FO – Jessica and Robert’s Wedding Present

Cushion Cover Detail

Jessica and Robert got married in Sept 2007 and I offered to knit them a wedding present of their choice.  They chose cushion covers and sent me an idea of what colors.  Since I decided to knit them in Knit Pinks Wool of the Andes, they purchased a color card and matched it to a woven blanket that had also been a wedding gift.

Yarn for cushion covers

Originally, I have planned to knit Trivial Pursuit by Woolly Thoughts but this just didn’t work out.

Trivial Pursuit Started

Since knitting with preordained colors proved to be much harder than anticipated, I tried swatching with the different yarns and trying out different patterns.

Swatch for Cushion Covers

I probably should have stuck with the Trivial Pursuit pattern and it would have worked out but in the meantime, I dreamed a design.  So I bought more yarn, as recommended by Kaffe Fasset when colors are not working, and knitted up that cushion.

Dream Cushion Cover

I started a second one based on the same design elements but it was just taking too long, so I had a brain wave for another design.  Robert is a graphic artist and so I used the idea of graphics and pictures from Let their be Wyverns to design the second front.  The center detail was the opening photograph to this blog post.

Graphic Design Cushion Cover

In the meantime I did the backs, one of which I have no recollection of at all and the other one I finished just in time for their second wedding anniversary.

Fourth and final cushion cover

So they now have four 20″ x 20″ squares waiting to be converted into cushion covers.  I guess I sent them as cushion covers-to-be, some assembly required!

JnR are in the process of moving house so everything, including marvellous hand knitted cushion covers-to-be are packed away.  If they aren’t converted into cushions by the time I visit next visit, I will make finishing them up as my project.

Now I need a house warming project for them.  I hope they don’t mind waiting a couple of years!

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All pictures are Copyright © 2009 cdavies.  Please ask permission to reproduce.

Sun!

Sunny garden

That’s better.  Yesterday, I even got out to do some gardening.  Hopefully I will do the same later today.   Unfortunately, the sun shows up the smears on the dirty windows.

Murphy would like you to know that he is alive and well.  Well, he would if he could be bothered:

Murphy dozing

Another Rainy Saturday

Rainy Street

This is the second Saturday in a row that it has rained.  I am finding it a little frustrating as I had hoped to go to Longwood Gardens today.   Still my fridge is getting cleaned and Murphy seems to like having me around to bully.

Murphy Sleeping

Here is an aster from a few weeks ago, when the sun was out:

Purple Aster

Happy Blogaversary to ME!

Pink Cosmos

I’ve been blogging since 2005, so my blog is now 4 years old.

And I still mean to write more science posts one day!

Murphy

It is about time I had a Murphy Monday, but I keep missing it because of all the grading and stuff I have to do. So rather than make you wait forever, here is  “Murphy on a Tuesday”.  I asked him to look at the camera:

No camera in here

Eventually he settled down by the window and smirked:

Smug Murphy

I can even feel the smirking when he has his head turned.  It is in the ears:

Murphy's head and ears

Copyright © 2009 cdavies
Please ask to use my photos

Socks!

Seaweed Socks

I designed these so that the cable would start up the foot and then as stitches were added at the gusset and heel, the cable became wider.  If you look closely you can see that the cables are different on each sock.  I had a better idea of what I wanted the second time round.

Here is the gusset cable increase:

Seaweed socks gusset

The cable isn’t quite right yet.  I need to do some redesigning and try again.

Pattern Info

Pattern: Seaweed Socks.  A basic Toe Up sock using Judy’s Magic Loop cast on, 20 stitches total, increased to 52 (13 stitches on 4 double points)

Size: US 7/ UK 5/Eur 37

Needles:  US 1 / 2.25 mm

Yarn: Zitron Trekking Color

Started: During Sock Summit (August 6th ish 2009)

Finished: Sept 17th 2009

Comments

The heel was narrow as that’s what I have and I didn’t add many gusset stitches (as I didn’t know any better then) so the heel is fairly short.

