  If you’d like to knit this design, I’ve shared the FREE pattern link below.  And I can highly recommend yarn from “Ewetopia”.  I got the yarn at the Interweave Yarnfest in Loveland, Colorado, a few years back.

Here is the pattern link:

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bojagi-shawl

Copilot Cowl

Copilot Cowl

Copilot is a free pattern on Ravelry.  I decided it was a good choice for some yarn I dyed with Easter Egg Dye a few months ago.  I had some crazy bright orange yarn that I got at a knitting retreat.  At the retreat, I saw that the orange yarn could be a great rust color if over-dyed with blue dye.  I dyed the orange yarn with the blue Easter Egg Dye when I got home. It turned out great.  After dyeing the orange yarn, I noticed there was still a lot of dye in my pot.  I remembered I had some dye-able sock weight yarn in my craft room. I added it to the pot and that is the yarn I used in this project.  

Below you’ll see some random photos of my yarn dyeing session.  I can’t tell you exactly what I did but you can find lots of videos on YouTube which demonstrate how to dye yarn with Easter Egg Dye.

In the photo below, you can see all the yarn I dyed. The rust colored yarn was a bright poppy orange color before dyeing in a blue pot of dye.

Below you can see I had the dye-able wool in the pot (half way in and half way out).  

Above you can see that the entire hank of yarn eventually ended up in the pot (sorry the photos are out of order).  I took some of the Easter Egg Dye pellets and nestled them into the yarn in the pot of water on the stove top.  It was all very random and experimental.  Fun!

Copilot is a great knit for travel or watching TV.  

The cowl is very long and I like wearing it doubled up around my neck. I like wearing cowls since I don’t have to worry about them falling off when wearing them like I do with triangular shaped scarves/shawls.  

Here is the link for the Copilot pattern:  https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/copilot

Charmayne

Charmayne

Charmayne, as you can see, is a heavily beaded shawl.  The free pattern comes from “Knitty” and you can find it HERE:  http://knitty.com/ISSUEss18/PATTcharmayne/PATTcharmayne.php

The pattern instructions specify you can make a small or a larger version of the shawl; I made the small version based upon the amount of yarn I had.  My skein of yarn was 100 grams; I had 15 grams remaining after finishing the shawl.  The yarn I used is hand dyed and comes from Andromeda Sock Yarn.  The yarn’s maker is from Colorado Springs, Colorado, and she sells yarn on line and also at my LYS (Yarned & Dangerous, Canon City, Colorado).  The yarn’s color way is “Take a Hike”.

Some completed projects are easier to photograph than others.  I feel as if this was a challenging project to capture in photos.  I am including a bunch of photos so you can see the shawl from a variety of angles.  

If you are interested to know, I think I used about 50 grams of beads in this project.  The beads are Unions 6/0 Miyuki beads and the color is Metallic Mix (01610).  When I started the project, I only had one tube of beads (20 grams).  As I was knitting along, it occurred to me that I did not have nearly enough beads.  After searching for a good long while, I found two more tubes of the same beads on eBay.  Phew... what a relief!

This was a super fun knit. The shawl starts with just a few stitches and grows from there.  As you knit along and the project grows wider and wider, you are pretty much just working in stockinette and then you pay close attention to one edge of the project where the lace and beads are being worked.  At the very end, when the project is quite wide, you complete the final lace border which contains gobs of beads.  I have to admit I was dreading the lace border. I was worried it would be fussy and slow and too labor intensive.  As it turns out, the lace border was not that slow and it was fun.  This is such an enjoyable knit that I can see myself making another Charmayne shawl.

Oh My Stars Quilt #2

Oh My Stars!

I realized recently that I was way behind in sharing photos of my recently completed knitting projects.  It also occurred to me that I have finished two quilts and also have not shared photos here on my blog.  This is a quilt I made for my friend Kerri. We've been friends since 4th grade. She and I attended a knitting retreat in October and I was able to bring the quilt to here then.  I really like how this quilt turned out. I had to go out and purchase batting for the quilt but, aside from that, I made the quilt from fabric in my stash.  Cool, huh?

The "Oh My Stars" quilt pattern is by Pat Sloan. The small version of the pattern is available for FREE and you can find the pattern here (LINK).  I have made this pattern twice already and I am sure I'll make more in the future.

