Textured Scarf - aka The Easiest Scarf in the World

This morning I knocked off another Christmas present. I combined some slubby mill end yarn with lace weight and used a tuck stitch to keep the stitches open and show off the yarn. This scan doesn't do it justice. It's nice! Here is the tuck stitch.




I used 100 stitches at T 10 on the standard and did 800 rows. Originally I was just going to steam it and leave it single layer, but it rolled too much. So I sewed it into a tube on my sewing machine, turned it right side out and steamed a little. I liked the purl side best. If you were to make this on a midgauge or bulky, you'd need less stitches and rows. Any slubby yarn or combination of yarns would be nice. I love that knitting machines give you almost instant gratification. Love to hand knit, but when you need something in a hurry, this is it. I think the scarf took about an hour to make once I decided on the yarn. How long would it have taken me to hand knit a scarf 6 feet long by 12 inches wide??? I hate to think how long...

Tiny Christmas Sweater Ornament

I'm on a roll! I decided knitting little things is more fun than knitting big complicated things---some times. After a few tries getting the proportions good enough, I came up with this little cutie. She's the plain version. I was thinking I'd add some fairisle motifs to the front of the next one(s). You are welcome to the pattern. I made it on my standard gauge machine. I think you could try it on a midgauge or bulky and if it turns out way too large, you could modify but use the techniques. I'm sticking with the (electronic) standard so I can do some fairisle stuff on it more easily. It takes a tiny bit of yarn, so if you have odds and ends you want to get rid of, this would be a good project to do just that. You could embellish the sweater a lot of different ways---one that is nice is to put the year on it, maybe some initials, or a snowflake. If you're going for quick and dirty, minimizing colors makes it easiest.
TINY CHRISTMAS SWEATER ORNAMENT
by Mar Heck
Machine: Standard Gauge (any machine, but larger gauge = larger sweater)
Yarn: Any that works with your machine– I used Symphony, small amounts of red and white
Finished size: body is 2 ½ “ long by 2 ½” wide excluding hanger
Gauge: not important, but mine was
Approximately 8 st x 10 r to one inch at T 8
Pictured is a plain version, but you could do tiny stripes, embroidery on the front, a fairisle snowflake or other stitch types or embellishments. Would be cute to incorporate a person’s name or initials and the year. (See below.) The more colors you use, however, the more ends there are to work in. But you don’t have to be as careful as you would with a life sized sweater. The body is knit in one piece from mock ribbing at the bottom, up over the shoulders to the back side, ending with mock ribbing again. The sleeves are hung from the body and knit downwards, ending at the cuff.
Directions:
Body ---Cut a 12” piece of red yarn and set aside. This will be used for the neck. Bring out 23 stitches and push back to non-working position every other needle. With white, E wrap stitches in work. COR T 3 knit 10 rows. Hang a hem on every other empty needle. 23 needles in work. Hang claw weights. Change to red T 8, knit 10 rows. Bind off 3 stitches for underarm, k 1 row, bind off 3 stitches for other underarm, knit back to right. Knit 10 rows. With a separate piece of main yarn, bind off around the gate pegs the center 9 stitches for the neck opening. Wrap the yarn both sides around the adjacent needle to prevent holes. Push the needles all the way out and lift neck stitches off the gate pegs. With the same yarn piece, ewrap back on the same 9 needles. Wrap the adjacent N to prevent a hole and drop the yarn end for now. Keep N all the way out on the first row so the stitches knit off. Knit 10 rows. Ewrap 3 stitches, knit one row, ewrap 3 stitches for the underarms, knit back to the right. Knit 10 rows. Transfer every other stitch to its
neighbor and push the empty N to the back of the bed. With white, T 3 knit 10 rows. Hang a hem on every other empty needle and bind off all stitches by going around the gate pegs.
Sleeves—With wrong side of sweater facing you, pick up whole stitches of the armhole opening, 10 stitches each side of the shoulder. On the 20 stitches, knit 2 rows, decrease one stitch both sides x 2 (16 stitches). Knit 16 more rows. Transfer every other stitch to neighbor and push empty needles to back of the bed. With white, T 3, knit 10 rows. Hang a hem on every other empty needle and bind off all stitches by going around the gate pegs. Repeat for other sleeve.
Hanger---Pick up 3 stitches at the center back of the neck. Push in one part button. Knit I cord 80 rows (or desired length). Pick up beginning 3 stitches and hang on the stitches in work. Bind off.
Finishing—Seam sleeves and sides with matching colors, hide all yarn ends inside the sweater. Tiny motifs you could use on the front of the sweater:


The heavens sent us 4" of snow overnight. The world looks clean and pretty. I love snow---up until about December 31, then it loses its welcome somehow.

Oops!

I found two typos in the tiny mittens pattern. If you downloaded the pdf before 8:00 p.m. on Dec.8, please try again. Just click on the picture of the tiny mitts on the right side again to get the revised pattern.

(The typos were that I forgot to say every other needle for the cuff and also forgot to say to knit one row after you transfer stitches for the top of the mitt.)

Sorry!

Christmas is coming and my machine is getting a workout!

