CogKnition » Knitting for Charity

Stripy Throw

CogKnition — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:56:47 +0000

Pattern: Simple Crochet by Erika Knight
Yarn: Cascade 220, #8555 black, #4192 pastel pink, 2 skeins each; #7822 dark chocolate brown, #2413 burgundy, #8834 medium rose, 1 skein each
Hook: J 6.0mm

The yarn, she is no longer cursed. It loves being a baby blanket that is about to be shipped off to Afghans for Afghans.

The finished blanket is baby-sized, about 34″ x 46″. I used a different stripe sequence than what’s in the pattern to accommodate the amounts of yarn I had. Stripe sequence after the jump.

Continue reading Stripy Throw (70 words) »

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Exorcising Cursed Yarn

CogKnition — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:37:52 +0000

Once upon a time I bought 11 skeins of Cascade 220 for two different felted bag projects. Both were intarsia patterns of my own design. One was easy, one was hard.

I knit up the easy intarsia bag. I charted the hard intarsia pattern.

And then I stopped.

Because you know what? I hate felting. And I hate intarsia. And simultaneously inflicting both on myself not just once, but twice? Clearly I’d gone cuckoo in the head.

And so the yarn and non-felted bag sat in my stash for two years. 2420 yards of yarn that I no longer had any use for. Now clearly I’m doing something wrong here, but yarn in my house gets mighty pissy if it isn’t already earmarked for a specific project. I hear it muttering yarny threats at me when I walk by, demanding to be made into something pretty or else it will smother me while I sleep.

Why no, I’m not the least bit neurotic, why do you ask?

Once the yarn has devolved into this mildly-evil state, there is only one solution: knit (or crochet) it up and give it to charity. Infusing the yarn with good karma soothes it and makes it happy again.

Given that I’m dealing with a whopping lot of 100% feltable yarn, I decided to crochet a blanket for the current Afghans 4 Afghans campaign. I cast on (chained on?) last week…

…and see? The yarn is already feeling better.

Tweed

CogKnition — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 05:34:24 +0000

Author: Nancy J. Thomas
Publisher: Potter Craft
Rating:
Buy Tweed on Amazon.com

Once again, the copy I am reviewing was generously provided by Potter Craft. Tweed is a combination knitting history/pattern book scheduled to be released on Tuesday. If you pre-order it now, Amazon will give you an extra 5% off.

I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but I have never knit anything with a tweed yarn. Go ahead, check out the finished projects. No tweed yarns. But then I started lusting after Eunny’s Tangled Yoke Cardigan, which is knit with a tweed yarn, and all of a sudden I wanted to learn more about tweed.

Tweed‘s first two chapters are full of the history and making of tweed yarn. Did you know that:

Coco Chanel popularized the use of tweed fabrics in high fashion?
tweed yarns are more prone to felting?

The third chapter contains stitch patterns with pictures of swatches knit up in tweed yarns. This chapter was especially useful to me, as a tweed newbie and fledgling knitwear designer, to see which patterns are made more interesting with tweed yarns and which patterns are strong enough not to be obscured by the tweed flecks.

The last section is full of knitting patterns, grouped by skill level. There are 22 projects total, including hats, scarves, bags, sweaters, vests, pillows, and throws. Although all of my favorite projects below happen to be sweaters, sweaters make up less than half of the total pattern count.

Pattern previews after the jump!

Continue reading Tweed (258 words) »

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Afghans for Afghans, Mother’s Day Drive

CogKnition — Thu, 03 May 2007 00:26:03 +0000

One sweater, for child age 1.
Five hats, for infants 0-18 months.
One pair of mittens, for child age 2-4.

Bon voyage, handknits! Keep some kiddies warm!

If you’re thinking about participating in the Mother’s Day drive for Afghans for Afghans, the US deadline has been extended until May 25.

One More for the Road

CogKnition — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:25:12 +0000

Pattern: Original
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, #3103 Allspice, skein
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 7 (4.5mm)

I still had one more skein of the Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, even after the slew of hats and a pair of mittens. My original calculations had the mittens requiring 160 yards. They took 60. Oops.

