AND PROGRESS ON OTHER FRONTS
The holidays being party over, our latke party, Christmas Eve feast, present exchanges being done, the luxury of time is creeping back into our daily routine. So I can post about my other two big end of year projects.
First is my Italian-inspired cloth. Still not sure what I will do with it, although it’s looking likely that it will end up as a piece of honor on a credenza here in the house. I have finished the outer frame. I started this one on 19 September, at the center of the left hand edge, as seen in the photo below. I marched around the perimeter, opting to go a bit shy on the right hand side to preserve use of the “perfect” corner I charted out. I joined up with the starting spot last week via an extended tendril just to confirm the count and that no fudging would be needed. Spot on, no alignment problems at all. I finished out the join and all of the panel detail last night.
And surprise! I’m not done!
I am working a doubled variant of the edge pattern across the center. Possibly flanked by two single panels. I haven’t decided on those yet. I want to capture the spirit of the original, a towel done in Punto Scritto and Punto a Spina Pesce MFA Accession 83.242, Italian, 16th century, silks on linen. The original is quite large, more than four times the size of my rendition.
More on the developing center panel as it grows, of course.
The other big project was my set of frog hats. Five of them have been given to the recipients, all received with delight and enthusiasm. Four shown below, on consenting adults.
I’ll be finishing up the eyes on the last two this week. I am not sure if I can put out a full method description because it’s a bit complex to explain exactly what I did. But here goes…
First, I knit up seven hats, working in the round on two circular needles, roughly following the general pattern I am using as my source. I’ve used a different cast-on, swapped in K2P2 ribbing for the original K1P1, and arranged the thing so that when the brim is folded, the more attractive side of my cast-on is on the outside of the hat.
Then I took inspiration from a free published pattern for eyeballs, changing the color progression slightly. I used much smaller DPNs for the eyeballs than I used for the hat body, largely to contain the stuffing. Seven hats meant 14 eyes. In retrospect I think I should have made them bigger, but the hat is still true to the concept.
Once the little eyeball spheres were knit, stuffed, and ended off, I had to add eyelids. To do that I used a threaded needle and embroidered backstitch. I looped my backstitches over my DPNs to set up the foundation for a row of knit-on I-Cord. Three needles’ worth, five stitches each. I did this via sewing because picking up stitches across the surface of the eyeball was difficult to do without disturbing the stuffing.
Once the eyelid was done, I went back and using a small crochet hook, picked up a line of knit stitches across the base of the I-Cord on the back, where it joined the eyeball. Those I knit into a triangle to make a dormer-window style cowling. I have to admit that I don’t think I did any two of them exactly the same way, because no two of the eyeballs themselves were exactly alike. That alone would make any specific write-up extremely difficult.
After the eyeball/eyelid, connectors were completed I sewed those units onto the hats, using mattress stitch.
I still have to finish the eyelids and final assembly on two more hats by the end of this week. I’ll stroll towards that completion. No hurry.
CHARGING AHEAD ON MULTIPLE FRONTS
We are making headway here!
First, as I announced on FaceBook, I have completed radiation therapy. Minimal side effects to report even at conclusion of the course. We are now taking a bit of ease to recuperate both from the therapy itself, and having to drive out in the pre-dawn hours for 6:45 am appointments. 40 days of that doesn’t sound too bad when compared to the decades over which we left early as commuters, but once you are no longer used to being part of the Dawn Patrol, it becomes a lot harder.
Special thanks to the radiation crew Mass General Hospital, who greeted me every morning with good humor, efficiency, and a steady tolerance for my unorthodox music requests. I suspect that at least one of them has signed on to read here at String because of a mutual interest in knitting. If so, please pass the word back to the whole gang.
Second, my Italian multicolor piece is zipping along. I’m almost at the halfway point for the outer rim.
I’m 99% sure I will meet my horizontal centerline spot on in terms of thread count. I adjusted the total width to ensure that my corners are identical. There is one tiny mistake I need to go back and fix, but it is not something that has an effect on band width or repeat cycle. I could leave it, but I won’t.
And as you can see I am also making rapid progress on the frog hats – my third front of advance. Frog Hat #1 is now well underway. I admit that aside from the initial cast-on number I have not paid much attention to the general pattern I am using as my source. I’ve used a different cast-on, swapped in K2P2 ribbing for the original K1P1, and arranged the thing so that when the brim is folded, the more attractive side of my cast-on is on the outside of the hat. And yes, I’m working in the round on two circular needles.
Next comes hat depth and the decreases. I want the hat to fit rather sleekly rather than being full and floppy, so I will probably go short on the total depth compared to the written instructions. We’ll see if I follow the pattern’s decrease or if I end up opting for something more rounded.
My goal is to work the boring hat portion of at least four of the batch of hats I intend to make. Once those are complete I will make the eyeballs and eyelids, then finish off by sewing the eye units onto the hat bodies. Given quick progress on first hat (and that done while I still carved out time to embroider), I do hope to complete the minimum of the hard-promised four by the new year. The others are optional and will depend on available yarn, time, and my own rather spotty attention span.
I leave you with a repeat of the somewhat disheveled, early morning bell-ringing photo I posted on FB to celebrate my liberation from therapy. And yes – my last day’s music request was the 1812 Overture. You can’t celebrate an Independence Day in Boston without it. Especially because the MGH hospital complex is close by the river, and on upper floors commands a lovely view of the Esplanade where the annual 4 July celebration takes place.
HOPPING OFF ON A DETOUR!
Yes, I’m still working on the Italian multicolor strapwork cloth. But the holidays approach, and a topical whimsey presents itself. I am going to take a quick detour to kludge together a hat, then knit several for my various Offspring and Honorary Offspring.
In specific, I’m going to knit topical event relevant frog hats, in egregious green. Complete with bulging Muppet like ping-pong ball size eyeballs. Here’s my concept drawing:
I’m using leftovers from the bolster cover I did two years ago. The shocking green, the oatmeal white, and black, to be specific. It’s acrylic, and sport weight (24 stitches = 4 inches or 10 cm in stockinette) from Herschnerr’s. As you can see, I’ve got plenty.
I will be adapting a very basic free hat pattern I found on Ravelry, the Drover and Classer Plain Beanie. It’s plain stockinette with a turned back, ribbed brim, and a simple seven-spoke set of decreases at top. For the eyeballs I plan to play with the knit sphere design from Lisa Benden. Her free Knit Hacky Sack is written for a larger yarn than mine, but I don’t need a ball as big as hers, and I’m pretty sure I could fiddle with stitch count until I get the proportions I want. Plus, if I do one end in black, I won’t need to embroider the pupils onto the finished ball.
The only part of this that I will have to create from scratch are the green eye sockets into which the bulging eyes are affixed. For those I’m planning on doing a wrapped short row heel, but very small, with a rolled stockinette edge. The plan is to stitch each eye into its socket, then stitch those assemblies onto each hat. We’ll see how this sock heel-turned eye socket plan turns out.
These shouldn’t take too long. I’ll be working up the plain hats first. Worse comes to worse, even if the eyes don’t exactly to to plan, I will at least have screaming green beanies for my intended recipients.
Oh, and progress on the Italian cloth? Rounded the corner and headed for the center of the short side.
String-Or-Nothing 