Bagatelle the Second

Here is my other recent pattern. This one takes even less time to knit than Balalaika and is certainly more functional. The world probably did not need another cell phone cozy pattern. But when Matt burned his hand on a pot handle hot from the oven, it was clear that Something Must be Done.



Download pattern from Ravelry

Photographing Prophylaxis was more work than design and knitting combined, but it made for a well-received dinner party. From left to right: goat cheese, leek, and prosciutto frittata; pan-roasted asparagus and cherry tomatoes with toasted garlic; and sour cherry cobbler (all recipes adapted from the inimitable Cooks Illustrated franchise).

After designing the pattern for Prophylaxis, it occurred to me to make sure I wasn’t just "unventing" it, as Elizabeth Zimmerman would say. My researches uncovered this charming number, which I will have to make some time for the sake of the clever stitch design. However, it wraps around the pot handle in a way that doesn’t seem very foolproof.

Although the function of Prophylaxis is as wholesome as it gets, the presentation in the written pattern is just a little risque. (I challenge anyone to have resisted the temptation.) Since this would otherwise be a great design for kids to churn out presents for all the family, I will cheerfully Bowdlerize the pattern at the first request.

Plastic Pipe (CPVC) Swift

I recently embarked on a project to reclaim laceweight cashmere from a commercial sweater. I quickly realized that I had no interest in skeining approximately 3500 yards of yarn onto my niddy-noddy. Matt to the rescue -- with plastic pipe of course (other plastic pipe projects to his credit include a woodwind instrument, a laundry airer, the niddy-noddy, a footstool, and a yarn rope maker).



I used the swift to skein the yarn directly off the sweater, which was a fabulous boon. While this swift was inspired by the need to make yarn into skeins, it also works well for winding yarn off of skeins.

After Matt made this swift, I thought to search online for other PVC swift projects, and found this one. It's very nice, and superior to Matt's in some ways: it is easier to load with a skein of yarn and it may not require a clamp to hold it in place. But Matt's swift folds up smaller for storage, has a handle, and adjusts easily to different skein sizes, all of which are important features to me.

Here are Matt's write-up and project pictures. They're not a step-by-step tutorial (I certainly couldn't build a swift from them), but if you know your way around a workbench, they should get you headed in the right direction.

Matt's notes

I built this in about half a day. I had most of the parts on hand, though I did have to make one run to the store.

Dimensions and skein size range

When opened out so that the verticals form a square, the sides of the square are about 12" long and the diagonal of the square is about 17". The smallest skein it will accommodate (with the arms all the way closed) is about 3' in circumference. The largest skein it will accommodate (with the arms opened out all the way) is about 6' in circumference.

This is about as big as you'd want to make the swift out of 1/2" CPVC. Under tension the arms twist a little, allowing the verticals to lean inward slightly. This is inelegant but has not proved to be a problem yet.

Materials

• 1/2" nominal CPVC pipe (5/8" O.D.), fittings, and pipe cement
• 2x4 and scrap wood
• self-adhesive felt (found at the hardware store alongside the furniture casters and glides)
• all-thread rod, machine screws, washers, and wing nuts (see below for specifics)
  

Central pivot

I drilled a 5/8" diameter hole through the 3 1/2" dimension of a 2x4 and inserted a CPVC pipe axle through the hole to make the pivot. I did not oversize the hole because I didn't want the finished swift to wobble. The fittings on either end of the axle are cemented in place to prevent it falling out. I lubricated the axle with a little petroleum jelly. It turns smoothly and easily without wobbling.

Adjustable arms

I used a drill and a file to make corresponding slots in the fittings at the hinge locations, through which I inserted #6 machine screws with wing nuts. Once the arms are adjusted to the desired angle, the wing nuts are used to compress the fittings and hold the arms in place. To use, loosen the wing nuts, set the arms where you want them, then tighten the wing nuts enough to resist the yarn tension. Re-tighten the wing nuts if the arms start to fold inward as you wind yarn onto the swift.

Verticals

One of the four verticals is longer than the others and serves as a handle. The other three verticals have tee fittings on top which are not glued on. The tees keep yarn from riding up past the ends of the verticals. They are removable to make it easier to put a skein on or take it off the swift.

Clamp

The goal was to use the materials I had on hand to make a clamp that would work on the 2" edge of a typical counter or on any tabletop less than 2" thick . All I can say is, it works. It's big and ugly, but it's strong and stable. If I make another swift I'll probably try adapting a commercial clamp of some kind (here's an interesting example).

