some little knits

during the last three weeks I didn't knit much but it's enough to show you three finished objects. First I made gaiters for myself. I love to wear gaiters in winter season over my shoes/tights - they keep my feet warm, they look tight and they can hide an extra pair of socks underneath when it's really really cold. This is the first pair that I knitted and I made a little mistake with these: I made them fit my foot not my foot wearing a shoe. Nevertheless I really like them and wear them and know what to change when making my next pair.


I also made cuffs for a friend. She wanted black ones, a bit lacey and what I came up with are these beauties. I added a bit of shaping to make them tighter at the wrist and I added short rows to make the upper part a bit longer than the palm side.





And you might remember my Prince cap for another friend. I know he will love it, cause I do! After knitting it in 2 days it took me quite a while to sew in the ends and sew the facing to the inside of the hat.

lucky

starting this cap I only knew the head circumference of the recipient and my gauge and after a first try, where I casted on for the exact head circumference I ripped out made a 'second' hat with a negetive ease of about an inch / 2 cm. And so it happend I casted on 144 stitches which (lucky me) is divided by six easily. See the beautiful outcome of the decreases? I like!



p.s. I like that much, I spent a few minutes thinking I might keep the hat, even though I would never where a black hat nor one with a symbol on front, no matter how big of a fan I am

black is not nice!

I actually wanted to name this post: "the inside of a hat" but now that I knitted already more than just the facing and got to knit more with the black yarn that's making the actual hat I only find that knitting with black yarn is not nice, you don't really see what you are doing! I'm glad I only knit stockinette otherwise I might have frogged it already. The yarn is merino and knits awesome, but I didn't expect it differently =^__^=


btw. This is going to be a Prince hat for a friend of mine, a few days ago I found this cap on craft magazine and this friend of mine was screaming that he wants one - in black with a golden symbol! I don't really use the pattern in the link above, I use a thinner yarn and of course thinner needles, I refinded the symbol chart (I found the original looked a bit . . . well unbalanced) and I'll make a sewn shut facing (techknitter made a wonderful tutorial about this one).


In case you wonder about my snailigan - it grows, I finished the second sleeve and although I only increased a total of 6 more stitches, it fits a lot better. Now I'm about to frog (aka rip out) the first sleeve and worry about pilling and of course re-knit the first sleeve.

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ooh, and don't forget to get your copy of Betty Bat,
it's only free for one more day

it's shrinking OR how to finish a rug

it looked so much smaller after I glued the excess fabric to the backsides of the rug!

But I get used to it and now I'll show you what I have done. (I made a google search for some information but all I could find was kits and other people asking the very same question or how to make it into a pillow, which is a nice idea as well)

anyway, I started by trimming all excess farbic to about 3 cm width.
Then I folded and pressed this fabric to the inside and glued it to the rug surface. I also made some cuts into the fabric to avoid thick folding lines.

Then I needed to decide wether to first add the silicone to make it slip proof or to secure the edge by sewing on some faric tape.
I went for the silicone first, I thought it will not only make it slip proof but also add some stability to the single knots by "glueing" them.
After this was dry (and it smelled alot!!! so I recommend to do it on a balcony or a backyard. I only had my kitchen and an open window and the result was I felt a little dizzy) I added another layer to the center or rather some single dots.

And the final finish is the fabric tape which I first glued to the edge of the rug (pinning didn't work since the rug was too thick) and sewed into place afterwards.

Tata!

press the pictures to enlarge them

and suddenly it was done

well not completely but the knotting is finished, tata:


yesterday evening I was watching tv and knotted and out of the blue I didn't do anymore colorwork and *snap* the last eight creme colored knots - done! All in all it took me about two weeks which I think is pretty darn good. So this afternoon I will visit my LYS and ask for further advice with finishing this beauty, I know I will need some sort of tape or something like that to secure the edges and to finish it completely I then will paint the floor side with silicone rubber (which I bought ages ago to make slip proof house socks) to make it (you name it) slip proof. This will lay in front of my bath tub and I don't want to slip someday because I missed this step of finishing.

