I did a project yesterday!  And it turned out even better than it looked in my head!!  Isn’t it the best thing ever when that happens?!

Our house is extremely (embarrassingly?) Ikea-heavy with the decor… so I’ve been trying to find ways to personalize our Ikea, make our home more us.  I got these awesome vintage handles from Portland vintage-stuff-shop Smut (So Many Unique Treasures) awhile back, for some other project that didn’t really happen… so they were waiting for the perfect use…

And then in the move, we discovered that these boxes we were using from Pete’s work fit exactly perfectly into this shelving unit!  The idea turned out so well that you totally can’t tell they’re just old cardboard boxes behind those fabric fronts:

So, I’m going to show you how I made them, but you may just want to use some concepts with different kinds of boxes and a different kind of shelving unit to fit your own home needs…

For each drawer, I used:

• a cardboard box that fits perfectly into the shelf space
• a piece of fabric about an inch longer than the front of the box on all 4 sides
• a vintage handle
• screws to fit the handle, and washers for each screw
• a hot glue gun
• a box cutter, scissors, a screwdriver, and embroidery scissors

Start out by cutting the three (side and back) top flaps off the box.  Don’t cut off the front flap, the flap attached to the side where the fabric will be going.  I’ll talk about what to do with that flap later…  Then decide on handle placement, poke holes where the screws will go, and stick the screws in through the back, so the front looks like this:

Center your fabric piece on top of the box front, then use your embroidery scissors to cut little holes where the screws are.  Push the screws through the fabric, so it looks like this:

The screws holding it in place will help keep the fabric all lined up while gluing.  I glue the edges down starting with the bottom center, work my way outwards, up one side, up the other side, then the top, starting with the center again.  I glue a couple inches at a time, squeezing the hot glue along the fold of the box, then press the fabric down from above the fold, around the corner down to the cut edge of the fabric, so the glue spreads out from the box fold to the fabric edge.  Make sense?  The great thing about using hot glue is that by the time you finish one side and start gluing the other side, the first side is cooled enough that you can pull it taut, smoothing out the fabric nicely.  Once the sides are all glued down, you can go back and smooth the corners down well with some extra glue:

Now take out those screws for putting in the handle.  There are a couple different ways to deal with the top flat.  For the first box drawer I made (the orange+gold patterned one), I just cut off the top along with the other flaps, and wrapped the fabric around the top.  Sadly, that made for a not-straight top edge, which I’m sure will bother me forever… So for my second try, I cut the flap off with a couple inches attached, then I folded that bit over and taped it down.  I did this before the fabric-gluing step, by the way…

And, for these first two drawers, this is how the handle was attached in the back – an extra piece of cardboard for extra strength, washers, screws through all the layers to the handles…

So then for my last drawer, I realized I could just not cut the front flap at all, fold it down, and use that flap for my extra cardboard layer.  Duh!  It was easier in theory than in practice – the flap doesn’t like to be held down flat like that (when I was first trying to get my holes placed, pre-fabric-gluing, I ended up pushing the entire screw and screwdriver through both cardboard layers – washers are important here!).  So, it’s a bit tricky, and requires some effort and patience, but it works out great in the end – straight top edge, extra strength where the handle is attached, simple construction…

For that last drawer, I used a square of fabric that happened to be the exact size as the box front, so no extra to fold around the edges.  When gluing the top edge of the fabric down, be sure to account for the top flap being folded down, so you don’t stretch the fabric unevenly after gluing.  And, a top view of the handle:

Tah dah!  I love them so much!  Plan on making more, as soon as Pete brings more of these boxes home from work!

Now we just need to figure out some awesome things to fill all those empty shelf squares…

So I just released a new pattern (Swerve!) and you’ll notice how the cuffs and hands are knit in opposite directions (or, perpendicular directions really) – but hey guess what!  There’s no picking up stitches and no seaming!  How is that so, you might ask… well, I’m about to show you!  I have been doing a ton of experimenting (ohmygosh so much) over the last several months and I want to share with you everything I’ve discovered, learned, ruled out, with all of my trials and errors…

The method – which has existed, of course, as all knitterly things have, and I have just unvented, as the great Elizabeth Zimmermann liked to say – I am calling the sideways edge cast-on, because edges (cuffs, brims, etc) are what I’ve been using it for and what it seems great for.  However, if you are an experienced and clever garment knitter, you may figure out how it could be used for joining sections of sweaters (casting on the sleeve stitches as you work the body, perhaps? maybe, maybe not?) or other purposes beyond edges.

