Miniatures Make Sense



One day as I sat at the LYS knitting a mini sock, a friend of mine and truly accomplished knitter said, "Why do you knit minis?  I could never be bothered wasting my time with that."  It wasn't as harsh as it might have sounded.  (We love her because she's never judgemental!)  She just truly didn't see the point. 

I had to give it some thought.  I started knitting minis because I thought they were adorable, and I gave them as gifts.  As I knit more of them, I realized that they include all the same skills as their full-sized counterparts.  In some cases, they even have the same number of stitches!  The blue hat on the left of the photo has about 2/3 as many stitches as a full sized hat, and it's made of a sportweight yarn on US 2s.  The red hat on the right has the same number as its "big brother", and was made from a full sized pattern with sport weight cashmere on US 1s.  Casting on 64 stitches for hat too small for Barbie made me think twice, but I love the finished project.

Then came the interesting part.  I realized that with DK and worsted yarns and needles in US 4-6, there would be far fewer stitches than the big projects, but all the same skills.  The brown mitten with the vertical stripes has the original full-sized stitch count, and took about the same amount of time.  The blueish mitten with the horizontal stripes was knit in a heavy worsted, and took about 90 minutes.  It has 1/3 as many stitches as the full-sized, but still uses the same decreases and striping skills as the big one would.  Aha!  I was on to something.

Now I teach folks to make socks by making minis first, with worsted yarns and size US 5 needles.  All the skills are there, but with far fewer stitches.  Knitting a mini won't use up much yarn, and turning the heel only takes a few rounds.  Ditto with teaching mittens, and many other techniques.  As you can see above, even stranded colorwork can be done in minis, and more quickly than a regular project. Every knitting skill can be practiced or refreshed by making a mini.

Last night, I knit up a mini sock (the one in the center bottom of the photo) to refresh a particular kind of decrease I like to use after the heel turn.  Now with my skill refreshed, I'll launch into my socks.  I have one more miniature to tie to a gift or use as holiday decor. 

Why do I knit minis?  To refresh and teach skills, to make cute little finished projects, to get a sense of how certain yarns behave in certain techniques, and to trade with other knitters at conferences and festivals.  I knit them to enjoy the last scraps of a favorite yarn after the main project is through.  I knit them because they delight me!

A Little Love

Comfort Dolls are adorable!  This free pattern is my new favorite.  They're easy to make, and totally customizable to the recipient.  Make a doll who looks like someone they know, admire, or even like themselves!   (There are better pictures on the website.) 

Some ideas:  give them to kids as holiday or birthday gifts, charities, a cubicle-based office worker who needs a reason to smile, guest room decor, or as a voodoo toy for a recently divorced loved one.  They make ideal boyfriends/girlfriends: cute, loves to cuddle, and won't run around or argue.  The possibilities are endless!  Just personalize as you wish, and let your imagination run wild!

I have four knitting festivals/conferences to teach in on the next three weekends.  There's so much to look forward to!  In the meantime, I just got my son home from the hospital after five weeks in critical care, and I've just gone back to my day job now that I'm home from his bedside.  I'm finishing design samples for two different yarn manufacturers, and my kids are in the throes of the back-to-school madness.  (I was interrupted twice by my kids in the two minutes of writing this!)

Knit Kitchen Rug Pattern

In the midst of it all, I received a visit from the "yarn fairy".  A friend of a friend passed on a big bag of rug yarn.  I've never worked with rug yarn, and I'm excited about all the ideas that started flowing as soon as I saw it!  But when do I have time to play with it? 

Knitting is such a refuge for me.  It's the calm in the storm of my life.  Unfortunately, I really have to focus on the storm right now!  I love having all the madness being good news for a change.  I'm just going to need a lot of coffee, a little help, and a lot of luck!

If you'd like to start experimenting with rug yarn, you might want to start with the pattern above.

Winter Olympic Hat Pattern

It's a chilly morning here in Buffalo, NY.  Of course, it's to be expected, but since I missed almost 6 weeks of summer with my son at the Cleveland Clinic, in my head it's still the beginning of August!

