picture potholders

Materials: 

• Scraps / 2oz ball Cotton Dishcloth Yarn (Peaches & Creme or Knit Picks Dishie)

• Sz 3.25mm (3 US) Knitting Needles

• Tapestry Needle

Pattern: 

Front "Picture" with Garter Border

CO 30 sts. 

K 8 rows (you will have 4 garter ridges).

[K 5, join scrap color and K 20, join second strand of main color and K 5. 

K 5, P 20 (scrap color), K 5.]

Repeat [*] until "picture" is 32 rows (potholder is 40 rows total).

K 8 rows (4 garter ridges) in main color. BO. 

Back Solid Garter

CO 30 sts. 

K 48 rows (24 garter ridges).

BO. 

Finishing

Secure any loose ends, if they were not woven-in as you knit. No need to thoroughly weave-in ends since they will be hidden inside the potholder. 

Using a 2' length of yarn and tapestry needle, stitch Front & Back tog around all edges, using a basic whip stitch and securing ends. 

Machine wash & dry when your potholder (inevitably) gets dirty!

the kim scarf

Use any yarn with needles sized for a loose gauge. CO 19 sts.

***
K 1 row. (Plain Row)

K4, turn work, slip 1, K3. (Short Row)

K6, turn work, slip1, K5. (Medium Row)

K7, K2tog, YO, K1, YO, k2tog, K7. (Increase Row)

Repeat short row.

Repeat medium row.

***

Repeat between ***'s until scarf is desired length or you are almost out of yarn. Bind off sts and weave in ends.

back from college

Home from Fiber College and a fantastic weekend of being in class and playing with craft elements not usually on my center stage...Fair Isle knitting & color-work, tatting, photography.  Certainly got the creative juices flowing, the perfect kick-off to fall.

need(le) organization? - wall pockets to the rescue!

Newest addition to the L'stell lineup:  Wall Pockets in DPN style (right) and CIRC style (left). 

My mum's holiday present request was, "something to hold my knitting needles on display like a piece of art, so they're all readily available and waiting for me".  Time spent rummaging through needles in jars and needles in drawers for certain sizes or the missing 4th DPN is much better spent hand-coloring Fair Isle charts, after all.

So I worked out a couple prototypes (Ta-da!  Presents for my sister!), and then had to have one for my own needles.  When the Wednesday Spinners started making requests after seeing Mom's... well, the L'stell line made room for a new product.

The DPN pocket pictured above was the design prototype I made for myself.  The velveteen fabric (orange) is now used as the back of the entire pocket - this gives it a little grip to the wall and some padding.  I like having a print in the background of the front for a little more decorative look, as shown on the CIRC Pocket.

I embroidered needle sizes onto the pockets of the prototype to label where my DPN's go, with the largest pocket housing my needle sizer.  The Wall Pockets will come unlabeled so that the 14 slots can hold your collection of needles in the range of sizes you work with - maybe you have US 000-10.5 or work on larger 2-17's.  Or like my mum, have four sets of 3's, 5's, 7's and a couple 9's, since you have one kind of favorite yarn.

The CIRC pocket has 15 slots to organize your circular needles.  Plans are in the works for an Interchangeable needles Wall Pocket too, especially since I have my eyes on the Knit Picks Harmony set!

arrr! she's a hat, matey!

Decided it was time to up the knitting skills with a hat. I've spent plenty of time knitting in the round, churning out millions of wrist warmers with ribbing and cables and everything. Just no decreasing. So really the hat should be no problem. I think I only had to make three calls to Mummsie and Babycakes for pattern and decrease advice, so it really went ok. I had seen this Martha Good Things where they added snowflakes to mittens using a duplicate stitch, basically knit-embroidering on top of the finished knit-thing. Would have been slightly more brilliant to use a solid white for the duplicate stitch, but since the yarn was a white-mallard ply, the skull and crossbones kinda fades in. Sneaky-like, very pirate-y.  Perfect for your 17-year-old brother's birthday present.