The lower jaw has a slot in it rather than a hole, so that its angle can change as the clamp is adjusted. The chunk of dowel keeps the wing nut and washer from lodging in the rough-edged slot. If I'd had something smaller than 1/4" diameter threaded rod or if I'd made a neater slot, the chunk of dowel wouldn't have been necessary. The self-adhesive felt prevents the jaws from marring the table or counter.

Possible improvements

Skein Loading
To put a skein on this swift you fold the arms in enough to pass the skein over the vertical pipes, then open the arms out enough to put some tension on the skein, all while managing the skein itself -- a somewhat fussy proposition, because if there isn't enough tension the skein falls down. One solution would be to extend the horizontal pipe members out past the verticals by 2-3" to give the skein somewhere to rest while you're fiddling with the adjustable arms. You might want to make the extensions removable so they don't get in the way while you're turning the swift.

Handle Placement
With the handle as currently configured, short persons winding miles of laceweight will get tired of reaching for the handle at the far end of its circuit. With the swift opened out to its maximum circumference, reaching the handle while standing clear of the arms is awkward for anyone. Rather than having one of the verticals that carry the yarn do double duty as a handle, you could mount a separate handle closer to the pivot point (you could even allow it to slide along one of the horizontal members so that its distance from the pivot was adjustable). This would reduce the distance between the user and the far end of the handle's circuit. Just don't place the handle too close to the pivot point, or it will be difficult to turn the swift smoothly.

Cherub Costumes

Shortly before Halloween, we found instructions on how to sew eyes all over a t-shirt using reverse applique. Matt was entranced. Hmm, what kind of costumes could we make that would be covered with eyes? Cherubim, of course!



Actually, during most of the design process we thought we were making seraphim, because we relied on the description of seraphim in To Say Nothing of the Dog as "full of eyes round about." It wasn't until we did some fact-checking that we realized cherubim are the ones with all the eyes (Ezekiel 10:12, Revelations 4:8). Think of Proginoskes in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door.

By and large, people didn't know what we were. When we told them, they either widened their eyes in sudden understanding, or narrowed them in confusion (imagining putti, no doubt).

For the eyes, Matt used Lumiere metallic fabric paint on white cotton woven fabric. He made both left and right eyes and eyes looking in different directions. We chose cat eyes because they look cool, and I associate them with dragons, which I associate with cherubim because Charles Wallace at first thought Proginoskes was a drive of dragons.



Using slightly contrasting thread helps define the edges of the eye. You can choose how open you want each eye to be by cutting more or less fabric out of the shirt.

Note that if you are going to sew eyes into long sleeves, you will need a free arm sewing machine. We had to make a last-minute dash to a friend's house to sew in the sleeve eyes.

Matt made the wings from 1" thick upholstery foam. We found some excellent fabric on the remnants table (it's a sheer of unknown fiber content) -- I love how the colors suggest smoke and fire. Matt used spray glue to attach the fabric around the foam wings and then cut feathers along the edge.



We thought that if we attached the wings directly to the shirts they might flop around and distort the shirts, so Matt made rings with elastic shoulder loops that we could attach the wings to. Matt added a sternum strap to hold his wings on more securely.



The rings are made of pipe insulation. A length of garden hose is inserted to connect the two ends, and silicone adhesive keeps the foam from sliding or twisting on the hose.

We sewed the wings onto each ring by hand. We looped the thread around the ring and sewed all the way through the foam. The wings easily got knocked in or out a little, but didn't move off the arc they were sewn to.



On my costume, I added a few small wings made of a double layer of fabric without a foam insert. I hand-sewed these directly to the shirt.



Using removable wings had the added advantage that we could take them off when the dance floor became too crowded.



The costume worked well for dancing -- it was resilient and durable without being too menacing to others or too cumbersome for us.



We wore berets decorated with pinked fabric feathers, which led several people to conclude that we were French or beatnik cherubim. Mais oui! Beat poets would approve of "Holy, holy, holy" as a poetic device, if not for its content.

We also had plenty of help from Nadia "I'm-not-a-cat-but-I-play-one-on-TV."

