Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

2009. In the past year I have completed 36 projects

That’s an average of 3 projects every month, or one project every ten days.  I don’t feel like I could possibly have knit an (albeit small) item every ten days, but seemingly I have.  That’s 6 hats, 4 pair of socks, 4 scarves, 3 pairs of gloves, 5 soft toys, 2 hot water bottle covers, 4 baby items, 6 home items and two very dapper costumes for cuddly monkey chums.

During the knitting for these items I have learned to cable without a cable needle, knit short rows, needle felt, knit lace, lose my temper with colour work and then find it again, only to swear ‘never again’ in the full knowledge that I don’t mean that at all.

I’ve knit with pure Icelandic wool, bamboo, merino, alpaca, cotton, linen, silk, no-frills acrylic and something called ‘Lenpur’ a word made up by a group of people in the marketing biz.

I’ve published 8 patterns which have resulted in being logged as projects on Ravelry a total of 238 times and started my own blog which, over 84 posts have generated 248 comments, and some friendly readers, some friendly commenters, and some friends.

Here’s to a great 2010!

I have dabbled in the field of knitting magazines a little since I started knitting, but I’m sometimes frustrated by either the lack of editorial quality (the first magazine I bought was so riddled with errors throughout the one pattern I attempted that it was actually impossible to knit) or sometime what seems like a reliance of style over substance, with high-priced, gorgeous glossy magazines being composed of only a few patterns, the majority of which are re-printed from pre-existing publications. Sometimes, though, you spot a pattern which you know you just have to knit.

The Monkey scarf was just one of these very designs. Firstly, it is a cute garter stitch monkey scarf, but for an added dose of pure inspired awesome, the monkeys at the ends of the scarf are little pockets for warming your hands and storing peanuts.  An absolutely perfect knit for any cheeky little boy… or girl.  Or 31 year old Mimitron whose fingers are suffering from the wintry cold.

I only wanted the magazine for this one pattern, but I was rather surprised and pleased with many of the 36 included patterns in the £3.75 magazine.  A good balance of garments, accessories and homewares in a mostly unfussy and classic style but with a modern twist, the patterns are divided into stylistic ‘themes’, taking a design feature, colour palette  or some other shared point as the focus of miniature ‘collections’ of patterns.

One pattern in the ‘Heaven Sent’ section (a trio of patterns – blanket, soft toy and bootees – knit in soft pastel blue, pale beige and chocolate with blanket stitch detailing) caught my eye as a likely candidate for a pattern for a bunny rabbit that someone I knew happened to be on the lookout for.  As it happened I was roped into the actual knitting of the bunny in the end, so his construction has been keeping my needles warm these last couple of days.

The pattern is simply written and easy to follow, but it does involve what seems like a marathon of seaming at the end.  I’m actually one of those knitters that doesn’t mind seaming. In fact, I rather enjoy it most of the time, but there is something about seaming in garter stitch that is never quite as satisfying as the magically disappearing join between two pieces of stockinette as the two sides are slowly eased together to form an all but invisible line.  What’s more, when I had constructed the body of the bunny from the front and back pieces, I managed to promptly forget which piece was which, and so had to make the decision of which way around the body should go.  With one side slightly more ‘portly’ than the other, the rabbit was either going to have a very cushioned behind or a slightly rotund tum… I decided to let him have a little pot belly in the end, just because I thought it looked the most comical, and a best friend is never perfect, in my experience.  Also, it is still Christmas, and someone has managed to finish off the stock of mince pies, and I frankly want someone other than myself to blame…

In case anyone is particularly astute and happened to notice, yes, he is missing an arm.  I don’t know if I neglected to make a second or if I have misplaced it, but he is decidedly without at the moment, so I hope to be able to provide him with a replacement tomorrow, whilst trying to form for him a fluffy bunny tail at the same time.

I have my first ever hand-dyed yarn.

I have bought, been given, used some gorgeous and varied yarns since I started knitting, but I have never before been lucky enough to own a skein of yarn that somebody has taken the time and effort to deliberate and select some beautiful colours for before applying them with care and skill, and that makes it extremely special.

