Tag: knitting

I Made Up My Mind…

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to make the Make Up Your Mind tank by Julie of Knitted Bliss. I fell in love with the Mr. McGregor’s Garden comfy sampler from Knit Picks (unfortunately not available anymore) and decided I would find a pattern for it once I got it. I tried to make my own first, but that didn’t work out quickly enough because I wanted this to be my project on vacation.

After a little searching and swatching, I decided Make Up Your Mind was what I wanted. I cast on provisionally for the 40 in size since my gauge was a bit smaller and I wanted it to be a little more flowy since it would be going over another shirt. I did mostly stick with length measurements from the 34 in size, except when it came to how many times to repeat decreases. Actually, I fudged a lot of the numbers because I kept getting off with the stitch patterns and would just decrease until I had an ok amount for the pattern. I was on vacation; I didn’t want to have to actually count my stitches.

This pattern was fairly easy to work, and very easy to follow. I’d say it’s a good bridge between beginner and intermediate skill sets.If you can knit, purl, yarnover, increase and decrease, you can make this pattern, too. Best of all, no sewing seams! You just graft the shoulders together and weave in the ends and you have a ready-to-wear shirt.

Multiplying Minions

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Seriously, once these things get started, they don’t seem to stop.

I got a request for this little guy to be made two weeks ago. I had about five days to make it and its partner hat:

Luckily, this was on my week “off”. Took no more than an hour for the hat and an hour and a half for the doll. I think I am becoming an expert on these minion things.

I Conquered the Triangle

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This Christmas gift was a real doozie. Considering I just finished it, you can probably imagine.

I started a week or two before Christmas, so it was doomed as a gift. But I was overly optimistic as one is so close to Christmas with so many things in the works. So I cast on an amount of stitches that was close to the pattern, seeing as how I was using slightly different yarn, and got to work. Around the end of the first ball of white, I knew there was going to be a problem in how much yarn I had, so I ordered two more colors of gray to get more of a gradient.

I wrapped up the progress on the white, along with the ball of gray yarn I had and the black yarn. I tossed them in a bag with a “loading” tag and gave that on Christmas morning. Then I had to wait another week for the other colors to show up. Once I got those, I kept plugging away. But I wasn’t getting very many rows out of each color.

I ignored the thoughts in my head that told me it wasn’t going to work as it was and kept going. By the time I got to the black, I had ordered three more balls of it to make sure I would have enough. It would be very bottom-heavy color-wise, but I told myself it would work. Until I got a few yards from the end of ball 4.

I did some calculations this time and worked my way from the bottom up to make sure I would have enough yarn. You know, something I should’ve done in the first place. But, you know, hindsight and whatever. I pulled the yarn from the original attempt as I worked. That way I didn’t have to unravel the whole thing at once, or deal with all those balls of yarn again.

I finally finished it last week. Two-and-a-half months past Christmas, but who’s counting. The point is, it is done and wearable. And I may sit down and write that up as kind of pattern/tutorial. Perhaps even with some videos, since I went backward to the way entrelac is usually executed.