The Knitting Fiend

This is Jenny, a young friend of mine who has cystic fibrosis. She is currently on a waiting list for a double lung transplant required to save her life. Her surgery and special treatment will incur immense costs, many of which are not covered by insurance. To help cover some of these costs, her family has set up a fund through COTA, the Children’s Organ Transplant Association.

As a favor to me, I am asking generous knitters to consider making a donation of $5 or more to Jenny’s fund. (Because of administrative overhead, COTA requests donations less than $5 be given by non-internet methods.)

After you donate, come back and knit this simple yet elegant “Jenny Shawl”. I knit mine using 2 skeins of Taiga 100% Alpaca yarn which sells for $4.25 a skein and fluffs beautifully when you wash and block. The bulk of the knitting is worked in garter stitch. The faux lace trim consists of elongated twisted knit stitches (which are very easy) bordered by two eyelet rows. When you wear it, say a prayer for Jenny!

(more…)

Munchkin wants to thank everyone for the compliments on his cuteness. He pointed out that I customized directions spit out from “The dog sweater calculator”. The modifications are: These directions are organized specifically for hand knitting, and I added little velcro flaps to make it easier for the technicians to close this over little Munchkin’s legs. So, I wrote a new program to give more specific directions.

If you want to imitate Munchkin’s sweater exactly, I used “el cheapo” Caron yarn, used double stranded in Hunter Orange. These sweater look cute in other yarns– novelty yarn collars and trim are particularly nice.

You’ll need to pick your own needles and yarn, then knit a gauge swatch. When picking needles, remember the body is knit back and forth, the neck is knit circular and the trim is picked up and knit circular. That final step requires a very long needle — but if you don’t want to knit that circular, you can split that step into portions. (I’d do the two side edges with the flaps first. Then I’d pick up and trim the cast on edges.)

If you want the specific directions, give the calculator a try. (more…)

I found the perfect project to knit using my first hand dyed yarn! It’s the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf by Karen Baumer¹ I discovered the pattern when Betty, KitKat’s mom, was knitting it during a Thursday night meeting of “The Diabolical Knitters”. On last Thursday’s meeting, I asked Betty where she found the pattern, and, organized person that she is, she had the pattern with her!

The next day, I cast on and started knitting my scarf. It’s finished now! See?

Now I bet you are wondering what the yarn looked like before I knit it up. But did I take a photo of my hand dyed yarn before winding it up and casting on? No!

For those of you who want to imitate my scarf to get this color effect, I started with 1 hank of KnitPicks superwash merino (220 yds/ 100 grams.) When dyeing, laid the wet hank out and dyed one edge with a “red” color and another edge with “yellow”. (Knit picks has several reds– I don’t know which I used.) Near the center, I sort of blended them and massaged the yarn. It turned “burnt orange”.² I ended up with a hank that was red on one edge, yellow on the other and orange in between.

Since I was a beginner, I only dyed one skein in this colorway. That meant I needed to find a 1 skein project. Luckily, I found one.

Anyway, the scarf pattern is beautiful and it’s easy to knit up. It’s all garter stitch worked in short rows.

The only “problem” with the pattern is the yardage needs are a bit vague. Karen suggests you can knit a 4′ x 5″ scarf with 200 yds. Well… yeah… but in what gauge? I knit a 35″ x 5″ scarf using 220 yds which means I needed more yardage than suggested. (But of course, I knit at a gauge of 5.4 st/inch. It may be that Karen uses thicker yarn and/ or knits using a looser right ; that would result in a longer scarf using 200 yds?)

Anyway, since I want to make this scarf again, and I want a better yardage estimate, I decided to write a yardage estimator. My estimator is based on my scarf and a bit of “yarn use theory”. You can enter your gauge, desired length and width, and the estimator will predict the yardage required. (Since you we all know you aren’t going to knit a swatch, the calculator provides a few extra estimates.)

Give it a try! (more…)