MOONSTITCHES

Self Felting Mayfly

Again, sorry for my absence, the big holidays are still going on and I am fully occupied with... oh, you mothers out there know what it's like when the children are around all day.
I saw so many  postings of you via Bloglines I felt I had to comment on  but  am still waiting for the day I am not torn between actually doing so and crafting, in which case crafting mostly wins, so I remain mute for most of the times... sorry, really sorry for that!

Here, because it is just past midnight which means even after writing this posting there will still be some time be left for  making first  contact with what is in here, my report of what's been happening craft wise in the meantime:

[Insert here a carefully written, long post about me knitting my first Hourglass Sweater, following the pattern in this book, aiming for a fitted garment and actually ending up with a piece very close to what I pictured. Finding it a very nice pattern, easy to follow  and modify - I added about two repeats to the yoke for a higher neckline. Discovering the blessing of stitch markers (no, they are not of decorative nature as I always implied, not at all!),  getting acquainted  with the Kitchener Stitch, enjoying knitting in the round (no seams!!!) with long circulars, doubting that anybody actually can knit with 30 cm circulars... being covered with mo-hairs all over because the yarn (Diasilkombrer, Japanese yarn, 70% wool, 20% silk, 10% mohair) is generously giving away lots of those while being knitted up... me taking showers to get rid of those hairs in between - not liking air conditioned rooms in Japanese summers means heavily sweating at 34 degrees Celsius / 92 degrees Fahrenheit (at night!), getting sticky, being covered with a thin layer of mohair all the time...

Oh, and there was the discovery of the highly developed inclination of the used yarn to  get felted, almost by the pure look at it. I found out about that when I had to carefully separate the threads from each other when I wanted to weave in the loose ends...

And there was the story of how my teapot inspired me to make a pinnacle cozy and why I hope my Hourglass Sweater will stay with me some time before it auto felts itself into a tiny, unwearable piece... but in the end the point of the whole affair might simply have been to finally find that perfect yarn to make a Buttonhole Bag anyway... who knows]

But what ever I have been writing, it was eaten by whomever.

The post is gone, my time, too, I have to go to bed now there will be no crafting this night, I had to take a really deep breath and thought for a brief moment of rewriting that posting but I couldn't. A long posting that has been vanishing (yes, I forgot to save it as a draft) is just too frustrating.

I will  leave you with some photos of the finished sweater which has, by the way, already survived being washed for the first time -  wanted to see if I could  get rid of some loose mo-hairs and am happy that it worked!

 

Hope you are all well!

I will be back next week, with more time, and something crocheted for my neck, and hopefully the declaration that my craft room has been taken care of and is ready to let me in to finally sew something again!

Till then!

Take care.

Edit: The data...

Pattern: Hourglass Sweater, Last Minute Knitted Gifts , second smallest size
Yarn: Diasilkombrer (Diamondo, diakeito.co.jp), col. 509, 70% wool, 20% silk, 10% mohair, 238 g
Needles: Clover, circular/bamboo/Japanese size 8, 4.5 mm (recommended for the yarn: 5-6 / 3.6-3.9)
Started: August 12, 2007
Finished: August 26, 2007

Meandering Hexagons

work in progress, crocheted hexagons with no purpose,
thread #50, diameter 3.5 cm (1.4"), same pattern as
the pattern for my blanket (CROCHET MOTIF ITEM,
ISBN-10 4415103650, ISBN-13 978-4415103655), larger photo here

There is some great hexagon love going on in blogland and on Flickr... amazing! Some of you ordered the book my hexagon pattern came from, others have figured it out for themselves.

All hexagons are looking great and make my fingers itch to get back to my blanket right away.... but I have just been casting on for my Hourglass Sweater and want to work on that for a while.

To keep track of all the growing hexagon blankets and see many hexagons united at one place I created a Flickr group. Come over and join if you have some (any!) hexagons to share. In case you don't have a Flickr account, just send me some photos of your project and I will add them to the pool.

Happy crocheting!

Edit: Margie (blogless) had been writing to me regarding the joining of hexagons. She had a question about step #20 in my tutorial and suggested to mirror the stitches to those that are being made on the preceding corner... I've been answering via email but my mail was being bounced... something that's been happening quite often lately.
So, Margie if you have another email address, let me know, please. I would really like to try to get back to you.

In a nutshell my thoughts on that topic: Mirroring the stitches would only complicate things and not really be visible because it all is being covered by the next to be joined hexagon.

Cheers!

Edit#2: I've removed the links to the hexagon patterns two clever crocheting girls had been writing... possible copyright issues. Hope you understand.

