Hearts & Turquoise

Some years ago I bought 750 grams of a turquoise worsted yarn at Value Village for perhaps three or four dollars. The yarn was wound into several balls and plainly had been knitted up before. I have no idea what brand of yarn it was, though I was fairly certain it was a cotton. I originally planned to knit the yarn into cushions for one of the bedrooms in my house, but I ended up going with another stash yarn for that project. Then I didn't know what to do with it until I caught sight of it in my cottons box some months ago and began to see it as the perfect yarn for a little girl's jacket that could in turn make a nice gift for my grandniece's seventh birthday.

A search of children's jacket patterns on Ravelry produced the Lavanda pattern, designed by Elena Nodel. It really is lovely and almost romantic in style.

This is the finished jacket. It's knitted up in a child's size eight. I had a little trouble knitting the yarn up because there were many cuts in the yarn and there was some discolouration that meant not all the pieces were a good colour match, but as is usual with the tremendously forgiving medium of yarn, once the project was done, washed, and blocked it didn't betray its humble origins at all. It was also something of a challenge finding buttons to go with the sweater because turquoise is hard to match and I wanted some cute, characterful buttons, but I think I managed it. I predict that the buttons will be my grandniece's favourite feature of this jacket, like they were the time I made her a teddy bear dress with teddy bear buttons on it. This project subtracted 550 grams from my stash, and now I get to figure out what to do with the remaining 200 grams of this turquoise yarn.

A Tree of Life and a Little Leaf

In late 2015 my friend Lindsie told me she was expecting to have a baby in May 2016. I started planning the standard baby gift set I usually give to close friends and family: a handknitted baby blanket and booties, a sewn stuffed bear or bunny, and a story book. My first step in getting the gift ready was to turn to Ravelry, where I researched baby blanket patterns.

For the blanket pattern, I chose the Baby Tree of Life Throw, designed by Nicky Epstein. It's a free pattern. I asked Lindsie what her nursery colours and theme were, but it turned out she didn't have one. She was keeping her baby preparations as low key and simple as possible, saying (quite rightly) that parents really do decorating for themselves rather than for a baby who's too young to notice or care. She hadn't painted the baby's room but left it the white it was when she and her partner moved into her apartment. Her diaper bag was a backpack that would be useful after the baby no longer wore diapers. She'd bought a changing pad that would go on top of the chest of drawers in the baby's room rather than a changing table, and she had in general kept the baby paraphernalia to a minimum. Since she was knitting the baby a blanket herself, I questioned whether she would even want a second baby blanket, but when I said as much to my mother, who raised eight children (five biological, three foster), she said, "When Lindsie finds out how often everything needs to be washed, she'll realize that two baby blankets are minimal." The blanket plan was therefore on, and I then looked for a bootie pattern to go with it.

I decided on the Leaf Lace Booties, designed by Jacqueline van Dillen. This pattern was published in 60 Quick Baby Knits: Blankets, Booties, Sweaters & More, and I used it last year when making a baby gift for my niece's baby girl.

And here's my version of the Tree of Life afghan and the Leaf Lace Booties. I used Patons' Decor yarn in Oceanside, which is a decent quality yarn with some wool content but is still machine washable and dryable as a baby blanket should be. It also comes in beautiful colours. I chose this soft grayish blue because it seemed attractive and yet subtle enough not to clash with anything else the baby might own. I managed to get the yarn for a very reasonable price because I printed several "40% off one item" coupons off Michaels' website and made three trips to the store to get enough skeins. (The things you'll do when money's tight...) The blanket required slightly less than 250 grams of yarn. I goofed up during the tulips section, didn't read the pattern carefully enough, and assumed the "leaf" effect was created after the blanket was finished. I didn't discover this error until the main section of the blanket was done and I was sewing on the leaf border, and I was not going to rip out that much work if I could help it. I found a way to recreate the leaf effect by stitching it on with a darning needle. This really is a lovely pattern and I'd make it again -- but I will take care not to make that mistake again.

A closer look at the Leaf Lace Booties. It turned out that I was just 10 grams short of the yarn I needed to make them once the afghan was done, and I didn't want to have to buy another 100 gram ball, so instead I finished the slipper off with some burgundy-coloured yarn I had on hand. Thus this project, which was to be knit from new yarn, instead resulted in a net stash decrease of -10 grams.

The Dangerous Living Hat & Scarf Set

This project plan began with a need: I needed a hat set that would go with a dark brown jacket of mine as well as a certain velvet coat I intend to make (I have the pattern and all materials for it). The velvet is printed with a subtle green and plum floral print on a dark brown background. (That may not sound very attractive, but it really is.) I thought plum would be the colour to go with, because it would also go with an olive velvet jacket I have. Besides, I've developed a real thing for plum in the last couple of years, and have so far acquired a sweater, a rain jacket, and a long-sleeved T-shirt in plum. Now I was going to have a plum hat and scarf.

