Knit for Brains dot Net

Archive for the ‘Projects’ Category

Got a little yarn for a tiny project? Do you like to carry crystals or other lucky/healing stones in your pocket or purse, but don’t want them damaged by coins and other hard things in there with them? Knit a crystal cozy! These would make great mini-gifts for friends as well.

They are about 2.5 to 3 inches long. Make yours to fit your stone plus and inch or more so the ribbing can close the opening

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I mentioned previously that I am working on a Glengarry hat for my kilts and I have finished the second test piece. The first one I did was in gray wool and followed the pattern exactly as found in Folk Hats by Vicki Square  so I could figure out how to do all the short rows, check the size and see if it all worked out like I want.

And I have pictures… Read the rest of this entry »

In my previous post about recycling yarn I stated that I didn’t like the process of hunting for the source sweater at a thrift shop, and I’m sticking with that opinion. You will not find me giving but a cursory glance at the sweaters there when I’m there for something else. It’s just too much effort for too little result. I have better things to do with that time.

I did however realize that recycling a new sweater from some inexpensive shop such as Ross or Marshalls is a great option. I was there shopping for the holidays last month and was lured to the men’s sweater rack. One thing I was confident of was that I would not be disappointed by finding a great sweater that had been ruined by washing and felting/fulling. While there were not a lot of colors and fibers that I wanted I did find one that is perfect.

A lot of nice yarn for just $20. Maybe I'll make a scarf and socks.

It’s a gray sweater in what I believe is Read the rest of this entry »

(Be sure to see part 2 of this topic at this link)

Well, I made a trip to our local Savers Thrift Department store to look for decent wool sweaters from which to recycle the yarn. I thought this would be a great, economical way to obtain several skeins worth of yarn for just about $6. In general, I do believe recycling yarn can be a worthwhile endeavor, but I don’t think it’s for me. The reality of the hunt is not worth the result, which today resulted in more awareness than wool.

First thing I did was examine the 20 feet of men’s sweaters. Feeling along the edges of them for something that might be wool, as well as looking for sweaters that are mostly a solid color I discovered a few things about Read the rest of this entry »

As you see in another post I tried sharpening the bamboo knitting needles, single pointers, that I ordered from China, and which turned out to be about half defectively dull. It was a great success, but now I have fifteen pair of needles and I don’t want them to get all mixed up.

So, looking around the web for cases I found a link that lists about 30 different ways to make a case for needles. And can you imagine my surprise that one of the ways is – yes – knitting one? Durr.

Yes, not with pockets, but rather a simple rectangle of knitting that you skewer at intervals with your different pairs of needles, then roll up. Pretty cool.

So I went to the local Joann’s looking for yarn. First I tried some thick and quick but it was too thick. This being the fall holiday season, all the autumn colored stuff is in stock and I found some Red Heart acrylic worsted in a multi-colored skein called Falling Leaves that is beautiful. Yes, it’s just acrylic, but it’s also just a needle case. And the colors are really fun to work with. I really like the jewel tones, and it’s fun to watch the progression of the colors as they mix and pool and stripe variously.

For a pattern, some of the suggestions were to make cables and stick the needles through the cable holes but I wanted this to be nearly mindless knitting in case I need something to take to a knitting circle so I’m doing it in a basket weave that is about seven stitches by seven rows on my #10 bamboo 14 inch needles I just sharpened. The pattern is two sided and won’t curl up on me. But I’m thinking I may switch to another pattern for a sampler effect.

Last Sunday I went to my nearest local yarn/knitting shop, Gails Knits, to take advantage of their summer sale and bought yarn for my first project, the cabled scarf with seed stitch border you see in the page header (That’s a pic from the book – I haven’t started the scarf yet, but I did pick red. ) and as I was checking out I told Gail about the Portuguese Knitting DVD and how much I liked the style. I showed her the basics, and she in turn showed me her style, which is eastern european knitting (EEK). Apparently, it’s pretty rare. She said there was an article some years ago in a knitting magazine that listed the top ten styles of knitting, and it was number 9.

It turns out it is a bit faster than Portuguese knitting, seemingly having one less step in that you don’t have to flick the yarn over the needle. That’s not a big chore, but when I was watching Gail demonstrate it she was amazingly fast. I’ll have links to videos and pages here soon. It’s a variant of continental knitting, a pick style, and is quite worthwhile.

I’m still practicing but I did find that it wasn’t so great for a bulky yarn. I am doing a cossack hat from the Folk Hats book by Vicki Square and even with my nice and pointy new Options Nickel Plated circulars didn’t work so well on the thick, bulky Wool-ease yarn by Lion Brand when using EEK. I couldn’t catch the yarn and pull it through. So I tried the Portuguese knitting and it was much easier.

That’s interesting and handy to know. Now we have more tools with which to knit. I’ve learned one should choose carefully from knitting style, yarn material, yarn thickness, needle material and pattern. When I started out I would never have thought it mattered.

Here’s what the hat will look like when done:

The cossack hat in the book.

This one uses a bouclet yarn which seems to emulate shearling. I may do one with black later. For now I’m just re-using the yarn from the crochet scarf I killed playing with my new ball winder.