Knit Advent Day 8
It’s all in how you sew it together. This horn is just a long strip of garter stitch, with a couple of stitches extra at the beginning for the mouthpiece, and several extra at the end for the bell of the horn. The bow is another long stretch of garter stitch.
As I sit here posting this message (in 2005), I hear thumps and bumps from the carport. Three raccoons are trying to eat the catfood. The chicken broth I gave the cats earlier today is frozen solid, so they’re having a hard time. Raccoons are such rascals.
Knit Advent Day 7
This intarsia gingerbread needed the embroidered icing outline to give him better definition. I would design him differently if I were doing it again. He’d be smaller for sure, but I might even just knit a gingerbread man shape, instead of a square with a picture of a gingerbread man in it.
Since the paragraph above was posted in 2005, I have been thinking about releasing these patterns again. The gingerbread person will definitely get a redesign.
Knit Advent Day 6 and an Old Bedspread
Worked on the bias, with a true curve in the top, this candy cane ornament required some heavy thinking and experimentation. Once again, thank goodness for high school geometry. If your kids ever ask “Why do we have to do geometry? What possible relevance can this have to real life?” just show them this post (and the wreath post, three days ago).
I could not pass up this hand-embroidered bedspread at an estate sale last month (November 2005). It cost fifty cents. Lucky me!
I’m thinking that the center panel would make a pretty curtain, maybe for a bathroom. It also has embroidery at the top. What a treasure!
Knit Advent Day 5 and New Shoes
Day four’s ornament is an intarsia angel with embroidered hair. My angel’s hair is blond, because I have a blonde daughter, but you can make the hair or skin any color you want. Boy angels wear robes too, so the color-change chart should work fine for a boy angel.
Yesterday (in 2005) I was a volunteer greeter at a beautiful home in the Cross Timbers Fine Arts Council Christmas Tour of Homes. The attire had to be Christmas-y, so a few days early, I pondered my wardrobe. The truth was shocking. My shoes looked old and ratty. They were old and ratty!
The inevitable could not be put off any longer. I bought two pairs of shoes. Here’s the remarkable pair, which I wore with black jeans, my pink sweater, a pink shirt, and a necklace I made. Who says plump, middle-aged ladies, with long, straight hair, who wear no makeup, have to be frumpy?
The Advent wall hanging and its knitted ornaments were originally published on my blog, December 1-24, 2005. I’m posting them on Twitter @textilefusion and Instagram @suzannthompson, too. Hope you’ll follow me to see all 24 ornaments. You can also find them by searching #KnitAdvent.
INKnitters magazine gave patterns for all 24 ornaments and the calendar wall hanging in issues 7, 8, 9, and 10, Winter 2002 through Fall 2003. The project isn’t particularly difficult, but it is time-consuming.
Knit Advent Day 4
Knit Advent Day 4 and Garter Intarsia
Garter intarsia is a little different. Changing colors on the right side is normal. But it’s when you’re working on the private side of the work (otherwise known as the wrong side), that changing colors is odd. Since in garter stitch, you knit every row, you must bring the old yarn forward between your needles to drop it. As usual, pick up the new color yarn from underneath the old. In order to continue knitting, take the new color back between your needles to the other side.
This gift ornament is garter intarsia, and the bow is knitted separately and sewn on.
The Advent Calendar with its ornaments was the last big project I designed and finished before my youngest daughter was born. We lived in England at the time, and I remember sitting in our American La-Z-Boy, in our English living room, with the gas fire burning—very cozy. I was sewing, sewing, sewing the felt pieces onto the ornaments. I had to finish before the baby came!
The instructions were published in INKnitters, Nos. 7, 8, 9, and 10 (Winter 2002 through Fall 2003 issues). You may be able to find these issues online. Now, nearly 20 years since they were first published, I am thinking about reissuing the patterns, with some changes and improvements. Let me know if that’s a pattern set you might be interested in buying. Email me at knitandcrochetwithsuzann@outlook.com.