Chevron Scarf #2

I really love how this one turned out and wouldn't have minded using even four skeins (as the book calls for) of yarn if, after two skeins, the scarf would not already have been about 150 cm (60"). That was a length I could live with, after all you don't have to wrap all scarves around your head before caring for your neck... ;-)

The Koigu did take some time to be knit into this scarf. To me it felt decidedly thinner than the mediumweight Socks That Rock (Oh, I'd love to try more of their colourways but am on buying local mode again...) and in fact the Koigu scarf is about 2 cm narrower than the STR scarf.

There's a little pooling here and there and the scarf is looking much more jumbled and turbulent (obviously I am on the edge of my English as I surely do not know how to describe my impression of the yarn properly), which might be a result of the quicker colour changes of the yarn. Overall I think it results in a lovely, homogeneous  blend of beautiful colours.

To close this report I'll be giving you the data of this scarf, something that real knitters seem to do (besides showing off their stash):

Pattern: Chevron Scarf, Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Koigu, two skeins, KPPPM P453 and P622
Needles: Clover, circular/bamboo/Japanese size 5, 3.6 mm
Started: August 7, 2007
Finished: August 12, 2007

More, larger photos on my Flickr account, as usual.

Take care!

To get it over with...

the yarn.

All from knit purl in Portland who have been really friendly and helpful with the whole transaction - I purchased everything online and they brought it to my husband's hotel... and now you know how it's possible to let your husband fill his suitcase with the prettiest yarns for you ;-)

The possibilities to combine them are endless, even more endless (having 22 skeins of Koigu on hand makes you think there simply must be a comparative degree of endless) when you find out two skeins (and not four!) can be enough for one Chevron Scarf! I will close this shameless posting here and will write a sober one about decent and cheerful scarf knitting afterwards.

Have a good day/evening.

F O W L R E S T

As I was a child my family used to venture out into the woods almost every Sunday morning. Just to walk, breathe. During the course of a year we collected whatever could be found - beechnuts, mushrooms, blueberries or chestnuts. On the not edible end there were stones, roots, branches, pine cones, caterpillars, bugs - not everything we took home. Being out in the woods may be one thing I remember best when thinking of my childhood.

And there is even more in a forest... something which never failed to make me smile... my mother always said I looked like Jodie Foster - which I thought was a bit far fetched but oh, so flattering. I always wondered why my mother would say something like that...

Now, a few years later and having the most beautiful daughter one could ever think of, I do understand why...

Mothers.

A forest of owls made for being part of one in ten.

Larger pictures over there.

600

Not 600 hexagons, no... I still have not started making them again... I just thought I should say hello.

I have meant to to show you all my gorgeous new yarn I recently got but I am not sure if I can do that. It feels so weird to show off all that stuff. You don't do that, do you?! Maybe later.
I guess it just feels so forbidden because I normally wouldn't have had access to it, it's so unreal my husband brought it all back in his suitcase while usually he only presents me a Martha Stewart LIVING when coming back from the US... I should not really have this... oh too cute, Dagny just came to me and wanted to wind two skeins of yarn with that wool winder I recently bought! Seriously. That's so fabulous.
I suppose once my stash has grown I'll give in, and just put it all out so you can see. I have went through the various stages of fabric addiction and know there will be times I won't feel guilty when having bought something like 22 skeins of Koigu. But now I do.

So here instead I tell you how rationally I have become regarding buying new craft books. I almost completely have sworn off Japanese craft magazines some time ago. I feel totally alright when I am missing a new issue of those I bought routinely and am much more drawn to pattern books. I guess in your countries are similar books like I bought  a while ago, but if you happen to have the opportunity to get books from Japan (traveling friends or husbands) you should consider buying these.

I think both are worth purchasing, not too expensive (around 2.000 Yen) and brimful with all kinds of patterns. In CROCHET PATTERNS BOOK 300 (ISBN 4-529-04175-1) there are patterns for nets, shells, pineapples, flowers, mixing colours, you name it. There are patterns which look kind of knitted, very interesting.KNITTING PATTERNS 3oo (ISBN 978-4-529-02071-8) is all about lacy patterns, literally patterns you can see through, lovely leaves, lots of zigzag, herringbone, diamonds, bobbles, flowers... I'd love to try knitting sampler scarves to get to know some of the beautiful patterns shown in this book.
After the next Chevron, that is. I have just casted on something absolutely not-neon and already love it to pieces. This yarn...!
Off to wind those skeins now...

Take care!

