Great Rug Progress
The cabin we stayed in at Estes Park was just out of reach of any cell phone networks. There was no wireless internet service. Day and night, we heard the roar of the freezing cold river, which sounded oddly like an air conditioner.
What’s a person to do with no phone and no internet?
Knit!
Between knitting at the cabin and knitting during the long hours of driving, I finished the center section of my rug! It’s fairly loose and large, but that’s okay. The plan is to felt it once it is completely done.
Back at home, I threw the gauge swatch in the washer with my hot-water laundry. It felted beautifully! I was so thrilled I had to admire it several times that day and the next and the next. It lost about 10% of its length and width.
Look, here’s the knitting before and after felting. Once it the whole rug is felted, it will be the perfect size and weight.
The mitered border is about halfway done and I’ll finish it off with a knitted-on cord trim.
Estes Park Wool Market 2009-1
We’re back and mostly recovered from our trip to Colorado and the Estes Park Wool Market. Colorado is a delight to the eyes with its stunning scenery. However, the best sight I saw on the trip was in our own back seat. Here’s Ella, knitting a blanket for her cousin.
She asked, “How much more do I have to knit?” for a blanket which would cover her cousin from neck to toe. It’s so interesting to see how young kids perceive size and time and space.
After lots more knitting on the trip, the piece is about ten inches long. If I can talk Ella into it, we may change the project to a pillow, and her knitting will be just about done.
As we approached Estes Park, I announced, “I’m going to buy only one skein of yarn at the Wool Market.” For some reason, Charles seemed surprised.
The one skein of yarn would be Brooks Farm Yarns’s Duet, a blend of Texas wool and mohair, to go with the sage/brown/gold Duet we recently wound into balls.
Eva took a crocheted sample over to the Brooks Farm Yarn booth and previewed the possibilities for me. She found several reasonable choices, but the shades-of-green yarn looked best. When we went together, I agreed with her.
But red-orange-gold combination appealed to us, too.
You already know the outcome of the story, I’m sure. We came home with both skeins.
Eva, on the other hand, did not show as much restraint in buying yarn. Ah well. She is young, and must build a stash of her own.
A Crochet Bouquet Doily on Crochet Insider
Please visit Crochet Insider to find instructions for a bright doily made with flowers from Crochet Bouquet!
I tried several ways to put the flowers together, as you can see from the test pieces here.
I settled on the doughnut-shaped mat.
Why a doughnut shape? Because the many different types and textures of yarn make the surface of the mat uneven. The hole in the middle is so you can nestle in your vase or bowl, with no worries about it being wobbly!
Circles-Within-Circles is June’s Crochet Along
Our part of Texas is dairy country and we frequently laugh (in a resigned sort of way) about the “dairy air.” Now that the weather is heating up for summer, we have lots of flies.
When I am sleeping and a fly lands on my nose, or when the cats’ food is covered with the nasty little beasts, my mind turns to the lovely sundew. It is a carnivorous plant that lives in moister climes. I dream of a small field of sundews, plump with flies, while we enjoy a fly-free existence.
Our June crochet-along is the flower, Circles Within Circles (pages 22-23 of Crochet Bouquet). Why? Because it reminds me of a sundew. And my fervent hope is that hundreds of crocheters, crocheting sundew-like flowers from my book, will create a vortex of sundew energy that will keep the flies away from us this summer. Hey–it’s worth a try!
To make the perfect Circles Within Circles, finish with a needle-join, described on page 14 of Crochet Bouquet. It’s a great technique for any occasion where you have to join a round of crochet.
Churro Rug Schedule Already Off
The plan was to knit two ridges (four garter rows) of the rug per day. This was definitely doable.
I started just fine. Just to see what the next color would look like, I knitted a couple of extra ridges. The next color was only going to be one ridge in all, so I knitted that ridge, too.
The trouble with changing the color every couple of rows is that the color changes draw you in and you want to see how the pattern will look. So I kept knitting.
Then the mosaic pattern began to take shape, and I wanted to get to the next perceived milestone in the pattern, then to the middle of the pattern. I kept knitting and knitting.