The Advent Calendar is for intermediate (and beyond) knitters with patience. Techniques include intarsia, lace, i-cord, sewing, stranded color knitting, and slipped-stitch color knitting. If you are willing to follow instructions, you’ll do fine. It is a time-consuming project, so pace yourself.
Knit Advent Day 3
I love this little wreath. It was a triumph of technique and high school geometry. I figured the circumference of the inner circle and the circumference of the outer circle.
Circumference is very handy if you want to knit round things. Circumference equals pi times diameter (sometimes people say “2πr,” which is the same thing). For most knitting applications, you can round pi down to 3, because knitting is stretchy enough to compensate for the lack of extreme accuracy.
Using the gauge, I could figure how many rows would go around the inside and how many more were needed to go around the outside. After that, all I had to do was work out how to arrange the short rows.
These ornaments were knitted from Anchor brand cotton embroidery floss, on size 1 knitting needles. I sewed the knitting to felt, then backed each ornament with another piece of felt, with a number on it. It was a lot of work, but they sure are cute!
The Advent wall hanging and its knitted ornaments first appeared on my blog, December 1-24, 2005. I’m posting them on Twitter @textilefusion and Instagram @suzannthompson, too. Hope you’ll follow me to see all 24 ornaments. You can also find them by searching #KnitAdvent.
Knit Advent Day 2 and More
The Advent wall hanging and its knitted ornaments first appeared on my blog, December 1-24, 2005. I’m posting them on Twitter @textilefusion and Instagram @suzannthompson, too. Hope you’ll follow me to see all 24 ornaments. You can also find them by searching #KnitAdvent.
An intarsia-knit snowman ornament is the second of our knitted Advent calendar. I knitted with embroidery floss, because that seemed an inexpensive way to use lots of different colors.
The 24 ornaments and the calendar wall hanging were published in INKnitters magazine, issues 7, 8, 9, and 10, Winter 2002 through Fall 2003. The project isn’t particularly difficult, but it is time-consuming. So if you knit it, pace yourself
The other thing going on December 2, 2005 was blocking:
It was time to block these cable samples, so here they are, face-down on a bath towel. For small pieces like this, I smooth them out on the towel. The terrycloth provides enough friction to hold them in place. I lay a wet press cloth (old cloth diaper) over them, and touch my iron to the press cloth. This sends steam into the pieces, but doesn’t squish them. The cloth protects them from the hot iron.
While they’re soft from the steam, I tweak the edges and corners if necessary. They cool and dry in less than an hour and they’re done!
The washcloth was another story. It needed blocking to stretch the sides and define the corners. I had to pin the corners, steam, and straighten the sides. This is my one Cloth for Katrina so far. I’ll make another as soon as I find my other ball of cotton.
The cream and pink samples are mostly stitches from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. At the left of the pink sample in the foreground, are 4-, 5-, and 6-strand braids. I added one purl stitch between the strands of the braids for the second section. Keeping the stitch count the same, for the third section, I elongated the pattern (cable every fourth row, instead of every other row). Finally, in the right-most quarter, where the color changes, the cable courses are separated by two purl stitches. All the braid patterns are related, and it was fun to work through the variations.
Knitted Advent Calendar
This is the first of 24 ornaments and an Advent wall hanging originally published on my blog, December 1-24, 2005. I’m considering redesigning some of the ornaments and releasing them, every other month, as a year-long Advent knitting project. If that sounds like something you’d like to participate in, please email me and let me know: knitandcrochetwithsuzann@outlook.com.
I’m posting on Twitter @textilefusion and Instagram @suzannthompson, too. Hope you’ll follow me to see all 24 ornaments—or search #KnitAdvent.
It’s the First of December, and that can only mean one thing for households with children—opening the first door of the Advent calendar. When I was growing up, my Oma always sent Advent calendars to my brothers and me, from Germany. I loved opening the doors and finding the quaint little pictures of gifts and Christmas motifs.
