Category: Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

All things yarny

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.

 

 

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).

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.

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Me Time

Iris Rose

I find I put so much emphasis on hurry, hurry, get busy and accomplish something that I fall into a spiral of what do I have to do next and how fast can I get it done.  It becomes overwhelming.

It is time to put all of the ambitions aside and create something for pleasure only.  Who cares if it is not part of the master plan?  I do, of course, but not right now.  I am sure that I am not the only one who feels the need to just be, am I?

DD has started a crocheted blanket with some lovely yarn and is really enjoying the work.  She has taken the attitude that there is no rush to the finish line and she works on it when she feels in the mood.

I have some natural wool that I am going to play with and start a project that I can feel the same way about.  I don’t have a plan and I don’t know if I will knit or crochet but rather I am going to let the wool tell me what to do and just relax.  Sometimes it is just what you have to do.

Have a lovely week filled with crafty goodness and remember to be kind.

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Tame Those Stripey Yarns

Iris Rose

You know those really lovely stripey skeins of yarn that look so pretty on the shelf and then just jump into your shopping basket and come home with you?  You remember how disappointing it can be when you knit up one of those too gorgeous to leave behind skeins and it turns out that the colour changes are too abrupt?  The must have, love it to death, oh so pretty stripes that look like heck when turned into an actual project can be redeemed!

I am guilty of the same impulse buys that a lot of us are.  There must be a lot of us because the yarn companies keep making new versions of the same stripes, short colour changes or long.  There is a way to minimize the effect of the colour changes that always seem to fall at a place in your project that is just wrong.

This hat knitting has given me plenty of opportunities to play with colour.  I have always doubled two yarns of contrasting colours to make a bulky yarn that will calm down a too bright (but again, oh so pretty) yarn and make it usable.  I have been experimenting with ways to cure the colour change.

It means that the yarn is doubled but a number of today’s yarns are thinner than they were a few years ago.  I start with matching the colours from both ends of the skein.  I like to rewind my yarn into a cake before starting to check for knots and this also facilitates using two ends easily.  Then I will pull one end out to about half way through the colour so that points where the colour changes do not line up.  Start knitting or crocheting and you will see a lovely blending of the stripes so that there are no abrupt changes. The first hat is Lion Brand Landscape which is a worsted weight.  I knit this one with 8mm needles.

 

Next up is made with Red Heart Unforgettable, a little lighter that knit up nicely doubled on 6.5mm needles.  I also tried crocheting with the same method and you can see how the colour changes are softened.

 

 

Finally we have Red Heart Roll With It Melange in two colourways.

 

You can also use one end of a self striping yarn and one of a solid colour.  This hat was made that way using the same Roll With It as in the hat above and a light worsted in medium grey.

It really is that easy.  I used Red Heart Roll With It for a couple of projects and, even though the colour changes are quite short, I still ended up with a pretty tweedy effect that softened the visual impact of the yarn.  I hope that this little tip has helped you with ideas to use up that part of the stash that is calling out to you for guidance!

Have a lovely week, stay safe and be kind.