Stained Glass!!

People talk about instant gratification a lot, but the delayed kind has its merits too. :-)

I am getting to experience it firsthand today, because I just finished the Ravelympics Stained Glass felted bag. FINALLY. It admittedly needed only a lining and handles at this stage, but it had also been sitting around here since *February* waiting for me to get those two jobs done. The problem was that I needed to clear a solid block of time for the cutting and sewing, preferably during daylight hours, and that simply proved impossible in the springtime, while school was still in session. Hooray for summer knitting. "Tantantara! Tzing, boom!"

Technical procedures were as follows...

The lining would have posed a nice little challenge for any seamstress, what with no real pattern and all those fussy curves to consider. But I had been thinking it over for the last several months and came to the task as a Woman with a Plan. Focusing on the basic shapes first, and leaving room both for seam allowances and for eventually trimming the top edge to fit, I began by cutting out two rectangles 18” wide x 12” tall, and a circle roughly 12” in diameter to match the popcorn can on which the bag had been stretched to dry after felting. After sewing the rectangles together to form a tube and pressing both side seams, I attached the circle to the base of the tube with another seam running around the lower edge. Then I cut two strips of fusible interfacing to go across the top edges, between the side seams. The designer’s instructions suggest using an old CD to help create a pattern for the scalloped outline on the interfacing, and that technique worked well, with a little fiddling. Once I had positioned the interfacing and fused it to the wrong side of the lining (and NOT to the press cloth, as I have mistakenly done once or twice before), I trimmed the top of the lining fabric along the established curves, but just outside them, to form a seam allowance. Last, I carefully hand-sewed the lining to the inside of the bag, folding the raw edges under and making the stitches as neat and well-nigh-invisible as I could.

Truth be told, I might have wished the measurements and shaping to be even more precise than I managed, but thankfully the process was forgiving, and the end result actually looks quite professional, if I do say so myself. I think the lining compliments the felted wool nicely, both in texture and in color. So I promise to keep my perfectionist grumbling dialed down to a minimum. Here are some photos, including one that shows the side and bottom seams, as described. For a closer peak at any image, just click on it, as always.

Then came the handles. I weighed my options at first but ended up making i-cord, as per the original specs, although I used 7 stitches instead of just 6 for something just a tad more substantial. Each strap measured 32" before felting and 28" after, which is the perfect length IMHO. The Brown Sheep wool always felts beautifully, and it was very convenient to deal with the handles separately from the bag, as my extended time-frame demanded, because I could easily soak them for as long as necessary to make them good and solid, with virtually zero stretch. Anchoring them in place with black button thread was a mere bagatelle by comparison with the stitching required for the lining, and then suddenly the project was finished. Voilà.A footnote: before attaching the handles to this bag, given its shape, one must first decide how the fan shapes across the top should be aligned when it lies flat. In all the designer's photos for the Bar Harbor Shell Bag (this pattern) and the Stained Glass Fan Bag (which is very similar), the midpoint front and back comes at the low trough between two fans. The latter is often highlighted with a button closure, and the handles are attached in the adjacent troughs. It makes for a very pleasing arrangement, but as a result the fan in each upper corner, left and right, is folded in half, wrapping around the side of the bag. I decided, however, that there should be three full fans uppermost, rather than two fans and two halves, in order to show off the vibrant pinks and reds of that top row to best advantage. So I opted to place troughs at the side edges instead. That leaves a bump in the middle and no convenient spot for a button, but I don't mind, because I was planning to leave the top of the bag open anyway. I should add that the project galleries on Ravelry for both M. Langan bag patterns show a WIDE variation in the type of handles used and in their placement, which means that I am not alone in taking some minor liberties.

In conclusion, I have been gratified and humbled by the positive feedback that this project received both during and after the Ravelympics. Then again, speaking for myself I almost cannot believe how amazingly well the color scheme turned out. It is every bit as elaborate and subtle and harmonious as I had imagined it could be. Yet for all that, and as much as I will cherish this bag and enjoy using it whenever the opportunity arises — starting this weekend at my 25th HS reunion — I would be loathe to make another one like it.