My how-to, notes, etc in this post can be used by designers, of course, but I think it spreads further than that – if you are a knitter who hates picking up stitches, you can take any pattern that involves a sideways brim/cuff/etc and calls for picking up the stitches, and convert it to a sideways edge cast-on instead!

A quick note to new knitters:  since this post is going to be crazy long as it is, I will not be describing what I mean when I say things like “kfb”, “turn”, etc – you can use sites like knittinghelp.com, knitty, and just plain google, to figure out what things mean if you’re not yet familiar.  Sorry, I just don’t want this post to turn into a book!

And an extra note (edited to add this): if all this that follows seems over your head, you should know that knitting a pattern that uses the technique (like Swerve) is not challenging at all really – it’s just increases and plain knitting, and there’s no need to understand this post first, pretty easy peasy once you get started!  Remember, all knitting is is pulling loops of yarn through loops of yarn with needles!

Below is an example of a version of the method having been worked as a hat brim.  While the technique can be used with any kind of stitch pattern (plenty of stockinette swatch examples coming up soon), garter stitch is an excellent fabric for the edge/brim/cuff/whatever for two major reasons:  texture and stretchiness.  As you’ll see soon, different kinds of bumps and things are created by the “casting-on” of new stitches as the edge is worked, so garter stitch is great at hiding those.  And the stretchiness – you can achieve different effects with your edging by adding different amounts of cast-on stitches, and garter stitch will stretch to adjust to the ratio of stitches to rows that you choose….. more on that in a minute…

The “cast-on” stitches in this method are essentially taking the place of stitches which would otherwise be picked up along the side of the edge piece, with “cast-on” being in quotations there because the stitches are actually added with increases, then left behind with short rows, waiting for you to come back to them later when the edge section is finished.  (I’ll stop it with the quotations now - from this point on, know that cast-on stitches are referring to the stitches you’re adding along the side.)

Now, what was up with that “ratio of stitches to rows” issue mentioned above?  Well, if you’re familiar with picking up stitches along the side of knit fabric, you know that it’s usually not just 1 stitch picked up for every 1 row.  It could be, but a standard ratio for stockinette knitting is 3 stitches for every 4 rows.  When working the sideways edge cast-on, you’ll be adding stitches every time you turn your work, so you need to account for the row working up to it, and the row coming back down – adding 3 stitches for every 4 rows means adding 3 stitches every 2 times you turn your work (or 1.5 stitches per turn).  There are different ways to deal with this, which I’ll go into later on.  (If you need a ratio other than that, or 1 stitch to 1 row, or 1 stitch to 2 rows, such as 2 stitches to 3 rows, you’ll need to do the math to find that you need 4 stitches to every 3 times you turn, and adjust the increases accordingly.)

Now, wait, you (hopefully) have an understanding of how this method takes the place of picking up stitches, but how does it actually work?  Here’s what you do:  work whatever brim, cuff, edge you want sideways (in the above examples it’s the garter stitch cuff and brim), and each time you turn at the side which will become the cast-on side, you increase 1 or 2 stitch(es) and leave it/them behind, using short rows – next time you work up the edge, turn your work before knitting (or purling) the new stitch(es) you just added. So, as you work across sideways, there is a trail of stitches remaining unworked at the edge of each row, forming a new cast-on edge. When your cuff/brim/edge is complete, join around if you want to start knitting in the round (or not if you’re working flat), either bind-off or graft/3-needle bind off the working stitches up the side, and start working across all those top cast-on stitches.

I’ll move on to a photo step-by-step, for you visual learners, but first, a couple more notes… When I say edge stitches I’ll mean the stitches in the cuff/brim/whatever (like the garter stitch stitches in the examples above) – this number of stitches always stays the same, even as you add more and more stitches along the side (which are the cast-on stitches).  It’s not totally necessary, but this technique is made easier by using a stitch marker.  Later on, I’ll simplify the specifics of different variations without mentioning the marker, but just know that sticking a marker in your work (before increases happen – usually at 1 stitch less than the edge stitch number, as you’ll see below) will help you keep track easily so working the edge will become somewhat mindless knitting.

Now as for these how-to photos (well, scans, actually) below – remember, this version being worked in the pictures is one of many, as the point is to show you a visual of how stitches are added along the side.  After the process shots, you’ll see a bunch of different swatches which have been worked differently, but always with the same concept of adding stitches at one end, then leaving them behind.

So, start out by casting on the number of stitches in your edge – you may want to use a provisional cast-on so you can graft or 3-needle bind-off later if you’ll be working in the round.  In this example, my edge number is 6 stitches, and after casting on I knit one row, then purled one row to get started (these starting rows can change depending on pattern specifics), followed by my first increase row, so the beginning goes:

• Cast-on 6 stitches.
• Knit 1 row.
• Purl 1 row.
• Kfb, place marker, k to end.

