Tag: knitting

Works in Progress

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I usually write about my projects once I’ve finished them, but I constantly have many different things going at once. Kind of a creativity ADD, if you will. At the moment I have three different things on the needles, plus a sewing project in the “pile of fabric stage”, and some painting projects in various stages of completion/planning.

My carry-along project this week is the same one I was working on at the Hollywood Bowl. I’ve been naming this series of Earlybirds after appropriately colored birds, but I can’t think of a purple bird name. Any ideas?

My big project for this month is this little guy, a panda bear lovie for a certain Little Bear’s birthday on Labor Day. I’m just about an inch from the halfway point, where I will be able to start decreasing to make it go faster again. Don’t worry, once I’ve finished the body this little guy is getting black eyes and a nose.

Remember how I said I was going to remake these bags from the Hollywood Bowl night? They are currently my fabric pile. I’m also going to make some snack-sized bags to go along with them. If you want a tutorial to make your own, I got my general idea from this site. I made my own pattern based on the measurements listed on my plastic bags in the kitchen, though.

There are a few other things lying around my room that I am not currently actively working on, but I think this is going to keep me busy at least for this week.

Knitting at the Hollywood Bowl

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I’ve gotten into the habit of carrying my little knitting bag nearly everywhere to make progress on some of my smaller projects when I have a bit of free time. So when I got the chance to go to the Hollywood Bowl to see the LA Phil and Los Angeles Master Chorale perform Verdi’s Requiem on Tuesday, I knew I would be taking it along to work on the sock I had cast on Monday. But, being paranoid as I am about having my knitting needles taken away somewhere at security, I wanted to check for any restrictions.

There is no information anywhere about knitting at the Hollywood Bowl. I know there are many knitters out there who like to bring work along to concerts and such, but there was literally nothing on the Internet that said whether you could or not. Typing “knitting Hollywood Bowl” (simplest term I came up with) only leads you to pages that mention The Knitting Factory and Hollywood Bowl. So I decided to wing it.

Now, my experience may not be typical. The security guy glanced at my lunchbox and I didn’t even have time to open my tiny knitting bag before he waved me through. But no one else inside the venue said anything about it, so I’m assuming it’s not against any regulation.

We got there right as they were letting everyone in to be seated, so we ate our dinner at our seats, which were luckily in the front of the section. That meant we could use the ledge as a makeshift table. I had packed sandwiches and cookies in some fabric sandwich bags I threw together. I’m not saying that to “humble-brag,” I literally was throwing things through the sewing machine. That is why I took them apart today to remake them with a little more thought.

We finished eating our dinner just as the concert was about to start. I picked up the start of my first purple Earlybird sock and started knitting. We were only able to stay for the first hour or so, since it was a late night. I still managed to get through the first repeat of the cables, though.

So, for any knitters out there looking to knit through their next LA Phil concert at the Hollywood Bowl, to my knowledge you are allowed to bring it. That is some helpful information to have out there.

Rosettaluffagus

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Cassy of Knit The Hell Out came out with a pattern recently that made me find a small-ish child to put a garment on just so I could make it. Her Ruffaluffagus tunic/dress calls for sock yarn, of which I had plenty from making gloves. Or I thought I did. I ended up getting two more skeins because I think I really only had about a single skein to begin with.

The yarn I used was self-striping and the stripes really worked well with the gauge. For more complete information about the yarn I used, visit my Rosettaluffagus project page. The pinks in the yarn inspired the name, and also the accompanying headband.

Since the dress was for a little girl who loves hair accessories, I made a matching headband. (Project info here.) I am going to write up the pattern here soon, just to give myself a little practice writing patterns. I knit the band, then crocheted the flower separately and sewed it on with the center button.

The dress pattern was great. It was very easy to follow, which was good considering I had not knit (or even sewn, for that matter) an actual garment in a long time. The only thing I had any sort of complaint about was weaving in the ends, but that was my own darn fault. I had to buy two extra skeins of the yarn, obviously in a different dye lot than the first skein, so I not only had to stripe in the new skein to blend it, but keep up with the color changes to make the stripes correct. Lesson learned, next time make sure to have enough of the same dye lot to make the whole thing.

One of my favorite parts is how the short row sleeves make the stripe pattern mostly match up from the armhole to the sleeve. I didn’t even have to try to get that part correct.