Here I am, more than half way through the center section of the rug, having knitted 54 ridges. That’s 27 days’ worth of my schedule, which officially started on June 1st. My hands are sore, but I’m a happy knitter. I can hardly wait to knit the second half!
See, being off schedule doesn’t have to be bad news!
Good Weather Winding and Swatching
Late cold fronts have brought rain and cool weather to our part of Texas. We spent several lovely afternoons outside, under the two big junipers next to the house.
Yarn winding operations were moved to Ella’s small tree house. The ball winder and the umbrella swift fit perfectly on the step just below the platform. Here’s my able assistant, Ella, winding a skein of Brooks Farm Yarns’s Duet. It’s a lovely merino and mohair blend, destined to be a crochet project.
I also swatched a sample of the rug I plan to knit from Earth Arts’s natural-dyed churro wool. This is a mosaic or dotty knitting pattern that I’ve used in the past for color swatching.
The various colors have slightly different weights and yardages, so I started by weighing each color. After knitting half of the motif, I weighed each ball of yarn again. Using the before and after weights, I could figure out how much of each color it took to knit half a motif. Double that for a whole motif. Then divide the original weight by the amount needed for one motif to find out how many motifs I could actually knit with the yarn at hand.
Now I have a plan! The goal: finish the rug in time to enter it into the Taos Wool Festival Home Accessories Contest. Wish me luck!
Gazania Help and Inspiration
Susan, a reader from North Texas, asked for help interpreting the Gazania instructions on pages 54-56 of Crochet Bouquet. I’m glad she did, because now I have an excuse to show you a piece that inspired elements of the Gazania and other flowers in the book.
First, Susan’s question:
I am trying to follow your Gazania pattern and am utterly frustrated by Rnd 3. You say to work around posts…
The best I can guess is that one should start with the yarn on top of the work, not behind as usual. (It would be useful to have specific direction on how to join for this situation.) In the first case, apparently one should work the first sc (around the post) toward the center of the flower, followed by the next post-surrounding sc going toward the petal.
Susan worked the problem out correctly on her own, in the italicized sentence above. The only tip I would add is to fold the piece so that double-crochet post you are to crochet around will be at the top. Crochet around it as if it were part of the row which continues up the side of the petal.
To begin Round 3 of the Gazania, start with a slip knot around your hook. Insert the hook around the dc (or under it if you have folded the piece), draw up a loop, then yarn over and draw the yarn through both loops on hook, as if you were making a regular sc.
She writes further:
Then you have to move the yarn away and force it in back of the work to proceed around the petal. Going between petals it seems necessary to take the yarn with you on top of the work and then back to the edge for the next petal.
I wouldn’t say that you have to “force” the yarn to the back of the work to proceed around the petal. The thread always comes out of the last stitch you crocheted. Keep going and hook the thread from wherever it is.
The pattern tells you to finish with a needle join (explained in the front of the book). The needle join finishes the row so that you can’t tell where the first stitch and last stitch are. It’s worth the trouble.
Now to the inspiration! This vintage crochet hot pad begins with a filet crochet base. The squiggles are double crochet stitches that stand up, perpendicular to the filet foundation. The standing double crochets are worked around the stems of the stitches below, and around the chain stitches that complete the filet squares. You could call this “surface crochet.”
Here’s the back or bottom of the piece. You can see the threads at the base of each dc, going around the uprights and cross pieces of the filet crochet foundation.
I looked at this little piece from time to time while I was developing patterns for Crochet Bouquet, wondering how I could apply the technique to a crocheted flower.
The Gazania is one of the results of studying the old piece of crochet. Round 3 is crocheted on the surface toward the middle of the flower, and then it changes to a regular round, worked into the tops of the stitches of Round 2 as you go around the petals.
Here’s the back of the Gazania, and you can see the threads at the base of each sc that was worked onto the surface of the flower. One of the sc-covered dc’s has a white ring around it, so you can see it better. See how it has the same look as the stitch-covered filet foundation on the hot pad?
There are twelve such covered stitches in the Gazania: you crochet outward on six of them, and back toward the center on the other six.
Darts and Pleats at Estes Park!
In less than a month, the Estes Park Wool Market will be in full swing with two days of workshops and two days of shopping! It’s a beautiful venue, with the Rocky Mountains in the distance. The weather is perfect for wearing sweaters!