A Bunch of Cowls and a Scarf

A Bunch of Random Cowls and a Scarf...

When I was talking to my Mom and Dad on Thanksgiving, it occurred to me that I had completed a lot of projects recently but had not shared them here. Instead of one post for each project, I am throwing a bunch of projects into one big post.  These are all things to wear about your neck so I guess all of these projects have that in common. 

Above, the pink item is a pattern from Sivia Harding called "What Goes Around".  Sivia gave us this pattern at a knitting retreat I attended in October.  This pattern is not currently on Ravelry.  The yarn I used is called "Silkiull" from Navia.  The yarn is a fingering weight wool/silk blend. I got the yarn and beads from a kit I had purchased from Laura Nelkin. I was not enjoying knitting the pattern that  came with the kit so I made the little pink beaded cowl above.  This cowl is a moebius design.  I love how it turned out.

Above and below you can see a fun crochet scarf I made. The pattern is called "Windowpane Scarf" and, for this project, I used a ball of Knit Picks "Chroma" yarn which had been in my yarn stash FOREVER. This is a fun pattern and it's perfect for yarn that changes colors very slowly (if that makes sense). I love to wear this scarf. I stopped crocheting when I was just about out of yarn and I think my scarf is nearly 8 feet long.

Above and below you can see another moebius scarf. This is a pattern by Cat Bordhi called "Moebius Cowl".  I modified this pattern quite a lot. I used fingering weight "Silkiull" yarn, which I mentioned above, but the pattern I used called for heavier weight yarn.  I added extra stitches at the cast on.  The pattern calls for a lace section at the end but I just finished my cowl with a garter stitch border instead.  This cowl wanted to roll a lot when I completed the bind off, but I think it's looking better after blocking.

Below is a chunky drop stitch cowl I whipped up.  I got this super pretty yellow-green yarn at the Salida Fiber Festival (Colorado) in September.  The yarn seller is called "Retold Yarns" and I love to buy yarn from this vendor.  Her colorway names are always lines from movies. This yarn colorway is called "One Mee-llion Dollars" which is from the Austin Powers movies. I've never seen those movies, but I like the yarn.  The pattern I used is called "Drop Stitch Cowl" and it's a great pattern for bulky yarn like this.

Below... just one more cowl.  This is a pattern call "Namu Cowl".  I am not sure what to make of this cowl. I just really need to wear it next time I go skiing or for an early morning hike on a cold day. This cowl seems rather narrow but it may just do the trick on a windy day when I don't want any cold air hitting my neck and blowing into my jacket.  The yarn I used for this is Cascade "Pacific".  I use this yarn a lot. It's very soft, reasonably priced, and has a nice sheen to it.

So there you have... a bunch of cowls and a scarf.  I did not add pattern links in this post since there are so many different patterns mentioned.  If you want more details about my projects or you want the pattern links, feel free to check out my project pages on Raverly where my 

User Name is "kimfluck".

Harmonia's Rings Cowl

Harmonia's Rings Cowl

In a prior post, I mentioned I attended a knitting retreat in October.  The hostess was Sivia Harding. The focus of the retreat was moebius knitting.  I had watched some moebius knitting videos in the past but had never tried any moebius projects.  The cast on and the moebius knitting process are  fascinating.  If you've never tried it, I encourage you to add a moebius knitting project to your knitting bucket list.

Just to give you an idea how unique moebius knitting is, I encourage you to check out this video from Cat Bordhi.  She is the clever woman who figured out this cast on.  The video can be found HERE.

Also, if you happen to subscribe to "Bluprint" (formerly called "Craftsy"), Cat Bordhi has some great videos and moebius knitting projects on that site.

This cowl starts out as a moebius. Perhaps you can see the unique shaping in the collar portion?  The collar portion also features a picot bind off which I don't think you can see in the photos.  I apologize the photos are not the greatest.

The yarn I used in this project is yarn I purchased at the retreat.  Folks representing Abundant Earth Fiber came to the retreat with yarn and yarn dyeing equipment.  The yarn I used is called "Aviary"; it's a worsted weight yarn made from Merino wool and alpaca.  I made my cowl much longer than the pattern called for so I could use as much of the yarn as possible.  I kind of think of this item as a short cape.  It's easy to wear and it's warm and cozy.  The Harmonia's Rings Cowl is available for purchase on Ravelry.