Edit: The patterns are charted, of course, easy to understand due to the visual instructions in the back of both books. No Japanese needed.

EDIT#2: ISBNs for both books added to the text. Sorry for having been hiding them in the little text boxes that appear when you move the cursor over the images.

summer sewing

Finally I have some photos for showing you what that important summer sewing was all about... taken two days ago on our way to the big Fireworks in Yokohama.

I followed a Japanese pattern for making the yukata, roughly, because I altered the length of the sleeves (the part that is hanging down below the arm) they became longer while the hemline went up.
Also I did a lot of hand sewing instead of using the machine because it seemed to be appropriate with the texture of the seersucker. With my serger (babylock) I did the finish for some seams because that way they just look neater than zigzagged. And there's a French seam in the back, unfortunately I didn't check the print and ended up with a little pattern break on the back... yes, I do care for such things which makes me an uncool crafter, I suppose. Anyway.

The little kinchaku came together without a pattern. All you need for that is a small basket (or a bigger one if plan on sewing for a bigger girl) that determines the size of the bag. The bag is lined with an undyed cotton, the cord is made of some yarn I had here for ages (the perfect colour for the outer fabric and basket, who would have thought that its time would come some day?!). Altogether a fun project and I was glad I knew how to sew with my serger after we hadn't met for a long time.
Oh my, I know exactly how strange it will feel when I end my hexagon break one day. It is only nine days since I made the last hexgon and I already get the impression, whenever I look at the blanket, somebody else crocheted it and left it at my house. But who would do that?! Very unlikely. It must be all that knitting I did in the meantime. It's like eating potato chips. Once you've finished a bag you crave for chocolate and after that you have to go back to the chips to remind you what their taste was. Right now I feel like being a knitter... I should try crocheting again, soon.

Once again, i said it before, sometimes I would like I was a real sewing person, making all our garments myself, or a quilter, a crocheter or a knitter - the way I potter around is letting me remain being a dilettante  on all fields. Which I can live with since I tend to like what I have been making, yet, I never feel like I was the person to answer questions about how something is to be sewn or crocheted. The person who know are the others... hm, where did this come from? I thought I'd make a quick post about the yukata... better stop here. I guess it's just too warm to feel good. Or my failed colour instinct is still nagging at me...

Cheers!

Neon

Sorry for the absence, I've been on the Chevron Islands for five days... no telephone, no Internet... kind of. Actually just Chrevron Scarf craziness.

Hello there!

Last time on MOONSTITCHES:

"[...] Furthermore I have a grudge against two balls of yarn I got in my mail yesterday... I wanted them to be contrasting... I wish I had went for something more subtle, way more  subtle... this combination is a bit more than I can imagine wearing... yes, a Chevron Scarf it shall be, you guessed right. I do have the hope these colours I am not liking now are exact the colours that need each other and will work out fine but to believe this I must see it.[...]"

And now the conclusion.

The culprits (actually there is only one to blame because yarn a priori is innocent but it can't speak....)

I said I went for contrast... got pretty much... thought "Ew." but wanted to give it a try. So I tried, had to cast on several times because I kept on losing stitches, after a while I managed to avoid that but when they stayed on the needles (circular, 3.6mm, bamboo) and I had knitted several repeats the pattern looked very odd, all curly... I read the pattern again and discovered that it did not consist of two rows but of four... I did the increase and decrease every other row because I certainly didn't read the whole pattern before casting on... So I ripped it and started again on Friday, considering taming the Sherbet with some Koigu I was awaiting later that day.

By then I had found this here... But when my Koigu arrived Friday afternoon I knew at once the Ms LaRock had to get along with that crazy Sherbet and no one else. So I kept on knitting. From time to time I looked up and actually said "Ew. Neon." yet I kept on knitting. Knowing, if I didn't finish this scarf in one go I never would. Besides, I still had hope the finished object would look alright.

And so it does.

I do not like the colour combination too much, eggplanty shades or brownish tones were much better partners for the Sherbet, I think, but I wear a lot of brown so the scarf's colours are not all wrong. And the striping that's going on is working just fine. And, oh, the wrong side of the scarf actually looks so right! I love how the colours are blending there.

The scarf got a little long, 220cm (something I tend to do when I am not too fond of a thing: I try harder - as long as it is craft related), still about 50g of each skein left - the yarn is really great, has a nice twist and smells wonderful when getting wet. And yes, I am happy I have a Chevron Scarf now, even when it is a neon beast like this.

I am looking forward to my next Chevron though... must try the Koigu.

Take care!