Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Knitted Boots

Why on earth would I pay $40+ for a pair of knitted boots? I just won't. I see no point in spending such a ridiculous amount of money on something that could be made at home relatively inexpensively and relatively easily.

I present my knitted boots:



I figure these cost about $7. The yarn I use was part of my gifted stash, so I can't include that in the cost, and the clogs I used were about $7 from Wal-Mart. They're those fleece slipper clog things that have indoor/outdoor soles. Yep. Love em.

How did this happen? Well, I sat my ass down with the clogs and measured them around the edge right above where the rubber bottom is. Then I started knitting with a pair of size 15 needles and figured out my gauge. Then I simply knitted a giant rectangle that would work out to the right dimension to accommodate the clog. Now, of course, with all this math I did, don't ask me why I didn't bother just knitting them as a pattern. I very well could have. But I liked these cause the knitting was mindless.

So anyways, after the rectangles were knitted up, I pinned them onto the clog inside out and pinned the parts that needed to be sewn to fit them. I sewed them on my sewing machine and then glued and hand stitched them to the clogs. Not bad, eh?

Vintage Christmas Stocking

My friend Becky asked me, upon learning of my knitting skills, if I would be so kind as to knit up Christmas stockings for her two newest grandkids and her newest son in law. I agreed and she brought me the pattern and the yarn and I set about working on them.

Unfortunately, I was only able to take shitty camera phone pictures of the stockings because I was stranded in Manville at the time I finished these, so you'll have to forgive that.

And I figured that, since it was such an old looking pattern and I couldn't find any copyright info on the pamphlet, I would post it online for others to use. Well it turns out that it was probably one of my better ideas as I got a lot of messages on Ravelry from people. Some who had a relative knit these stockings, others who were looking for the pattern to continue a similar tradition to what my friend Becky has (all of her family members have one of these), and another who was a little upset because she found my online pattern after she knitted one using an existing stocking as a guide.

So anyways, I figured I would transfer the pattern from my livejournal to here since, well, this is my knitting blog after all. So here ya go:

Supplies Needed:

+1 Skein Each of the Following Yarn:
Red Heart Super Saver Hot Red
Red Heart Super Saver Soft White
Red Heart Super Saver Paddy Green
Red Heart Super Saver Spruce
Red Heart Super Saver Black
Red Heart Super Saver Petal Pink
White mohair yarn

+Size US 9 needles
+Bobbins
+Yarn Needle


Wind Approximately:
5 yards of soft white onto each of 3 bobbins
7 yards of paddy green onto each of 2 bobbins
8 yards of hot red onto each of 3 bobbins
About 2 or 3 yards of black onto two bobbins
About 2 yards of pink onto one bobbin
About 4 yards of spruce onto one bobbin
About 2 yards of soft white and white mohair on one bobbin held together (for beard)

Work remaining soft white, paddy green and hot red from skeins.

Note: Stocking is worked back and forth on needles with the seam at the center back.

Cuff
With skein of white, cast on 60 stitches and work K2 P2 rib for 8 rows. Increase one stitch at the end of row 8 by purling into the front and back of the stitch. You'll have 61 stitches. Break the white and leave a 10 inch end for seaming.

Attach the red and work stockinette stitch for 9 rows. Break the red and leave a 10 inch end for seaming.
Join skein of paddy green and P 39. Drop green, attach bobbin of white and P 1. drop white, take up paddy green and P 9. Drop dark green, join another white bobbin and P 1. Drop white, pick up paddy green and P 11.

Continue to follow the chart (found below) with care not to carry yarn over more than 3 sts. If you need to carry yarn over a large expanse of stitches, twist the yarn you're carrying around the working yarn at each stitch. Use extra bobbins of yarn for each color change and bring the new color under the last color used to prevent a hole.

Decrease 1 stitch on each side at rows 39, 49, 59 and 69 so you have 53 sts at the end of the chart. Work to the end of the chart (85 sts above ribbing) and end with a P row. Break the paddy green and the white yarn and leave a 16 inch tail of the paddy green for seaming.

With right side facing you, slip first 13 sts to a thread for the right half of the heel (from the ornament side), slip the next 27 sts to a thread for the instep, and slip the last 13 sts to the free needle for the left half of the heel (santa side)

Left Half of Heel
Beg. on wrong side, join white.
Row 1 Purl
Row 2 Slip 1, K 12.
Repeat these two rows 8 more times so you have 18 rows on the heel.

