Felted Mitered Square Potholder

Or "How I Spent My Thanksgiving Weekend"

I had a blast - taught my sister-in-law how to knit & happily spent most of Friday & all day Saturday knitting.

It took a few tries to get the proportions right, but I finally hit on a nice little recipe for a felted mitered square potholder.

Yarn: Any feltable worsted weight yarn. We used Cascade 220 in several colors

Needles: US 10.5/6.5 mm

Gauge: Not all that important, but we got something close to 8 sts/inch

Other stuff: Stitch Marker, Darning Needle

Cast on 32, place marker, cast on 32 more - 64 sts total.

Row 1: Knit to 2 sts before marker, SSK, slip marker, K2TOG, Knit to end
Row 2: Knit all sts

Reapeat rows 1 & 2 until you have 4 sts left on needle, then:
SSK, remove marker, K2TOG (you should have 2 sts remaining now), turn
K2TOG

Remove needle, pull yarn thru remaining stitch & you're done! Well, except for the weaving in of ends & the felting....

Here are some of the stripe patterns I used:

pattern 1:

• Color A - 6 rows
• Color B - 4 rows
• Color C - 2 rows
• repeat from aboce

pattern 2:

• Color A - 7 rows
• Color B - 5 rows
• Color C - 3 rows
• Repeat from above (note: you are changing colors on odd-numbered rows & will get the color change line. Which is fine. I like it. Some don't. You *have* been warned, don't bitch at me, m'kay?)

pattern 3:

• Color A: 8 rows
• Color B: 4 rows
• Color C: 6 rows
• Color A: 4 rows
• Color B: 6 rows
• Color C: 8 rows
• Repeat and/or vary how you will till you run out of rows (And no, I have no idea how many rows there are. I are layzee like that.)

pattern 4 (second pic below)

• Color A - 4 rows
• Color B - 6 rows
• Color C - 2 rows
• Color A - 8 rows
• Color B - 4 rows
• Color C - 6 rows
• Color A - 2 rows
• Color B - 4 rows
• Color C - 2 rows
• Color A - 4 rows
• Color B - 6 Rows
• Color C - 4 rows
• Color A - 2 rows
• Color B - 2 rows
• Color C - 2 rows (? I am just guessing based on the pic. I didn't write this one down....)
  

I made several potholders, varying the way I striped it - but you don't have to stripe it at all, it works just fine in one color.

Keep in mind that when you are making stripes, if you only change color on RS (or WS) rows, you will have all your ends to weave in on one side. Which will make your fabric just a titch thicker on that side. Alternating the sides you change colors on will spread out ends on both sides, but you get the "color change stripe" as seen here:



Here's a pre-felted potholder with all the color changes made on a RS row:



And, finally, here is a rather wobbly one (the first attempt, actually) where all the color changes were done on a RS row - this is a picture of it after felting and some rather pathetic attempts at "blocking". Which reminds me of another caveat: Try to make your stripes at least 4 rows wide. This one had alternating stripes of 4 rows and 2 rows. Those 2 row stripes are a bitch to weave in later. And there are a LOT of them....And I blame them for the wobbliness.



It kinda looks more like a Christmas tree in that picture, doesn't it... I wish I could get better pictures, but they are all at SIL's house.

except the one I had on my needles when I left that I will finish as soon as I finish all these damn Xmas gift clogs I am making...

Oh, yeah. More mind losing

I know, I know - two posts in one day. The Apocalypse must be right around the corner.

But I would be remiss on the subject of mind losing if I failed to note my purchase of this book:
Creating Original Hand Knitted Lace by Margaret Stove. (scroll down on that page to see it).

WTF?

Srsly.

It is all David Reidy's fault, he of the Sticks & String podcast. He did a podcast & had an interview with Margaret Stove and I, foolish I, listened to it, fell in love with the thought of designing my own lace and well, next thing you know, I own a copy of the book.

Will wonders never cease.


PS - many hugs and lots of chocolate to bunnysquirrel for fixing my blog so it wasn't so skinny anymore. You rock.

Just keep spinning...

What? AMG? Have you lost your freaking mind?

Yes, yes, I do believe I have!

Because not only did I learn how to spin at the Kid n Ewe for my birthday (Nov, 9 - make a note!), I just got my very own custom painted spindle from Spinsanity!

Feast your eyes:



Here, look some more:



I am in total lurve with my new spindle.

And, luckily enough, I have a buttload of roving to use on it!

As I mentioned, I was at Kid n Ewe for my birthday (thank you, dear sweet husband, for indulging a whim....) and after falling HARD for some Brooks Farm Acero for an as-yet unplanned shawl (I got 2...)


I signed up for a 2 hour Beginning Spindling class. And, marvel of marvels, 2 hours later, I totally understood the concept. I wasn't able to execute it all that well, but I sure as hell knew how it was supposed to work and I even had very brief moments when it did work. Of course, at one point, I was over heard to yell (yeah, overheard by a LOT of people) to my spindle and it's newly detatched roving that "YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!"

At which point they - spindle and roving - simply laughed maniacally and said "PROVE IT!"

Which I eventually did:





Now, these are just singles. I have yet to ply a damn thing. It took a while for me to get the courage up to even take it off the spindle & put it on the swift and even longer after that to wind it off the swift.

Aren't the colors pretty? I bought the first braid at Kid n Ewe from Lone Start Arts and then, when I realized how much I truly loved it, I bought another braid from her store in the same colorway.


I am soooooooo sunk.

Sekrit Santa Stuff

Holy crap, I haven't updated this thing for a while.

And now I am doing it in a totally selfserving way - because I'm in a Sekrit Santa Swap and it is not fair, really - I'm not doing this for me! - to not post my favorite colors and all the cack that I am greedy for this year....

So, without further ado:

• Color - good. Love jewel tones. And for some reason, I have been enamoured of misty greys lately.
  
• Fiber - good. I just learned how to spin, so some pretty BFL roving would be welcome. Because, you know, the llama ball and the other roving currently on its way to me will *not* last a lifetime.
  
• Fiber - good. Mmmmmmmmmmmalabriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigo is always a good choice. Or really, damn near any yarn. Except...see the next one...
  
• Fiber - bad: Sock yarn. Me and socks are not getting along so well. And the sock yarn in my stash is getting restless. Let's not add more & increase the pressure....
• Books - good.
• Chocolate - good. Dark chocolate - best. Chocolate w/coconut, not so much...
• Xmas cack - good. I am a sucker for Xmas...stuff. Shaddup.
  

There, I hope that helps you, Sweet Sekrit Santa!