Well, the son is home.  There's lots of medical attention in his future, but we're back in Buffalo as our home base.  And so, as I went out on the porch with my morning coffee today, I realized that it's time to start knitting fall and winter things so they'll be finished by the time the snow flies.  This is definitely a mixed blessing.  I love winter knits, but still miss the idea of summer evenings on the porch knitting up tees and shawls and other warm weather wear.

I sorted through some of my favorite winter patterns, and it cheered me up entirely.  So much cool stuff, so little time!  Take this hat.  It's a version of the Ralph Lauren-designed US Winter Olympic Team 2010 hat, designed by Helena Bristow (www.cleverknits.com) and shared free of charge.  It's so much fun!  There is plenty of detail, including little American flags on the band, reindeer and pine trees on the main, and mountains and snowflakes on the top.  It's challenging enough to be interesting without being obnoxiously fussy.  You have to be a Ravelry member to get this pattern, and if you're not already a member this is an excellent reason to join.  (Ravelry is also FREE!)  Goodbye until next March, spring and summer knits.  I'll be okay after all.

Freebie Friday - Boy's Hoodie

It's been awhile since we posted a pattern specifically for little boys, so we thought we should make up for that today.  The Boy's Hooded Tank, knit in Rowan Classic Cotton Denim, is adorable, timely, and really cute.  (They now recommend Belle Organic Aran.)  The handwarmer pocket really makes it!

This sweater can be made in any number of yarns, making it versatile across the seasons.  The original denim colored Cotton would be a great option for spring!  And an alpaca blend would make a deliciously toasty sweater.   Just remember to match the gauge on the labels when substituting yarns, and knit a swatch before tackling the whole garment to confirm your gauge is dead-on.  I'll completely understand if you want to make several in different colors;  if I were a kid this would quickly become my favorite sweater!

Eat Your Yarn

Yep, it's an entirely edible cake!

I love watching the cooking shows on television, and am impressed and amazed at the cakes in particular.  I'm a humble, home made cake girl with no special baking talent or skill.  I look at the things they show on Cake Boss and some of the Cupcakes and Just Desserts and think it must be heartbreaking to the chefs to see their creations end up in someone's tummy.

I've never seen the cake art form combined with the knitting arts, though, so the blog post below came as a big surprise. 

Crafty Cakes  is a post on the Cakewrecks blog, which usually celebrates the funny downside of cakemaking.  They took a sharp turn and celebrated these beauties and many more in an article about crafting cakes around favorite crafts. 

The yarn, basket and scissors are all edible.  Amazing!

I find myself wondering if I'll ever see one of these masterpieces in person.  How do they do it?  How do they taste?  What do they cost?  (I'm not sure I want to know!)

I'll be baking a few birthday cakes this year for my family and friends, and I'll be happy if they come out of the pans without sticking or breaking, and if they allow me to ice them without them falling apart.  But in my head, I'll be dreaming of these, and hoping that on MY  birthday....

Take a look! A Zoetrope!

This post is an homage to other knitting bloggers, who create a rich and diverse knitting community on the internet.  They allow knitters from small towns to connect with city knitters, international knitters to see what the locals are up to, and for those with truly unusual points of view to share their ideas with mainstream knitters. 

This blog, the Mrs. Cleaver Chronicles, http://mscleaver.com/2011/09/05/introducing-zoetrope/, is one of those unique viewpoints. 

What's a Zoetrope or Zoopraxiscope, the thing this hat celebrates?  It's the photography cousin of a cartoon flip book.  It's a device that shows a series of photos projected through a rotating glass disc to imitate motion.  The viewer looked at the image through a small slit to focus the eye on a specific visual range.  It was a direct forerunner of the movies we see today.  The first images made for a zoopraxiscope were those of a running horse.

The pattern is available on the blog page and on Ravelry.  LOVE IT!  I'm always impressed at the things that inspire knitters to create.  I would never have made this connection, but I'm thrilled that Mrs. Cleaver did.  My inner nerd rejoices!

Try something new!

Hi folks, Colleen here again.  This weekend has been full of new things in my life.  I took the kids on an overnight trip by myself for the first time.  We stayed at a different hotel chain and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the room.  We ate at 2 new restaurants, both of which were fantastic.  I took my first Bikram Yoga class (you may know it as "hot yoga").  After each of these experiences, I found myself thinking that I was glad I tried it and I would definitely do it again.  Well, except maybe the part about sharing the hotel bed with my 4-year-old... that just left me with some new bruises and bags under my eyes.