please excuse the bad picture, I made it with my web cam

hooking again

not crochet but latch hooking


the batch rug I started about 5 weeks ago grows again, yesterday I spend the day on the couch with a big pillow on my lap and the rug on top. The darker blue is very dark indeed, I'm glad I started with the peak one, I could see a lot better what I was doing and now I can profit from this and instead of tweaking my "pattern" again I simply made a foto of the back of the first half and now use this as my "pattern".

and now I make my way back to the couch with some chocolate ice cream topped with a few cherries - the weather is very "beachy" (rain and mist and cold, typical spring day)

half done and on the road again

I can't believe it but I'm half through the my paisley park rug!
I started using sticking-plaster and wrapped it around my knuckles to protect them from more "wounds". On my last post frill.friend suggested to use simple clear cleening gloves to protect them, which I think is a brilliant idea and I will try that with the next rug.

and I'm off to Aachen to another congress until saturday. I'm not really looking forward for this one, it's just one of these congresses where you have alot of work before going there but don't get much out of it. Well, it's a job, not my hobby.
Anyway what should I pack? I want to take my rug and latch hook with me, pretty nice to spend my evening at the hotel. But now I wonder knitting or crochet for the train? I only have my leaf and acorn shawl on the needles that I would like to take with me on the other hand there are some critters that want to be finished, all of them need eyes. And I think I would like to crochet a new gurumi as well, but gurumis need stuffing and having not only the needles and yarn but also the stuffing in my bag? Isn't that a bit too much? Can I ever bring too much of craftyness with me?


Another great news, I signed for the first german ravelry meeting (rav link) in september! Yeah, and I did not only sign to come to the party I will give a lesson on amigurumi as well, wow!
The meeting will take place in Backnang/Baden-Württemberg on the 12th and 13th september and I can't wait until september.

we have an aisley

so I found out that latch hooking is pretty mindless.
Not much attention to the pattern, some counting, all in all it's very nice to sit on the couch and watch television while hooking. The only thing that bugs me is that my skin is irritated by the stiffness of the fabric, I scratch my hands on it and have minor wounds (oh, this sounds very bad, maybe wounds is not the right word, but - well, it's red and hurts a little)

I must have made about 800 knots so far (eight hundret! wow) because the first package of yarn is almost empty (cream color) and the second one is half through (there are 540 strands of yarn per package)

a new hobby

maybe

so now that it is new years =^__^= I might start to learn something new, one should always learn one new thing every year. This year latch hooking is the new one thing for me.
I was pretty surpised to find out that latch hooking is what I'm about to do, I thought it was knotting, because in german more or less everything that can create a rug is called "knotting". But obviously the english language has a name for every different way of knotting depending on the tool you will use - I will use a latch hook and I want to make a new bath rug. Some weeks ago I crocheted a mat for my bath room and it turned very pretty but doesn't do the job that well. The spaces between the flowers are a little too big and I get cold feet, not to mention I always fear I might slip when coming out of the shower.
So I thought I might "knot" me a rug. The idea popped into my head when I was in a fan board looking at all the cool things fans have made. If you follow this blog for a while you might know that I'm a huge fan of Prince and even though I never was one to decorate my room with posters and such things I liked the Prince themed stuff I saw on a german based fan site (prince-web.de). I found coasters and lamps and little lights for your car and many more cool things and I got the feeling I might like at least one thing in my apartment, why not a bath rug?
I started to experiment with Prince's famous symbol but didn't really like what I could come up with, so I had a look at what other "symbols" were related to Prince. One of them (he has quite a few) was the one from an early album called Around the world in a day. On that cover he has a paisley shaped symbol formed by the words paisley park.


I liked the yin yang aspect of it, when you put two of them together, and also that it could be mistaken by fish, especially when found in a bath room. . .
I started to love the idea and also what I could come up with.


So I bought a hook, and fabric and ordered yarn.
After realizing how expensive rug yarn is and the fact that I might not like latch hooking very much and therefore possibly not finishing this rug plus the fact that is supposed to be for a wet room I choose acrylic yarn. The yarn looks good and will be very good for the bath room, but working with it is ugghh! It's very scratchy but the hooking itself is quite nice, it's a completely new way to use my hands and I would call it 'hand aerobics'.