And now it looks like:

So, the marker is set up at 1 stitch before the final edge stitch (the piece will always be: 5 stitches, then marker, 1 last edge stitch, then all the cast-on stitches).  Next is my first wrong side row, which will always be the same (work the edge stitches, then turn):

• WS row:  Purl to marker, pass marker, p1, turn.

…followed by the right side row which increases by 2 stitches.  To get a ratio of 3 stitches added for every 4 rows (that’s 2 turns), I’ll be switching between adding 2 stitches and adding 1 stitch, every other turn.  The first increase was by 1, so now I’ll be knitting into the front and the back, to add 2:

• RS row1:  Kfbf (below, left), pass marker, k to end.

Then repeat the wrong side row, and work an increase row which only adds 1 stitch, so the next 2 rows go:

• Repeat WS row.
• RS row2:  Kfb, pass marker, k to end.

Now just repeat those four rows – WS, RS 1, WS, RS 2 – across the whole edge section.  Below, right is what the piece looks like after working a kfb in a RS row2 after a couple of repeats – see how those increased stitches are becoming a cast-on row along the top:

After a little while, once completing a RS row (working to the end), the work will bunch up on the straight needle, since the stitches are going in two different directions (below, left).  If you’re working on a circular needle, you can move the work up to the cord and see how the cast-on stitches line up across the top, while the edge stitches go down the side (below, right):

If working a pattern which is telling you to pick up a certain number of stitches along the edge, then you’ll want to simply count the cast-on stitches and stop with the edge when the number reaches the picked-up stitches number – example:  In Alexandra Virgiel’s Coronet hat pattern in knitty, you’re told to pick up 84[90, 96] sts from edge of band, approximately 2 sts for every 3 rows.  (Of course, this is a different ratio than what we’ve been working in this sample, so for this pattern you’d need to work two RS row2’s in a row, then one RS row1, so you’re adding 4 stitches for every 6 rows, or 3 turns.)  So, work the edge (“band” – in the cable pattern) until the cast-on stitches reach 84[90,96] stitches, then you have your the base of the hat cast on – no picking up needed!  (There’s a little more to altering a pattern than just what I’ve said – you’ll need to figure out specifics, like how to begin, yourself.)

When the stitches reach whatever number you’re working to, either bind-off the edge stitches, or join around (if working around) and 3-needle bind-off, or graft, or whatever you want to do with the edges of your sideways edging (below, left).  Now start working those cast-on stitches – either start working in the round, or just start working across.  In this case, I’m working flat, so I purled across the first row, after which my piece looked like that, below, right:

If you’re working around, there’s no purl row necessary, of course – simply join around and start knitting!  (This will make some variations below much easier, as you’ll see soon.)  And below is my little swatch after working several rows upwards… from this point one, now that you know the concept of working up the edge stitches, turning and increasing (or sometimes increasing and turning), and working back down to the end, I’ll be simplifying instructions to tell you different kinds of increases you can use, etc.

A different way to get a ratio other than 1 stitch to 1 row or 1 stitch to 2 rows is to add extra stitches across the top when working your first row into the cast-on stitches.  This makes working the edge easier (no keeping track of whether you’re supposed to be kfb‘ing or kfbf‘ing) and makes for a different look when you’re finished, as you can see below.

Now in all my experimenting, I’ve tried this several different ways and learned – when adding stitches along the top during your first row working those cast-on stitches, using a kfb increase, or the type of m1 increase where you simply twist a backward loop onto the needle, will leave you with huge holes along the edge!

The only kind of increase I know that works when adding stitches along the top is the m1 increase where you pick up the strand going between the two stitches and knit (or purl) into the back loop.  So, when I say m1, that’s what I mean, when I say m1-p, I mean to purl into the back loop.

Below is a simple and effective way to work this type of sideways edge cast-on – work the edge like the above method, except just kfb’ing after every time you turn, leaving 1 stitch behind for each turn (ratio = 1 stitch per 2 rows).  Then the first time you purl across them all (if working flat), work the row like so:

• [Purl 2, m1-p] repeat across row.

If working in the round, it’s even easier, since m1′ing knit-wise is easier to do than m1-p’ing – just [Knit 2, m1] across the first round.

