Tag: child

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.

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

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.

Knitting, Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Where Did February Go??

Iris Rose

It seems that being home every day just makes time fly by faster.  I feel like I blinked and February disappeared into the past.  I have been merrily crafting away thinking that I just blogged a few weeks ago and I am kind of stuck in a rut so it’s okay to wait another week and, zoom, six seven weeks have slipped away.

 

As I said, I have been busy.  I wrote last time about knitting hats and how soothing and mindless it is.  On January 16th I had finished seventeen hats and thought that I was doing pretty darn good thank you very much.  I laid out the hats that I have knitted up to today and I have reached an astonishing fifty-five!  I should reach my goal by early June.

 

I actually have a few more than that as I added a couple that I had left from the last craft sale that I did and I machine knit ten hat and scarf sets too.  I am in love with the popular fluffy, furry pompoms as the photos show!

 

My goal is one hundred hand knit hats so that is the tally that really counts for me.  I just cast on number fifty six.

 

Thank you for looking and have a lovely crafty week and be kind to each other.