Turtleknits

New Blog

turtleknits — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:30:32 +0000

I’ve moved my blog – all the action (if you can call it that) is over at The Finish Line blog now.

Daisy; or, In Which I Run Out Of Green Wool

turtleknits — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:01:53 +0000

Here is the second sweater for Doc Swatchy to take to Botswana. Never one to do something before the deadline is breathing down my neck, Adidas and I packed up the sweaters and will send them Priority Mail tomorrow.

This is the “Daisy” pattern from Knitty, designed by the Yarn Harlot.
It is a very cute raglan pattern. Unfortunately, I ran out of yarn half way through the sleeves, and had to dip back into the stash for some gray. I tried to tie it all together with the gray chain embroidery around the neck, center fronts, and bottom. It think it came out OK – maybe even better than if it was a solid green.

Raspberry & Chocolate

turtleknits — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:53:09 +0000

This is a top-down raglan baby sweater made from stash wool.

When I saw these 2 colors together I thought of a raspberry dessert with chocolate sauce.
Here's the back:

This is the first of 2 sweaters for Doc Swatchy to take to Botswana.
Sorry about the fuzzy pictures. Those of you who read my other blog will know why.

Turtleweaves Part 6 – Done

turtleknits — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:00:59 +0000

Well, not done in the sense of finished – I still have to wet finish it – but the weaving is all done!
Here it is on the couch. The bottom part is the “sampler” part with different weaves and densities. After I while, I was loving the twill, so I just continued in that for the 2nd half of the strip.

Here it is on the camilla (photo shoot the same day I finished the previously-posted socks):

A close-up of the “sampler” part of the weave:

And a close-up of the loose twill I did at the end:

And yet another shot, folded to only show the twill:

Blue Wool Socks Done!

turtleknits — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:43:36 +0000

These were actually done a while ago, but spring has come to NJ and I have only worn them once. Out of sight, out of mind, you know?

This picture shows how long ago it was: this is the first camilla blossom, and now there are too many to count. Well, I lie: there are a lot, but not really too many to count, however I have way better things to do than to count the camilla blossoms.

They are just simple stockinette socks, with green reinforcing thread at the toes and heels (the green makes the heel look lumpy, but it isn’t in real life) and a 1×1 rib at the top.

I haven’t cast on a sock since these were finished, which feels weird. I have A LOT on the needles, just no socks. You’d have to be a sock knitter to understand, I think.

Turtleweaves Part 4 – Beginning The Weaving

turtleknits — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:52:08 +0000

I promised fabric for my next weaving post, and here is some fabric.

I started with plain weave, experimenting with different numbers of picks per inch: balanced, tight, loose. Then I did some twill.

I took the following picture because I was so thrilled to see the fabric wind around the cloth beam:

Real fabric! That I wove! I know, I know — it doesn’t take much for me to get excited.

Arrrrrgh – Pirate Mittens

turtleknits — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:31:40 +0000

Spragoon wanted a pair of these Hello Yarn pirate mittens he saw on Ravelry.

This was my first try at stranded knitting.

Other than the ribbing (the black is too loose), I think they came out pretty well.

I used Frog Tree Merino in black and natural.

Fingerless Gloves

turtleknits — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:48:48 +0000

One of the advantages of having stash yarn is the ability to make things with no prior planning.

This is some Chinese Cashmere I bought on eBay from Ewephoria.
My hands were cold.

Here are the fingerless gloves I made.

Yes, this yarn is as soft as it looks. And my hands are no longer cold.

Turtleweaves Part 3 – Finishing the Warp

turtleknits — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:14:20 +0000

This blog post covers a couple of days.
I am up to threading the yarn through the heddles. I have 4 shafts, and I’m just putting the yarn thru in order: 1,2,3,4. (I think this is called a straight draw, but don’t quote me.) I tie a knot with each group of 12; here I have 24 threaded.

On shaft 1, I ran out of heddles. I thought I had more than enough, so I’d saved 2 at the beginning and skipped some of the bent ones. In retrospect, a mistake, but a very minor one — I got to practice Chandler’s lesson on making string heddles, and they seem to work fine.

Here I have all 120 ends threaded:

Now, I tie each of the groups onto the “apron rod” — I discovered that it’s an old paint stirrer! It seems to work, although it would be short if I were using the whole 14″ width of the loom, so I’ll replace it at some point.
I used a lark’s head knot (would you look at that — Chandler’s book is making me sound like I actually know something!) to tie the yarn on. Since my warp is shorter than I wanted it, I decided to use this method.

Here, Adidas is helping me wind the warp onto the back beam. As I wind, he is making sure there are no tangles in the front.

Then, I attached the yarn to the front apron rod. It took a bit of concentration but wasn’t as hard as it seemed from the description in the book. I tried to get the tension as even as I could.

When that was done, I lifted each shaft in turn, till I got to #3:
Oops, a mis-threaded heddle.

Not too hard to fix (from the front). Found 2 more errors, and fixed them too. See, in the 5th group from the right, there are 3 threads in a row that go “under.”

The warping is now done — hooray! I used paper to start and to even out the warp threads — I should have done more than 3 passes, but I was anxious to get a few picks in before I went to bed. And, this is a sampler, after all. So I indulged myself:

By the next blog post, you should see weaving!

Turtleweaves Part 2, Sleying the Reed

turtleknits — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:27:24 +0000

The next step in warping the loom placing each individual warp thread through the slots in the reed, or sleying.
This reed has 8 slots per inch, but I want my sampler to be 12 ends per inch, so I alternated one and two threads per slot.

Since I’m going to have white and green stripes in the warp, I do groups of 12 separated by gaps where the green will go.

Then I did the green:

Here is the back of the reed.

That’s all for today.