A Little Yarn Bombing

A couple of weeks ago I did a little private yarn bombing project.  I was inspired by someone near and dear to me who had been doing a lot of work with rocks in her yard. Once the idea struck me, I couldn't wait to do this.

OK, so I covered 4 rocks and one brick, for a little extra humor.  

  

I began with this rock and it remains my favorite.  This one is crocheted. I made up the design as I went along, "engineering" it to fit.  

It was a fun challenge to figure out how to crochet something to fit around an ovoid.  

The rest were just rectangles that I knit on relatively large needles and sewed closed around the rocks.  I decided to make plastic tags for each rock that said 1/5, 2/5, etc., so that my victim could figure out that there were five to find.  When I placed them in her yard, some were more obvious than others .

When I am surrounded by rocks like these -

...it really doesn't seem THAT bizarre to cover rocks with fuzzy yarn.

To see some really amazing yarn bombing projects, check out yarnbombing.com.  One recent project that is particularly stunning is shown in the post http://yarnbombing.com/hello-spring.  I'd love to know how they got the fire department to help with the installation!

Latest Work in Recycled Plastic Bag "Yarn"

I made this bag for my mother-in-law out of New York Times delivery bags that she collected for me.  My plastic yarn bags are usually striped, being knit with "yarn" made from a variety of plastic bags.  But I found that these soft newspaper bags are definitely a nice type of plastic to stick with for an entire bag.  I loved this blue, and I was happy to discover that I was using NYT bags in two slightly different shades of blue.  The black print gives the finished product an almost heathered look, if you use your imagination.

Knitting Progress

Baby flame hat is done!

I just hope it fits the baby's head, at least someday. I feel like I was blindly making the hat and just assuming that it fits...not the best feeling.

Here are my do-over socks in Green Envy Red Heart sock yarn ("with aloe"!) -

I was working on these a bit as I rode the bus to and from Mount St. Helens on a field trip with the 8th grade, so I took this picture on the bus. I can't say enough how much I love the colors in this "Green Envy" color combo! I think I will be putting this project on the back burner until later. I picked up several skeins of that same yarn to make a funky-colored baby sweater, and I need to get on that project now.

On a car trip to Spokane and back last week I started a new recycled plastic bag bag. I have finished 10+ inches, and that took more or less 10 hours. I had been TRYING to keep track of how many hours it takes to make one of these, but it's hard to keep track when I work on them in lots of short chunks of time. The long stretch of knitting time on that car ride was the key to getting a clue of the time required. I would guess at this point that it takes about 20 hours to make one of these bags. Or more if you count the time spent cutting up bags.

Lucky for me this spring my sister-in-law brought me a bag-load of colorful bags, and she and our kids cut them up for me! So instead of automatically having stripes of color on the bag as I work with one cut-up plastic bag and then move on to another, I am pulling plastic strips somewhat randomly from the mixed-up collection of strips this time. It's a nice change.

Flame Hat Progress...

It seems like forever since I've posted anything.  That would be because I haven't been able to carve out creativity time.  But I've worked a little bit on the flame pattern baby hat, so that's something to share....

The Bag of Frustration

Thank goodness for the fantastic support of friends and family.  Otherwise, this bag was leading me down a path towards a existential crisis regarding my creativity!  

I wanted to contribute a bag to my dad's Lions Club's annual fund raising auction.  I had my eye on a felted tote bag in a fabulous knitting book I have called "Alterknits" by Leigh Radford.  I knew it would be a great project for using up a bunch of wool odds and ends.  And there was a variation in the book that has handles made out of clear vinyl tubing.  I really liked that handle idea.  Here is a picture of the bag from the book's website, this being the version with felted handles:

 I decided to make the version that is supposed to be about 20"x20" after felting.

So I followed the instructions religiously, following directions for needle size and the number of stitches to cast on.  I did what is a pretty crazy combination of colors for me, but I liked the tropical feel to the mix.  I knit and knit and knit.  Luckily it was mindless knitting on circular needles (all knit stitch), good for movies, car trips, etc.  When I finally reached 35" long as directed, I did a 3-needle bind-off for the bottom seam and here it is:

A long skinny sack.  I was suspcious of how long and skinny it was at this point (like the perfect size for a long, skinny skirt), but I know that knitting shrinks more vertically than horizontally when it is felted...so I wasn't worried.  I finished the bottom as directed so it would be flat like the bottom of a paper grocery bag and popped it into the washing machine to felt.