Don't get me wrong: Madeline Langan's design is a marvel of shape and texture and clever construction, even just from a technical viewpoint. But she calls for only two colors per fan, not FIVE, as I had throughout. I am still in recovery from weaving in all those ends!! So if I were ever to repeat the pattern, I would choose a narrower color palette, and I would seriously consider using single shades of Brown Sheep (or the equivalent), as I did with my zippered accessory pouch, instead of the multi-colored Noro Kureyon, so as to avoid having to carve up skeins and sorting through all the random, tiny snippets. But whereas that is a distant, hypothetical possibility, and no more, I now have a brand new knitted treasure to enjoy, and it is right here in front of me. Mmmm. :-)

And then there were... *ELEVEN*...

The Little Things in Life

Like anyone engaged in a particular craft or activity on-the-go, knitters typically have a collection of useful items that they carry around with them all the time: tools, accessories, gizmos, tchotchkes, call them what you like. We all devise our own ways of organizing these things and keeping them handy. Everyone who has been in the situation knows how frustrating it can be to hunt around urgently for the scissors, yarn needle, crochet hook, stitch marker, or whatever, and be unable to find it. We like to have everything right at our fingertips.

I recently completed two small projects that have both become lovely new additions to my knitting bag. They make me very happy, because each of them not only looks great but also meets a specific need. And the best part is that I designed them myself. It's always fun to see an idea come to fruition, especially when it actually WORKS and will not be left to rot on the dust-heap of history, as it were...

For years I kept my portable array of knitting tools in, of all things, a silver beaded evening purse (see left) that was given to me by a friend when her mother died and left her some things that she knew she would never use herself. It is just the right size, with a conveniently wide hinged opening, and the sheer frivolous luxury of an item like this always brings a smile to my face whenever I handle it. But it is fragile, I have to admit, and despite the TLC that I have tried to give it, wear and tear have taken a toll. Lately one or two strands of the beads actually worked loose. I was able to repair and/or conceal the damage, but I am awfully fond of this lovely little thing and do not want it to fall apart due to ill-use and/or neglect. Reluctantly, therefore, I was driven to the conclusion that it is now time to start using it only at home, where I can keep it safe, which means that I must find a substitute for my tools on the road.

So I reached for my handy stash of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted — those sweater leftovers sure can go a LONG WAY — to fashion a zippered pouch. I started in black with the magic cast-on method that is often used for toe-up socks, and then began working seamlessly in-the-round on two circular needles, gradually increasing in the first few rows to get the bottom curve just right. As soon as I could, I switched to one circular needle and a simple hexagonal mosaic pattern from Barbara Walker's Learn to Knit Afghan (as also seen on my felted folio). It is an especially fun pattern to knit because it uses slipped stitches to simulate the look of stranded knitting without ever having to work with more than one color at a time. I kept the black as a framework throughout but changed the color of the hexagons once per pattern repeat, following the same sequence of jewel tones that I had worked out to good effect for my Stained Glass beret. Stick with what works, right?

I wanted to end up with something ~6" square, but I deliberately made a much larger pouch (~ 8" wide x 10" tall), because I intended to felt the BEJESUS out of it, so that it would be sturdy enough to remain impervious to pointy objects such as scissors and crochet hooks. I knew from previous experience that the mosaic pattern tends to shrink more along the vertical axis than the horizontal. It took about 35-40 minutes in the washing machine hot cycle to produce the desired results, and another 4-5 days for the piece to dry thoroughly. The fabric is at least 1/4” thick!! I then had to wait for the right opportunity to sew in the zipper by hand, and voilà.

Here are some pictures taken at different stages in the process, including a before-and-after sequence to show just how much the fabric shrank during felting, as well as a closeup of the hand-sewn zipper and a current glimpse of the pouch, complete (and replete) with contents. Click on any one of them to get a closer look.

The pouch effortlessly holds all my knitting trinkets safe and secure in a neat little package, and the zipper works like a charm to make them instantly accessible at need. "Mischief managed!!"

The second piece is my answer to the problem of how to work with beads almost anywhere. I mean, those little buggers really get around, and unless you take conscientious steps to contain them, they will use every available means of escape. Friction helps. That's why a foam bead mat is essential. I have purchased them from Earthfaire in two different sizes (although they appear to be out of stock just at the moment): a large rectangular one (11" x 15") that I keep at home, and a pair of smaller ones (8" square) that I carry around with me.