Here is yet another way to achieve the 3 stitches to 4 rows ratio – adding stitches on either side of the turn, before the turn every time and after the turn only half the time.  The swatch below is worked like so:

Here is another way I tried, which didn’t work so well, leaving a weird loose row above the edging…  It’s a variation on the example two up – the “m1-p every 2 stitches across the top” version.  Since m1-p’ing is kind of annoying, I thought, if working flat, maybe I could just purl across the whole first row, then [knit 2, m1] across the next (right-side) row.  Here’s the result:

A side note – when first starting, you might want to think about where you want your yarn end, depending on if you’ll be using it to sew up the seam or anything;  you may choose to start with either a RS row or a WS row after casting-on, which would leave the yarn end on the opposite sides of your edge (like you might notice on the above two swatches, which started with opposite rows).

Ok another issue – in all the above examples, the row working up to the turn has been the wrong-side (WS) row, with the RS row working down from the turn.  I decided this is ideal after much swatching and experimenting – when I first started playing with the concept, I was working the row up to the turn as the RS and coming back down was the WS.  Here is an example, the swatch below was worked like so:

• RS:  Knit edge stitches, turn.
• WS:  Kfb, purl to end.
• First row working across cast-on stitches:  [Knit 2, m1] repeat across.

You’ll see how all those bumps are left on the right side – and I know I kfb on the wrong side here, leaving extra bumps, but pfb’ing is not much better…

So how about trying a way with less bumpy increases?  Here’s another variation I tried – looks pretty cool, I think, but still a bit busier than the methods which treat the going up row as the WS…  It’s worked like so:

• RS:  Knit edge stitches, m1, k1, turn.
• WS:  Sl1, purl to end.
• First row working across cast-on stitches:  [Knit 2, m1] repeat across.

What if you need to work at a ratio of 1 stitch to every 2 rows (maybe because your body will be a lace pattern, or something)?  Awesome!  That makes things much simpler and neater looking, since every turn will be identical, with no extra stitches needing to be added later.  Work any kind of increase method you like, just adding 1 stitch for every turn.

If you are experienced with short rows, you may have been thinking, shouldn’t I be wrapping my stitches each time I turn?  Well, I’ve played around with that, oh yes I have.  In the adding 1 stitch per turn example below, wrapping the stitches (as you can see on the left half of the swatch) worked out pretty nicely, actually, though not necessary…

…but after much experimenting with normal 3 stitches to 4 rows types of patterns, I’ve concluded that wrapping stitches is no good!  Below, you’ll see 4 different trials using wrapped stitches to close holes caused by using the m1 type of increase where you twist a backwards loop onto the needle (I call m1-loop) – I figured, this kind of easy increase usually leaves a hole when used in a sideways edge cast-on, so what if I close that hole by wrapping the next stitch?  Well, yeah, no holes, but I think every version (working the wraps together with the wrapped stitches, or not; adding extra stitches while working the edge, or while working into the first cast-on row) looks pretty bad:

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t play around with wrapping stitches if you want to… I’ve tried it with a normal kfb increase method as well – it looks fine, but just isn’t needed, so what’s the point?  I’d rather not bother wrapping if I don’t have to, you know?

Ok now I’ll move on to some garter stitch edge stuff… remember how I mentioned the stretchiness of garter being perfect for this technique?  Here’s what I meant…

Adding just 1 stitch per turn (1 stitch per 2 rows) makes for a thick, unstretched, squishy edge – great for a cozy warm hat brim or cuff:

Adding 3 stitches for every 2 turns (3 stitches per 4 rows) gives you a slightly stretched garter stitch edge – perfect for an elastic-y brim or cuff that will stay put and be fitted:

And adding 2 stitches at every turn (1 stitch per 1 row) will make a very stretched edge with a flared out body/main section – excellent for a slouchy beret type hat:

The other garter stitch benefit I mentioned above is the texture – it doesn’t matter so much which variation you choose to work with garter stitch (the same would go for seed/moss stitch, or any other stitch with lots of purl bumps, etc) since those bumps you see in all the stockinette examples above will be hidden in the texture.  But, the WS/RS thing will matter a little – below you can see the difference between treating the working up to the turn side as the RS or the WS.  One version isn’t clearly bad, but I do much prefer the side working down from the turn as the RS (like I talked about above) – I think the join between the edge and the body is nicer looking and more seamless (that’s the version on the right):

Phew, this has been long – I hope you have a good grasp of the technique and can take it into your pattern altering and/or designing!  (Be sure to comment here and show me your results! Fun!)

If you need a more hands-on way of trying it out, my new mitts pattern uses the method – with a garter stitch cuff, adding 1 stitch per turn, then m1′ing every 2 stitches around the first row into the cast-on edge.  Here’s what the cuff looks like after working the edge stitches, before turning:

And below, you can see what it looks like after working down to the end (if this was a circular needle, the cast-on stitches could curve around the cord); then what the cuff looks like after seaming up the side with a 3-needle bind-off, ready to work the first row into the cast-on edge, in the round:

And, the finished mitts!  (One size too big for me!)