I’m teaching a couple of classes there this year, and I will be signing copies of Crochet Bouquet in Suzanne Correira’s booth. She is otherwise known as Fire Ant Ranch.
There’s still time to sign up for classes! If you mail your registration form before Friday, May 22, great! If you mail it after that, there’s a late fee. So send in your registrations today! Here is the brochure and registration form.
May I recommend my workshop? It is called “Style and Shape Knitting with Pleats and Darts.” We will make at least three different kinds of pleats, including the one shown in the yellow top modeled above by young Ella.
These pleats look great on sleeves, but you can use them to enhance other parts of your garments, too. We’ll talk about this and brainstorm together to come up with great ideas for how to use pleats.
We’ll also discuss how to incorporate knitted pleats into garments, as design details or as major garment shaping. We will discuss how to deal with the extra weight. We will practice ways to figure out the number of sts you need for a pleated item.
Darts make sweaters fit better, and lucky us! We can knit darts right into our sweaters. I’ll show you how to measure and calculate darts, and how to knit them using short rows.
Every now and then you don’t know you need a dart until you’ve already finished the sweater. Never fear! You can cut a dart into your sweater. To see a cut-out dart in progress, have a look at this post.
There is homework, so be sure and read the brochure closely. Hope to see you there!
Book Signing in Estes Park, Colorado
In less than a month, the Estes Park Wool Market will be in full swing with two days of workshops and two days of shopping. It’s a beautiful venue, with the Rocky Mountains in the distance. The weather is perfect for wearing sweaters.
During the market, I will be signing copies of Crochet Bouquet in Suzanne Correira’s Fire Ant Ranch booth. Look for the flower ponchos, as in the photo above.
I’ll be teaching workshops there, too. There’s still time to sign up for classes! If you mail your registration form before Friday, May 22, 2009, you will avoid the late fee. So send in your registrations today! Here is the brochure and registration form.
May I recommend my workshop? It is called “Style and Shape Knitting with Pleats and Darts.” We will make at least three different kinds of pleats, including these pleats which look great on sleeves. You can use them to enhance other parts of your garments, too. We’ll talk about this and brainstorm together to come up with great ideas for how to use pleats.
We’ll also discuss how to incorporate knitted pleats into garments, as design details or as major garment shaping. We’ll discuss how to deal with the extra weight. We’ll practice ways to figure out the number of sts you need for a pleated item.
Darts make sweaters fit better, and lucky us! We can knit darts right into our sweaters. I’ll show you how to measure and calculate darts, and how to knit them using short rows.
Every now and then you don’t know you need a dart until you’ve already finished the sweater. Never fear! You can cut a dart into your sweater. To see a cut-out dart in progress, have a look at this post.
There is homework, so be sure and read the brochure closely. Hope to see you there!
Book Signing in Estes Park, Colorado!
Primrose Layers, Step by Step
“Primrose Layers” (pp. 90-91 of Crochet Bouquet) is our May 2009 Crochet Along flower.
It’s a lovely Mothers Day flower, too, if you are crocheting it for someone you love like a mother in the USA. In England, Mothering Sunday is in March. When we lived in England, we celebrated in March, and my husband and I hoped we would remember to phone our own mothers in the US in May. When is Mothers Day in other places?
You can crochet all three layers and sew them together as shown in the book, or you can make and use them separately.
I’m very proud of the shape of the Primrose’s petals. Here are step-by-step photos and hints to supplement the crochet instructions in Crochet Bouquet:
Once you have made the central ring of the flower, chain the number of stitches indicated in the pattern for the size of primrose you want. Crochet back along the chain, toward the center ring.
Turn and work back almost to the end of the row you just finished. The turning chain is longer than usual,
Crochet into the chain itself as instructed in the pattern, and then you’ll be back to crocheting on top of the sts of the previous row.
Attach the petal to the center ring, and you’re ready to chain for the next petal.
The beautiful 100% wool, hand-painted yarn in the orange, red, and yellow sample is from Fiber Fanatic in Denton, Texas. The yellow cotton is Cascade Yarns’ Pima Tencel, which is great to work with.