At one point during the holidays, my husband bought me some of my favorite Ferrero Rocher chocolates in a clear plastic box, approximately 6" x 9". The candy vanished almost immediately, of course, and I soon put the box to use as a carrying case for my portable bead mat(s), tiny crochet hooks, containers of beads, etc. It worked beautifully for several months. I especially liked the way that the sides of the box helped to prevent spills when the tray is bumped or prodded while in use. But the plastic was brittle and after a while the edges of the box began to crack and split. I finally had to bow to the inevitable and throw it away, creating another big gaping hole in my tool-chest, as it were.

My husband has said that he may be able to fashion me a more permanent wooden box with a hinged lid, which would be a marvelous thing, if and when. But we would have to collaborate on the design, not to mention the time he must spend in his workshop to fabricate the thing, and meanwhile I needed something STAT. So I went to the drawing board on my own...

In the end, some of my more grandiose and complex ideas gave way to a very simple concept. I decided to make one of the small square bead mats into a portable bead-working kit. Fortunately, I happened to have some remnants of a brightly-colored batik fabric that I knew would do the trick. I cut out a rectangle big enough so that each edge could be folded over twice and fit over/around the bead mat, with an extra wide border on one side where elastic could be sewn to hold the two crochet hooks that I use with beads (1 mm for 6/0 beads and 0.5 mm for the 8/0 size). I carefully mitered the corners and sewed two seams around the mat 1/8" apart, to keep everything secure. Add a handy tie to the center back, and the whole thing can be rolled up neatly with the crochet hooks on the inside and tucked away for safe keeping when not in use.

The following series of photos shows both the front and the back of the piece when it is unfolded for use, as well as how it looks when everything is stowed away. Click on any of these images to see a larger view (especially the one on the upper left, for a closeup of the crochet hooks held in place by their elastic band).

I am happy to report that like its felted counterpart, this object is also highly functional as well as good-looking. I spent most of yesterday afternoon working on a beaded shawl with the new mat spread out beside me, and it worked really well. It sits on any flat surface and keeps the beads from bouncing all over the place. Obviously it's not nearly as deep (or presumably as secure) as a box, but the softer contours make it less vulnerable to bumping, and somehow the ridge of the folded fabric around the edge of the mat seems to form just enough of a psychological barrier, as it were, to prevent the worst sort of accidents. And it rolls up into a perfect little compact package. Mah-velous.

Another Magic Moment on Ravelry

WOW.

I just got a personal message on Ravelry from Madeline Langan (a.k.a. "KnittingDream"), the designer of the Bar Harbor Shell Bag, and I can't help wanting to share a bit of it here, even at the risk of tooting my own horn. It began as follows:

Your bag is the most beautiful Bar Harbor Shell Bag that I have seen! When I look at your bag I become mesmerized by your color combinations. It really does seem to glow!

That is high praise from an estimable source. It made my day!! :-)

Ravelympics After-the-Fact, Part II: Stained Glass Felted Bag

[[ Special thanks once again go out to zzwhitejd, the Raveler who holds the Creative Commons license for this lovely official Ravelympics 2010 banner and was gracious enough to allow others like me to use it free of charge, with appropriate attribution, of course. ]]

OK, it's time now for the second installment of my retrospective on the 2010 Ravelympics, which will deal with the major project that took up the lion's share of my time during the games: the stained glass felted bag that I tagged for Team Indiana ("Go, Hoosiers!!"). The stained glass theme should sound very familiar to long-time readers of my blog. For indeed my preparations for this project began last summer. I have had the raw materials sitting around here for months. So once again I seized upon the Ravelympics as an excuse to make progress on something that had been waiting in the wings for quite a while.

The pattern is the Bar Harbor Shell Bag by Madeline Langan, the same designer whose similar felted beret I have now made twice (see here and here). The yarn was a combination of Noro Kureyon worsted in a variety of different colors for the fan-shaped stained glass panels and Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted (85% lambswool, 15% mohair) for the black borders in between.