I've been working hard on Christmas preparations. Did three solid days of power shopping and spent a ton of money. Now I'm doing stocking stuffers and ornaments. The easy stuff. I'll have a few patterns to share. Here's the first. It's an easy, cute and fast thing. The mittens are only 1 1/2" tall when made on a standard gauge machine. You don't need to have a ribber. You could try them on a different gauge and get larger mittens, of course. No need for an ornament hanger because you would just drape the mitten strings over a branch. So far I've made 3 pairs, but I'll probably get sick of them soon. I was thinking they would be cute as a topper for gift packages as well. 10 minutes max for a pair of mittens!
Machine: Standard (could use midgauge but mittens would be larger)
Yarn: Any that works with your machine. These were made with Mary Lue’s Symphony
Gauge: doesn’t matter
Finished size: Mittens are about 1 ½ inches in length
Directions:
E wrap cast on with white, every other needle, left needle 7 to right needle 10. T3, knit 10R weighting knitting with your fingers. Hang hem on empty needles. Knit one row to seal hem. Hang claw weight.
Change to red. At T 6 K 5 rows. (6 for second mitten.) Knit thumb: Put all but 4 edge stitches into hold. (For first mitten use 4 needles on right, for second mitten use 4 needles on left.) Knit 16 rows on the 4 thumb stitches, pushing the thumb stitches down with your finger so stitches don’t pop off. Hang a hem from the first row of the thumb.
Hand: Take machine off hold. Knit 11 (10) rows across all 17 needles. Transfer every other stitch to its neighbor, knit one row. Cut 10” yarn tail. Take stitches off and gather into tip. Sew side seam of mitt and sides of thumb with the red tail. Hide yarn tail. Sew cuff with white yarn end. Hide these yarn tails inside mitt also.
Mitten strings (make 2): Pick up 3 st from cuff of one mitten. Knit one row. Set machine for slip (one part button), knit 80 rows. Put outer two stitches on center needle and bind that stitch off. Repeat for other mitten. Hide yarn tail into the string. Tie a bow with the two ends and this is how you’d hang the mittens on a Christmas tree branch. You could use these as a package decoration too.

Machine Knitting Guild of Minnesota

One of our talented knitters in the guild has started a blog for the group. She has done a really nice job. There are only a few entries so far, but it is packed with information about the craft of machine knitting. Every month we have a program so she has described the lesson and added lots of pictures. You will want to bookmark the site so that you can benefit from all the info. Click on the title of this entry or the link in the sidebar to get there. Thanks to Rebecca for a nicely done blog!!!

OH! and by the way, we would love to have you join our guild if you live within driving distance of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Our meetings are held in Richfield. Write to me if you would like more information.

Hats, hats and more hats!

I finally finished 29 hats for the Minnetonka High School Alpine Ski Team. They were cute, and not hard to do, but knitting 29 of the same thing gets boring. I'm glad I'm done and they've been picked up. Now I can move on to other knitting. Aren't the tassels cute, though? And, how about the form on that skier?




Last night I knit a tam on my midgauge.
I don't look so spiffy in ski hats myself, so this one looks a little better on me. It's starting to get cold here, so when walking the dog, a hat is needed. I don't have a good picture of it. Just shoved it under my scanner, so you can't even see the whole thing at once. It is there, tho. In case you can't tell, the pic on the left is top-down and you can kind of see the little nubbin on top. On the right is the underside showing the brim. I didn't do any ribbing. I just knit several plain rows the size of my noggin and let it roll. Easy---the hat took about an hour to make.Machine: Midgauge. I used Brother KX 350 Yarn: Medium worsted weight. I used Patons Merino Wool
Gauge: Body of the hat 4 st x 6 r at T 10. = 1”
Directions: You will start with the body of the hat and rehang the bottom to make the brim. You can either knit the brim in stockinette and let it roll, or knit 1-2” of ribbing.
Body of hat- Cast on over 130 needles with wy and knit a few rows at T 10. (Loosest T.) With main yarn knit to RC 22. (If you want a floppier hat, knit more rows here.)
Begin decreases:
1. Transfer N 4 to 5 across (3 n in work, one out of work across). Remove on WY and rehang so there are no empty needles. Knit 6 rows.
2. Transfer N 3 to 4 across (2 in work, 1 out of work across). Remove on WY and rehang so there are no empty needles. Knit 6 rows.
3. Transfer N 2 to 3 across (every other n in work). Remove on WY and rehang so there are no empty needles. Knit 4 rows.
4. Transfer every other st to neighbor (every other n in work). Remove on WY and rehang so there are no empty needles. Knit 2 rows.
5. Double up stitches and K 2 rows.
6. Double up so that you have 4 stitches in work. Knit one row. Don’t break yarn.
“Nubbin” - Push in one part button. Make an I cord at T 10. with the 4 stitches, 10 rows. Transfer all st to one N and bind off. Leave a 12 inch yarn end to sew up the seam. Set carriage to normal again.
Brim- Decide which side you want to be the public side. Turn hat upside down with your wrong side facing and hang stitches decreasing to 74 stitches. At T 5 knit 12 rows. At T 2 knit 2 rows. Bind off around the gate pegs.
Finishing- Tidy up the little nubbin at top and seam the side with a mattress stitch. Reverse on brim to hide seam.

Give it to Kari! She likes it!

It's not easy for a mother to knit something that the daughter likes. At least that's been the case at our house. I finally hit the jackpot with the Circle of Life sweater. On Kari, it's more like a coat since she is a little vertically challenged, as my husband teases. You can turn the coat upside down and it is a waist length, large collared sweater. You can see the sweater on another model at http://www.knitwords.com/. Mary Anne keeps the pictures from the current issue up until the next one comes out.

I really had fun designing and knitting this garment. It's different from anything else I've made and it combines a lot of techniques. I made it out of Forsell's Pure New Wool, which is a very nice yarn. (Maybe I said that before when it was in progress.) Needs steaming now and then, I noticed.

If I were to knit this again, I might make it as a semi-circular shawl and omit the sleeves. The swirls created by the short-rowing are graceful. If you click on the smaller picture, you will get a larger pic that shows the swirls better.

So now, I'm on to another project. Pictures to follow. Stay tuned!