A couple of years ago, our favorite blogstress took me on a new knitting journey.  One week at knitting group she informed me that the following week I was going to try cabling for the first time.  I was a bit surprised, it seemed so tricky.  But she was the "Knit Doctor", far be it from me to ignore her advice.

One week later, I found myself sitting next to her at the yarn shop with some scrap yarn and a borrowed cable needle in my hand.  She calmly walked me through the process of creating a small swatch which included my first three perfect little cable twists.  After binding off the last stitch, I looked up at her.  With a hushed voice, she looked me right in the eyes and said, "Now you can do ANYTHING!" 

Since that day, I have found myself in all sorts of new knitting situations.  Whenever the going gets tough, I think back to that statement.  I can fix a dropped stitch.  I can follow the pattern that doesn't seem to make sense.  I can do stranded colorwork.  I can do ANYTHING.  And you can too!  What is that thing you've always wanted to try?  Why haven't you tried it?  Why don't you try it now?  You just might discover something new that you love.

Knitting Without Yarn

You may be all yarned out.  Yarn is wonderful, and varied, but sometimes you want to go out on a limb and try something wild.  What else have you tried?  Kitchen string?  Tall grasses?

If you want to make your own, Knitting with your old T-shirts is a good start. Grab a few old t-shirts of similar materials (all cotton, or the same blend of cotton poly) and consider your project.  Small projects (like a Coffee Cup Cozy) will take one shirt or less, larger ones will take more.  If you want all your t-shirt yarn to approximately match, either bleach all your t's together, or dye all of them in the same dye color.  Unless they were all the same color and material to start with, they will vary in their finished colors, but look more unified.  Now, follow the instructions in this video to make your yarn.

This technique works well with bedsheets and blue jeans, too!  For sheets and jeans, don't cut in spirals, just in straight lines.  Fun!

Tiny gloves, miniature AND wire!

Too conventional for your mood? No problem.  You can always knit with wire. To learn to knit with wire, you'll want to start with thin wire, in the 32 or 34 gauge area.  Craft stores and hardware stores sell wire in different materials, colors, and yardage to get you started.  Coated electrical wires behave like wire, but look like rubber!  Kinda cool.

Making the famous Meindertsma Hexagons rug

Thinner wire will make an open and pliable fabric like a wire mesh.  This can be used as an insert on decor items, like pillows, or as the entire fabric if you wish.  Increases and casting on go very well in a backwards-loop technique, and decreases go well knitting or purling 2 together.  Dropped stitches do not work as a style element, as wire resists letting the stitch drop.  Lace work comes out stunning.

Not enough?  Go miniature with separated embroidery floss and straight pins.  Go big with rope.  (Make your own needles with dowels from the hardware store, or go online.) Go modern with fishing line and monofilament.  Go stone age with twine!  Blend different fibers into the same piece for amazing textural contrasts and beautiful affects.  Knitting with non-yarns isn't just fun, it can be gorgeous!

Simple rug

Back to School... finally!

Colleen here again.  Today is the first day back to preschool for my little guy, and he was SO excited this morning.  I guess I would be too, if I got to go spend my morning playing with friends.  His sister still has a few days left before the bus comes to whisk her off to first grade. 

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids.  I love them like it's going out of style.  But I have really been looking forward to this time of year.  This summer has been a whirlwind of trying to get everything done as fast as possible so we have time to play, watch a movie, swim in the pool, go to the playground...  The chores get finished, and then before I know it it's dinner/ bath/ bedtime and both kids are tired, sweaty and cranky.  I suppose that's what summer vacation is all about.

Back to school time is a totally different story.  I will start having a few blissful hours to myself without hearing a mother's least favorite sentence ("Mom, I'm bored.")  Maybe I will actually have some time during the day to get in a little bit of knitting while the coffee is still in my system and my eyelids aren't being propped open by toothpicks.  This was in fact my plan for the first few days that both kids will be in school.  Spend a little time getting the chores done, and then park on the couch until the bus shows up bringing the little guy home. 

So can someone please tell me how I ended up volunteering to work at the school book fair on the first day of school?????