Machine Knit Cotton Hot Pads

 

I am on a mission to use up some of my huge cotton stash.  Have knit a lot of dishcloths, but thought it would be fun to be a little more creative---and make something useful.  I now have a cache of little gifts on hand.

Here’s how I have done them:

 *Used all cotton yarn and my standard gauge Brother 970 machine.  My designs are approx. a gauge of 7 st and 10 r to the inch, but it doesn’t matter. Mine end up to be between 7 and 9 inches wide by approximately the same height. You could use wool---haven’t tried because I am trying to use up the cotton.  You could also do these with a punch card machine or knit them plain.  But , where’s the fun in plain???

*Start with several rows of waste yarn with a quick cast on.  Engage the design with your electronics, then just knit not doing a permanent cast on with main yarn.  I tried to be sure to do the design so that the carriage ends at the right side when adding contrast yarn. The designs are knit in one longish rectangle.  Might want to switch between KC I and KC II for some rows so you don’t have a contrast yarn going all the way across the knitting for no good reason.  When the design is done, the bottom row is seamed to the top row.

* Some of your designs may have long floats.  Not to worry.  They add to the insulation factor.  I had no trouble with the stitches not conforming to one another or splitting between stitches, but if you do have this issue you can latch up the long float to a matching color. No one sees the inside.

* You may wonder why you need more rows in the middle of a design when both bottom and top halves are the same.  I found out the hard way that you need about 4 rows to go around the “bend” when you seam bottom to top or it’s off.  If you only want to do the bottom half of the design, that’s fine.  Just remember to do the same rows as the design and add 4 extra rows.  Example—the design is 86 rows.  Knit the 86, do 4 rows plain, knit 86 rows plain.

*Adding a loop in the corner is optional.  I did about 6 stitches x 50-60 rows, plain knitting since it curls like I cord anyway.  Looks nice if you hang the front corner with wrong side facing, knit the loop, then pick up stitches from the back side, knit a row and bind off.  When you seam the sides you can hide the purl bumps.

* To seam bottom to top, you have two options:

              -The Perfectionist option is to take the piece off on waste yarn when the design is complete, turn it so the right side is facing you, hang bottom to top stitches.  Then bind off. The seam will be on the inside and not show.

              -The quicker, easier way is to hang the beginning stitches onto the top stitches when the piece is complete, then bind off around the gate pegs.  You will have a seam on the right side.  I think it looks ok. On one I ran out of main yarn right when I needed ONE MORE ROW!  So I used the contrast yarn to bind off.  So one row was main and one contrast.  I actually liked it--- it created a decorative stitch.

* Options for insulation for the middle of the hot pad--- I have used layers of insulbright, >1 layer of flannel cotton fabric (laundered first),  knitted squares of cotton yarn I didn’t like, old cotton cut to size swatches, machine sewed around edges so they wouldn’t unravel, cotton quilting batting, old clean towels.  After completing the knitting, I turned it wrong side out, then tacked the lining to the outer in several places, so it wouldn’t shift.  I used regular matching cotton sewing thread. Doesn’t show if you take tiny stitches.  When you are sure the lining won’t shift, turn right side out.

 * Finally, remove waste yarn and mattress stitch the side seams by hand with right side showing.

 

I used patterns that I have had in DAK for ages, some are built-in patterns, some are purchased—lots of Dale of Norway patterns.

Some examples-----------Have knitted abt 15 so far.  Addictive. Can you tell I love Norwegian designs??? 

 

I plan to tell a recipient to hand wash cold, dry flat.  I don't want them (the hotpads) to shrink and pucker up. 😊

My absolute favorite is the rosemaling design.  It was a free chart on the Dale of Norway site.  I converted the chart to a DAK file.  If you would like to have it, write to me.  I don't know how to attach a file here with Blogger.  If someone knows how, would like to be enlightened.

Dog Peace

I guess I couldn't bear to throw away my "swatch" (my 200+ row failure from when I knit a scarf for a friend).  I'm usually a thrower, but this was too large to toss.  Had to come up with something, so Ollie is getting another sweater.
View from the top:

I tried to unravel back to a row I could work with but it was too frustrating.  The dark color didn't help any.  So I took it to my sewing machine and sewed two rows across, trying to stay on the same knitted row.  I cut off some extra and almost got it perfect, but this is a dog garment, right???  I just picked up stitches below the sewing machine stitches and knit a fold over neckband.  Then I knit an underpanel.
This is a view from the side.

You can't really see it, but there are holes for his front legs.
The floats in this design are pretty long, so I used some iron-on interfacing.  I wouldn't say I did such a great job cutting it, but it will be hidden on the inside.  It's a dog garment, right???

At least now his claws won't catch on the floats.
I think I'm done making dog clothes for a good long while now.  Especially since spring and warmer temps are right around the corner.

A friend said his doggie friends are going to be jealous of all his new clothes.  Made me chuckle!

Saddle Shoulder Sweater

Another gal and I are teaching saddle shoulder sweater construction to our guild.  Since I had never knit one with this shape, I thought I better practice.  I used DAK and came up with approximately size 8 for my grandson.  You can barely see where the saddle shoulder is in the picture,  but it's there.   I faithfully did my swatch out of Piropo yarn because I had both the red and white in that brand. And red and white is my favorite color combination for a Norwegian sweater. It turned out kind of scratchy, though, and I thought a little kid wouldn't like that at all.  So I found some Tamm Sport in my stash with both blue and white, so I went with that.  Much softer.

The pattern is Dale of Norway's Nagano design.  My grandson likes dinosaurs, so I thought this was kind of close.  I just used the yoke section of the design, not the trim at the bottom and sleeves in their pattern.