I was expecting a square bag, so I was a bit shocked to see a most definitely rectangular-shaped felted bag come out of the machine -  

I don't think this picture even does justice to how long and skinny the bag was at this point.  It went from about 34" to 20" long, but I didn't measure the beginning width for a comparison there, darn it!  It ended up being about 13" wide.  Darn!  Not the big tote shape that I had in mind.

I was soooo frustrated with the long skinny shape.  I was ready to cut several inches off the top or the bottom.  But I took it for "show and tell" to my knitting buddies, and a couple of them came up with the idea of simply turning down a cuff - 

The fact that there would be two layers of "fabric" for the handle to attach through seemed like a great bonus.  So that's what I did.  Thanks a ton, my wise and clever friends!!

You probably have no idea how hard it is to find clear vinyl tubing with no permanent lettering on it, and I wouldn't blame you for not knowing.  Take my word for it.  Our local pet store had enough of the right size tubing for one handle.  This tubing had very little writing, but it had a slightly bluish tint which I didn't really like.  I found beautiful crystal clear tubing at McLendon's Hardware, and I spent an afternoon trying to figure out a clever way to remove the lettering on it.  No solvent that we have worked.  I tried different abrasive attachments with the Dremel, and that left long frosted patches instead of print.  So did a little buffing attachment I have for the Dremel.  I thought that maybe if I carefully heated the frosted area up with a little tiny butane torch it might shine it back up, but that made the tubing have a slightly opaque cast.  Grrr.  Finally I tried a pet store further afield and found more of the bluish tubing and decided I'd have to go with that and the little bit of writing it had on it.  Amazingly enough, I discovered in the end that I could rub the lettering off of the pet store stuff with my fingernail.  Crazy. 

The instructions in the "Alterknits" book say to attach the tubing by hand-sewing it onto the bag through a couple of holes, with a button sewn onto the outside of the tubing in the process.  This was not bullet-proof enough for me.  I came upon something to use that is now my new favorite fastener - copper rivets!  

We had some of these in the hardware that we brought home after cleaning out my step-grandpa's basement workshop, but I had no idea what they were for, until now.  Thanks to some awesome help at McLendon's, I realized that these rivets would do the trick to fasten my handles to my bag in a very solid way.  Luckily the rivets come in different lengths, because I had some serious thickness to fasten together.  

Here's what the attachment looks like on the outside -   

 

And here it is on the inside - 

That copper washer and the head of the rivet both are about 1/2" in diameter.  I added larger washers under the copper ones to spread out the pressure and/or keep the little copper washer from pulling through or something.  The coolest thing was that I learned that you use the round end of a ball-peen hammer to flatten out the end of the rivet!  I never knew what you would "traditionally" use that round end of the ball-peen for.  

Finally, I cut and finished a piece of masonite to put in the bottom (on the inside of the bag) to give it a good, solid base.  Here that is, on the outside, obviously - 

Done, and in time for the auction.  Even if it wasn't quite how I had envisioned.  I actually enjoyed the problem solving challenges of this project, except for the fact that it was a bit too down to the wire.

The real frustration/self-questioning came when there were three minutes left in the section of the silent auction that the bag was in.  There was only one bid on the bag, and that was for the starting bid of $15!!  I was flabergasted, after putting all that work into it.  So Eric encouraged me to bid on it and just get it back, which I did after one other bid by that first bidder.  That was a crazy blow to my creative ego.  But luckily my wise women knitting council came through again this Monday and pumped me back up with their outrage and encouragement.  At their suggestion I will either keep the bag for myself, put it up for sale in my (still empty) etsy shop, or donate it to the junior high auction next spring.  

On the other hand, my fused-glass windchime in the auction went for the "buy it now" price of $45, which I think was actually much too low.  (I am terrible at pricing my own work - after it was too late to change the value for these auction donations an awesome woman who works at the glass supply shop suggested a value of $60-$75 for it...)  The time spent on the windchime was a fraction of that spent on the felted bag!  I don't think you can ever get fairly compensated for your labor/time spent on a decent-sized knitting project....

Knitting Flame

I had an idea pop into my head to do a baby hat with flames for a couple of firefighter babies.  I was very happy with this sample swatch of flames and had to post it!  I actually made the image up as I went, so I'm quite pleased that it worked out the first time.  Is this what happens when a painter knits?!  Now I need to translate it into a hat, and I have a couple of hat styles to try.  One is a baby "skater" hat that looks very cool.  I'll post pictures of them as they are created....