Turn Heel as Follows
P2, P2tog, P1, turn
Slip 1, K3, Turn
P3, P2tog, P1, turn
Slip 1, K4, Turn
P4, P2Tog, P1, turn
Slip 1, K5, Turn
P5, P2Tog, P1, Turn
Slip 1, K6, Turn
P6, P2tog, P1; 8 Sts.
Break yarn and place sts on a thread

Right Half of Heel
Beg. at inner edge, take up 13 sts of right half of heel (right side will be facing you). Join white.
Row 1 Knit
Row 1 Slip 1, P 12.
Repeat these rows 8 more times so you have 18 rows on the heel.

Turn Heel As Follows
K2, Slip, Knit and PSSO, K1, turn
Slip 1, P3, Turn
K3, Slip, Knit and PSSO, K1, turn
Slip 1, P4, Turn
P4, Slip, Knit and PSSO, K1, turn
Slip 1, P5, Turn
P5, Slip, Knit and PSSO, K1, Turn
Slip 1, P6, Turn
P6, Slip, Knit and PSSO, K1; 8 Sts.

With the same needle and the white yarn, pick up and knit 9 sts from the inner edge of the half heel (the 9 stitches that were slipped on the beginning of the heel)
Take up and K across the 27 sts of the instep, pick up and K the 9 sts of the inner edge of the other half heel, then K across the 8 heel sts. 61 STS.

Gussets and Instep
Row 1 and all odd numbered rows With white, Purl
Row 2 K14, K2tog, K29, Slip, K and PSSO, K14
Row 4 K13, K2Tog, K29, Slip, K and PSSO, K13
Row 6 K12, K2Tog, K29, Slip, K and PSSO, K12
Row 8 K11, K2Tog, K29, Slip, K and PSSO, K11
Row 10 K10, K2Tog, K29, Slip, K and PSSO, K11
Row 12K9, K2Tog, K29, Slip, K and PSSO, K9
49 STS
Work Stockinette stitch (P 1 row, K 1 row) for 14 rows, ending with a K row. Break white and leave a 12 inch tail for seaming.
Join skein of red and P 1 row and K 1 row for 11 rows, ending with a P row.

Dec. Row, K23, K2Tog, K24; 48 STS
P 1 Row

Toe
Row 1 - right side - K9, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K18, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K9; 44 sts
Row 2 and all even numbered rows - Purl
Row 3 K8, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K16, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K8; 40 sts
Row 7 K7, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K14, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K7; 36 sts
Row 9 K6, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K12, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K6; 32 sts
Row 11 K5, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K10, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K5; 28 sts
Row 13 K4, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K8, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K4; 24 sts
Row 15 K3, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K6, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K3; 20 sts
Row 17 K2, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K4, K2Tog, K2, Slip, K and PSSO, K2; 16 sts

After last Dec row, with wrong side facing you, place the first 4 sts onto a needle holder, then slip the next 8 sts to the free needle. Slip the last 4 sts to a 2nd holder.

Beg. with the 4th st, slip 4 sts from the first holder onto the 2nd needle. K the last 4 sts from the 2nd holder onto the same needle having side edges at center of needle. Points of both needles should be at the same side as the end of the yarn. Break the yarn, leaving a 14-inch end for weaving the toe.

Weaving Toe - Thread the yarn into a yarn needle and weave the sts together as follows:
*Pass needle through first st of front needle as if to K and slip st off, pass through 2nd sts of front needle as if to purl and leave st on needle. Draw yarn through, pass needle through first st of back needle as if to purl and slip st. off. Pass through 2nd st of back needle as if to knit, leave st on needle and draw yarn through: Repeat from * until all sts are joined. Fasten off.

Finishing
Sew in all ends securely. Sew seams with matching colors. Steam stocking lightly, do not steam ribbing. Using letter chart below and duplicate stitch, stitch name onto stocking with white yarn on the red stripe at the top of the stocking. (Letters are 7 sts high)

Sew a white pom-pom or jingle bell onto Santa's Cap and a small red pom-pom for his nose.

Trim the tree with sequins and beads as follows:
Sew beads and sequins onto the tree, inserting needle from wrong side through the stocking and the sequin, then through the bead and back through the same sequine and stocking to the wrong side.

CHARTS

Santa Chart

Or you can download it here:
For Excel
For Microsoft Works Spread Sheet


Letters



And now for my horribly bad camera phone pics of the stockings I made:

A close up


The backside


A Comparison


What I'm not happy about is how completely different the two santas look, even though I was SUPER anal about the stitch count and everything. I'm sort of glad I didn't take any pics of the 3rd stocking cause that was even more different.

