No I’m not buying any yarn on this year’s yarn crawl …
And other lies I tell myself. Like, not starting any new projects until I finish some.
Porcelain Hat
I jumped into brioche. No classes – no swatches – just – oh I want to knit this hat. Oh it’s brioche? I’ll just learn it! And I did.
Two-at-a-time
Now that I have mastered Magic Loop, I decided it was time to learn how to do two at a time so my gloves are more uniform. The only thing was, the yarn I had was already wrapped in a ball. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to just start winding yarn from the ball until I had two balls the same size. This is when having a scale would come in handy, since I don’t have a scale I just eyeballed it. It probably won’t matter since when I get to the fingers I’m doing them one at a time.
Then I cast on for one glove, then cast one for the other glove, then sat there looking at what I had done, trying to figure out the next step. I couldn’t, so I called on the internet for help. A Foolish Spin on Life was just what I needed, written instructions and pictures! I am now on my way to having another pair of gloves. Actually they are for my nephew but I am hoping I do such a horrible job I have to keep them. 🤣
Getting it done
Last year was going to be the year of the wip. I was not successful. I think I may have been too general, too ambitious and therefore doomed myself to failure. This year I said, I have to finish 3 WIPs before starting anything new. It worked. The baby hat pictured here is WIP #4 and it is almost done. It s knitted from the top down, which is the opposite of most knitted hat patterns. I like doing it this way because it is easier to get the ribbed brim to the right size. In this case the hat was working up too big so I just did a few decreases to get it down to the correct size. At least, I hope it is the correct size!
This is WIP #3, or more accurately FO #3 since it wasn’t on the original list. I did a fucking shitty job on them, but since they are for me, I’m just going to wear them and bask in the glory. There are two reasons the gloves don’t match. One is I started the left glove with different yarn than I finished it with. The other thing is, I knitted the left glove with double-pointed needles and I knitted the right glove with magic loop. I have been told it makes a difference. I might make another left glove since that is the one I really fucked up the worst. But I’m kind of on a roll finishing things. However, the next time I knit gloves, I’m going to try knitting two at a time.
FO #2 is a hat for my nephew, and knitting project I am particularly proud of for three reasons.
- It was a lot of work and a new to me technique and I fucking nailed it!
- According to my other nephew, the nephew I made it for ‘wears it all the time’.
- A friend of mine, who doesn’t know my nephew, when he saw the picture, said: Oh your nephew is an EMT? Bonus! Fist pump!
These are FO #1 and the reason I am calling them #1 is I think I finished the hat in December 2018. They are also a matched set so 1 project don’t you know?
Anyway, now that I’m on a roll, I want to finish things I’ve started. Isn’t that weird?
Crafting melds
What do I mean by crafting melds? Do I mean combining knit and crochet? No, that is bistitualness. I am talking about putting two completely different crafts together. Like brewing and knitting. I like craft beer, I drink craft beer and I knit at craft breweries. I also make things for some of the drink containers used by craft brewers. The first one, the pink and white bag to the left is the most recent growler bag I’ve made. A 32 ounce growler can fit very nicely in it. I started with an 8 stitch cast-on, then increased 8 stitches every other row until the circle covered the bottom of the growler. Then I knit straight up. For this growler I decided to make it a little fancy and did a diamond design using yarn overs and decreases. I knit 3 stitches together to get the two decreases I needed for the diamond shape. I also ran out of pink variegated and finished up with a yarn Em gave me, which was a little different than the pink. Overall, I am pleased with it.
Whenever I learn a new stitch I immediately want to knit it in the round. You might say I have an obsession with it. This is not my first Entrelac in the round project, that was a koozie. I don’t know if I have a picture of it. Maybe in an earlier post. This was also started with an 8 stitch cast-on, like the one above, then I started the Entrelac. This growler is fuller, kind of glove shaped instead of more straight up and down. This growler bag is big enough to carry a 64-oz growler or a 4 pack of cans. I haven’t used it for either yet, I don’t normally get 64 ounces of beer since I don’t think I can drink that in an evening and with growlers, the beer needs to be drunk rather quickly after the growler is opened. I also just discovered it was big enough for the bigger growlers.
This is the second growler bag I made. The stitches are a combination of regular knit and elongated knit. There is ribbing at the top and icord handles. You may have noticed the others also have icord handles except the crocheted one. I don’t have a picture of the first one I made, it met a rather sad demise. I took it to Other Half to get a growler and get it filled. I was excited to try out my new design. Leaving Other Half and walking down the sidewalk to the subway, I dropped the growler. I was holding it with my hand, and the handles slipped out of my grip. I picked up the bag, it was filled with broken glass and dripping beer. A man walked past me and laughed at me. I decided I wasn’t carrying a beer soaked bag that was a reminder of my shattered hopes and dreams home and proceeded to toss it. This bag almost met a similar fate, I dropped another growler, I was holding it with my hand, I now loop the handles around my wrist. I still have this one because I dropped it inside the brewery and the bartender rinsed it out for me. I still had to redo it because the glass cut some of the yarn.
After knitting a few I decided to try my hand at crocheting one. This is the C2C stitch, for those not familiar with crochet that stands for “Corner to Corner”, you are knitting on the diagonal. First I made a square for the bottom, then I started doing the C2C, up to make the sides. I can’t really explain it, maybe someday I’ll make a video if anyone is interested.
The rest of these are can koozies. The purple one is for a regular can. The others fit the 32-oz can crowlers from craft breweries. The purple and variegated one with words on it was planned to fit the crowler. The Yankee logo one was not. I did it double knit, not realizing it would make it bigger. The bottom is single thickness, then I added stitches by k1, yo1. Next row I started double-knitting. I made a few mistakes, but all in all it was a learning experience.
What I Knit and other stuff
These are stitch markers from the Brooklyn yarn crawl. What is a yarn crawl you say? It’s like a pub crawl, instead of drinking you buy yarn.
This is a 32-oz crowler sized coozie. One side says, “5H Fiber Faction” which is what the craft meetups at 5th Hammer are called. The other side is “Beer is People”. Which is a hashtag 5th Hammer uses on all their instagram. 
Here is some yarn I bought. I can’t remember where or when, I might have bought it during the above mentioned yarn crawl.
Sports and drinks
Now that I have become somewhat proficient in double knitting (and now that I have seen a video explaining how to add the second color after the cast on), I am doing it in the round. I have done both of these designs flat, now they are going to be drink holders or as we call them here, “Koozies”. You can probably guess from the colors what teams I am knitting up. You will also notice that they are perfect. That’s because I took a picture of the side without any mistakes on it.
If you can’t guess the team, check the tags.
Dishclothes
My nephew got married so of course he gets hand made gifts. This one is crocheted. The pattern is Love Dishcloths. I am not very happy with it because it doesn’t lie flat. I keep saying I’m going to iron it, but that involves getting my ironing board out, and my iron, in other words, effort and work.
This is the ‘Almost Lost Washcloth’ and is a favorite of mine to knit when I want a pretty looking washcloth. I knit a bunch for my mom in the black and white yarn.
Entrelac beer caddy
If you remember the bottle coozie, this is on the same idea, entrelac in the round, only sized bigger. There isn’t a pattern for this, I make them all the same, just use different yarn and size needles. If you want more specific instructions it might be available on my Ravelry account, BeFoxxDesigns. If it’s not there, send me a message or leave a comment and I will respond. The directions are written down somewhere.
Knitting with a city girl 