My goal for the Ravelympics was not to complete the entire project, because I knew that it would require elaborate finishing (handles, inserts, lining, pockets, etc.) that I would by no means want to rush. So instead I limited my ambitions to knitting the body of the bag, in order to have it ready for felting by the close of the games.

Baby steps first, then... Because the Ravelympics rules stipulated that it was OK to prepare materials in advance, I took advantage of that convenient loophole to carve up the eight skeins of Noro Kureyon into their component colors (see right, and click for a closer view). Then I could sort through what I had, take stock, and eventually come up with a workable color-scheme. I actually put my yarn scissors to good use during the Super Bowl (less than one week before the Olympics)!!

The end result of this rather time-consuming dissection process was a substantial pile of quart-sized ziplock bags, each full of little "single-serving" yarn bundles in a particular color (see left, and click for a closer view). Once I had all the various skein fragments separated, I grouped together all the usable shades of red/pink, purple, blue, and green. Naturally, there were sub-groups as well: red-purple vs. blue-purple, royal blue vs. turquoise, blue-green vs. yellow-green, etc.

Certain browns and muddy colors went right into the "ick/leftovers" category (shown in the bottom portion of the photo, left). But the latter comprised only one or two half-empty bags, which should stand as a testament to my careful shopping beforehand. Many Noro colorways, to my eyes at least, contain a super-abundance of rancid greens and browns that I emphatically did NOT want for this project. So I looked far afield and drew upon three different suppliers to achieve the desired balance of component colors in the final mix.

From a knitting standpoint, the bag is worked from the top down. It is built out of interlaced rounds of fan-shapes (6 per round) that are fashioned individually, a bit à la entrelac. The original design calls for 9 rounds of full-sized fans before the decreases toward the center at the bottom of the bag, but for the sake of the finished proportions I chose to do only 8 full rounds, based on comments and photos from other Ravelry users. Within that framework, my goal was to devise a color-scheme that would make the color-transitions as smooth as possible throughout, following a simple progression from red to purple to blue to green and back again. So based on the quantities that I had to hand, the rounds went as follows: first pink/red, then reddish purples, medium purples, and blue-purples respectively, followed by royal blues and turquoises, then teals, medium greens, and yellow-greens, before the decreases, which shaded quickly back from green to blue to purple to pink and red once more at the center bottom. I carefully saved enough of each major color to do the bottom at the end, and was thrilled to see it all work out more or less exactly the way I had planned, with suprisingly little waste.

All of which sounds fairly straightforward, right? So why did this project end up absorbing so much more of my Ravelympics time than I had anticipated?!! The answer is simple: I had to weave in all the @#$^%&!! *ENDS*.

To get the full impact of this inexorable reality, it is is important to be crystal clear about the arithmetic. For this is one of those situations in life where the numbers simply do not lie.

The original design called for 2 colors per fan, but when I got to work on the top round, I quickly realized that I needed *5* colors per fan to make the kind of seamless transitions that I had in mind. So, with 5 colors per fan and 6 fans per round and 8 rounds of fans in the body of the bag, plus the 5 rounds of shrinking fans in the decrease section with anywhere from 2 to 4 colors each, not to mention the black border on each fan and all the scattered places where it took more than one piece of yarn to complete a particular segment, by my best estimate the bag as a whole contains a total of *800-900* ends, each of which had to be dealt with individually, by hand, using a crochet hook and yarn scissors to ensure that nothing would show. I knew that the felting process would eventually hold them in place, but they all had to get into place first, before the finished piece could ever go into the washing machine.

Note: the photo above looks drastic enough, but it shows only the ends from the last two tiny decrease rounds at the center bottom of the bag, consisting of a mere 2-3 colors per fan. In other words, this was just the tail-end of the process. To imagine the effect in EACH of the *8* full-size rounds, you must multiply what you see above by TWO OR MORE.

On average, then, I ended up spending as much time weaving in the ends as I did on the knitting itself. That is not an exaggeration. Even going into the project with my eyes wide open, as it were, I frankly underestimated just how long it would take. Fortunately, at least I knew enough from my experience with the stained glass berets to make a rule of weaving as I went. I waited until each round of fans was complete, just in case there might have to be some minor adjustments made to balance out the color scheme (e.g. if I ran out of a particular shade sooner than expected), but once I was sure that the knitting was finished, I carefully wove in all the ends from that round before starting in on the next one. If I had not adhered to the same practice on every round, I am quite sure that I would never have finished the project. *NEVER*...