What those pictures also do not show is that after they were done, I stitched sequins onto the trees to look like ornaments, stitched a star at the top of each tree and stitched a gold jingle bell on santa's hat. I also crocheted strips that were three stitches wide and 20 sts in length and sewed them on as the hanger.

So there you have it folks, the vintage Christmas stocking.

The Sam Hat

I wanted to make the city girl hat, which is a crochet pattern, but I wanted to knit it because at the time I couldn't crochet to save my life. So after figuring out how to make it, and having it halfway done, I frogged the project completely. It just so happened that I was knitting it while watching Rock of Love and one of the girls on the show (Sam) was wearing a similar hat that had a swirled rib pattern. I decided immediately that I wanted my hat to look like that, so I got to work. 3 days later, I had The Sam Hat. Then, I figured out the pattern after a few requests.





The Pattern
Ok So I managed to gather all of my notes that I have written down while making this hat (trust me, not an easy task as I manage to just jot stuff down anywhere I feel like it and it ends up everywhere lol) So hopefully this is good and isn't terribly confusing or off the mark from what I did. I've written up the patterns in the size hat to fit my head (23" head) but I've included the gauge so you can easily figure out how many stitches you personally need if your head isn't as large as my gigantic melon is. Although you need to keep your stitches as a multiple of 11 to work with the K3, P8 ribbing

Supplies:
1 Skein Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Oxford Grey
Size 8 US 16" Circular needles
Size 8 US needles
Size 8 US Double Pointed Needles
Plastic Mesh
Stitch Markers
Yarn Needle

Gauge: 22 Sts and 28 Rows = 4" in rib pattern

To begin, CO 110 stitches, place a marker and join the round. Begin hat by working 1/2" of seed stitch.

After you've reached 1/2" of seed stitch, you begin working the wide rib pattern. Rib pattern is K3, P8 repeated ten times across the round.
To get the rib pattern to spiral/swirl, you want to shift it on every 5th round. Rounds 1-4: (K3, P8) 10 times
Rounds 5-8: P1, (K3, P8) 9 times, K3, P7
Rounds 9-12: P2, (K3, P8) 9 times, K3, P6
Rounds 13-16: P3, (K3, P8) 9 times, K3, P5
(Essentially, on every 5th row you will take a P stitch from the last repeat of the pattern and put it at the front of the row, shifting the pattern over one stitch. If you want a more dramatic swirl, you could shift it more frequently or shift 2 stitches instead of one).
Follow this pattern until your hat measures 5 1/2" from the bottom up.

Once your hat measures that long, you're ready to begin decreasing. (A note about the decreasing section: While I decreased, I also maintained the shifting pattern every 5 rows. You can do this or you can just decrease it as it should give it a bit of a swirl on it's own. Since my pattern isn't exact to the row, I didn't include the shifting pattern in this section. So just do your best if you include it with the decreases.)

Remember, switch to DPNs when necessary to ease knitting!

On first decrease round, you're going to P2Tog at the start of every other group of Purl stitches beginning with the first group of 8.
Knit the next round normal.
On the next row, P2Tog at the start of every other group of Purl stitches on the groups of 8. When done, you'll now have a rib pattern of K3, P7.
Knit the next round normal.
On the next round, P2Tog at the start of every other group of Purl stitches beginning with the first group of 7
Knit the next round normal
On the next round, P2Tog at the start of every other group of Purl stitches on the groups of 7. When done, you'll now have a rib pattern of K3, P6.
On the next round, you're going to do another decrease row by P2Tog at the start of every other group of 6 Purls. Repeat this on the next Round
After the double decrease round, you should have K3, P5 ribbing, so K2tog at the beginning of every K3 on this round. (so the pattern will be K2, P5).
On next round, P2Tog at beginning of every P5 group. (Pattern will then be K2, P4)
On next round, K2tog on every K2 group and P2tog at beginning of every P4 group. (Pattern will then be K1, P3).
On next round, P2tog at every P3 group (pattern will then be K1, P2)
On next round, Purl the knit stitches and P2Tog on the P2 groups, so you will be left with 20 Purl stitches on your needles.
On next round, P2Tog across the row. (You should have 10 Stitches left)
Repeat last round, P2Tog across the row (You should then have 5 stitches left)
BO stitches and sew up small hole on top of hat.

