Posts tagged ‘product’
I-Cord Necklace Tutorial
At the Etsy Craft Party I attended on Friday I got a chance to play with an I-cord machine and talk to people about the different ways to make a cord (the machine, spool knitting or double pointed needles). I wore the bracelet I created for the rest of the night and put it with my daily jewelry (watch, college ring and small silver hoop earrings) when I went to bed. The next morning I decided that just wearing this bracelet wasn’t going to be enough, I needed to make more I-cord!
Since Saturday was Knit In Public Day it seemed fitting to choose the double pointed needle method. If it hadn’t rained I would have biked to the park and knit there, but it was an icky day out and I’d been at the Etsy Party for 4 hours the night before, so the most public I was getting was twitter (and this blog, a few days late!).
I’m not sure that I’ve knit anything since Christmas of 2009, and even then it was just a few tiny snow people. I was pleasantly surprised that my hands just knew how to hold everything, although it took a long time to get into the rhythm of things since the rows are so short! Still, by the end I was able to do 7 inches of cord in about 10 minutes, which I thought was pretty good for someone who hasn’t knit anything substantial in more than 10 years.
My go-to website for basic technique has long been Lion Brand’s, they didn’t fail me this time either, giving a simple explanation of how to make an I-cord.
I started as instructed: casting on 3 stitches (yet another thing my hands magically remembered how to do), sliding, knitting, sliding and knitting some more. Before I’d even gotten this technique down, I already knew that I wanted to experiment with the size of the cord, expanding and contracting to make different embellishments. I ended up doing something like this:
Cast on 3 Slide to other end, knit 3 (basic cord pattern) Repeat for 7 inches
Knit, cast on, knit, cast on, knit Knit 1 row Knit 2, cast on, knit 2, cast on, knit Knit 3 rows Knit 1, k2tog, knit 1, k2tog, knit 1 Knit 1 row Knit 1, k2tog twice
Knit basic cord pattern for 1.5 inches
Knit, cast on, knit, cast on, knit Knit, *cast on, knit* repeat from * 3 times Knit 1 row Knit 1, k2tog across Knit 1, k2tog across
Knit basic cord pattern for 1.5 inches
Knit, cast on, knit, cast on, knit Knit 1 row Knit 2, cast on, knit 2, cast on, knit Knit 3 rows Knit 1, k2tog, knit 1, k2tog, knit 1 Knit 1 row Knit 1, k2tog twice
Knit basic cord pattern for 7 inches
I apologize for the lack of abbreviations or standard notation. (Did I mention how long it’s been since I knit something?) I should probably say that you continue to slide at the end of each row. If you can understand my pattern, you will end up with a necklace with three bobbles, 2 large and a small one between them.
The problem is, they change size depending on how you push and pull the cord. I was looking around my apartment for something small, a marble would be ideal, to stick in the spaces. The best I could come up with without leaving home (still raining) was some styrofoam. I’d recently purchased an exacto knife so this seemed like a fun experiment.
I cut the styrofoam into a rectangular prism at first, but quickly realized the cord wasn’t tight enough and the corners would stick out. So I sculpted a bit until I had a piece I liked.
Then I pulled at the yarn around a small hole until it was big enough to fit the foam. Once it was in, I wiggled it around and stretched at the cord until the hole had nearly disappeared.
I repeated the same process for the other two bobble spaces. Squishing the styrofoam helped a bit, and I was even able to cut out protruding corners while the foam was inside the cord.
Overall I’m happy with the design, although I may end up looking at the thrift shop for some marbles or other small spheres to use instead. The styrofoam is just a bit more visible than I’d like it to be.
Blocking Experiment
So far I’ve managed to avoid blocking. Mostly I work with thicker yarns and often with round objects. Recently I made some square coasters though that came out a bit crooked and decided to finally figure out blocking. I went with the soaking method rather than spraying since it’s a thick yarn and pinned them all down to a towel.
Turns that I don’t have as many pins as I thought (I don’t sew) so I was only able to pin the corners (even then I had to use some needles). I stretched and squished the edges until they lined up with the ruler and hopefully they will dry that way.
I set the whole thing up in the sun and hopefully it will all go smoothly!
Do you have any tips or tricks for blocking?