I started by drawing the "pattern" onto the smyrna (the stiff fabric) but soon realized I might not see very well where to make a knot and where not so I made a gridded picture of my pattern to start hooking (to find the correct grid size was a bit of a pain but after three or four mistakes I finally found the right size and could start)

I'm late, I know

Hey everybody, I'm back, not that I wasn't back home for about four weeks now, but I've been pretty busy, AND I didn't know where to start after all those non-post-days.

Well London was absolutely fabulous, so amazing, I could write a whole lotta more (I've made notes while spending a sunny afternoon at Hyde Park), but lets just keep it there, amazing is not enough to tell you how much I enjoyed the stay

Dear Prince, if you read this, thank you soo much, you've made me fall in love with music again, it's been a pleasure to see you on stage. THANK YOU!

Coming back home, I found the contract for my new job in my mailbox, yeah!
and also started the new job right away, the 'little' cough I brought home from one of my roommates was only able to stop me working for one day.
Although it stopped me knitting, coughs aren't something nice at all!

Did I knit at all?
no!, well I finished my lovesexy shrug the night before going to London, and meanwhile I like it (will post pics soon) even though I was seriously thinking about frogging it at first.
and crochet?
nothing as well, had my crocheting stuff with me, but wasn't allowed to bring my needles on the plane (I checked before, and guess the stewart just wasn't sure if I could bring such a dangerous thing on board or not and decided I better not, just in case)
had the idea of a hermit crab, guess I told before, but am now realizing it's christmas pretty soon and there are orders on my board to be done first


well that's it for now, will be back soon, promise =)

about shrugs and tree trunks

lovesexy grows again, after realizing that I need to make both shoulder parts before starting to knit in the round and making the ribbing, I made both shoulders and started to rib for about four rows (just until my ball of yarn was all eaten up)
and that was the point when I said to myself IT IS TIME TO CROCHET, DUDE !!!

so I started on another Sheldon - lovely

and this morning I received mail that the new issue of knitty was out, uuuuuh lovely so much more
I think I'm gonna make Henry, the stitch pattern is adorable (might even be nice for knee-highs, mh) and of course woodins, well not the woodins themselfs but the tree trunk, that's just great and would be perfect for my trolls: to play hide and seek maybe (who knows what they're doing when I'm not around ;-)

lovesexy wächst weiter, gestern hab ich bemerkt, dass ich erst beide Schulterteile fertig machen muss, ehe ich anfangen kann den breiten Bund rundrum zu stricken. Also hab ich beide Schulterteile gestrickt und mit dem Bund begonnen, zumindest für vier Reihen, weil dann mein Bällchen alle war, aber das war der Zeitpunkt als mir ganz und gar klar wurde, dass ES ZEIT ZUM HÄKELN IST; KUMPELINE !

und so hab ich einen neuen Sheldon angefangen - niedlich

und heut früh kam Post, dass die neue Ausgabe von knitty fertig ist, noch viel hübscher. Ich werd wohl auf alle Fälle Henry machen, das Muster ist fantastisch und gibt vielleicht auch einen hübschen Strumpf ab, mal gucken.
Und OH da sind noch die woodins, naja nicht die woodins selbst aber ihr Baumstamm, der ist toll und wird ein tolles Accessoir für meine Trolle abgeben, wer weiß schon was die treiben, wenn ich nicht zu Hause bin ;-)

lovesexy grows

click picture for larger version

it's going on and on and on
the progress on my lovesexy shruggie: the back is mainly done and I'm about to start knitting in the round.
on the right side you can see the "shoulder" part and the new cast on to form the armhole. Closing the round and making the shouler on the left and then round and round and round, round.
I'm thinking about a simple 2x2 ribbing just like I've seen it so often, BUT there is the idea of a mesh-stitch border that keeps me or rather stopps me from continuing.

so today will be crocheting day (and that is sooo needful cause some customers are waitung for their amigurumis)

und weiter gehts und weiter und weiter
mein lovesexy Teilchen wächst, der Rücken ist schon fertig und ich bin kurz davor die Runde zu schließen und mit dem "Rand-Kragen" anzufangen.
rechts kann man meine Schulter sehen und die neuen Maschen, die mal das Armloch werden sollen.
Eigentlich wollte ich den Rand mit nem einfachen 2x2 Bundmuster machen, aber weil ich ja schon einen Moosstich (oder wie immer der heißen mag) auf dem Rückenteil gemacht hab, überleg ich, ob ich das weiter mache. Naja hat Zeit . . .
Heute ist erst mal Häkeln angesagt, ist auch bitternötig einige Amigurumis warten auf Fertigstellung und Versand.