Brim (Based on Vickie Howell's brim for Brimster)

Using your straight 8 Needles, pick up 40 stitches on bottom edge of hat and knit them.
Row 2: Purl all sts
Row 3: Knit all sts
Row 4: Purl all sts.
Row 5: K2tog, K to last 2 sts, SSK.
Row 6: P2tog, P to last to sts SSP
Row 7: Knit all sts.
Row 8: Purl all sts.
Row 9: Repeat Row 5
Row 10: Repeat Row 6
Row 11: K2tog (twice), K to last 4 sts, SSK (twice)
Row 12: P2tog (twice), P to last 4 sts, SSP (twice)
Row 13: Repeat Row 11
Row 14 (turning ridge): Knit all sts.
Row 15: (K1, inc1) twice, K to last 2 sts, (inc1, K1) twice.
Row 16: (P1, inc1) twice, P to last 2 sts, (inc1, P1) twice.
Row 17: Repeat Row 15
Row 18: Purl all sts.
Row 19: K1, inc1, K to last st, inc1, K1.
Row 20: P1, inc1, P to last st, inc1, P1.
Row 21: Knit all sts.
Row 22: Purl all sts.
Row 23: Repeat Row 19
Row 24: Repeat Row 20
Rows 25-28: Repeat rows 21-22 (twice)
Bind off.

Finishing
Using the brim you knitted, lay it over plastic mesh and use that as a guide for the brim. Trace it with a pen or marker and cut it out.

Using your leftover yarn and yarn needle, sew up side seams on the brim with the purl stitches facing out. Insert the mesh piece and then sew up the bottom edge of the brim (I like to sew it thru not only the yarn, but also thru some of the mesh to give it a bit more stability).

Then basically all you have to do is weave in the loose ends, block it if you feel it needs it (mine didn't) and that's about it.

Because the one thing I really need is another blog......

Yes, that's right, I have started myself another blog. Aptly titled Knits of The Living Dead because....I said so! Yes, I love zombies and I love knitting, so why not?

I'm sure most of the people on my livejournal could care less about my knitting entries, and I think it is rather nice to have a blog dedicated to simply knitting (with the errant zombie post here and there muahaha) that I can link into my Ravelry profile. Something that doesn't need to be "private" is nice as well.

So I should fill you guys in on what you should expect to find here. First, there will be the knitting stories/catastrophies. As well as my own patterns and projects that I'm working on which will include knitting and crochet projects. And every once in a while you'll be treated to some yarn porn.

As if my days weren't filled up enough between work, school and homework. Hah. Now I'm going to force myself to knit a little bit every day or at least post about knitting daily. a lot.

So I guess we need to get started here with a little bit of an introduction. So here goes.

My name is Ashley, but I prefer being called Busty thanks to my love of Roller Derby (Busty Yorneekaps was my skater name). I adore everything zombie, halloween, horror, and gore. I'm currently 25 years old and live in the grand state of delusion...I mean New Jersey where I work part time as an office assistant for a silicone sales and manufacturing company. I also attend school full time in pursuit of my Communications Associate. After community college I will be transferring to a four year school to go after my degree in Media and Film production. Lofty goals as of now, but one day it will happen. I enjoy knitting and crocheting, maybe a little too much. I've been knitting for about 3 years and have only been crocheting for less than 6 months. These skills run in my family, both my mom and grandmother would crochet when I was little and my grandmother knitted. It should come as no surprise then that I inherited my grandmothers knitting needles and crochet hooks when she gave up the practice due to arthritis not cooperating with her.

I have been blessed with gifts when it comes to my two fiber-ific loves. My knitting needle collection is now absurd (mainly because I spent a lot of time constructing my own knitting needles out of wooden dowels), I have between 4 and 5 full sets of straight needles and countless DPNs and circulars. My collection of crochet hooks is not much better. I have almost 100 standard crochet hooks. Yep. This collection consist of my grandmothers hooks and my great grandmothers hooks. I also have a butt load of those steel hooks for making ridiculously small, intricate lace things. But I don't feel like going blind so they just sit there and keep the other hooks company.

The other fiber related gift I've been blessed with was a huge increase in my stash. The former secretary at my church has a sister who used to knit designer wear for a company and she had all this leftover yarn around her house. She gladly gifted it to me since she no longer knits. And while I have seen larger stashes of yarn, I'm quite impressed with my collection. It is currently being contained in two large flip top tupperware bins and two three-drawer tupperware "dressers". THen, of course, the yarn that would not fit in those drawers is in the bag they came in still.

Here, this will give you a much better idea at the yarn that I currently posses:



That's the yarn I was GIFTED on my queen size bed. That does not include my two large totes filled with yarn (but you can see one tote off to the left of the bed to get an idea of how much more yarn I have). I think I counted once and I have close to 200 varieties of yarn. Yea I'm a bit insane.