Summer Table Setting
I was in Michael’s one day (always a dangerous place to be) and saw this adorable bright pink yarn on clearance. I’m not usually one for pink, but I’ll always take good quality yarn on clearance. I’m so glad I did because I just love what I’ve made with it so far:
Don’t the placemats remind you of watermelon and checked picnic table cloths all at once?
Both sets are available for purchase now:
Pink and White Round Crochet Coasters
Entrelac Lotus
All the blog gurus say that it’s important to write about what people want to read. Since I’ve only had one comment and no other way to communicate with you, I looked at my search terms. So far, four people have found my blog via search and they’ve searched for the following:
- channel islands knitting illegal fishing
- opposites crafts
- how to do an entrelac square
- how to make single crochet enterlac
5 Things Friday
If you live on the east coast, then you know that it’s been a seriously dreary week. My Wordless Wednesday post was of bright blue skies since I needed a reminder that they existed behind all of the rain/clouds/fog which have dominated this week. This week’s five things were certainly influenced by the weather.
1. It rained so much that my morning walk turned into an obstacle course of avoiding puddles (especially that deceptively deep one which offers the potential for sinking and being splashed by passing cars) and the slugs that seem to be multiplying like crazy.
Even the geese were confused by the rain- they thought that the tennis courts were a great spot to set up for the day.
2. I got some work done on a new coaster design while proctoring the state test (MCAS) for 6 hours this week. I think I want to felt them before selling, but I haven’t decided for sure. Do you have a preference?
3. I listed two new items on my Etsy shop. First, the felted bowl I wrote about Monday. Then, the hemp basket I described yesterday. I have some bright coasters and placemats ready too, those would have been good for this dreary week!
4. Since I was stuck inside, I worked on updating this blog. The layout is new since last week, I really like the green, plus it’s nice and clean. And I added the “Etsy Shop” page. It’s up at the top next to “About.” Go ahead, read all about me, and then check out the awesome products I have for sale. It took a bit of finagling to make the page work, but I’m happy enough with it.
5. I was very sad to learn that Pom discontinued their glass containers for tea. They claim it’s the greener choice but I’m just not buying it. I was really looking forward to making a nice vase from one. Instead, I bought a random plastic bottle that was skinny enough to fit in the entrelac piece I’d made. Last night I cut the top off (after my brilliant insight to use a rubberband to make sure my circle would be level) and this evening I hope to finish the cover for this upcycled vase.
That’s about it for this week. What have you accomplished over the past 7 days?
Again, thanks to Allison for the “5 Things Friday” theme.
Hemp
I’m a little bit late, but I’m celebrating the 2nd Annual Hemp History Week (it was May 2nd-8th). I was one of those young girls fascinated with friendship bracelets, lanyard/gimp/boondoggle (depending on location? or just who taught you?) and macrame. So hemp was something I used to make necklaces/bracelets. I liked the natural color better than the dyed hemp because it was softer and easier to work with (which I’m sure has a lot more to do with how the hemp was processed, not the dyeing). As with most crafts I picked up, the hemp, beads and clasps were all packed away in a storage bin that lived under my bed. I didn’t think about hemp much at all, except on the occasion that someone would mention hemp clothing as ec0-friendly or how silly it was that the FDA couldn’t tell the difference between hemp and marijuana so growing it is banned in the US. Then a few weeks ago I was browsing my favorite online yarn shop which specializes in eco-friendly yarn. They had hemp yarn and so I figured I should try it out (you should too – it’s on sale for the month of May!). It’s a bit stiffer than other yarns, but not nearly as bad as that ‘dyed stuff’ I used as a kid. I decided it would make a nice sturdy bowl/basket and set to work.
When I finished the basket I had some yarn left over, and decided to see how rusty my macrame skills were. I dug into that bin under my bed, and there was my set of hemp, beads and clasps. I don’t know if it makes me really organized or a pack rat, but either way I had everything I needed and knew exactly where it was 2 moves later! Turns out my macrame skills come back as easily as a riding a bike does.
For more information about hemp check out this fact list. I had no idea that Turkey has grown hemp for 2,800 years for rope, caulking, birdseed, paper and fuel!
The Felted Bowl Saga
I am new to felting, so far I’ve felted two things. The first time I tried I sort of followed a bag pattern, then read a little bit about felting and jumped right in. And it worked great! I’d made a small clutch, just the size of a short drinking glass, in a nice wool yarn. Then I stuck it in ice water, boiled it several minutes, ‘agitated’ it (using classic yellow dishwashing gloves), repeated a few times and then blocked the whole thing around a couple glasses (one for the bag and another for the handle). Everything worked exactly as expected aside from a slight burn on my palms (felted wool really holds onto the boiling water!).