Self-striping yarn is fun with this technique, making it super clear that the work is in different directions:

Check out the Swerve pattern details on my site or on ravelry – it’ll soon be part of Knit Picks’ Independent Designers Program, which is why it’s so low priced ($2.50).  As you’ll see on the pattern pages, it will be dropping to $2 after September 1st, but for right now, $1 of each pattern sold gets donated to the Pancreatic Craftacular, so you can feel good about your purchase!

Oh yeah I almost forgot: thanks to Mary-Heather for the great name idea!  Get your swerve on!!

I’m also currently working on a set of hat patterns, all with garter stitch brims – the plan is to have 3 different brim types (which are the three different ratios of stitches to rows that I talked about above with garter stitch) and 3 different top decrease designs, and then for all the variations to be any-gauge and interchangeable (like, choose brim type #2 worked extra wide, with top style #1, in this yarn that’s a weird weight, measuring to get the sizing all perfect as you go)!  Exciting!

By the way, striping between 2 colors is a fabulous way to easily keep track of your increases when switching between adding 1 stitch and adding 2 stitches at each turn along the edge – just know that color #1 always increases by one, and color #2 always increases by two!

So, you can see the whole different ratios making for different levels of stretch thing in action with these examples – that top hat was worked with 1 stitch added per turn, for a thick, squishy, unstretched brim.  The hat below was worked with 2 stitches being added at each turn, causing the body of the hat to flare out above the brim, and the brim to stretch and hold on to the head, all elastic-y:

And now that I’ve said everything I can think of to say about this technique that I’m so excited about, I’ll talk a little more about the whole “unventing” of it… I had this brainstorm (“Couldn’t I use increases and short-rows to add stitches along the side of a hat brim, for a sideways edge and a round body?”) about 6 months ago, and started swatching right away, super excited about the discovery.  The more I played, the more excited I got, and I started asking my knitting and designing friends if they’d ever seen it done before, everyone saying no (I even asked here on the blog awhile back)… But, I knew, it’s been done before, of course it has, it’s just not publicly known in the current knitting world, so I was pretty darn excited to share it with you!

As Elizabeth Zimmermann said, “…I can’t imagine that I alone unvented [the technique], but I certainly discovered it in my own brain single-handed.”

The maybe ironic-ish thing about that quote specifically (from page 74 of Knitter’s Almanac) is that she is talking about her sideways edging type of bind-off (don’t know if there’s an official name for this technique) which is basically the exact opposite of the sideways edge cast-on.  You knit an edge onto a piece while binding off at the same time by decreasing the last 2 stitches of each row together… I feel like if I had known about this method, it would have led me right to my discovery (which, chances are, EZ herself used at some point or another, I’d guess), but I didn’t learn of this bind-off until some of you readers mentioned it back in that blog post when I asked you about the cast-on.

Aaaanyway… that’s just kind of a random side note.  I want to quote EZ talking about unventing since I love her and the way she writes:

Do you mind the word ‘unvented’?  I like it.  Invented sounds to me rather pompous and conceited.  I picture myself as a knitting inventor, in a clean white coat, sitting in a workshop full of tomes of reference, with charts and graphs on the walls.  Not real knitters’ charts, which are usually scribbled on odd and dog-eared pieces of squared paper, or even ordinary paper with homemade squares on it, but charts like sales charts, and graphs like the economy.  I have a thoughtful expression behind my rimless glasses and hold a neatly-shaped pencil.  Who knows but that I don’t have a bevy of hand-knitters in the backroom, tirelessly toiling at the actual knit and purl of my deathless designs.

Rubbish.

But, unvented – ahh!  One un-vents something; one unearths it; one digs it up, one runs it down in whatever recesses of the eternal consciousness it has gone to ground.  I very much doubt if anything is really new when one works in the prehistoric medium of wool with needles.  The products of science and technology may be new, and some of them are quite horrid, but knitting? In knitting there are ancient possibilities; the earth is enriched with the dust of the millions of knitters who have held wool and needles since the beginning of sheep.  Seamless sweaters and one-row buttonholes; knitted hems and phoney seams – it is unthinkable that these have, in mankind’s history, remained undiscovered and unknitted.  One likes to believe that there is memory in the fingers; memory undeveloped, but still alive.