Sock knitting frustration, and a happy "invention"

First of all, I have to say that it's a good thing that I LOVE the color combo of this "Green Envy" yarn, because I have been spending a lot more time knitting with it than I should have.   I finally finished the socks while we were out at the ocean for mid-winter break, and sadly they are just too big.  I don't know if you can tell at all from the comparison above, or the side shot below.  I look like I have a paddle foot.  This is after starting over once already because I was originally making the socks with my usual number of stitches and they were going to be too small to be able to stretch on over/past my heel.  I tried them on as I went along, but it's hard to tell the fit with the needles still there.  Anyway, I've ripped sock number one back to its ribbing.  I want them to fit right!

Meanwhile, when I "finished" the socks I had the remainders of two skeins of the Green Envy yarn that I just had to do something with because I love it so much.  I decided to start with wrist warmers and see if I had enough yarn to continue up to some snug little fingerless gloves.  Ta da!  I did it, and here they are - 

Oops!  I'm wearing my watch under the glove in the first picture above, so it's a little fat in the wrist.  I'm pretty excited about this little pattern creation, especially since these gloves in this yarn should be fairly durable and most definitely machine washable.  

If I'm lucky I'll get the pattern on here to share soon.

The Hot Seat

I have finally finished my felted seat pad that is the gigantico version of the hot pad that I made recently following a pattern in the "Alterknits Felt" book.  Once again, I forgot to take a "before" picture....grrr.  This looked like a large sheet of colorful bubblewrap before it was felted.  All of the circles were originally domes.

For the record, this piece started out 16.5" wide by 19" tall.  After the first wash it was 14.25" x 14.5", and after a second wash it ended up 13"x13".  It is pure luck that the stripe pattern that I wanted to do worked out to be a perfect square.  Knitting shrinks more vertically than horizontally when you felt it, as proven to me by this piece!  And I guess you can see why I will call this "the hot seat".  I was lucky that my yarn stash included all of the fire colors that blended together so well.

I am finding that my knitting-while-riding-my-bike (on the trainer, not down the street, in case you missed that earlier blog entry!) exercise plan is working out quite well.  I'm getting more knitting done.  And even though the darn Wii said I gained weight yesterday and today, at least I know that I'm exercising!

Knitting and Exercising at the same time?! Yes!!

For your amusement, here is my new set-up for getting some cardio (hmmm - fat burning is my goal, actually) exercise.  

So did you notice the yarn/knitting in the basket? 

What could be better?  Being able to knit while exercising seems too good to be true.  What better incentive to get the exercise, at least for me!  I don't really just sit down and knit too much, unless I am killing time in a waiting room somewhere or watching a movie.  Unfortunately, when I'm watching a movie I usually get distracted by the movie and forget to knit.

So there you go!  I used to hang my bike helmut on the handlebars and put my yarn in it.  Luckily, for my birthday Eric gave me a basket and paniers (is that how you spell it?!) for my bike.  Little did he know that he was providing a knitting basket.  tee hee!

Green Envy Socks

I walked by this yarn, totally did a double-take and couldn't go any further without it. It made me think twice about basically ignoring Red Heart yarns. (Oops! Sound like a yarn snob? Don't mean to) I love the color of the green that is the dominant color, and all of the added bits are so funky. This is the first time I've used self-striping yarn that is random. So the socks will match in general, but not with the same stripes/pattern. Cool! Socks are so fun to knit, but they sure take a long time for such a small project!

Felting Project Blooper

I love felting knitted pieces.  It is satisfying to transform a loose, floppy piece of knitting into a thick, substantial piece of material or a soft but sturdy object.  "Alterknits Felt" is a book full of inspirational projects, and the CRAFT: podcast happened to share the pattern for one of the projects in that book called "Hazel and Maude Pot Holders".  That inspired me to try making one of the pot holders to give as a Christmas present.  But it took me TWO tries before I realized that the "blister stitch" pattern was turning out like a rectangular grid rather than a honeycomb because I didn't follow the directions and stagger the different rows/sets of color.  GRRRR!  Dumb mistake.  So here's the first pot holder....

Another really frustrating thing about this piece was that the edge is an attached i-cord trim.  There ended up being way too many rows of trim along the sides, so the edges were/are wavy.  I picked up and knit on every row, and I guess I should have done every other.  The instructions don't specify, darn it.  That's why this pot holder doesn't have straight sides and isn't square!

I tried another pot holder, this time picking up every-other stitch on the sides for the finishing trim.  It's the one on the right below, and I think that worked out perfectly.  Then I had my "DUH!" moment, realizing that the pattern shapes weren't circular because I wasn't staggering the rows, which is necessary to make the blister stitch pattern work correctly when felted.  Won't make that mistake again!  Luckily my stubborn streak, combined with curiosity, causes me to keep doing a project over until I get it RIGHT.  So the third time I came up with the correctly knit pot holder.  It is on the left, obviously:

It's interesting to see the two patterns side by side.  