This 100g skein of 4-ply Blue-Faced Leicester sock yarn in the colourway ‘Rose’ did come beautifully twisted into a perfect hank, but I did what most excited knitters would with the prospect of new knitting experiences with a gorgeous loop of yarn – I untwisted it and wore it around my neck like a giant soft necklace with the same unreserved joy of a child getting a new train set for Christmas and then playing with the empty box.

The colours are exceptional – deep, slightly cool reds, with wisps of a duskier dark pink and a subtle green with hints of sage.  It is actually quite appropriately ‘Christmassy’ in colour, and though it is a sock yarn, it is so soft and the colours so well balanced that I think I want to wear it somewhere closer to my face, so I shall have to find an appropriate pattern for about 400m of 4ply wool to do justice to this yarn.

The artisan to thank for the dying of this yarn, The Knitting Goddess, has a shop which positively brims with hand-dyed yarn in every shade under the rainbow, as well as stocking various other knitterly treats and goodies, as well as patterns and a shop blog. If you are lucky enough to later find yourself in receipt of some of the Knitting Goddess’s gorgeous yarn, don’t pass up the chance to brag about it on the dedicated Ravelry group of fans and patrons.

Now, I shall almost certainly spend more time deliberating over seeking out the perfect than I will actually knitting this extremely special yarn, but I am going to try and decide by the time New Year comes around. Of course, if anyone has any flashes of inspiration, I am all ears.

Christmas cracker time:

Q: Why are Christmas trees like people that can’t knit?

A: They both drop their needles…

Well, thank goodness that is all over…  It will still be Christmas Monkey Towers for a few days yet, and hopefully I’ll get to enjoy the last few days of the year as I have spent the whole of my birthday and Christmas period with a horrible, horrible cold (can I call it ‘flu?  It hasn’t been formally identified as such, but I fell ill on the 18th, and eleven days of fever and aching misery deserves my deepest distain.  Still, it’s Christmas, and that makes things a tad better.

For one thing, I am in receipt of knitterly things.

I got the most gorgeous skein of hand-dyed yarn for a get well gift after my operation, which I opened on my birthday.  More on that tomorrow, hopefully, as I have not yet mustered the energy to put my camera to action.  From some non-knitterly friends I also received two hand-knit Monkey finger puppets and a crocheted Christmas pudding hat which is possibly the finest hat ever produced (again, I shall have to try and get proper pictures tomorrow).

Also, three or four months of careful hint-dropping and gentle reminder (“Yes, it’s called Soak. Citrus Soak.  yes, that’s right – the citrus one.  Soak. S-O-A-K.  Look, I’ll write it down…”) and quelle surprise! Look what was waiting under the tree from my thoughtful and intelligent other half!  Currently possessing sinuses that feel like that have been reconstructed out of melting marshmallows, I cannot indulge in my second favourite hobby of opening bottles of bath and laundry products to smell them, and as such the citrus aroma is still a stranger to me, but the presence of this bottle in the room is enough of a motivation for me to shake off my ‘flu-induced knitting drought and cast on something gorgeous and do my first bit of knitting in three weeks.

I shall now commence my plan to knit myself better!

I decided to make my own decoupage Christmas cards this year for various reasons including, but not limited to, the following:

1. I can’t get out to buy any
2. I thought it might be cheaper (or rather I wanted some quality for my money)
3. I thought that some folks might appreciate the thought
4. I am stuck in bed and a tad bored…

I’ve never really made greetings cards before, but it is exceedingly easy. Despite what QVC may want you to believe, you don’t need a whole room full of materials to make some rather nice cards.