LOVE.  (from Knitter’s Almanac, July chapter)

And, I want to thank the designers group on ravelry for reminding me of EZ’s term, which I’d forgotten, and pointing out some places where the sideways edge cast-on technique has, indeed, been used before.  It is a method commonly used in machine knitting, it turns out, or something very similar at least; Iris Schreier used the method in her Diagonal Triangle Tank design from 2006; Lucy Neatby has used it, or something like it, and surely there are many more instances.

I am surprised that it seems most knitters (myself included) have never seen it done before, and I hate picking up stitches, so I’m so happy to have finally experimented enough to be able to share it with you!  I really hope my explanations and ramblings made sense.  Enjoy!!

Look what I made yesterday!  I had this brainstorm about making dry erase magnets back when I was making magnet projects for the May club, but I was just going to try it with white paper, for a plain white background… then I saw this tutorial via Craft: and thought of using images for the backgrounds!  Now I have a great looking note-taking station on my fridge!

First you’ll need a basic flat magnet – freebie promo magnets work fabulously.  If you can find an image that’s light and low-contrast enough that you’ll be able to see notes written over it, then you just need glue (glue stick works well) and packing tape – higher quality, thick tape is ideal, as opposed to the really cheap, thin type.

Cut the image (could be: magazine/book picture, photograph, printed out image, etc) into a rectangle a bit bigger than the magnet.  Glue it onto the magnet, then trim the paper neatly around the edges.  (Now it’s probably good to let the glue dry, but I didn’t because I was anxious to finish and see how it worked!)

Smooth a piece of packing tape over the front – as you can see below, my packing tape was just a wee bit more narrow than my magnet… Since my magnets are thin and easy to cut with scissors, I decided to trim the magnet to tape size, but you can also deal with this problem by layering another piece of tape to cover the whole surface:

Trim the tape around the edges and your functional dry erase magnet is complete!

If you want to use an image that’s too dark/bright/high-contrast for the writing to be clear on top, then you can add an extra step to make it work…  You’ll just need tracing paper or tissue paper (or some other kind of paper that’s translucent enough for the image to show through, but will dull it enough so the writing will be clear), plus basic white glue (or Mod Podge will work) and a brush for the glue:

Complete the first couple of steps from above – cut out the image and glue it onto the magnet – then spread out white glue over the top of the image (photo is before spreading it out with the brush):

Now smooth the tracing paper or tissue paper over the top… I used tissue paper because it’s all I had, but I’d expect tracing paper to work much better, since it wouldn’t tear nearly as easily.  On my first try, I attempted to smooth out the tissue with my fingers, ended up tearing the paper badly, and had to peel it off and start over.  So, just smooth it out the best you can without ripping it:

Then trim the edges, add the tape over the top (after the glue is dry would be best), just like the first version above, and there you go!  By the way, both of my images came from an old yarn company catalog – great source for background images!

To complete your refrigerator’s dry erase station, you’ll need a clip magnet big and strong enough to hold a dry erase marker, and if there’s a spot where you can stick a piece of paper towel to use as an eraser, excellent!  Or, you can make one of these awesome fridge tin pen holders by Not Martha!

And then my other note-taking magnet idea – this one needs no tutorial because it’s so simple – chalkboard magnet!  Buy some chalkboard paint at your local craft supply store (I used this kind), follow the instructions on the container to paint over your basic flat magnet, and tah dah!  Love it!

And then going back to my club magnet projects to finish things off… I mentioned these over here, but not in any detail.  I used a simple foam stamp (from the dollar section at Joann, impulse buy!) to stamp designs onto old book pages, then cut out the shapes and layered them on the magnets:

You could use the same concept with drawings over the book pages, or you could layer pictures from magazines or photographs over the text background… this one is a rectangle of book page with a stamp on it, then another cut-out stamp design layered over that.  I like the look of the text going in different directions on the 2 layers:

Then the final magnet idea, also from the club, was record album artwork magnets – no instructions needed, just cut out a piece of old album cover and glue it onto the magnet:

If you make over some reclaimed magnets using any of these ideas, I’d love to see them!  Happy crafting!

While flipping through The Big Ass Book of Home Decor a couple weeks ago, I came across a project like this – yarn-wrapped twig arrangement.  I felt like I’d seen similar projects online too, like it wasn’t the first time I’d seen a branch wrapped in yarn, but now I can’t find anything in blog-land (at the bottom, I linked to some other related projects that I did find!)… Anyway, mine is a bit different from the book project, so now I’ll share it with you!

I wanted to use a glue gun, but some crafty items got temporarily lost in the move and my guns were nowhere to be found, so I came up with methods that use as little glue as possible.  Some glue was necessary, so I used Aleene’s Tacky Glue, which worked very well.

