| Friday, January 19, 2007 |
| Aren't pictures so much better? |
I know I've already told you about this, but showing you is more fun :) Now you can actually see how cute it turned out! I sorta made up this sweater as I went along, only deciding in the beginning that I wanted some sort of wrap. I finally decided to fasten it with the two buttons you see in the picture, and a ribbon to tie it on the inside. The yarn is a cotton boucle which I've had lying around for a while. Once upon a time it was on its way to becoming a larger wrap, one for me, but at some point I was more or less forced to give it up. The cotton makes for a pretty firm boucle that doesn't slide very easily, which makes it a bit of a pain to knit with. Between working at the computer and all the knitting I do, my wrists get sore now and then and trying to knit with this yarn became too much of a strain. Even the baby jacket took a fair bit longer than it should have, but I managed, and I was happy to have been able to make something out of this yarn that I really like the look of, even if it's not so great to knit. I'm taking it to the post tomorrow morning - I'm on pins and needles to see if it will fit, because somehow it looks a little small now that it's done. Babies grow so fast! It's about 50cm or 20 inches around, which should be big enough for a baby that's no yet 2 months, but you never can tell. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
Now I can get back to my Dulaan knitting, which I'm a bit behind on, as I wanted to have a sweater done by now. I also finally had an idea for what to do with some alpaca I ordered from Knitpicks when I was in Canada, and some Auracania that I also couldn't resist. Silly me, I didn't buy quite enough of the purple in the top of the Knitpicks picture to make a sweater and have long been hacking my brain as to what I could make or combine it with. For some reason I never noticed how nice it looks with the similar colours in the Auracania.  Also, although I have a weakness for variegated yarns, I often don't like the way they look when knit up. It looks nice as socks or a scarf, but I'm not crazy about variegated sweaters. But I just came up with a way to combine them that I think will work really well. I just started a sleeve as a gauge swatch - I'll keep ya posted!
 Labels: Dulaan, Knitting |
posted by tatjana @ 1:55 p.m.   |
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| Sunday, October 08, 2006 |
| Dulaan Knitting |
Sorry for being a non-blog the last few days...things have been hectic at work with a long article that needed translating ASAP. Spending so many hours with full concentration in front of the screen, I've not been up to blogging once I get home.
 But I have started a new project craftwise. I heard about the Dulaan 10,000 or Bust (scroll down) at Mossy Cottage Knits and just had to join. She's trying to rustle up 2,000 knitters who will each knit 5 items to send to Mongolia to keep people warm. I've been meaning to knit some things for Dulaan for a while now, so I figured it was a good time to finally start :) This works out really well with all the spinning I've been doing, since I will end up with a bunch of yarn that's only good for small projects and I can't make use of them myself. I'm not the kinds of person to stock up on hats n mitts n things, I don't wear wool socks, and I don't really have anybody I can gifts such things to either. So I'll send them to Mongolia :) I'm thinking I may also start selling some of my handspuns and then I can donate a portion of what I sell to Dulaan too! There's something about crafting for a cause that's just so motivating, dontcha think? Here's my first Dulaan knit:
This is how my self-striping handspun knit up. It worked! I really like how the stripes are irregular, it looks more interesting that way, I think. I will definitely work on this technique a bit more til I get the plying just right, and in the meantime can use my results to knit up more hats like these! It's just a basic k2p2 rib that I improvised, knit on 4.5mm (US7) needles. I could have used a size or 2 larger, but I thought it would be better to make it as tightly knit as possible for warmth.
In other crafty news, this afternoon I will be in a Tiffany glass workshop. It started yesterday afternoon, when I got most of my project done, and we get to continue today! I am a big glass art/craft/everything fan, so I've been really excited about doing this. I find things made out of coloured glass just have such a magical quality. It's especially amazing when people can melt it into different absstract forms...it looks so fluid, as though it could move. In this workshops were are just soldering pieces of glass together, like what is done in Tiffany lamps or stained glass windows, but there's still a lot of room for creativity. I'm making a mirror with sun rays. It's a bit hard to describe, but I will post of pic of the finished project tomorrow!
  Labels: Dulaan, Knitting |
| posted by tatjana @ 10:48 a.m. |
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