Here they are after the first felting in the washing machine:

And here they are after a second felting:

Wahoo - finally succeeded!  I like the look of the mistake one, too, but it was so satisfying to learn how to get that honeycomb pattern.  These two were knitted entirely in Lamb's Pride Worsted, which is my personal favorite felting yarn.  It is fuzzy because of the mohair, but I like that.  I just had to give the pot holders a little haircut when I was done felting them.  Now I am going to make a larger version.  I need two more seat cushions/mats for our kitchen chairs, and this is a perfect pattern for one of them.  I like the fire colors.

Holiday gift creations

Holiday gift-giving has given me a great reason to spend a bunch of time in the studio recently.  (Hmm...Maybe next year I can work ahead a little, though)  But first, here is a picture of the bag that I showed in its incomplete form in my last post...

That bag is the brightest, most cheerful color combo I've done yet.

Here are two "before" pictures of parts for a windchime that I made for Eric's aunt and uncle.  The light blue glass is from a large Bombay Sapphire gin bottle that Eric's mom gave me knowing I could do something with it.  

Actually, the small pieces are earrings.  The earrings that I attempted to make from the gin bottle glass did not quite work out.  I spent way too much time bending matching curly copper wire shapes to fuse in between the layers of glass for the hanging loop part of the pieces only to find that the gin bottle glass acts diffently than the art glass that I have always used for fusing.  The gin bottle glass melts at a higher temperature, so it takes longer in the kiln.  And it just didn't melt down quit the same.  The wire didn't get completely encapsulated by the glass on the edges.  I'm going to try another batch of earrings, and I will make the pieces of glass a little wider so they actually fuse around/encapsulate the wire. 

 The little green earrings in that grouping turned out really well, though.  

Unfortunately I forgot to take an "after" picture of that windchime, but I hung the long gin bottle pieces from the corners of the white and dark blue square piece. 

My ultimate question/experiment with the gin bottle was to see if the little images of herbs/spices on the sides of the bottle would remain after the glass was fused in the kiln.  I tried to cut long rectangles out of each side of the bottle to get all of the little images on the side in one piece.  That worked on one side, but the other side broke, so I had to roll with it.  The thickness of the bottle varied quite a bit, and it tended to crack where I didn't want it to, of course.  Here's what I put into the kiln:

And here is the final piece:

You can see the images in the glass still, but they are a lot fainter.  I decided to hang the gin glass pieces from a panel of regular white fusing glass.  The whole thing is maybe 16-18" long.  What I realized is that maybe I should get a new blade for the lapidary saw that I have from the jewelry studio where I used to work and try cutting apart a bottle that way instead of scoring and breaking!!  Martinis, anyone?!

Here are a couple more windchime ideas that I came up with:

I love those clear glass hanging pieces with bits of color.  That is a great way to use up small funky bits of "waste" glass.  Those windchimes are probably about 7-8" long, including the wire.

I was cutting some little bits of black glass for one of those windchimes when I suddenly was hit with the idea to make this piece for my dad:  

I guess the little bits of black glass on my table reminded me of the dots and dashes of Morse code.  I LOVE it when a chain-of-thought inspiration hits like that.  It says "dale".  My dad is going to hang it on the wall by his ham radio.

If only I didn't need to sleep....I'd get so much more done!

At this time a couple of weeks ago I was super-busy fusing glass stars as fast as I could for a couple of selling opportunities.  Now I've been switching gears.  I needed to get a sewing job done super fast.  That's done.  Now I'm working on some Christmas gift projects.  

Here's a fused glass copper flame piece before it goes in the kiln...

.....and after.

The copper usually changes to a nice red after going through the heating/fusing process, but these larger pieces of copper obviously don't get hot enough in the center to oxidize or whatever.  I 've come to like that look, especially for a flame.

Here are a couple of recycled plastic bags that I have been working on for a friend - 

I stuck to cool colors for this one, and warm colors for the second, which, as you can see, I am still working on - 

It won't be much longer before it is done.

I am quite excited that I just recently sold three bags to a woman who won/bought the bag that I donated to my dad's Lion's Club auction last spring.  Pretty cool to get some follow-up business from that donation!  She loves her bag and wanted to get more to give as gifts.  Wahoo!  

Today I am going to work on an idea for a fused-glass wind chime to give to Eric's aunt and uncle back east, so I'll take pictures as I go.  I started attempting to cut up a Bombay Sapphire gin bottle yesterday to try to use some strips of it's beautiful light blue glass in a fusing project.  It wasn't as easy as I thought, but I did manage to get four sides....and a couple little cuts on my hand.  Oops!