Impressed with the ease of this new technique, I set about to make a felted bowl. I’d seen a pattern for a really cute knit bowl in a flower shape, but I wanted to crochet it. Not to worry, I’ve made plenty of double crochet circles, I can make a bowl. After a few tries with the petals I had a nice looking but slightly floppy bowl, I thought the felting would solve the floppy problem, not so much. I started out just felting with ice water/boiling water like before. It amused my audience (I was visiting my parents house for Easter weekend) but resulted in an almost flat piece of fabric that wasn’t very well felted. Still feeling somewhat hopeful I set it in a bowl to dry overnight and hopefully regain its shape.
The next day I could clearly see that it would flatten with even the least bit of pressure, so I thought I would look up some fabric stiffeners. One homemade recipe just involved watered down glue. With renewed enthusiasm I painted some on and put it back in the bowl to dry again. A few hours later I checked back to see that little had changed, if only it looked nice when flat I would have quit there and sold it as a trivet.
Finally, I decided to try putting it through the washer/dryer on hot with a full load of laundry to get as much felting as possible. I didn’t think it would do much, but it was my last hope. I’m not sure whether it was the washing or drying or combination of both, but at the end of both cycles it was finally felted! The only problem was it had dried with a crease… Not wanting to wet it completely to risk undoing all of my progress, I steamed the crease and massaged it back into a smooth curve.
All in all I crocheted, iced, boiled, agitated, glued, washed, dried and steamed this bit of wool. It was an awful lot of drama for one bowl. Next time I’ll just use double strands or single crochet!
This item is available for purchase now! Felted Red Flower Bowl (Crochet).
Tunisian Crochet and Entrelac
One of the best things about Ravelry is that I am always learning about new techniques. I’m willing to try more complicated patterns because I know that there are over a million people on there, so someone is bound to have the answer to whatever questions I might have. So, when I saw a pattern for a cute bag using tunisian crochet and it was also an entrelac project I did hesitate – that’s two new techniques in one pattern! – but I knew that I could figure it out. So after discussing with another woman that neither of us were sure what the starting chain should be, I decided to make a mini-bag as a test. It didn’t turn out as a bag, but more on that later.
First I had to learn Tunisian Crochet, also called Afghan Crochet. I was hesitant about this method since it involves having a lot of loops on the hook at the same time. The fact that you don’t have a ton of loops is exactly why I prefer crochet to knitting, but this project didn’t require buying a longer hook and it wasn’t an overwhelming number of loops (up to 7 at a time). The basic stitch is essentially a sc2tog done in two steps: first, you pick up loops as you move to the left, then you work back to the right pulling through two loops at a time. It creates a different look though, and you work through the loop in the front rather than the top. The most difficult part was definitely re-training myself to not make a chain at the end of every row. For at least 50% of the project I finished the row, chained at least one and then undid the chains once I looked down and saw front loops beckoning me rather than the familiar V.
Next, once I’d made four squares, I got to experience the full extent of entrelac. I love it! The squares look great in alternating colors, it’s much easier than working in pieces and sewing them together. Really all it involves is working your square starting on the last row of the previous square, and slip stitching into the adjacent square at the end of the row. It seems reasonable to do with regular crochet, although there aren’t any patterns for entrelac that don’t use tunisian*. I’d rather work in traditional crochet because I’m much faster at it, I’m sure that’s all about practice, but I have a harder time feeling the tunisian stitches and so I’m not sure I’d get to the point where I could work without looking at the project. I’ll experiment with single crochet entrelac and get back to you on that.
After a few rows of alternating colors I really looked at what I had. It’s not a bag, I checked to make sure that I could fit my hand into it before continuing past the first row, but a cylinder just doesn’t say bag to me. I’m hoping to get to the store tomorrow to buy one of those Pom juices since it may just be the right size to fit. Then I’ll call my creation a vase cover for the upcylced vase, and I’ll get to drink some delicious juice!
*Edit: I did find a pattern booklet that will explain how to do entrelac with single crochet, so unsuprisingly I’m not the first to think of it. However, instead of spending $8.00 on a booklet I’ll still be making it up as I go along. It saves paper and is much more fun!
Tinted Green Crafts 