This turned out to be a massive undertaking, especially within the time-limit of the Olympic games. But by disciplining myself from the beginning to work on one row of fans after another, and with a big sprint to the finish-line during the closing ceremonies to complete the bottom of the bag, I managed to bind off the final stitches literally *5 minutes* before the official deadline (i.e. 2:55 AM EST on Sunday, February 28th).

What an ENORMOUS relief...

So, without further ado, here is the photo gallery for the WIP. It starts with the array of multi-colored yarn segments that always went along with this project (although they changed hues as the knitting progressed), and then charts my gradual progress from the first round of 6 separate red/pink fans down toward the bottom of the bag, which suitably forms the final image. All of these photos were taken before felting. If you look closely at the second-to-last one (which shows the finished inside after ALL the ends had been woven in), you will be able to spot the black border across the top of the bag, which made a nice finishing touch. As always, click on any of these images to take a closer look.

A day or two after the closing ceremonies, after catching up on some sleep, I double-checked that the last few loose ends had been neatly tucked away and then ceremoniously carted off my handiwork to the washing machine for the felting process. The knitting went into a zippered mesh laundry bag to protect the machine from excess fiber. Then, following the instructions, I filled the drum part way with hot water, added a small amount of detergent, and used two pairs of old jeans to aid in the agitation. Then I stood over the machine to monitor the felting process very closely, also adding extra minutes to the wash cycle as it went along. In the end, it took about 22 minutes to achieve the desired results. I skipped the spin cycle to avoid creasing, gave the bag a quick rinse in cold water, and then stretched it out over a popcorn can to dry. This last little detail came straight out of the pattern instructions. I was lucky enough to have an old popcorn can left over from the 1980's (a Christmas gift from my aunt & uncle when I was in grade school). Once I had the bag stretched over the can (upside down, of course), it was fun to watch gravity at work: first all the water soaked down toward the bottom edge, and then it slowly evaporated. It took several days for the piece to dry thoroughly.

As I had hoped, the felting was just enough to blend the colors nicely without obscuring the texture of the knitting. This last pair of photos was taken during the drying process. The first one shows the sides of the bag and the second one just the bottom.

Simply stunning, no?? I can sit and stare for hours on end at those delightfully muted yet vibrant colors...

Gloating aside, I am very gratified with how well this project has turned out, because all my hard work paid off. It's great to see some tangible results finally, after sitting around for so long trying to imagine what it would eventually look like. I recently acquired some lovely lilac lining fabric (note the splendid alliteration!!) that will put a very stylish touch on the finished product, and now I am trying to decide exactly what to do about the handles (i-cord, as in the original? a flat strip of ribbing, felted or un-felted? leather??). So it is by no means all over yet, and I am taking my time now that the pressure is off.

As a footnote, this bag already has its own little fan-club. Someone on Ravelry was kind enough to include it among the notable FO's on the Ravelympics 2010 forum, so it has already gotten more than 2 dozen "faves". I feel very confident that this will end up becoming an heirloom and a favorite project for show and tell.

Christmas Hats 2009

The blog seems to have taken a break for the holidays right along with me, but now there is much to report, since the vacation from school has given me a chance to do some serious knitting. In the interests of efficiency, I think I will break it down into several installments between now and next Monday (when classes start), rather than trying to cram everything into one enormous post...

I ended up making three different hats as Christmas gifts for 2009. One had been planned for several months. It was a repeat for my elderly mother of the Stained Glass Beret that I made for myself over the summer. I used Madeline Langan's lovely pattern again and dipped into the very same bag of leftover Brown Sheep wool, so the two hats are virtual twins. Here are pre-felting pictures of both the outside and the inside of my mother's hat, plus one of the outside in its finished form. As always, click on any of these images to get a closer look.

