Category Archives: Finished Object

Pattern Release: Pebble Hat and Cowl

Leave a reply

It rarely happens that I see a stitch on Pinterest and I fall in love with it at first sight. And I get so obsessed with it that I go on to design a thing or two using that stitch. That happened with the Pebble stitch.

I don’t know what this stitch is called or if it even has a name, but I named it Pebble Stitch because of the pebbly texture this creates. The stitch looks attractive and looks non-knit and that is what intrigued me. It is a simple 2-row stitch pattern which seems difficult to knit at first, but with practice, goes like a breeze.

Pebble Hat & Cowl celebrates the beauty of this stitch by keeping it minimal and simple. Pebble Hat uses a deep ribbed brim and let the Pebble Stitch be the hero in the body of the hat. Pebble Cowl uses i-cord edge to keep the hem simple and neat and let the Pebble Stitch shine.

Pebble Hat & Cowl are available at 20% off with coupon code “PEBBLE20” (CAPS and no double quotes). Sale ends 25 April.

Expression Fiber Arts team is also offering you a generous 15% off on Bountiful colorway with coupon code “bountiful15” (no double quotes). Head over to their website to buy this gorgeous colorway now! Discount available all through end of April.

Pebble Hat and Pebble Cowl
Yarn: Expression Fiber Arts Superwash Merino Silk Pearlescent Worsted
in Bountiful colorway

Advertisement

RELAUNCH: Sindhu Shawl

Leave a reply

I decided to rework on Sindhu Shawl and give it a new revamped look.

The essence and the intent of the design are the same – it is only the look which has changed. I knit this sample using Sunrays Creations Roman yarn. When there is a talented dyer in the same town, why not take advantage of the beautiful yarn to enhance one’s design!

Drum Roll! Presenting the refreshed and revamped Sindhu Shawl in the lovely colorways Pansy and Orchid of Sunrays Creations Roman. This is a pure wool yarn which has amazing stitch definition and is a pleasure to work with.

You can even substitute Sunrays Creations Urna or Soundarya (for some luxurious silk touch). Manasa has created beautiful kits to make your decisions easier – just pick the combo which you like!

To celebrate the relaunch of Sindhu Shawl, I am offering a discount for the entire week. This pattern will be available at 50% discount for the next 48 hours and 25% off until the end of the week.

Use the below coupon codes to grab the discount!

SINDHU50 to get 50% OFF – valid until Oct 23, midnight IST.
SINDHU25 to get 25% OFF – valid until Oct 26, midnight IST.

Summer Dress

1 Reply

When the sun is blazing hot and temperatures are soaring, the last thing you want to do is knit with wool. The obvious choice would be cotton. And when your dear friend announces there is a new addition to her family, you grab that opportunity and cast on for a summer dress.

The pattern is Muti Dress by Tagia Hilliard and is super fun to knit. The yoke keeps you interested and get done quickly. Then comes the full skirt, which can get monotonous and slow you down.

I used fingering weight cotton yarn and used up all of 100 gms of it. I ran out of yarn and had to skip one repeat of lace on the skirt border. I wish I had more yarn, as this dress turned out just a bit shorter.

I had these cute pencil buttons in my stash since ages and never got the opportunity to use them. I find the perfect project in this. Flowery buttons would have suited the girly dress better, but I went with pencils any way.

New Pattern: Anahi Hat

Leave a reply

It has been ages since I published a pattern and what better way to make a comeback than with Knotions magazine. Jody is a pleasure to work with and the working model which Knotions follows is so convenient for international designers like me. I see many collaborations with Knotions in the future for myself.

© Edsger Studio for Knotions Magazine

Anahi Hat is a beautifully textured hat, with cables all over. The meandering cables make this hat look way more complicated than it actually is. It is knit in round, from the brim up and is a quick knit, owing to the use of worsted weight yarn and the addictive cables.

The pattern comes in one size, which should give you a finished circumference of 20″.

© Edsger Studio for Knotions Magazine

 

Link to Free Pattern: Anahi Hat on Knotions
Ravelry Pattern: Anahi Hat
Yarn Suggested: Cascade 220, Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted

I don’t need a new hobby…

1 Reply

And yet I picked up one. I have always been enamored with weaving. The repetitive act of throwing the shuttle, beating with the heddle was so mesmerizing to watch. I knew I will buy a loom, sooner or later. It was a question of when rather than if. And the “when” question was answered with “ASAP” when I visited the weavers at Kumaon Grameen Udyog.