However, I liked my swatch so much that I made a doggie sweater out of it. (Note the insert in the picture.)  It was really simple to do:  did mock ribs for the neck and bottom, then added a gusset for the belly. The armholes for the front legs are just holes that are not seamed to the gusset. You can add ribbing for the sleeves, but I didn't think it was necessary. My grandson's dog is little, so it was possible to make it work.  I think it will be really cute to see them walking down the street with matching "sweaters".

If you have a smallish dog, you too can use a favorite swatch for the top of the sweater.  I found a free dog sweater pattern and made the gusset to match his size in width and length.  I tried to also match the distance from neck to leg openings.  So hopefully this one will fit him ok.  Strangely enough, he likes to be warm and doesn't mind wearing sweaters.

I think autumn is really serious about showing up.  Time to think about warmer clothes.  And more knitting.

Bitten by the Gimp Bug

It's hard these days to figure out a gift for little kids that isn't plastic or something 80 million other kids have.  So, for Christmas, I converted some relatives' images to knit stitches and made pillows.  (They are sisters.)

I used Gimp (free download) and Designaknit to create the images.  I paid attention to the number of pixels for the width but forgot to calculate length for the Ruby pillow.  Geesh.  It turned out Ok, but it's one of those little regrets when all is said and done. Her dad says she's in love with it----slept with it for a week in her little tent----so I guess that's all that matters.


For info on how to use Gimp, I followed the instructions here:  http://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/Producing_a_stippled_image_with_Gimp  an excellent tutorial.
Then I used DAK's Graphic Studio to convert the picture to a knit design.  It's not too difficult, but I think I did mess around a bit to get the amount of shading that looked good.  I did fairisle because it's so fast and the floats are hidden inside the pillow.  The back of the pillow is just plain stockinette in the darker color, then seamed on 3 sides.   Once steamed lightly the stitches stay in place.  I'm sure if you like double bed jacquard, that would work just as nicely. Also, there are other programs that work for this, not just DAK.  Ravelry and Facebook have a lot of examples.


Kind of fun, pretty easy.  You might want to give it a try.

Machine Knit Confetti Scarf

Wow, I see that it has been more than a month since I last posted something.  I have been knitting, but have neglected posting.  Maybe in the winter months I'll be more faithful.  Here's just one of the things I've knit lately.

 

Confetti Scarf  by MAR HECK    September, 2015

I took this to my mk guild for show and tell.  I introduced it by saying, “You’re probably going to think I’m crazy….” when I was interrupted by a dear but wonky friend who said, “Oh!  That boat has left already!”  REALLY!  We have a lot of fun in our guild mtgs, so I didn’t take it toooooo seriously.  This was from a person who made a quilt that consisted of more than 10,000 pieces.  So who’s cray cray now?

Here’s how I made the scarf.  Take a really thin yarn that you maybe can’t think of another use for and use it as your main yarn.  I used a cone of Tamm Spirit, which I doubt is made any more, as my main yarn.  The label says it’s 97% acrylic and 3% cotton.  I wonder why bother with the cotton since it’s such a minimal amount.  It looks and feels like a dress yarn.  Anyway, for the contrast yarns I took snippets, about 6 to 9“ long of seven colors of other yarns and doubled  them. (I used red, turquoise, blue, yellow, light green, purple and hot pink.)   I had a lot of cone ends that needed to be knit up.   I randomly ewrapped these snippets onto the needles in work.  The needles are pulled all the way out for the ewrapping.  I left ½”  hanging on each end and hung onto the beginning end when I pulled the carriage across .  No need to tie a knot at the beginning and no need to work in these ends.  Knitting with the thinnest yarn and a fairly loose tension makes the fabric almost lacy looking. 

Machine: any, but a midgauge or bulky seem to work best.  I used an LK150 midgauge.

Gauge:  doesn’t matter.  I used T 3 since the main yarn is so thin.

Yarn: as described in note above.  The contrast colors were Tamm Sky, Mary Lou Solo, mystery yarn, 7 colors.  A fancy novelty yarn would be fun to try too.

Skill level:  very beginner

Finished size:  for a scarf that is long enough to go around the neck and do some fancy tying, about 14” wide and 7 feet long.  Measure as you knit.   You could also make a circle scarf by joining beginning to end.  Twist or not. I seamed mine the long way so that the fringes and purl side were the public side.

Directions:

Ewrap on the number of stitches you need to get the width.  Mine was 60 stitches wide on the midgauge.  Choose a tension that knits smoothly with your yarn.  Add weight evenly distributed.  Knit 10 rows.  Grab one of your snippets, pull out some needles and ewrap the snippet doubled on as many needles as it will cover, right on top of main yarn.  If you pull out too many needles for the length of your snippet, just leave them.  Since you aren’t doing patterning, they will just knit.  If you didn’t pull out enough needles, pull out some more.  Knit 2 to 4 plain rows (or more as you wish) with the main yarn.  I knit different number of rows randomly too.   Add other snippets randomly color-wise and placement- wise across the needle bed---- as many as you wish across the row.  Don’t forget to move the weights up every 20 rows or so.  Repeat until the scarf is long enough.  The more snippets you add, the longer it will take to complete the scarf, but the more colorful it will be.  If your snippets are made of fatter yarn, you may not need to double it.

I laid out my snippets on the chair beside me so that I could make the color scheme look random.  I didn’t want too many sections of the same color. You will need a lot of them.   Trim ends so that they are basically the same length. Steam the scarf to control the edges if you’re not seaming.  It’s kinda fun to make and definitely different. 

The yarn I used:    main and fringes