On the advice of Kathryn who posts as Backstage Knits, I am knitting a beanie as my first project using brioche stitch.
I’m using two orphan skeins. The red is a superwash wool by Lambs Pride. The grey is the natural alpaca and wool worsted leftover from Henry’s Biome hat.
So far, this seems to be a swift knit. I am making the odd mistake here and there, which slows me down as I re-knit part of a row. But surely and steadily I am getting the hang of brioche.
I’m hoping to take this project as a travel knit on an upcoming trip. But I may have it finished before we depart.
The pattern is Brioche Basic Beanie by Marilyn Bracketer and it is available for free as a download from Ravelry.
It has interesting construction. After a provisional cast-on, the first half of the lining is knit in stockinette stitch. Then the second color is joined and the spinal twist stitch is worked for six inches. At that point, color two is cut and the second half of the lining is completed. Leaving the needle in, the provisional cast-on is removed, the stitches placed on a needle and the two edges are turned to face each other. The two sets of loops are sewn together with Kitchener stitch – All 95 pairs of loops.
It’s not the most good-looking Kitchener I’ve ever worked, but it’s finished. And since the facing is turned to the inside, the join will not be visible.
Today this cowl would look very out of place draped over my T-shirt in the hot afternoon sun. I have photographed it on a hanger, hooked up on a tomato cage.
This garment will get tucked away to wait until gift-giving season. It’s nice that the style is gender neutral, easily worn by any adult.
I pulled one of my stash project bags out of the yarn closet for today’s cast-on.
This group of yarns is mostly sport-weight cotton. The marled white is left over from my husband’s sixteen-thousand-stitch pull-over (aka jumper to the Brits) made more than ten years ago. The Berocco Remix yarn was purchased two years ago to make a summer vest for Lu. I ended up using only the red and blue. The yellow seemed such a dreary color. I couldn’t think of who would want to wear it. Then I came across this charming pattern by VersaciKnits.
It is knit with the broken garter stitch in two colors. I began to see how the yellow yarn could be a background to more interesting hues. With cuff-to-cuff construction, the stripes would be vertical while the textural changes ran horizontally. My enthusiasm for the project rose quickly after I worked up a swatch.
Other elements of this design include I-cord edgings and button closures on the sleeves. To make it even more interesting, the garment can be worn three ways: shrug, shawl or scarf. I couldn’t wait to cast on.
I like what I see so far. This could be a good travel project, assuming I can manage the constant switching between purl and knit stitches while riding in the car.
This year I am determined to shrink down my stash of yarn. While my stash isn’t as large as those of many of my peers (you know who you are!) there are far too many orphan skeins to suit me. So, I came up with a system.
I start with one orphan skein. Next, I pull any partial skeins with the same label. These yarns generally were used together in a previous project. The next step is to grab partial skeins that are the same fiber and weight (fingering, dk, worsted, etc.) and compatible colors. Once I am happy that the yarns can be combined, they get tossed into a project bag. As of today, I have four bags.
To find a suitable pattern, I start by adding up the total yardage in each bag (a digital scale helps with this step.) This number will tell me what kind of garment or accessory is possible. For example, a pair of socks requires about 400 yards, a shawl around 800 and a sweater 1200 or more.
Now the tricky part: finding a pattern. I am a big fan of Ravelry’s advanced search tool. Using the tool, I can build a search using the parameters of the yarns in the project bag. One additional parameter I choose is number of colors. I search for a project with two or more colors. No matter how many different colors of yarn I have, I can always alter the pattern to accommodate more colors.
As of today, I have four stash-busting projects, bagged up and in the queue.
A hood for Laura Lu
A shawl for gifting to someone
A scarf knit in garter ridge striped triangles.
A light-weight shrug in cotton yarn. (I’m always cold during the summer in air-conditioned rooms.)
What’s in your yarn stash, and what can you make of it? I challenge you to come up with something unexpected.
Today I have a progress report on my quilt inspired by a medieval manuscript.
Here is the center of the quilt. It is formed by the four corners of each four-by-four block. Upon first seeing that blank white diamond, I knew that it would work beautifully for a God’s Eye. After practicing on scrap fabric, I wove the centerpiece design into place. The four arms of the weaving are gold satin cording which I couched into place. The weft yarns are a combination of cotton embroidery twist and wool fingering weight yarn leftover from many a sock project.
I think it balances the four creation paintings beautifully.
Here are the quadrants of the piece at this point.
Now I can begin quilting. To start, I will stitch into the seamlines of all pieces. (AKA stich-in-the-ditch.) Next will come the free motion quilting. I have something special in mind for the light color patches which will involve more colorwork.
Daily Fiber 