After the live demonstration of weaving on her Ashford RH Loom by the lovely enabler Josie, a decision was made. I was going to buy a loom and an Ashford 24″ RH loom. My loom arrived a month ago and I have been getting my hands dirty since then.

I wove a sample with some acrylic yarn and I loved how the fabric turned out. I have a love-hate relationship with variegated yarn. The colors look so pretty when the yarn is in skeins/balls, but the moment you start knitting with it, you end up with ugly pooling. I finally found what to do with my huge supply of variegated yarn – weaving!

 

I next wove a placemat with the same multicolored acrylic yarn. My length calculation was not off the mark and I ended up with somewhat closer to the length I had planned for. This now adorns my chest of drawers and is a lovely sight!

Log cabin pattern looks difficult, but is just plain weaving with some intelligent placing of colors. After following a video tutorial and some hits and misses, I finally wove a skinny log cabin scarf. Not really long enough to wear, so it is more like a sample. Will definitely weave myself a scarf in this pattern.

After experimenting with acrylic and tasting decent success, I was bold enough to try with natural fibers. I took a huge leap and decided to experiment with two different fibers in the same scarf. I used merino wool fingering weight for warp and silk laceweight for weft.

Result is a gorgeous scarf with a lovely drape. I ended up with a shorter scarf than planned for, but the scarf is still useable.

As I said, I didn’t really need a new hobby, but I picked up a new one any way!

Instant Gratification

Leave a reply

When your only knitting project on the needle, is an adult sized cardigan in laceweight yarn, it can take a while before the project can see the light of day. And when you start getting frustrated at the slow pace of growth and are ready to run away from knitting one more stitch, you need instant gratification to pep you up. What can give you instant gratification like a baby bonnet?

Baby bonnets are quick to knit and they are so cute, so double bonus. Somebody or the other is having a baby in the extended family and friends, so having some baby knits in the gift box helps. So, when Kelly was looking for test knitters for her bonnet pattern, I jumped at it.

I used Knit Picks Shine Sport in Orchid colorway. The yarn and the pattern are a great match. The beautiful texture shows up so well in this yarn and color. Love the attached i-cord. It took me just an evening to make this. Instant gratification at it’s best.

Ravelry Project Page

 

Clapotis

Leave a reply

Looks like all the knitters in the world have already knit or are knitting a Clapotis. I didn’t want to be left far behind, so picked up this gorgeous ball of Knit Picks Chroma in Pool Party colorway and started knitting a Clapotis.

While the pattern is pretty straightforward, I wanted to know how long a scarf would I get out of one ball of KP Chroma, so went digging into the bazillion projects on Ravelry and stumbled on this amazing group dedicated for Clapotis. Not only are there many helpful threads for customizing your clapotis, I found this awesome-sauce spreadsheet which gives you a row wise stitch count as well!

I started knitting mine using the spreadsheet and making sure I was on the right section and had the right count. Once I finished the increase section, the straight section was quite mindless. The part where you get to the stitch-to-be-dropped and actually drop it and unravel was super cool. I would knit away just to get to the next drop stitch section just to see the magic unravel (see what I did there?)

And I love how the Pool Party colors show up here. Bias knitting gives this scarf a cool diagonal coloring which looks wonderful. Post blocking, while I am happy with how my scarf turned out, I would have liked it better if it had been longer. Two skeins of Chroma would have given me a longer scarf.

This was a super easy and fun knit. I have another KP Chroma (in another colorway) and I know what I am going to knit with it.

FO: Cap Sleeve Lattice Top

1 Reply

While I was spring cleaning my room the other day, I opened the cupboard which holds my yarn stash. No, I had no intention of spring cleaning this part of my room – I only planned to pet the yarn and keep it back. And as I was doing this, I realized I was wearing an acrylic hand-knit top, made ages ago. And the irony was evident – I was living in mediocre quality yarn (I love acrylic, would never call it inferior) while my softest yarn was locked away in a cupboard, wasting away. That was the time I decided to knit up some of my good yarn and actually wear them. This FO is the first outcome of that decision.

Knit Picks Shine Sport is one of the initial yarn purchases I made. I planned to knit this up into a tee or a shawl, but had kept it stashed away in a corner. Searched on Rav for FOs which people have made using this yarn and Purl Soho’s Cap Sleeve Lattice Top caught my attention. Pattern is free (unplanned bonus!) and a quick glance through it strengthened my resolve. A voice in my head kept repeating “bottom up knitting”, but I ignored it.

