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Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Patterns

Iris Rose

Do you like to knit and sew?  Made in cotton, this pretty little dress is the perfect summer project. The skirt is full and fun and the bodice is a cool or cozy knit depending on the fibre that you use.

I love to crochet and sew as well as knit so have combined all of these crafts in this little dress.  I used a really soft cotton and acrylic blend worsted weight yarn in my stash and a cotton remnant for the skirt.  You can find the pattern in my Ravelry store here and my Etsy store here.

Are you looking for an easy pattern for charity knitting?  Summer is a great time for small projects!  Every year I try to knit at least thirty hats for donation.  Last year I made over one hundred as well as several hat and scarf sets for school kids.  This easy but great looking hat is available in my Ravelry store here and my Etsy store here.

Thanks for looking and I hope that you enjoy my patterns!  Have a great weekend and happy crafting.

 

 

Knitting

Sweetie Pie Dress and Bubble Sleeve Sweater

Iris Rose

Two new machine knitting patterns from my personal notebook are now available.  Pattern writing is always a challenge; creating the design, testing, and writing up the instructions are not a quick process.  I have favoured girly patterns for this post but, rest assured, there are some great patterns for boys on the way.

The first pattern is a fun sweater with fancy sleeves that is written for midgauge knitting machines.  There are ribbed bands, but these can easily be made in mock rib or by reworking knit stitches.  I knit the sleeves in a fun self striping yarn for a colour pop and matched a solid colour for the body and bands.  It is written in five sizes from 20” to 32” finished chest measurements.  You can link to the pattern in my Ravelry store here or my Etsy store here.

 

The second pattern is a pretty dress that is written for sizes 2, 3, and 4 for standard gauge machines with or without a ribber.  Instructions are included for plain knit bands if you don’t have a ribber bed.  I would like to make this one in larger sizes but was limited by the number of needles.  I could have made the skirt in more pieces but did not like the look of the extra seams.  I do have an Aline version that I will be publishing in larger sizes that has a similar Fair Isle band.  You can link to the pattern in my Ravelry store here or my Etsy store here.

 

Thanks for looking and I will be back soon with more on all of my favourite crafts.  Have a happy week filled with kindness.

Baking, Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Bagels

Iris Rose

At the end of April, I had a hankering for bagels.  Not the chain store bakery ones that are really just buns with a hole in the middle but real bagels.  Slightly sticky on the crust with a real chewy middle.  Perfect for toasting and delicious for breakfast bagels, you know the kind.  Even though I bake all of our bread products, I haven’t made bagels for a very long time.

I keep a sourdough starter in my fridge that was originally given to me a few years ago by a fellow vendor at a craft sale.  It just keeps getting better and better the older that it gets.  I used this starter for my bagel’s and made the dough nice and soft so that it would stay chewy.  I can share my recipe, but you can find the same basic sourdough in most good bread books.

Here is my adventure in photos; when I reached the finish, I was really, really happy with the flavour and texture.  I will definitely make these again.

                 Rolling the dough
Shaping the bagels, man, my hands are wrinkly!
            Ready to proof
                        Boiling, boiling
Next time I will use a little egg wash to hold the seeds on.
                   Ready for the oven!
          Ah, bagels, lovely chewy bagels.
             More lovely chewy bagels.
       Ready to split and pop in the toaster.

This was an adventure that I will surely be repeating!  Have a happy week full of fun, crafting, and kindness (maybe throw in some bagel baking too).

Knitting

Still Around

Iris Rose

I just looked back at my last post and I was startled to see that I have not posted anything new since last July!  Life has been very busy and not left much time for playing unfortunately.  There has been just too much going on to share with you here so I will try to go forward without bringing in the past.

My last post was about my newest blanket project.  I bought extra yarn, I created six large squares knit in the round, and added the green border.  I didn’t like the narrow border so frogged those and made it wider and there it sits.  After trying out different ways of joining the squares with a panel knit in a lighter green, I just couldn’t find the right stitch.  Frustration took over and I packed it away and haven’t touched it since.  Such is the fate of projects that don’t cooperate!  I still don’t have a clue what I want to do so this pretty blanket in the making will stay in time out a little longer.

I have been knitting socks!  Some of these are hand knit and some machine and I am missing a couple of pair that were in the wash.  I was only disappointed in one pair, the one with the purple, grey and orange.  All of the other sock yarns washed and dried beautifully except that grey which shrunk and felted a bit making the sock just a tad too short in the foot.  I plan to cut it and replace the grey with a different yarn to make it a nicer fit.

I have lots of other things on the go including another one hundred hats project.  I am at seven and counting.  I need to sort out my projects (and my thoughts) and am committed to posting more regularly.  Until next time, happy crafting!

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

New Blanket

Iris Rose

At the end of May I posted a photo of some pretty and soft Ice yarn.  I said that I was going to make something for some “me” time but hadn’t decided what I wanted to make, or rather what the yarn wanted to be.

A about a month later, the yarn decided that it wanted to be a blanket and the search was on for the perfect pattern.  I have a digital file of patterns and returned to one that I had made previously.  I liked the old fashioned look and really enjoyed knitting the squares.

The pattern that I used and am using currently is Classic Elite Yarns, Modular Throw.  Sadly, Classic Elites Yarn has gone out of business so the pattern is no longer available for download.

The squares are knitted in four sections and sewn together.  The first time that I knit this pattern, I followed the instructions to change the colour at the top of each section so that there ended up being a contrasting colour square when the pieces were sewn together.  I decided to make these all one colour this time as I am making this for myself and love the softness and look of the white.

Lack of notes (or lack of memory) left me knitting this in pieces and sewing the four smaller squares into one larger one.  I was powering through the small squares and really enjoying the rhythm and speed of these pretty pieces.  I had twenty-three small squares made when I remembered knitting the four pieces together in the round originally.  I stopped at this point and sewed together four large squares to see I wanted to continue this way.  This one is blocked

It is a really good thing that I have a ton of this yarn.  The resulting large square was not great.  The seam was too thick and created a ridge that could not be blocked out.  I also didn’t like the finished product with the needle size that I had been using.  It was just too floppy for a nice snuggly blanket.  After a few weeks in time out (and also because I had eye surgery and couldn’t comfortably knit or read, boohoo) I opted to restart the project with a smaller needle and knit the large squares in the round in one piece.  This one is not blocked and I have not closed the centre yet.

The result is more like what I had envisioned and I am really happy with the new square.  I added a border of a contrasting colour of the same yarn.  Buying more yarn was not in the plan but, you know, sometimes you just gotta!  This one is not blocked or finished.

There are times when it just pays off to restart a project.  All of the work that goes into creating something beautiful is truly satisfying when you love the finished project in spite of the hiccups and restarts along the way.

I am aiming for a finished blanket by the end of September; let’s see if I can do it.

Have a lovely week ahead with lots of love and kindness.