Mom was absolutely *delighted* with her present!! The vibrant colors (all her favorites) strongly appealed to her, just as I knew they would, and when she put the hat on her head, she discovered to her immense satisfaction that it fits perfectly and is extremely warm. The felting actually makes it wind-proof, which is a Godsend in the midst of a New England winter. We visited with her several times after Christmas, and she was never without her new favorite headgear. Chalk this one up as a BIG WIN.

The other two hats were much more impromptu affairs, inspired by my brother's suggestion that we give his two sons Barnes & Noble gift certificates, allowing them to choose what they wanted for themselves. As he spoke, I suddenly got the idea of making a hat for each nephew so that I could label the gift card as follows: "For your head and what's inside it..."

After casting about on Ravelry for the appropriate pattern, I lit upon Thorpe by Kirsten Kapur. This popular design features earflaps and tassled ties. The pattern was extremely easy to follow and adapt from bulky to worsted weight yarn. I chose two different bright colors of 100% wool from my stash, both with white trim, and improvised a striped pattern for the brim that would set off the jewel tones to good advantage. A clever suggestion from Kathryn Ivy's blog allowed me to make the stripes without an unsightly jog at the start of each round. Click on either image for a larger view.

The blue hat was for the 8-year-old, and I was able to finish it in time for Christmas. The red one, for his teenage brother, took a bit longer, so he got yarn & needles (a.k.a. the knitter's promissory note) under the tree & the finished hat a day or two later. Both brothers loved their new headgear. The younger one did not want to take his off!! I am still waiting for photographic evidence from their father, to document the end result, but I think it is safe to chalk up two more BIG WINS for Christmas 2009.

P.S. re Stained Glass Beret

Although at first I had used the convex side of the plate to put pressure on the crown and stretch it into a perfect circle, I then flipped the plate over part way through the drying process to help shape the lower portions of the beret as well. This stratagem seems to have worked out nicely.

Stained Glass Beret

Hooray!! The stained glass beret is done. It was a quick & easy knit. I found the pattern extremely well-written & easy to follow. This is such a clever & elegant design, the way the fan shapes fit together to create the stained glass "rose window" effect...

Of course, with all the color changes, there were approximately 10,000 loose ends to weave in before felting. You cannot quite get away with weaving them all as you go either, because the way the fans are constructed in interlacing rounds requires leaving an open loop at the tip of each fan that cannot be tightened & tied down until 2 rounds later, but I strongly recommend taking care of them ASAP (as I did) rather than saving them all for the very end. Fortunately, once you get them into place, the felting process really helps hold them there.

Here are two photos: one (on the left) taken before felting, where you can still see the stitch definition, and the other (on the right) taken after felting while the piece was drying. Click on either one to get a closer look. I suppose it almost goes without saying, but the Lamb's Pride yarn felted *beautifully*. And I like my color scheme even better in the final felted version than when I laid out all the yarns side-by-side.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, the pattern calls for a dinner plate to be inserted after felting to help ensure that the beret will dry in the correct shape. I knew instinctively which of our various china patterns would turn out to be the right size, but it took a bit of effort when the time came to get the object properly situated. I felt a little silly for a moment there, if truth be told, until I had won the wrestling match, and then my self-consciousness suddenly turned to instant triumph. To my delight, the "crown" of the beret immediately stretched into a perfect circle, and I believe the fact that the rim around the plate makes it slightly convex rather than strictly flat means that the finished object will more easily fit onto my head, which, thankfully, is also not flat on top. ;-)

And now.... STAINED GLASS KNITTING!!

Honestly, who *isn't* fascinated by the ethereal glow of sunlight through stained glass??

The image hyperlinked in my rhetorical question above comes, of course, from the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. I will NEVER forget the moment (Was it really more than 20 years ago? Sheesh!) when I first stepped into that exquisite little Gothic treasure house and looked up. The play of light was quite literally breathtaking — and now my knitting can reflect some of that same saturation of color, thanks to designer Madeline Langan of Knitting Dreams. I have one project already going and another about to start, with a promise of more to come...

The first project is a lovely felted beret with a stained glass motif, done entirely with yarns from my stash (YIPPEE!!). I happened to have some Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride (85% wool, 15% mohair) left over from two long-ago sweaters. What fun to be putting those remnants to good use after all these years. It may not be exactly the same rainbow color scheme as the original, but I think that the intense jewel tones of magenta, mauve, periwinkle, royal blue, teal, and emerald green will produce an authentic stained glass effect. Click on the image to the right to take a closer look at the yarn.