A quick swatch confirmed that the yarn and pattern are suitable for each other and thus I cast on. The never ending, mindless stockinette was both a boon and a bane. I loved the mindless knitting when I had to attend work related calls and I could knit away to glory without spending any brain cells on this. At times, the monotonous work got me so bored that I would shove it away for days together. The longer I knit, the longer it felt it would take for me to finish this. I also suspected some negative elves sneaking into my room at night and unraveling all my knitting. How can the tee not be done already!!??

One fine night (after a pulled an all nighter to get this darn thing over with), I was finally done with stockinette section. Compared to this, the lace section was a breeze. I was done in no time.

Thanks to my yarn choice, the lace portion was too long compared to the body, so I had to do some quick fixing there. I folded the extra fabric under the sleeve and stitched it in place. This does not show on the RS at all, so I am all good.

Remember the voice which kept saying “bottom up”? It became stronger when I realized the tee is too long than intended. It was a good 3″ long – have no idea how. End of every day, before I hung up my knitting, I would try the top and ensure it wasn’t longer than I wanted and yet, I ended up with 3 extra inches. Yes, my dear voice, “bottom up” issue it is.

If it was top down, it was as easy as unraveling the cast off end and frogging the 3 inches and casting off again. But this is bottom up. How do you even unravel the cast on edge? I did some quick fixing here too, since I had planned to wear this for my holiday at Yercaud the next day. I folded the extra fabric underneath and stitched it shut using the same yarn. This actually worked well since the thick fabric edge kept the tee in place.

I can’t live with this for sure, so need to figure out a way to fix the length.

Next time I hear my voice say “bottom up”, I am going to listen to it.

I made a lot of mods. Knit this in round to avoid seam, made the neck opening smaller and so on. All details on my Ravelry Project.

 

 

 

New Pattern: Entropy Vest

3 Replies

I am so excited that my Entropy Vest is published as part of Petite Purls Issue 14.  I have always admired the patterns published in Petite Purls, so I am very happy to have a pattern of mine published by them.

Entropy Vest is a take on the classic argyle vest. With its off-center argyle motifs, the vest tries to bring in a disorder in the otherwise ordered universe, hence the name Entropy. The vest is knit bottom-up in the round until the armholes, and the fronts and backs are worked flat separately. The argyle work is just 20 rows, so this is ideal for a beginner colorwork knitter.

Sizes: 4 [6, 8, 10, 12] years
Chest sizes:  23½[25, 26½, 28, 29½] inches

Ravelry Pattern: Entropy Vest
Yarn Suggested: Cascade 220 (Worsted)
Needle Size: US #5 3.75 mm for the body

A prayer for a baby

8 Replies

The last couple of weeks have been crazy, to say the least. A dear one is fighting a medical problem and there is nothing the rest of us can do, but stand and watch. It sucks to be helpless, right? While this loved one is fighting for life, a cousin of mine is due to give birth to a whole new life. It is great news that she is still carrying the baby inside her at 38 weeks, considering she had a premature birth scare two months back. She has been going through a lot of bad times on the personal front and it was saddening to see her face yet another emotional issue. Thank the almighty, it turned out to be just a scare and things are fine now, but when I heard the news, my decision on the spur was to cast on for a baby blanket with a prayer weaved in every stitch for the baby.

I wanted something mindless, so the focus is on the prayer rather than to keep track of what row I am on. Garter Rib Baby Blanket fit the bill perfectly. I wanted a bigger blanket than I usually make (so the baby can use it in its toddler years too) and hence cast on a larger number. A larger garter border was added to go with the larger blanket. Once the first few rows are done, then it is just one long, mindless knitting. The K3P3 ribbing could have gone faster if I knit continental style, but I was happy with the progress.

I used a new yarn this time. I was told by the Our Own Store guy it is Vardhaman, but our well trusted Rav knitters choose to differ. It is is acrylic, fingering weight for sure, so let’s live with that. I used this yarn held double and with 4.5mm needles, it gives a nice, airy, drapey blanket which is light enough to wrap swathe the baby, but thick enough to keep it warm.

I tried steam blocking acrylic for the first time and I am amazed by the result. I used my Philips Steam Iron which has the ability to give out constant steam. Though it was a slow and tedious process to steam block a big, bad blanket with a measly steam iron, it was all worth it. The uneven stitches evened out, the blanket became drapier and softer. I am wondering why I never treated my previous FOs with a dose of steam.


Ravelry Project Page
Pattern: Garter Rib Baby Blanket
Yarn: Acrylic, fingering weight, held double
Needles: US 7 4.5 mm