Prize-Winning Poetry

Matt recently won a poetry-writing contest on Bent Objects with a sonnet about underpants. If you are not familiar with Bent Objects, go visit - it's one of our favorites. (In general, it has nothing to do with underpants). I had two hours before Matt got home from work to create a cake to celebrate his achievement. This is what I came up with:

Red devil cake from the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts with white frosting and licorice whip accents. The basic concept is sound and ridiculously easy. Bake a circular cake, cut it in half and layer it. Frost with white icing. The execution was not up to my usual standards given the time constraints. If I were to do it again, I would make a whiter, more spreadable frosting (and enough of it!), probably a whipped cream or a cream cheese frosting. I would also freeze the cake for a bit, so that frosting the cut side wouldn't be such a crumby experience. If I were going whole hog, I would apply a crumb coat (thin layer of frosting to trap the crumbs) to the cut side and then put more frosting over it.

Matt's success has gone to his head, and he has decided to embark on a project to write a sonnet a week. Go see his first effort in that project on his new blog, Sonnetized for Your Reflection. It is very funny.

Baby Kimono (and Serape)

The genesis of these projects was an invitation to a tie dye party. I don't much care to wear tie dye, but I'd been itching to try dying yarn. Tie dyes don't work on animal fibers, so I skeined up some Sugar 'n Cream cotton (making a 40-foot skein is non-trivial, by the way), and we came home with this.

Well, that's not quite true. Actually, we came home with this:

And this:

Everyone has some small superpower, and mine is undoing tangles and knots. But even I was sorely tested and started imagining more Gordian methods. Matt died the blue yarn very intensely and didn't tie the skein very thoroughly, so rinsing took a long time and pretty much dismantled the skein.

And here's what we ended up with:




My "serape" isn't quite done. It's in garter stitch and follows the Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono pattern in Mason Dixon Knitting. Matt's kimono is in stockinette (which I think looks much better and makes the yarn go farther). It takes the kimono aspect seriously by making squared off sleeves (so much easier to seam). Only problem is that it still bleeds blue, so will be next to impossible to wash without staining itself.

Here's a closeup of the sleeves for comparison.



I stopped 9 stitches short of the cuff on my seam because I didn't see how else I could get my hand in to pull a baby's hand through. I guess you could call it a design element.

Striped Felted Slippers

When I started knitting again last year, I was resorting to 20-year old stash, and had the '80s colors to prove it. I decided to make my mom some felted slippers from Robin Smith's Felted Slippers pattern on Angel Hair Yarn. Fortunately, my feet are the same size as Mom's. She loves the slippers - says they fit well and are just the right warmth. I did induce her to add some dots of squishy fabric paint to the bottom so they wouldn't be too slippery on her wood floors.

I didn't take a picture of the swatch before felting, but here are the slippers themselves - the athletic sock colors had me worried. Fortunately, as you can see from the first picture, the migration of the black during felting mellowed the colors out a lot.

I was tempted to do the slippers in reverse stockinette, because the back of the swatch looked so interesting after felting.

As is often the case, the white didn't felt quite as well as the other colors, but it wasn't a problem since it was only an accent.

Pattern: Felted Slippers by Robin Smith at Angel Hair Yarn
Size: women's 8 1/2 (10" long after felting)
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky in Onyx (M5), Creme (M10), and Antique Mauve (M85); Reynolds Lopi (I think) in teal; used about 110 yards total
Needles: size 11
Gauge: before felting, 2.9 stitches per inch and 4 rows per inch; after felting, stitch gauge shrank to 89% of original and row gauge to 77% (not obsessive at all, nope)
Felting: in my top-loader it took 3 1/2 washes plus a rinse and spin
Modifications:

• stripes! although another time I don't think I would do single rows of such a high contrast color as the white - I prefer the effect of solid bands of colors to a row of Vs


• cast on fewer stitches than instructed to have a lower heel and increased just before where the top got sewed together

Calculating size (the math squeamish should skip this):

• My foot is 10" long. Dividing by 77% yields 13" pre-felted length. At 4 rows per inch, that's 52 rows.


• My ankle is 8.5". Ten inches seemed like a reasonable foot opening. Dividing by 77% yields 13" pre-felted. Divide by 2, since half of opening is formed by each side of the fabric. 6.5" at 4 rows per inch is 26 rows.


• Although the pattern suggests that 32 stitches would be a good final width, that didn't seem quite wide enough to me. 34 stitches at 2.9 stitches per inch is 11.7". Multiplying by 89% for felting yields 10.4" which seemed about right for my 8.5" mid-foot circumference.