lovesexy shrug

inspired by the lot of shrugs and boleros I see on ravelry I wanted to make one by myself, so I started swatching and gauging and counting and making stitch-patterns and voila - my provisional casted on beginning of lovesexy.
I wanted to make something with the 'Yes-Heart' from Prince's lovesexy era. I always loved that sign, it' pure positivity - Y E S


Inspiriert von den ganzen Shrugs und Bolerojäckchen, die ich so bei ravelry zu sehen kriege, wollt ich meinen eigenen haben. Also ans Zeichenbrett begeben und angefangen zu skizzieren, rechnen, Maschenproben auszählen und was sonst noch dazu gehört und schwuppsdiwupps - der provisorische Anfang von Lovesexy.
Ich wollte etwas mit dem 'Yes'-Herz aus Prince's lovesexy Ära haben. Das Symbol hat mir immer schon gefallen, es ist so schön einfach und aussagekräftig - J A

happy - happy - happy ME

yeah I've just booked my aftershow tickets for prince / London *biiiiigsmile*

so THIS is going to be a happpy happpy day



btw, I think I might frog my stocking AGAIN, and make it a size smaller (in width)

mmmmh, what happend . . ?

hey folks, what happend?,
- summer started, and the rain came ;-)
- G8 summit was just around the corner, and the police came (I haven't seen that much police on one spot ever, and I don't think I will ever see that much police again)
- I've made some more Sheldons and Molly, did I tell you of Molly?, she's Sheldons Mommy, and a huge turtle and for this simple reason Mommy Molly will remain a single parent, she is eating too much yarn by far
- I've listend to all the Harry Potter books (reading would have been too time consuming) and now I just can't wait to lay my hands an book number 7
- what else - mmmh - oh, a new Amigurumi doll is finished, well almost, it's a fairy with her dog thing?! it's furry - so it is a dog thing
and she's only finished almost because she's missing a mouth, I'm not sure if there should be a mouth, or a nose, see for yourself and tell me what you think

Hallo zusammen, was passiert ist?
ne ganze Menge, auch wenn hier nichts davon steht
- der Sommer hat angefangen und hat auch gleich den Regen mitgebracht
- G8 war gleich um die Ecke, ein bisschen beängstigend wars schon, wenn auch vor allem nervig, die ganze Polizei und die Sperren und der ganze Sicherheitsschmu haben ein wenig Umstände gemacht, aber nun ists vorbei und das Leben wieder normal und ich kann sagen, dass ich noch nieeee so viel Polizei auf einen Haufen gesehen hab und das wohl auch nie mehr werde
- Ich hab noch ein paar Sheldons gemacht und eine Molly, hab ich schon von Molly erzählt?, Molly ist Sheldons Mutti, und auch furchtbar süß, aber auch furchtbar hungrig :-( deswegen wird sie auch alleinerziehend bleiben, weil sie einfach viel zu viel Garn verschlingt
- Ich hab mir inzwischen alle Harry Potter Bücher nochmal angehört (zum Lesen war dann doch zu wenig Zeit) und nun kann ichs kaum erwarten, bis ich endlich Teil 7 in den Händen halte
- was noch?, oh ja ich hab noch nen neuen Amigurumi kreiert, es ist ne Fee geworden, mit ihrem Hund, oder so - das Ding ist ganz schön haarig, deswegen Hund oder so
aber so ganz fertig ist sie irgendwie noch nicht, es fehlt noch eine Art Mund oder Nase oder so, ich kann mich nicht entschließen, schaut selbst

Sheldon III plus Donut

Sheldon plus Molly
lovely

- oooh and last but not least, I'm going to London :-), Prince will celebrate my birthday with me :-) he doesn't know yet, but I will be there

- oooh und zu guter Letzt, Ich geh nach London, dort werd ich meinen Geburtstag mit Prince feiern :-), Er weiß noch nichts davon, aber ich werde da sein