Gaia Tablecloth

As promised, a completed project.  I call this one Gaia.  It strikes me as very earthy and nature colored. Pictures are at bottom, more can be found on the Ravelry page for this project.

Basic info:

• Pattern: Joyous Squares by Dot Drake
• Started March 9th 2014, finished June 2nd 2014
• Hook size is US 7
• Thread is Valley Yarns Valley Cotton 10/2
• Black Forest color 5949 lot 344093
• Silver Birch color 8418 lot 410889
• Adobe color 7125 lot 410885
• Pine Green color 5398 lot 410880

Notes made during construction:

Friday, March 21st, 2014
I have finished measuring out the amount of thread needed for each color, washed the thread, and wound into balls.  Soon I will start, I hope.  The process took days to do, and the thread took days to dry.

Monday, March 31st, 2014
Finished two of the larger blocks, 7 more to go.  Each large block is sc around the whole thing using the current green. They are then joined with the brown.  The edging will be a granny style in brown, the Silver Birch and Pine green worked across the brown, Black Forest will edge it.  My goal is to replicate the look of the block for the edging.

Friday, April 3rd, 2014
I timed myself when doing one small block.  It looks as if it take about an hour to complete one.

Sunday, June 1st, 2014
Been working hard on the edging.  Finished the actual tablecloth Friday, yesterday and today has been focused on the edging.  Almost finished it though.  Tomorrow certainly!

Lot's done, too little time

I've been a bad and busy crafter.  Finished a heavy, 13 lbs, ruana, a tablecloth, taught myself how to sew, and soon I will have a loom.  Been telling myself that I need to organize myself more.  Not just habitual, that I am already to a fault, but focus more and actually get stuff besides my crafts done.  Like my blogs for instance.  Posting regularly and maintaing.  Tomorrow morning, that's what I will do.  Post a project a day until I catch up.  I'll blame my delinquency on the sewing.  Once I took off on that I seem to never have enough time to do anything.

Double Knit Afghan - Flowers and Dragons

DK Dragon and Flowers

Double knit (DK) has great things about it. Two layers of knit for extra wormth, and the ability to switch colors to form wonderful images on the fabric.  That being said there are two major downsides.  Due to the fact that you are knitting two layers you need use twice the amount of yarn and spend twice the amout of time on the project.  I forgot this last negative when I had agreed to add an edging to Cook's afghan.

Last year I had made a (DK) afghan for cook, that is the brown and green that you see as the main body.  He loved it except one tiny detail, it wasn't big enough.  It needed both more length and width.  So this year I finally got around to giving it an edging all around.  I went through many ideas ranging from crochet to knit.  That is until I came across a dragon pattern for filet crochet, found here.  Even though the chart if for filet crochet I used it without any modifications.  The dragons did come out a little long and squat but they look fine.  The pattern for the flower/labarinth that can be found in the corners and between dragons on the long side was found in the book Extreme Double Knitting by Alasdair Post-Quinn.  It is actually an exercise found on page 96 of the book called Algiers/Flower, it's an exercise for two pattern DK.  I'm not certain if he offers the pattern else where, it does not seem to be on Ravelry.  The yarn used was Simply Soft by Caron, needle size 7.  More detailed information on the actual yardage and what not can be found on the projects Ravelry page.  More pictures to follow the read more, I didn't want to overload the main blog with too many pictures.

Light Summer Jacket

Baby Alpaca Jacket

A light summer jacket made from baby alpaca thread.


Yarn:
Cascade Yarns
Baby Alpaca Lace
Hunter Green 1400 dye lot 6917
1 skein = 437 yards

Hook is 2 mm

Total skeins came to 4, total yards came to 1748 yards

The pattern is a diagram:

I repeated this, joining each square as needed.  Fairly simple actually.

Red Shirt Pot Holder

I came across a grid of the Star Trek comm badge and was like, "Ooo, I have to make this!"  So I whipped it out in double knit and both sides are of proper orientation.

The yarn was some of the kitchen cotton you can pick up practically anywhere, Sugar and Creme I think.  The needle was size 7.

The diagram