All you need for this project are some branches/twigs (the size and amount that you want for your vase or other arrangement plan), yarn leftover scraps, glue, and scissors.

You can barely see, but I tried out something with the solid blue yarn that I thought would look cool – as I was balling up the yarn, I tied knots in it all throughout, which made little bumps on the branches.  It would indeed look cool, I think, if I did more; if you make knots, make them super frequently (like every 4-6 inches or so).  I think I knotted the yarn an average of every 18-24 inches-ish, and that makes the knots pretty far apart on the branches, oops!

To make the scrappy version, you’ll need a bunch of yarn bits around 1-2 feet long.  For either version, to start wrapping at the bottom of your branch, wrap the yarn around itself a couple times then start wrapping upwards.  I found no need to knot or glue the piece at the bottom, just holding the tip down and overlapping it in the first wraps worked out well.

To change colors, when you have about 3-4 inches of your first color left, hold the tip of the next color alongside the branch.  Wrap the last 2-3 wraps of the first color around the end of the next color:

Hold the end of the first color against the branch, and start wrapping with the next color over the first color, wrapping over the tip to hold it down:

When you reach the end, cut the yarn when it’s wrapped all the way to the top, then unwrap a couple times around, dot some glue on the branch end, and wrap back over the glue.

To wrap the offshoots, the number one rule is be careful – they can be easy to snap!  Either wrap up over the offshoot and back down to continue upwards, like the red yarn above, or you can wrap the end of a new color into the base, continue up the main branch, and then use that new yarn for the offshoot.  The neatest way is to wrap up the offshoot just like the rest of the branch is wrapped, and glue it off at the tip, but on smaller offshoots you can wrap up loosely (further apart wraps), then wrap back down to the base, normally, so it’s double-wrapped and there’s no need for gluing the end.

By the way, I do recommend doing this project over newspapers – the little twig dust gets everywhere on your workspace, so newspaper makes for easy cleanup!

If you do snap an offshoot after wrapping, like you can see I did below, you can glue it back together, twisting it to get the wrapping back in place as much as possible.

So, just keep on wrapping until you’ve wrapped all the branches you want…

Then arrange them in a vase, or whatever (some kind of wall art arrangement could also be rad looking):

I had a fun time photographing mine, it’s so colorful and fun!  I love how it turned out!!

I made this one for our bathroom, which is white and boring, so now it’s cheery and colorful! Yay!  If we had some kind of entry area, this might be a great piece for that (bigger and crazier, perhaps)…

So, as I was searching around to see if other crafters had made similar projects, I found some fun other ways to decorate with branches/twigs… I super love Betz White’s pussy willow rainbow, made with felt balls.  I also love the idea of pom poms on twigs, like Apartment Therapy shows here, and row home living shows here.

Other ideas: branch jewelry holder, cherry blossom branch, and cherry blossom branch lights!  I think I see a roundup developing here…..

It’s a fun project, I’d love to see photos if anyone does it!  The scrappy branch is my favorite for sure – I love that I found a use for some of my scrap jar yarn!!

My club mail out day was Tuesday, and, like I do every month, I put the 2 patterns up on ravelry and flickr after sending out the pdf to the members.  Normally, since the patterns aren’t available to the public, plus they are small trinkets that most knitters don’t seem to care much about, this doesn’t really mean anything – but holy crap you guys, this light-switch cover pattern has gotten a crazy response!!

It got blogged on Knit Hacker and the number of hearts on ravelry have surpassed not just all my club patterns, but most of my full-sized patterns as well!  Of course, I so wish I could be selling the pattern to everyone who loves it, but my club promises exclusivity for 3 months, so it’s members-only until August… this system will actually be changing soon, but that’s another post for another time…

Anyway, for the record, the knit switch plate concept was Pete’s idea!  I had thought of the cord pull for the Home Decor club theme, and we were trying to brainstorm other ideas, and genius Pete thought of this!  Here is my first try – the center hole was messy and uneven, so I tried solving the problem with ribbon, which probably made it look worse:

So, moving on to the point of this post, making the knit plate cover got me all inspired to make more, since the switch plates our house came with looked like these, about half of each:

A quick note to club members – most of you should have gotten your packages by now, but if you haven’t (because you live outside the US perhaps) and you don’t want any spoilers, you probably want to stop reading now and come back to this post once you’ve opened your package!

My first try, covering a switch plate with a book page, was a bit silly… I tried attaching the page to the textured kind of plate pictured above, with spray adhesive, not a good match, so the edges never really glued down.  But I learned from my mistakes and made some rad ones, and plan to make another, better book page plate, for the library light switch!  Once I started seeing how cool covered plates look, and how simple they are to make, I decided to include some extra goodies in the club packages that could be used to make more switch plates!