So I set about making a one-skein hat. I cast on 96 stitches, knit some 2×2 ribbing until I got tired of it, and then made 24 increases in preparation for the cable pattern. I knit alternating panels of the XOXO cable pattern until the hat measured around 5 inches deep, and then started the decreases for the crown.

I mostly winged the crown decreases, ripping once after I decided it was ugly and starting over. I’ve unvented this combination cable-cross/decrease move that helps maintain some cable-y goodness as you start to the narrow the panels. The remaining yarn went into the pom-pom.

The finished hat is about 16″ around.

I rather like the finished product. If I had to do it again, I’d do a couple fewer rows of ribbing at the bottom so I could finish the second repeat of the cable pattern before starting the crown decreases. I think that proportion would look a little nicer as well.

Total Afghans for Afghans item count: 7

Now that that’s done, time to revisit that lace!

Cabled Child Mittens

CogKnition — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:55:14 +0000

Pattern: Original
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, #3103 Allspice, oddballs
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 7 (4.5mm)

Here’s another FO in my quest to outfit the children of Afghanistan with my wool oddball stash. These should fit a child aged 2-4 years and used about 60 yards of worsted-weight yarn.

These are my first mittens using standard mitten construction. The Target Wave Mittens were my first mittens ever, but they’re built in a non-standard way.

I mashed the cable pattern from the cable and rib hoodie and the cabled pom-pom hat in with the mitten pattern from Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns and wound up with these.

I made a few modifications to the standard pattern. First, I added increases along the back of the mitt to adjust for cables’ tendency to pull in. Second, I moved the decreases for the top of the mitt and the thumb to the sides, opting for a flat top instead of the spiral decrease pattern in the book.

Total item count: 6

I’ve just cast on for one more child hat, and then hopefully my oddball stash of Elann Peruvian Highland Wool will be gone. Then we’ll see about depleting my Cascade 220 stash.

Baby Hat Trick (Plus One)

CogKnition — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 05:21:22 +0000

Pattern: Original
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, oddballs

Cabled pompom hat: #3103 Allspice
Purple and yellow ribbed hat: #2713 Aubergine and #7725 Freesia
Orange and red striped hat: #1004 Pumpkin and #2055 Ruby
Striped pompom hat: #7725 Freesia, #100 Natural, and #1004 Pumpkin

Needles: Addi Turbos, US 5 (3.75mm) and US 7 (4.5mm)

Here’s what became of the oddballs. Total oddball use: 186 grams, or about 370 yards. There was some referring to the Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns for measurements, but otherwise I mostly just winged it, weighing the yarn as I went to make sure I had enough to finish each hat.

The cabled hat is designed to go with the cable and rib hoodie. The purple and yellow hat is evidence that I am a bad Wisconsinite, otherwise I would have noticed much, much earlier that I was committing the cardinal sin of making an item in Minnesota Vikings colors.

Both the striped hats are hemmed hats. The orange and red one is about 16″ around, as are the two hats above. According to Ann Budd, that makes them fit for infants 0-6 months. The other one is about 18″ around and should fit babies 6-18 months.

I thought I had been knitting toddler-sized hats the whole time and it came as a great shock to me that these are infant…infant…sizes. It made me cross my legs and marvel that anybody actually tries to give birth. Anyways…

Continue reading Baby Hat Trick (Plus One) (162 words) »

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Oddballs, Begone!

CogKnition — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 00:01:05 +0000

Thanks for the nice comments on my last entry! I promise I will write more on learning theory as it applies to knitting at some point, maybe after I’m done squeezing every last drop of academic knowledge out of my brain in order to survive the rest of this semester.

I’m actually dying, DYING, I say! to run a study evaluating childhood knitting instruction on spatial skills, math skills, fine motor coordination, all that good stuff, and see if, like all knitters believe, it actually makes a difference. But that will have to wait for a day when I have my own lab and research funding, because I really don’t see getting that one past my dissertation committee.

But in the meantime, let’s talk oddballs.