Here is what the work-in-progress looks like so far. The beret is a quick knit in the round on US size 10 (6 mm) needles, moving upwards from the base toward the center of the crown. The stained glass pattern consists of brightly colored fan shapes made one at a time in six decreasing rounds, each outlined in black. I have just started the third round of fans (in periwinkle), and I am very excited about how it looks so far. Click on the image to the right for a larger view.

This is a great pattern, well-written and easy to follow. I expect to finish the beret in fairly short order. The instructions call for a dinner plate to be inserted into the crown after felting to help it dry in the correct shape. That part should be particularly fun!! I can't wait to have a nice warm felted hat this winter, and if all goes well, I should be able to make one or two more of these as Christmas presents.

The second project meanwhile is going to take a lot longer, especially in the planning stages but also to knit, simply because it will be a larger piece. It is the Bar Harbor Shell Bag.

This beauty — and the potential for others like it — has been on my mind for most of the summer. After a *LOT* of shopping around on-line, I ordered a total of eight skeins of Noro Kureyon in six different shades (#40, #163 x2, #219, #220, #240, #250 x2), mostly from Paradise Fibers, but also from Yarnela and The Knitting Garden. The pattern calls for only 5 or 6 skeins, but I really wanted a wide range of colors (especially reds, greens, blues, pinks, and purples) with a minimum of waste. As always, click on the image to take a closer look.

Thanks to the vagaries of the postal service, it took two or three weeks for everything that I ordered to arrive, but now that all the skeins are finally here, I will soon start dissecting them and organizing the various pieces by color into their proper families, so that I can pick and choose exactly the right shades. I definitely have enough material for more than one project, but my plan is to knit one bag first, and then see what I have left. Then I can easily order more yarn in the colors required for a second bag.

There are so many intriguing possibilities here... For instance, I thought about arranging the colors at random (as the designer suggests for her Stained Glass Fan Bag), but for this first adventure, I think I will put them in rows, perhaps also imitating the alternation between dark-to-light and light-to-dark that I have always been so fond of in this beloved crocheted afghan that I finished in the 8th grade. The original pattern is long gone, I'm afraid, but it came from a women's magazine sold at the grocery store. One of these days I may get around to reproducing it, but for now all I have is the finished object, which has been a favorite of mine for decades.

The possibilities for drawing needlework inspiration from the world of stained glass are limitless, and I fully intend to enjoy myself here. No deadlines or time-pressure, or worrying about what anyone else will think, just a wishing-well of gorgeous color that I can dip into and explore ad libitum. EXACTLY the sort of escapist pleasure, in other words, that a stressed out professor will undoubtedly need from time to time when the new semester gets into full swing and everything starts happening all at once. :-)

Knit Your Own School Supplies!!

As I've mentioned in this blog before, I was obviously destined for academia from a very young age. One of the ways that we could always tell was the joyous excitement and anticipation with which I eagerly awaited the start of school every fall. August for me was all about books and SCHOOL SUPPLIES. I would shop for notebooks and folders and dividers and organizers the way other girls shopped for clothes. Not that I didn't enjoy clothes shopping too, in moderation, but I spent *hours* at the local stationary store — the real old-fashioned kind, a throwback to the bygone era before mega-office-supply chains (& alas now long out of business) — contemplating all the fascinating options and designing just the right scheme to fit my classes for the coming year. A shiny new notebook holds so much promise...

And the fascination never really wore off either. All these years later I still have a "thing" about notebooks and pads and binders, etc. I try to be careful, but it's like yarn: I have a stash (two of them, really, between home & the office), and I'm always on the lookout for new treasures to add to my collection.

Two years ago, knowing all this, my mother bought me a luxurious red leather folio from Levenger as a birthday present. It's specifically designed for left-handed people & immediately became a prized possession. In order to protect it from wear & tear while keeping it in daily use, I made a fabric envelope to carry it in. That worked OK but felt flimsy, so a few days ago I got the idea into my head of knitting and *felting* a better alternative with some wool from my stash.

