More Giggle-worthy Finds

I shop at thrift stores a lot.  Really, a lot.  Clothes, books, decor items, cookware, raw materials for my shop; most of the goods I buy come from second hand shops.  This is partly because I am cheap and refuse to pay full price for new when perfectly serviceable things are available used.  Mostly, however, I shop at thrift stores because they can offer some hidden gems found nowhere else.

Sometimes these gems are beautiful and unique vintage clothing, or really high quality kitchenware for a bargain, and sometimes the value of a find is just because it made me laugh:

This was my Mom's find actually, and she only sent me the picture and not the actual shell critter thankfully :) I'm not sure what it is supposed to be, but the big eyes make me think owl. Speaking of owls...

 

My mom teases me that I have too many bric-a-brac owls in my house. I managed to walk past this impressive display without buying a single one. Though the brass trio on the upper left was very tempting.

A very different sort of bird...I'm not sure this one needs any explanation...;) If you can believe it, the inside is even better than the cover.

Too much? Nah, Never

One of the many things I dabble in is designing knitting patterns. Most often I do so because I conceived of a desire for a garment and couldn't find an existing pattern that was exactly what I wanted. So I try to make my own.

Ever since I first saw this pattern with the braided cables up the raglan seams, I knew I had to use that idea somewhere.

I really wasn't a fan of the big poncho-like shawl shape of the original pattern, though, so I had to find some other sweater to adorn with cabled raglan seams.

The next bit of inspiration was really what got the ball rolling for my pattern design.  I adore the sleeves on this dress from 1927.  I was a little intimidated by the complex colorwork at first, but I have yet to meet a knitting technique I can't muddle my way through.

As you can probably guess, that dress pattern uses a ridiculously small gauge and tiny needles.  I am a decent knitter, but I am not that patient. I knew if I was going to make colorful sleeves like that I would have to adapt them to a larger gauge.  Also I had no real intent to make my sweater a full tunic length.  The keyhole neckline wasn't really doing it for me either.

So now I had two design elements I really wanted to use, and still no full sweater to attach either to. Then it hit me; why not combine them? I liked the color contrast on black of the dress, why not add contrasting raglan cables as well? Would that be too much, too busy? I thought about it for all of a second or two. Nah, no such thing as too busy or bold with sleeves like that :)

I found some nice yarn at my local craft outlet in black, blue, and purple. It was meant to be. I picked out a nice textured stitch for the body, to give it a similar look to that first inspiration.  I worked the body and sleeves in the round with provisional cast on for nice smooth hems. The colorwork was challenging, but in the good way.  The color cables on the raglans looked fantastic. All was turning out lovely for my sweater, until I reached the neck and realized I had no idea how to finish it.  Oops, kinda forgot about that part.

Well, I found one more bit of inspiration that saved the day.

This lovely cabled jacket uses short rows and grafting to turn the cables around the corner and continue into the collar.  I just so happened to have a bunch of cables converging on the neckline, could I turn them using short rows and add a collar to my creation?

Yes, yes I could. I undid a couple of rows on the front so I could introduce a new cable in the center, and using that and the two from each front raglan I was able to make a collar of the three cables that looked so perfectly integrated into the rest you'd think I planned it from the start.

So there you have it, the haphazard mess that is my design process. I can't wait to see what elements I can throw together next time.

If you'd like to knit one of your own, you can find the pattern here or here :)

Knitting Tricks: Charting a Color Pattern

I am an avid and primarily self taught knitter. I learned most of the techniques I know by trial and error as I worked a pattern that was probably too advanced for me at the time. Collecting these tricks and techniques into one place is hopefully as helpful to others as it is to me.

There are a multitude of charted patterns for multicolor knitting available on the internet. Chances are you can find one already made for just about anything you want to knit up. But what do you do when you can't find just the motif you need?  Fortunately, making your own color chart from a printed design is pretty easy.

This is a page from a book filled with Japanese border designs. For this particular knitting project I chose the one in the middle.  I scanned the book page and used my tablet as a way to enlarge the design to the size I wanted and traced it onto graph paper. You can pretty easily just skip the tablet step and draw the design directly to the graph paper if it's a simple enough pattern. Or if you need it resized you can photograph or scan the book page and use a computer to enlarge and print it out.  Either way, the next step is to get the design drawn onto graph paper.

If you have a repeating pattern like this, all you need is one repeat. If you're having trouble figuring out just how much is one repeat, try using tracing paper to put sections of the motif next to each other to see how they line up.

The top motif is the one I traced. I did a bit of cleaning of up of the design to make sure it was symmetrical and balanced.  Then I sketched in extra grid lines along the lines of the motif. You'll note since it is symmetrical I only needed to do one half.  The bottom is my draft chart. Using those extra sketched in grid lines, I filled in the graph squares whererever a line of the motif crossed the grid. There are visible marks from an eraser as I made adjustments.  You'll need to step back and look at your draft, make sure the lines look like curves where they are supposed to, and are straight where they need to be.  Double check that both haves of a symmetrical design are the same, that a repeating design matches itself on the edges.

Once you have a draft on paper, I find it very helpful to make a digital version. Using any spreadsheet program you can recreate your paper chart by filling in the cells with different colors.  This will help you count how many stitches and rows your chart is, and you can copy and paste the chart beside and below itself to check if it all lines up when you repeat it.  From here you can also print more copies if you need.

And that's pretty much it. Whatever project your chart is for, just knit it up following the chart and you should see your motif taking shape. I used a variegated yarn for my main color, so it has that stained glass look, but it works just as well with a solid color. 

If you'd like to make one of these neck warmers yourself you can find the pattern here or here :)

Vintage Craft Book Feature: Phyllis Fiarotta's Nostalgia Crafts Book (1974)

Another of my many needlework hobbies is the collection of vintage craft books. Found in dusty corners of second hand shops, in pride of place in used book stores, these old tomes often contain beautiful nuggets of crafting wisdom, and a heaping helping of vintage charm. Reviving the techniques, tips and retro projects is just one more way for us to bring back the wonders of the handmade.

Phyllis Fiarotta's Nostalgia Crafts Book- 1974

The cover of this book is not nearly as interesting as the introductory pages. The passage below speaks directly to my soul and convinced me to buy this book before I'd even turned another page.

With the heavy stuff out of the way, lets get into what goofy and great things fill this tome.  Much like other craft books of the 1970's (some of which I've featured here before) it is filled with how to's on various household crafts from home decor to dolls.  Each instructional guide is pretty thorough and has enough illustrations to be clear and easy to follow.

This guide for doing whimsical applique on an apron is a favorite of mine. I love how it looks like the rest of the vegetables are chasing the carrot, and the multiple eyes on the potato cracks me up every time.

The real value in this book for me, however, are the real vintage ads and articles scattered throughout. Besides giving a real nostalgia flavor to the book, they add a lot of historical context that I think is often lost when we see individual old items at thrift or antique stores. I especially like the article on making a dress from your husband or brother's old suit that they no longer fit into after returning from the war.  That one sentence dates the article perfectly, and even without further instructions, the text is clear enough to be used as a pattern by a relatively crafty sewer.