I selected the pattern above for the project, which is Lórien, by Ann Kingstone, and figured I could whip up a matching glove pattern for it. I bought three skeins of mauve King Cole Merino Blend 4 ply in the bargain basement of Romni Wools in August 2015. Then I didn't get around to starting the project until January 2016. When I did, I made the hat, and decided I wanted a scarf rather than gloves to go with it. I thought I might have enough to finish the scarf, but I ran short. Uh oh. But perhaps I could get another skein from Romni Wools? I went down to Romni in February and discovered they had no skeins of that shade left and that, further, they weren't carrying the yarn any longer. Oh no. I turned to the internet, and checked Ravelry, with no luck. I found that it was possible to order more of the same yarn from two different places in England, but that neither company had the same dye lot.

You know how two different dye lots can be: they can be virtually identical, or they can look like two completely different colours. If I ordered a skein, it could work out well, or I could wind up with a completely different colour of yarn that I'd have to figure out how to use. It was risky, but on the other side of the equation, I had knitted two-thirds of that scarf in a complicated ruched pattern in a fingering weight. I held my breath, and placed the order. I bided my time until the day the skein arrived...

...And the dye lot was a perfect match to the one I had been using. And yes, the photo meme above is an excellent representation of how I reacted when my gamble paid off. Except that the cuteness factor was dialed down by an order of magnitude.

Here's the finished scarf and hat. I liked the Lórien pattern, but it did turn out to be a rather tricky and time-intensive project. It's easy to make a mistake, not notice it, and wind up having to rip out a couple of days' work. And again, this set was done in a fingering yarn. But ultimately I felt it was worth the work, as I was quite pleased with the set. Another issue that arose was that the instructions said that blocking was not recommended for this project, but the hat turned out to be quite unattractively close-fitting on me. It seemed better to risk blocking than to resign myself to a very unflattering hat that, realistically, I was too vain to wear. That risk paid off too, as blocking gave the hat the drape it needed, and it didn't seem to hurt the texture. I went ahead and blocked the scarf too. Given my high risk internet order and rebel blocking, I don't think anyone can say I don't live dangerously.

As you can see, the scarf is just the ruched pattern from the hat worked flat, and I crocheted around it to make the edge look more finished.

Though I bought this yarn last year, it was one of the two lots of new yarn that I bought in 2015 but didn't include in last year's stash calculations, which means it must count as new yarn this year. The leftover yarn from this project therefore counts a stash increase of +10 grams.

Autumn Flurries Turn to Spring Flowers Top

The plan for this project began to form when I saw a little less than 50 grams of blue Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo and perhaps 85 grams of some orange Berroco Pure Pima in my box of cotton yarns, and thought how pretty and fresh they looked together, especially when combined with some of the odds and ends of cream yarn that were also in the box. I began musing on what I could do with them and came up with the idea of a cream, blue, and orange summer top. I began to search Ravelry for sweater patterns that required three colours and DK weight yarns.

And this pattern, which is the Autumn Flurries pattern and a Drops design, was ultimately my choice. I decided that I would make it in a standard top length instead of this tunic length and that the snowflake pattern, which is rather wintry, would pass as a floral pattern when rendered in the orange Pima.

And here is the finished top, made in a size 38. I bought 300 grams of a cream-coloured cotton wool blend to use for the main colour, but for the life of me I can't remember which brand of yarn it is or find the skein band I thought I'd saved for the purpose of writing up the project. I'll have to get the name the next time I go to Romni Wools. This documentation snafu aside, the top turned out quite well and knitted up quickly with no problems and I am pleased with it. It'll look well with both the tan khaki and denim skirts and shorts I have in my wardrobe. I had just a small amount of each of the blue and orange yarns left, and some of the cream, and this project had resulted in a net stash decrease of -60 grams.

Capelet Caper

This project's starting point was my desire to use up the 230 grams of Diamond Luxury Collection Llama Silk I had left over after making a coat from it last year. To find out what pattern options I had that would suit that quantity and type of yarn, I searched Ravelry for patterns that used that quantity and type of yarn, then browsed the possibilities. I can't be grateful enough for Ravelry's wonderful search functionality. Whatever your specific pattern needs are, Ravelry makes it easy for its members to zero in on the perfect one.

This was the pattern I chose. It is the Amber's Cape pattern, designed by Cherry Darling. I thought it would be useful as I could wear it as either a cowl or a capelet.

And here's the result. I'm fairly well pleased with it, though I haven't quite been able to figure out how to style it. It needs to go over something with clean lines and without much of a collar, and of course can only be worn with certain colours. But it's no big deal if I don't wear it much, as it took me just a few evenings to make it and cost so little -- I only had to buy the pattern and the buttons for it.

This project used up 215 grams of stash yarn.