It was sort of a mad experiment, but I had such good luck with lightly felting those sweaters earlier this summer that I was feeling adventurous. Here's the result...

I borrowed a simple mosaic pattern from square #18 of Barbara Walker's Learn to Knit Afghan, a book which happens to be lying around here lately because my husband has been working his way through it. My original plan was to knit the whole thing in one piece, felt it, fold it into a simple envelope, & sew up the sides. I even did a test swatch to plan for X-amount of shrinkage. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice & Miriams...

I followed what I thought was the same felting procedure with the piece itself, but the real thing shrank a LOT more than the test swatch had done. Grrrr.... Irritating!! With some effort I managed to stretch it out to the right width, but that only made it lose more length, of course, & when it dried it was obviously too short to cover the intended object. Fortunately, I had plenty of extra yarn available, which meant that I could quickly fashion a rectangular extension that could be attached to the original piece, and gussets for the sides as well. I felted the new pieces separately (obviously) and blocked them to match the original, and then eventually sewed the whole thing together, with a wooden toggle button left over from an old coat sweater. I *LOVE* it!!

The seam across the front is almost invisible. Indeed to me it almost looks like a deliberate decorative detail (3 D's = alliteration can be fun!!). And best of all, more or less by sheer dumb luck (the ancient Greek word is tyche) the colors match both the red leather folio and the dark teal green of my favorite messenger bag.

Entrelac -- Entre*LICIOUS*

The Spring Bouquet sweater is complete!! This took some doing, let me tell you...

First of all, I washed the pieces before sewing, which was a great idea, in that it smoothed out all the edges and made the seams incredibly easy to do.

But the instant the entrelac fabric got wet, it flattened out like a PANCAKE. All the wrinkles and textured contours simply vanished!!

And the flattened fabric was noticeably bigger... The chest circumference of the finished garment measured 44", with a length from the shoulder of 30". Some spots, especially at the joins between entrelac segments, were undeniably see-through as well. It's a thick-and-thin yarn, after all. (Click on the image to get a closer look.)

Not good. I simply *HAD* to shrink it. Time for a hot-water bath.

I cannot let this moment go by without saying that I am struck by the way things come in threes. Before this summer, I had never intentionally shrunk or felted a sweater before, and now I have done it three times in the last several weeks. At least the success with the two Fjörgyn coats gave me confidence with the entrelac. I might have freaked out otherwise, but as it was I stayed remarkably calm throughout this whole process.

The sweater went through one washer cycle on hot with a short soak in the middle. I had placed it in a mesh laundry bag to protect it, but some parts still felted quite a bit, especially where the folded sleeves rubbed against the yoke. There's not much surprise in this, though, given the incredible softness of the wool. It was bound to felt somewhat when washed, even with gentle treatment.

It shrank exactly as I had hoped, to a chest circumference of 42" and a length of 26" from the shoulder. The sleeves were always on the narrow side, but I have short arms, and they fit perfectly.

The only real problem was the neck, because the ribbing of the collar did not shrink nearly as much as the surrounding fabric.

This resulted in a cowl that stood up about 2 1/2" away from my neck all the way around. (Click for a closer look.)

I *really* wanted a proper turtleneck, so there was nothing for it but to redo the collar.

Fortunately, I was able to rip out more than half of it and reuse the yarn. But the bottom part had felted almost completely, so I finally had to cut it off with scissors. Talk about nerve-wracking!! Careful, careful...

Once the neckline was clear, I used a pointy Addi lace needle to pick up stitches again (only 100 of them this time, instead of 116) and then proceeded to knit a new collar with a US size 5, instead of a 7, to ensure that the result would fit snugly.

Finally, I washed the whole thing again — in COLD water this time, to avoid any further shrinkage — and pinned it out to dry.

Some parts of the sweater are still more solidly felted than others, but the fabric has a uniformly soft texture. Here are some pictures of the finished product, which I will wear proudly and often, once the weather cools down. As always, click on any one of the images to get a closer look.

The more I look at this sweater in its finished form, the more I *LOVE* what the washing did to smooth out all the color changes. It looks muted and dreamy, just like an Impressionist painting. :-)