Correction to garter carriage scarf pattern

Friend Katherine was kind enough to write me and tell me the free garter carriage men's scarf pattern had some errors in it. So, if you downloaded it previously, you may want to download the corrected version. Scroll down towareds the bottom right side and click on the drawing of the DAK file. Whew! What was I thinking? I actually did make it a couple of times and never noticed the errors. I think because the stitches are tiny, they are easy to miss. Excuses, excuses. Hopefully it's error-free now.

Name change

Ok, changed the name on Ravelry to "Dangling Daisies" and will obliterate all references to you-know-what on the blog.

Correspondence regarding name of toddler hat...

Hi Mar,
You might want to change the name of the toddler hat…
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dingleberry
din·gle·ber·ry (dnggl-br)
n. Vulgar Slang

A piece of dried feces caught in the hair around the anus.

An incompetent, foolish, or stupid person.

I didn’t have a clue what it meant as slang either until someone pointed it out to me.

BTW, it is really cute!
Justina

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Yikes!
I guess I will change the name. I just thought it sounded cute. Maybe not. Thanks for pointing it out to me. Was blissfully unaware.
Mar

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Any suggestions? Dangling Dandylions? Downward Daisies? Swinging Snapdragons?

Free Machine Knitting Pattern for a Toddler Hat

It's been a long time since I entered anything in my blog! Time to get back into machine knitting. A challenge has been put forth in my machine knitting circle to knit ourselves a birthday present this year. That is, we are to knit one charity hat for each of our years on Earth. For some of us, that's a real challenge! I'm plugging away at it and have 5 done so far this month. Suffice it to say, I have many to go...

Here's the hat I knit today. It's really easy and fast. Just to keep it interesting, each of my hats will be different. I'm not so good at production knitting, I guess. Here are the directions.
Dangling Daisies Hat for a Toddler
Machine: Standard Gauge 4.5 mm, with ribber or garter carriage
Yarn: Any that knits to gauge
Gauge: 8 stitches x 11 rows = 1”
Finished size: With brim folded up, 7. 5” tall x 8.5” wide to fit a 2-4 year old
Directions: Cast on for 1x1 rib over 141 stitches. T 0/0 knit selvage 3 rows. (Refer to your manual.) T 2/2 K 40 rows. Transfer stitches to main bed, T 6 knit 70 rows. Knit waste yarn for several rows. Remove from machine, fold so right sides are together. Hang 2 matching stitches (front and back) together across the needle bed, and bind off around gate pegs. Seam side seam. Pick up 4 stitches at one corner at the top. Set machine to slip one way, knit the other way for I cord. Weight knitting with your hand. Knit 42 rows for stem. For petals,* knit an additional 40 rows, count back 20 rows, pick up and hang whole stitch on one of the middle needles. * Repeat from * to * for 4 more petals. Bind off. Make stem and petals on other corner. For flower, omit stem, ewrap cast on over 4 needles. Knit 5 petals, attach securely to ribbing. Hide all yarn ends and neaten the petals if necessary.

Fast, easy, cute, and silly! More hat patterns to follow. Stay tuned!

Knitwords 53 is out!

Now that the latest issue is in the mail, I thought I could post a picture of my contributions. Due to space restrictions, they ended up as black and white, not as appealing I'm thinking. I really had fun making these scarves and the shawl. Dying the yarn is half the fun. Now I also get to add these seven to my knit total. Miles and miles of yarn!

I really like a lot of the sweaters in this issue. Nancy Roberts' cover sweater and Alice Tang's shrug are my personal favorites, but there is a lot to choose from. Hope you are a subscriber---you won't be disappointed. Check out the issue at http://knitwords.com/

Purls of Joy, a bad mistake and a machine knit tuck blanket

Wow, can't believe it's the last day of April. Time seems to fly ever faster and faster as a person gets older. Like how a roll of toilet paper disappears. Slow at first, then so fast that next time you look it's time to replace it. Elegant comparison, no?

The Purls of Joy seminar held a week ago in Minneapolis was great fun. It was the first time I had ever demonstrated so I didn't really know what to expect. I did 3 classes on DesignaKnit. One was an overview of the various parts of the software, one was on using text and one was on custom sizing. I sold a disk entitled "Doing DAK", a book I have written. It was well received. When I get additional copies made I'll offer it for sale here. There was a good variety of classes put on by the guest demonstrators and machine knitting dealers. The other guest demonstrators were April Mills, Teena Crawshaw, Pamela Pommerenke, and Carolyn Barnett. I got to meet two Ravelry friends in person: Elaine and Joey. Many of our guild membership were there. Got to talk with some people whose faces I recognized from years past. Too bad it's only once a year. I really enjoyed it.

However. I was exhausted when I got home and it took several days to recover. Feeling ok now. So, this afternoon I decided to knit a lap robe for donation. I was horrified to discover that I had left my CB1 on (the computer part of my 970). And it had to have been left on for 10 days. Grr. I was unbelievably mad at myself. Understatement. I think it will be ok, though. I do know one mker who left her machine on for a year when she was in the middle of a baby blanket. I think it was a garter carriage blanket. She was afraid if she turned it off she'd lose the pattern. Compared to that, 10 days isn't so bad. And I always (!) check to see if it's off when I leave the room. Chalk it up to old age, I guess.

Anyway, I did manage to knit a tuck stitch lap robe. I am still using up yarn so I decided to try "plying" two thin yarns together. Have never done that before. Here was my setup:
You can't see the two yarns at all coming out of the top (bad photo) but you can see the thicker white yarn in the cage with the second yarn on top. I threaded a needle with the white yarn, passed it up through the milk crate and dropped it through the gray cone on the top, then set the gray back right side up, threaded both yarns through the same eyelet on the yarn mast. It worked well. Wasn't as variegated as I thought it would be, but I didn't get the distinct stripes that you get when you just thread them up.

This is the pattern I used. Write to me if you have DAK and would like the complete blanket. The blanket including borders is 192 st x 460 rows. The stitch repeat, which would be suitable for a punchcard is 24 st x 60 rows. What surprised me was the texture the pattern produced. I expected the predominant thing would be the hearts. Instead these arrow head shapes are what you notice most. Never does a scan or photo do knits justice. Here's the border:

Feel free to copy the punch card. You'd need to figure out a border so it doesn't roll. And, like I said, if you want the .pat or .stp file, let me know.

Making your own variegated yarn

What do you get when you combine a slubby multicolored thread- thin yarn with a cream color (boring) thread- thin yarn? Something a little more interesting. Both of these are additional monster cones I'm trying to use up. I think I'll be able to get a lot more scarves out of this combo. It really is a lot more fun than either yarn by itself and it will go with coats of different colors.

I did 60 stitches and 810 rows of Fisherman's rib, T 3/3. The scarf is 7" wide and 56" long. Might be about the right size for a grade school child. Hope I burned up a few calories anyway.