These cards are made with a technique known as decoupage, which involves cutting and layering pieces of cardstock/heavy paper for a 3D effect.  It’s extremely easy to do and doesn’t require many materials, so I thought I would actually design a decoupage Christmas Card with a knitting(ish) theme to upload here for readers to download.  It feathers a cat wearing a santa hat, playing with a ball of wool:

All you need to make a decoupage christmas card is some plain white card, a printer, scissors, a glue stick and some sticky foam tabs (or silicon glue for 3D papercrafts if you happen to have any).  The process is simple:

Simply download the cat decoupage sheet at the end of this post and cut out shape 1.  This is the entire image of the cat, in his santa hat, with his ball of wool.  Next, cut out the four shapes next to the number ‘2′.  This is the cat’s head, two of his feet, and his ball of wool.  Place the foam tabs on the back of these four shapes and place them on top of the corresponding parts of the first image.  Now, some of your cat is only one layer high (such as the cats body and two back legs) whereas other parts of the image have been raised one step height.  Repeat this with steps 3 and 4 until you have a 3D image, waiting to be mounted on a card.

The decoupage sheet has enough shapes for two decoupage cats, and I have also included two separate downloadable sheets with backing paper designs on them in case anyone was in need of some backing papers.  One is a retro design and the other has the appearance of knitted fabric, to add to the fibre-crafts theme, but obviously these aren’t needed if you have your own patterned papers or some attractive gift-wrap.

Click the image you wish to download to be taken to the free download space, but please bare in mind that these files are rather large so as to keep the image quality high, so they may take a moment to download.

I had no idea what I was going to make when I stared knitting this.  Made from the remnants of an un-ravelled hot water bottle cover that I was knitting earlier in the year I thought I could get away with knitting something for my 6 month old niece purely on the basis that it was pink, and a walk past Mothercare a few weeks ago seemed to suggest that pink was ‘in’ for baby girls, just like every other year…

I had very little yarn to make this with, but experience has taught me that babies tend to be smaller then other human beings, so I thought I could still squeeze a whole but very small project out of the tangled mass of candy floss yarn that I had gathered.  I settled on the idea of a pink santa hat, complete with loopy fringing and a magnificent loopy bobble:

It’s a simple hat, and made primarily for novelty purposes (I am hoping that my sister will be able to capture a few cute pictures over the Christmas period), but then maybe it isn’t too obviously a santa hat to be worn at other times.  That decision up to my rather picky sister.

I was overwhelmed by the thoughts and kind messages that I returned to on my blog when I returned home this afternoon.  I managed to bargain with the doctors to let me home early if I promised to stay in bed and take things easy, and I shall do, as long as my bed is surrounded by such accessories as my laptop, knitting needles, XBox controllers, TV remote, etc.

So, let’s see where I have got to on my Christmas to-do list…

Stupid list.

I did manage to get at least some knitting done in hospital over the weekend, though.  I feel quite pleased with myself for managing to knit a whole hat on each of Friday and Saturday evenings before running out of yarn.  I don’t know what yarns I actually used for the two hats as they were scraps left over from some long-forgotten projects, not all of them mine, but I am pleased with both of the finished items, considering I had only a very little yarn in various weights to work with.  I made a second Marram Hat for my mother’s husband in a natural/grey tweed type yarn and a second yarn in grey with a greenish hue, which I think may have been a mixture of cotton and wool.  Anyway, who knows what yarn it was?  It seems to have turned out OK and that’s the main thing:

With another handful of remnants I made a hat which I based upon Jared Flood’s ‘Turn a Square‘ hat. I say I ‘based it upon’ the pattern as I never actually had the pattern, which is silly as it is a free download, but I have never been one to adequately prepare for anything. I suppose I didn’t truly feel that I’d be up to knitting, but I have seen pictures of some finished projects and thought it was probably made with four lots of paired decreases so just knit away until I had something resembling a hat.  Again the yarns are shades of grey.  I am pretty sure that one of them is some Rowan Pure Wool Aran, but the other one with the long colour repeats could be anything.  I found it in a bag of remnants at a charity shop some time ago:

Next on the list is a hat for Annaleese, my niece of roughly six months (no, I have no idea how old she is – that’s terrible, isn’t it?).  I have actually already begun something for her, but the only yarn I had to hand was some remnants of a mystery pink yarn, and what I have knit currently resembles something from a government information poster for educating folks about safe sex, so I will post pictures if and when I can fix it to look more like a hat and less like a condom.