Details:
Cast on 28 stitches. Knit in stockinette stitch as follows. (Note: do not carry the yarn from stripe to stripe on the first 26 rows, as those edges will be exposed.)
Rows 1-2: mauve
Row 3: black
4-5: white
6-8: teal
9-12: black
13: white
14-16: black
17-19: teal
20-23: black
24: white
25: white (increase 1 near each end; 30 st)
26-27: teal (increase 1 near each end in both rows; 34 st)
28: black (now it's okay to start carrying your colors, but it's probably better not to, as the sewing up looks better if each stripe is done in its own color)
29: white
30-31: teal
32-35: black
36-38: teal
39-41: black
42: white
43: teal
44-45: black
46: white
47: black
48: mauve; start of toe shaping [k2,k2tog] across row
49: mauve; purl
50: mauve; [kl,k2tog] across row
51: mauve; purl
52: mauve; [k2tog] across row
Thread yarn through remaining stitches and pull tight

Here's what it looks like at this point.

Finishing:

• Fold the cast-on edge, and sew up the heel seam. Here's what it looks like.




• Seam from row 27-52. Pattern suggests whipstitch for top of slipper, which is what I did. Since it will be felted, it doesn't need to be beautiful, but I do wish I had changed the color of the sewing-up yarn with each stripe. The black that I used ended up showing just a little bit.
  
  
• Weave in ends and ends and ends.
  
  
• Felt using the same method and timing you used on your swatch.
  
  

Garterlac Dischloth

A more mundane finished object than the Shetland Triangle, and less well executed (if you click on the picture, you can see I got a little creative in the upper right-hand corner), but pleasing nonetheless. It makes an excellent facecloth.

Pattern: Criminy Jickets' Garterlac Dischloth
Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n Cream, Country Side Ombre (color 02235); nearly all of one skein; the color in the picture is fairly accurate

Needles: size 7 (probably) Denise; I seem to knit more loosely on the plastic Denise than on metal needles, which is more comfortable when using cotton
Gauge: who cares, it's a washcloth!
Size: about 9 inches square; this is larger than the pattern because I decided to add an extra repeat
Comments: I couldn't honestly tell you if the "creativity" in my facecloth was my fault or a pattern error. I tend to follow the directions meticulously until I think I know what's going on, and then ignore them, in faith that the knitting will tell me what to do. If you are new to entrelac I highly recommend that you pay more attention to his pictorial tutorial than I did. (And how on earth did he get his sides so straight? I even blocked, and this was the best I could get.)

Shetland Triangle

There has been lots of knitting since last July, but no blogging due to Adoption Related Trauma or ART (not the same as art). I hope to post more soon and yes, we're still looking.

This is my first lace project of any size, after cutting my teeth on Branching Out. It makes an excellent beginner piece. I had to tink a lot until my hands got the rhythm, but after that it was smooth sailing without being boring (until the end). I used Silky Wool because I wanted a slightly larger shawl. At first I thought the color was very elegant and restrained. About 2/3 of the way through, I was sick and tired of the baggy brown thing. Now that it's finished and blocked, I'm back with elegant and restrained.

Pattern: Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark from Wrap Style; lace pattern is Fir Cone
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in Oatmeal (color 41); used 2 skeins (at 190 yards each), plus about 30 yards of a third skein
Needles: size 7 Addi Lace Turbos, 32" (the lace needles were a nice luxury, but not essential) ; bound off with size 8 needle, using lace bindoff
Gauge: 20 st x 26 rows in stockinette
Blocked size: about 60 inch wingspan, and 26 or so inches long

I'm including a before-blocking shot because I think the ripples are so cool. (Click on the picture for a larger version.)

I didn't quite think through the blocking process. After soaking the shawl and squeezing it out, I took it to the blocking board and found it was t00 big to block. The bed wasn't an option because it was nearly bed time. So I scratched my head and came up with this - propped the board up and draped the shawl over either side. The back side of the board is not nearly as easy to stick pins in, but it served the purpose.

Your Baby Here

This sweater is for a draft pick yet to be named. When I made it I wasn't planning that it would be for our baby, but the lovely ladies on the knittyboard gave me the great idea of making socks for the birthmother out of the remaining yarn, so I think it will be a keeper.

Pattern: Pinwheel Sweater by Shelley Mackie. Matt picked the yarn and did the design (in AutoCad, of course - which is really nice for figuring the area of each section so you can translate it into yardage).