Like anybody who’s been knitting for a while, I’ve accumulated quite an oddball stash. In fact, based on my updated yarn inventory, 4500 yards of my current stash are oddballs. That’s 2.5 miles of yarn, for people who are keeping track.

I’m probably luckier than most knitters, in that a significant chunk of my oddball stash comes in the form of three different yarns: 700 yards of Fortissima Socka, 600 yards of Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, and 950 yards of Cascade 220, leftover from many socks, the Ombre Blanket, and assorted felted items.

That said, the small and weird amounts left in sometimes-clashing colors still doesn’t make for easy re-combining of yarn to make a new project. Unless it’s a baby project. But who wants a baby item that’s 100% non-superwash wool?

Enter Afghans for Afghans.

Afghans for Afghans is conducting a special Mother’s Day drive, looking for baby and child garments made of 100% wool. Hence, the abundance of baby hats in my progress bars. So these:

…are going to stop uselessly taking up space in my stash, and go usefully off to make some nice Afghani child’s head nice and warm. It’s a good system, I think.

Cable and Rib Sweater w/Hood

CogKnition — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:45:44 +0000

Pattern: From Debbie Bliss: The Baby Knits Book
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, #3103, 7 skeins
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 7 (4.5mm)

Itty bitty clothes! I love it! I unfortunately don’t have an appropriately-sized model for the sweater, so you’ll just have to imagine some cooing baby wearing it in Mongolia.

Continue reading Cable and Rib Sweater w/Hood (171 words) »

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Wee Little Arms

CogKnition — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 16:51:40 +0000

Although I have seen and held other people’s newborns relatively recently, I still have a hard time believing that anybody’s arms could fit into sleeves this size.

Little tiny clothes are amazingly adorable.

All that’s left for me to do is knit the hood and seam this baby together. And mail it off to Dulaan with the Target Wave Mittens. It seems that Debbie Bliss overestimated the amount of yarn needed for this sweater, at least for the smallest size, so I should have enough yarn leftover to make a matching hat and booties.

It makes me kind of sad that I’ll never get to see the kid who winds up with this wearing it, but at least he or she will be toasty warm, wrapped in thick Peruvian wool.

And I do have other people’s babies to knit for around here.

Weekend Knitting Extravaganza

CogKnition — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 16:26:42 +0000

I’ve been neglecting my knitting a bit lately, partly because of work and partly because I’ve been spending my off hours cooking up a storm. But I declared this weekend to be Knitting Weekend and made some notable progress on the rest of my startitis projects.

I turned the heel on my embossed leaves socks. Speaking of which, Claudia finished hers! Yay!

Continue reading Weekend Knitting Extravaganza (123 words) »

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Warning: Startitis is Contagious

CogKnition — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 17:43:40 +0000

When I first read KathyMarie’s post on startitis, I figured I was immune. I tend to be a two-project knitter—one project for toting and stealing a few stitches while waiting at bus stops and one project for sitting and knitting away while I watch TV.

So when I finished Quinn and the Print o’ the Wave stole in one fell swoop, I figured I’d just pick out a couple more projects, cast on, and be fine. As it turns out, a bout of finishitis renders one very susceptible to startitis, because, well…look:

I’ve started all these projects within the last week.

Given that startitis is so obviously contagious, public health officials would probably put me in quarantine if they knew that I had it. But they don’t, so I’m going to post about my new projects in hopes of infecting you all.

Assuming, of course, that any of you aren’t already infected.

Continue reading Warning: Startitis is Contagious (283 words) »

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CogKnition » Knitting for Charity

Stripy Throw

Exorcising Cursed Yarn

Similar Posts:

Tweed

Afghans for Afghans, Mother’s Day Drive

Similar Posts:

One More for the Road

Similar Posts:

Cabled Child Mittens

Similar Posts:

Baby Hat Trick (Plus One)

Oddballs, Begone!

Similar Posts:

Cable and Rib Sweater w/Hood

Wee Little Arms

Similar Posts:

Weekend Knitting Extravaganza

Warning: Startitis is Contagious