The initial cable is a knit 4, cable two, keeping the cable on top. I purled twice on the top side of the cable, and once on the instep. Essentially, it went *p1 K4 p2, knit foot stitches, p2 k4 p1 knit sole stitches* repeat rows as between *  * except for cable rows when you held stitches in front or behind depending on which way you wanted the cable to go.  Except for the p1, the cable patterns were on the top of the foot side not on the sole side of the sock.  Thus there are more stitches between each p1 than between each p2.

The larger cable is double the first cable (described above), the twist of the second cable goes in the opposite direction of the first.  As I went up the leg, I increased the number of center (noncable) stitches.

I think I cabled every 5 or 6 rows, but that was fairly random sometimes.

If any one is really interested, let me know and I’ll try writing the pattern out.

Try and try and try again, my friends.

Nothing in the world can take place of persistence.

Talent will not…

Genius will not…

Education will not…

Persistence and determination are omnipotent.

Calvin Coolidge

(From Yarn Harlot Daily Calendar Sept 27 2009)

This is how Murphy-the-cat functions; persistence and determination will beat me down every time.  Meow.

Sock Heels

One of my best purchases at the Sock Summit was Chrissy Gardener’s Toe Up (amazon).  She manages to condense everything I worked out for myself in my first year of sock knitting into a book.  No, I don’t wish I had had this book when I started last August, but it definitely would have helped.  It is helping now.

One of her suggestions is to knit practice heels.  So a couple of weekends ago, I started this exercise. First, I knit the short row heel:

Short row heel

and discovered that it was reversible (not where the white strip is):

short row heel upside down

I don’t like the short row heel that much because my heels are so skinny, so I next tried the heel that Chrissy calls the hybrid heel:

Hybrid Heel

I’m not sure what I did wrong to get the teal strip in the middle of the heel.  Well I kind of know and probably could avoid it next time.  It is all do with where you drop one color and start the next.

I put in less gusset stitches than calculated from Chrissy’s worksheet, which meant the heel was really really short.  This was a important lesson for me.  To save having to redo the heel – I dislike frogging and redoing at the best of times and definitely on a practice piece – I just carried on with the slip stitch partridge stitch after the heel was finished.

Another change I made was that Chrissy does a slip stitch rib so that the slip stitches are on the same stitch every purl row.  I changed this so that the slip stitches alternates every other purl row.  I call this partridge stitch because I read that name in a sock pattern somewhere, but I never checked the stitch name, so it might actually be something totally different (such as turkey stitch?).

One thing I found with the hybrid heel is that it is important that your gauge is right – size matters.  The slip stitch heel was much more forgiving than the hybrid heel.  Also the hybrid heel takes up a lot of your sock.  As you can see below, it need about a third of my foot and if I had done more gusset stitches, i.e. the right number, it would have been nearer half:

Hybrid Heels need lots of space!

Next I’ll try the after thought heels from Chrissy’s book and I want to try this round hat heel from Knitty.

Fall Flowers: White Aster

Little White Aster

Actually taken the last weekend of summer but asters are fall flowers.

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Copyright © 2009 cdavies

Please ask permission to use my photos.  Thank you.

FO Friday – EZ’s Wearable Art Stockings

EZ's Wearable Art Stockings

At Sock Summit, I took another class with Meg and Amy and finally finished these stockings.  Not to be worn with shoes however as those toes would get in the way.

I had some issues with the front increases and sole decreases.  On the first stocking I increased either side of three center stitches.  I changed this for the second stocking to four center stitches which fits with the pattern better, as you can see below.

First stocking knitted is on the left

For decreasing on the sole at first I had the decreases side by side but this left a gap which I filled with an afterthought stitch – so it looks as if I have three stitches in the center:

Wearable art stocking with three stitches centering base

For the second stocking, I knitted two stitches between the decreases, so I have four center stitches.  This matches the four center stitches on the front/top of the foot:

Wearable Art Stocking 4 center base stitches

To make these more practical, I am going cover the soles with slipper soles.  Then I can at least wear them around the house and not have to clean them every time.