Yarn: one skein each of Cascade 220 Superwash in colors 855, 860 and 865 (used virtually all the dark green, a good chunk of the light green and not much of the dark red); also Schoeller Stahl Big Mexico in color 7957 for accent (although worsted weight, this yarn is considerably thicker than the Cascade; but I used it sparingly enough that the different gauge wasn't a problem)

The picture washes the colors out something awful, so you'll have to trust me that they're all beautiful. The color combination is very sophisticated, which is part of the reason I wasn't imagining it on our baby at first. The dark green Cascade (865) is particularly gorgeous, with subtle hints of gold in it.

I used superwash because I wanted an easy-care garment. Washing my swatch didn't shrink it, but drying it did, so I haven't decided whether this sweater will go in the dryer or not. I'm uncertain what would happen since it's a circular sweater and the swatch shrinkage was mostly lengthwise (from 6" to 5 1/4").

Needles: Denise size 8 (I think), and dpns in size 7 and 8; the directions called for size 9 on the body, but I got gauge with 8; I also went down a size on the sleeve ribbing because it looked better.

Notes:

I ripped out a lot more sweater than I ended up with. Not sure why I had so much trouble. Partly knitting while socializing. The pattern is such that mistakes in the increases really show. And trying to match up my color changes with the events in the pattern was a bit challenging.

The pattern doesn't include row numbers, which didn't help either. By my calculations (please don't rely on these), the sleeve goes in at row 35 and the garter stitch starts at row 47.

I switched back to stockinette for the second round of the Big Mexiko, because it just didn't look good in garter stitch.

I experimented with a number of techniques on this sweater, including a more beautiful start to the ribbing (TECHknitter) and a kitchener stitch bindoff of the ribbing (The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques)

I am very proud of myself for the kitchener stitch bindoff, but I must have done it backwards somehow on the sleeve on the right of this picture. Still perfectly functional, though.

The loopy edge is pretty ruffly (i.e. girly) at this point. It may improve on blocking. If not, I might go down a needle size next time. Not that there's likely to be a next time for the loopy edge. The drudgery of I-cord hurts my teeth, and it's even worse when you have to stop every six rows to knit it back into the garment.

Niddy Noddy Quiver

Isn't that a lovely phrase?

A little while ago, Matt made me a PVC niddy noddy from instructions at www.doctordirt.com/blog/niddy.html. He says it took him 8 minutes. He is a showoff.

I wanted to make a storage case for my new toy, so I whipped up this quiver. It took considerably longer than 8 minutes, but most of that was design.

As you can see from the pictures, it turned out a tiny bit too small (I was using a scrap from the stash), but otherwise, very pleasing. And the first project to emanate from our newly outfitted sewing/guest/TV/storage room in the garage. The remodel only took 7 years to complete, so it has all our other projects beat.

Monster Feet Toddler Slippers

Pattern: Monster Feet from the book Felting on the Go

Yarn: Lamb's Pride Bulky (85% wool, 15% mohair), color M68 pine tree (flash photos below are much better approximations of the color); used about half of one skein (125 yards) for the larger slipper size

Needles: US size 13

Gauge: I made a swatch, but was too eager to start knitting the slippers to bother felting the swatch. I got a pre-felted gauge of 10 stitches and 13.5 rows = 4".

Notes:The construction is very clever, but there are no diagrams in the book so you have to simply knit on faith that it's going to turn into what you want. This is made more difficult by the fact that the pattern contains errata. Here are some process photos.

Heel: Start knitting at the top and decrease to the bottom. Switch to garter stitch to make a squishier heel. The bound off part at the bottom will later be sewn in half to make the back of the heel.


Foot: Pick up stitches along your original cast on and knit the foot. The sides will later be sewn to each other to make the top seam.



Toes: First, knit the two outer toes. Note that there are 1+4+1=6 stitches left over on stitch holders. The book claims there are 2+3+2=7 stitches. You will have to fudge it.


Third toe: Bring the leftover stitches into the center and knit the third toe.


Sewing up: It is not easy to do beautifully, but all that matters is that it be secure, since you will be felting.


Felt: It took 14 minutes in our top-loader with jeans. As it turns out, I should have stopped earlier. The slippers were a little too tight for our fast-growing nearly-3-year-old friend. He loved them anyway, viewing them as excellent slide-y toys. (And how cool to have socks with toes, just like Mum has!)