When my mom became an Oma, she made sure my daughter had Advent calendar, only those calendars had a piece of chocolate behind each door.
Back in 2002, I decided to knit an Advent calendar. It shows a Christmas tree with buttons on it. Twenty-four knitted ornaments, mounted on felt, are hung, face down, from a row of buttons that runs along the bottom, as in the photo, above.
Each ornament has a number embroidered on the back with free-hand zigzag on the sewing machine. Every morning, starting December first, we find the ornament with the proper number, and hang it from button on the tree. When the last ornament is moved to the tree, it’s Christmas Eve.
Follow along this month, when I’ll post an ornament each day, ending on December 24. The first ornament is a star, which we hang so that it rests at the top of the tree. I really like this one, because it is dimensional.
Make Your Own Buttons Workshops
Do you have trouble finding the perfect buttons for your handmade garments? Don’t agonize. Make your own! Learn basic polymer clay techniques and create several stunning button styles with me, Suzann Thompson, author of Polymer Clay for Everyone.
(Polymer Clay for Everyone is out of print, but you can buy it online. Try alibris.com, abebooks.com, and amazon.com. It’s usually a bargain!)
I offer two 6-hour workshops for beginners, about making polymer clay buttons. Each workshop stands alone, so you can take the workshops in any order. I cover polymer clay basics and hints in both workshops.
So, even if you’ve never tried polymer clay crafting before, you are welcome to spend a day or two playing—and I do mean playing—with polymer clay.
You’ll take home at least two dozen delightful, machine-washable and dryable buttons.
To book this workshop, please email me at knitandcrochetwithsuzann at outlook dot com.
Make Your Own Buttons Workshop
In “Make Your Own Buttons from Polymer Clay,” we start with a fake or faux lapis button technique. The buttons are complete with sparkly inclusions, just like real lapis.
Easy but effective swirl buttons are next. They are quick to make and customize with the perfect colors for your garment or other project. These are my favorites.
Millefiori is a glass technique that polymer clay crafters have taken over and made their own. We’ll do a group millefiori project, and the buttons will turn out something like this:
After lunch, we make crazy polymer patchwork buttons and learn a clever way to use clay scraps. Here are some patchwork buttons:
Make More Buttons Workshop
“Make More Buttons” is another six-hour workshop for beginners. It is completely stand-alone, meaning that you don’t need any experience with polymer clay to take this class. All the buttons we make in this workshop are different from the ones in my other button workshop.
We start with imitation or faux turquoise, then move on to a traditional millefiori flower design. The word “millefiori” means “thousand flowers.” You’ll be surprised at how simple and versatile this technique is.
After lunch, we tackle mica-shift, a technique that results in sophisticated-looking and subtle buttons. Finally, we make polymer clay mosaic buttons and learn clever ways to use scraps.
Here are photos from my previous workshops. Participants had fun and made lots of buttons!
Grade school students made these buttons in a 4H sewing camp:
Crochet Charm Lace Examples
Our bookshelves have filled with books of instructions for the cutest ever crocheted flowers, leaves, and other motifs. What can we do with all those sweet little things? We can make Crochet Charm Lace, a beautiful lacy cloth that uses up our yarn leftovers of all weights and textures.
The best things about Crochet Charm Lace:
- You can make projects in any shape and size.
- You can use up leftover yarns and reduce your stash.
- You can mix together all kinds of yarns and weights of yarn.
- Other than trying for a “firm” gauge, gauge is unimportant.
I teach a 3-hour workshop about Crochet Charm Lace, where we make a small table mat, like this Forget-Me-Not project. To book the workshop, please email me at knitandcrochetwithsuzann at outlook dot com. Or click on Crochet Charm Lace in the categories menu in the sidebar at your right, and find lots of how-to and examples.
Here are more Crochet Charm Lace projects, and you can read a lot more
Photo credit: Interweave Crochet/Harper Point Photography
Credit: Noro Knitting Magazine Spring/Summer 2014, photo by Paul Amato for LVARepresents.com.