A Step Upwards

This little footstool is what's known as a juice can footstool. They're a Depression-era contrivance. As the name suggests, they're made from empty juice cans and a small amount of upholstery fabric. Pinterest has some examples of vintage and contemporary juice can stools, some of which are rather hilarious-looking to my mind. (Ball fringe? Decorative crosses? Really?) My Grandmother Swan made the one you see pictured above for me back in 1973, when I was born. Grandma made a stool like this one for each of her many grandchildren, as well as for a number of other children of her acquaintance. I remember her delightedly telling me how much her minister's little daughter liked hers. The juice can stools are perfect for small children to sit on or to stand on to reach something, and the stools are so light that even a toddler can easily carry one about. At our house my four siblings and I used to use our stools to hold our bedroom doors open in the summer when the airflow from the open windows would otherwise have violently slammed the doors shut.

I wonder how many of Grandma's footstools still exist. I know my sister still has hers, but I don't know if any of my brothers or cousins do. Unfortunately the fabric Grandma used to cover the stools didn't tend to be particularly attractive. One of my brothers had one in a groovy flocked gold and turquoise fabric. My grandmother wasn't one to care very much about aesthetics, and she was never one to waste anything. Grandma was a woman who would patch the seat of her dresses, and when it came to purchasing materials for her foot stools, she would buy bundles of upholstery remnants for very little at the flea market in the town where we lived and put the stools together without a thought to what the upholstery looked like or how dated it might be or whether it matched anyone's decor, and she definitely never added any frippery trim or ball fringe.

I am not my grandmother. I do care quite a lot about how things look. I never have liked the upholstery that covered my stool, and then when I stupidly used the stool as a step stool during a number of painting sessions without covering it up, and got paint on it, I decided the stool really had to be recovered if I wanted to keep it. I did want to keep it. Besides its sentimental value, this stool is quite a useful little thing. I decided I wanted to place it in my bedroom closet, where I could use it to reach the upper shelves, and where I could easily fetch it if I needed a step stool in any other room.

The first step in the project was to take the footstool apart. As I ripped away at it, I wondered if my grandmother thought about me as she made it, and envisioned the life I was going to have. I'm pretty sure that, whatever future she imagined for me, it didn't include me sitting down with a stitch ripper 42 years later and going to town on her hard work. For making these stools is quite a bit of hard work, all of which is done by hand. I doubt I could get one made in a day, and I managed to jab myself with the darning needle I was using quite a few times in the process.

Grandma always covered the cans once with old stockings or socks and then again with the upholstery fabric -- I saw her make more than a few stools. I decided to save myself some ripping time and not remove the old upholstery from the cans. The extra coverage would be a good idea anyway, keeping the can's edges from damaging the chenille I was using, and from being quite so hard to the touch. I also reused the old pieces of fabric that were tacked on the top and bottom to hold the cans together before the stool's top and bottom pieces are sewn in place.

Amusingly, the "wrong" side of the old upholstery fabric was actually more attractive than the right side.

The finished stool. I used a very pale foam green chenille upholstery fabric that I had left over from redoing an upholstered rocker for one of the bedrooms of my house. I don't think there's a room in my house that this fabric wouldn't look right in. I had a square of foam lying around that I used to pad the top. My stool hadn't been padded. Grandma only padded some of the footstools she made, and then only very lightly. Grandma also laid the top and bottom pieces flat on the stool and stitched them with what looked like black darning thread. I cut my top and bottom pieces larger than hers so as to have a seam allowance I could tuck underneath, as the chenille's edges were messy looking and prone to fraying, even once I'd overcast them. I used a matching sewing thread, and took every stitch twice.

And there I have it, a presentable little step stool I can use for years to come. I am not sure my grandmother would have agreed that it needed redoing, but I do think she would have been pleased that I cared to take the time to do so.

Owl in the Family Sweater

My first completed project of 2016 was a sweater for my grandnephew Bug's third birthday.

Bug's still so little that his sweaters can be easily made from stash yarn. I searched Ravelry for a cute pattern for a little boy's sweater, decided on the Night Owl pattern, designed by Berroco, then rummaged through my bag of worsted weight yarn for some suitable colours. I chose a palette of more woodsy and owl-like colours than were used for the sample. I won't provide the links for the kinds of yarn I used as I usually do because they were just your basic inexpensive acrylic worsted. I did end up having to buy one extra ball of the main colour for $4, but that was the only expense for this project. This pattern is out of print, which meant that I had to recreate the design by charting the owl stitches and using the schematics from a size four child's sweater pattern. This took a little time, but it was free.

Here's the completed sweater, in a size four. I'm more or less pleased with it. I added a stripe to the neckline, waistband, and cuffs because the design looked a little too plain to me. When I was at the mid-owl chart point of this project, I regretted my colour choices because I wasn't liking the way they were playing out, but now that the item is finished I think they look acceptable. I do wish I'd shaped the sleeve tops a little because they sit slightly oddly, but the sweater will do as is. When accompanied by some sort of toy, of course, because three-year-old boys don't care very much about new sweaters, especially if they're to get them in July.

Even allowing for the one new skein of worsted I bought, this sweater used up 110 grams of stash yarn.