Next?

I kind of want to make this. Isn't it kind of awesome?

Cupcake baby - update

She looks like a cupcake. Love!

Commissioning crustacean accessories

To my delight, the lobster pillow was a huge success. So much so, that I've been offered handmade jewelry to make a companion pillow- a crab. Without a pattern, I've begun work on my own. A quick Google of "free clipart crab" led me to several great options.

I printed a few favorites, in hopes to convert the image to a knitting grid. Of course, this required a knitting grid that I clearly lacked. I designed my own in plain-old Excel and printed several slightly un-square graphs.
And then, in the highest kindergarten-level technology I could muster, I taped my crab image to the kitchen window, and then taped my graph paper over it for tracing. I was a bit skeptical, but it worked precisely as planned. So well in fact, that I made two distinct crab graphs to give B a choice.
She chose the more symmetric of the two, which I also preferred. I also took the initiative to dye some yarn. I think my first attempt didn't get warm enough and seems to be rinsing out too much. No pictures yet, but whatever. It's so light that I can easily overdye with just about anything.
I'll have to wait until the yarn dries to see how it looks next to the yarn used for the lobster pillow- I'm hoping it coordinates without clashing or looking like I just didn't match it very well.

...to be continued.

Birthday Crustacean

This gift was a direct response to my dozen+ homemade AMAZING blueberry cookies that I recently received for my birthday. I felt compelled to undertake a total DIY birthday gift for my true love, B.

First I wound little mini skeins of Fisherman’s wool that was hanging around in the basement. I was inspired to DIY all the way (and circumnavigate the closed yarn stores) by dyeing my own yarn. I used my tried and true Kool-Aid/microwave dye-job, purposely going for an uneven slightly kettle-dye-like look.

The pale blue-green took 3 tries to achieve. The first two were waaay to dark, and the final color was actually created by using the leftover dye water after I removed an unsuccessful turquoisey-green attempt (3 ice blue lemonade, 1 lemon-lime). Since the first batch into the water struck most of the green, round two ended up a seafoam-y color that I really liked.

The red-orange was the result of 1 Strawberry Kool-Aid, 1 Mandarina-Tangerine Kool-Aid, 1 Splashers Orange, and in a moment of panic 1 Flavor-Aid Lemonade. I was surprised by how red it was despite all the yellows added in, but the end color was pretty perfect.
Next, I knit a modified free lobster bib pattern (basically just using the chart), by CO 36 (pattern repeat plus 3 sts on each side) and k the first and last stitch on each row (RS and WS). I also omitted the garter st border. I knit 8 rows before starting the pattern and after finishing it.

If I were to knit this again (because seriously, I will probably need another knit lobster pillow…) I would add more sts on each side of the repeat. As you see it’s a stout pillow, and a little wider would cause the image to wrap around a little less in the claws.

Once knit and blocked, I really took a leap of faith and decided to machine sew the knit panel to the fabric backing for the other side of the pillow (since I didn’t really want a knitted back to the pillow). I had no idea if it would stretch or get screwed up- luckily it didn’t. (I had an idea it would work since I’d lined a purse this way a long time ago).I also had to customize the standard pillow-form to suit the odd size, and it totally worked out. I just unstuffed the form (which had a zipper closure), traced my lobster panel onto the pillowcase, sewed the new shape, cut it out and re-stuffed it. It sounds like a lot, but this was actually the easiest part.

Then I just fit the pillow into my custom case and voila. Happy Birthday, B!

That's so Raglan.

From http://theyarniad.blogspot.com/

Ok, so I mentioned the Queensland Collection gray tweedy awesomeness that I got (ahem, 40%). I was really inspired to make a Mr. Rogers-geek-chic deep V-necked cardigan and had every intention of making the Mrs. Darcy cardigan. However, upon winding the yarn, I realized that as a DK, it was definitely more on the 'fingering' than 'worsted' side of the spectrum. It's a surprisingly delicate yarn for having that manly tweedy look. Anyway, there was no way I could knit Darcy on size-9 needles, and even less of a chance that I'd properly rewrite the pattern for my yarn.

Thank goodness for Google, which allowed me to successfully search for "top-down raglan formula" I was hoping to find somewhere to plug in my gauge and measurements and head off to the races- and I did! Enter: Pam Costello, from St. Paul, Minnesota who adapted and published her "Incredible Custom Fit Raglan Formula."

So the new plan: use Hilary Smith Calis' Safire (top-down raglan, deep-V cardigan) and the original Darcy as inspiration and modify stitch counts with the Formula, and then hope it turns into something wearable. (Isn't that always the hope?)