So I included a couple of book pages and half of a record album cover, with a little instruction sheet for how to turn them into either magnets or switch plates…  The instructions included are just text, so I thought it would be a good idea, and fun for everyone, to put up a more visual how-to here, for making a switch plate with an old album cover!  (This is just how I made mine, and I am definitely not an expert – there are lots of great switch plate tutorials out there from people with more experience, which I collected for my recent Threadbanger roundup here, so check those out to see how to cover plates with fabric, polymer clay, and other things!)

Let’s get started!  First, you’ll need:

• an old record album cover with a good switch-plate-sized image
• an X-acto knife
• a basic switch plate
• craft glue (I use Aleene’s Tacky Glue, but there may be glues that would work better for this type of project), and a brush to spread the glue

Start by laying the plate down on the album and positioning it where you want the image, keeping in mind the where the holes will be for the switch and screws.

Use the blade to trace around the plate, with plenty of extra space for the curved edges – I made mine so the the paper curved around to the edge of the plate, but I think it would be better to have more extra image so it wraps around to the back a little.  To have it wrap around the back, cut at least a half inch out from the plate edges.

You don’t need to press down through the whole album cover cardboard piece with the knife, as you’ll see in the next step that you’ll just be using the top image layer…

Carefully separate the image into its own layer, peeling the cardboard apart – this is easier with some albums than with others, depending on age and wear.  You want the image layer to be as thin as possible, but not to rip; though if it does rip, you can put it back together when you glue it onto the switch plate.

Peel it all the way off and you should have a rectangle of thin cardboard with your image, curling up at the edges.  If it seems too thick to be able to curve around the switch plate smoothly, you can carefully peel more cardboard layers from the back.

Now lay the switch plate on top of the rectangle, centered, and cut an X across the switch hole, from corner to corner.  Also, punch holes with your blade where the screw holes are, but they don’t need to be big or neat, since you can twist through them with screws later.  Now turn the cardboard piece upside down and fold the X tabs back, like this:

Note: in the club instruction sheet, I just said to cut out the hole, but I’ve since found that this X method makes for a neater switch plate.  This first one I made used the cut-out-hole method, and it looks fine, just a little more handmade-y or something.  Here is a progress shot of that one, with the cut-out hole:

Before gluing on, curve the edges back, like how they’ll be curved around the plate, with your fingers.  Now cover the back with glue…

…then spread the glue to all the edges, corners, and X tabs with a brush (I used a foam brush, but a paint brush should work fine):

Position the plate onto the glued piece, and center it so that the holes and edges line up:

This part gets messy, if you’re doing everything with your fingers like I do… Pull the X tabs down, and curve all the edges around, keeping everything centered and straight (it’ll want to slide around the whole time).  If you cut the piece bigger to curve around to the back, press the cardboard on to the back.

For the corners, I first curve the edges around up to the corners, then fold the corners down, as you can kind of see above and below.  You could also make the corners neater by making small cuts in them so they curve around without folding like this.

Let it dry, punch through the screw holes and twist them open with the screws (below).  Then you can coat it to make it longer-lasting.  (You could cover it with Mod Podge, or use something like Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear, which is what’s recommended in The Big Ass Book of Crafts – I’ve never used it, but I bet it would work well and make your switch plate more permanent and durable.)

Screw it into the wall and enjoy!  I put mine in the bathroom to brighten it up in there, but I might need to make some kind of over-sized plate (like this or this one, for example) to hide that terrible paint job around the switch…

By the way, I have no idea who that is on my plate – anyone know?  It’s on some best of the 70’s album with this watercolor collagey kind of artwork… I just like the colors and the happy tone of the image.  Ok that’s all, and I’m hoping to be posting more home decor projects soon! Yay!

Here it is, part 4 of my yarn dyeing tutorial series!  This is probably a good place to announce, my next big project (not counting all the smaller projects I’m currently working on) is a yarn dyeing ebook!  I’m guessing the release date will be around late summer, and it will be awesome, seriously.  Everything you could ever possibly want to know about dyeing yarn the way I do it, plus a bunch of knitting patterns designed to work especially well with hand-dyed… it will rock. hard.

This how-to is just for the striping, not the dyeing itself – for how to dye, see my recent part 3 post, and my old part 1 and part 2 dyeing tutorials, plus the other sites I linked to, and a bunch of questions and answers in the comments of part 3.  If you’ve never dyed, I strongly encourage you to dye up a couple skeins of solid or simple variegated yarn before going for the long stripes!  And here we go…

Place two chairs facing each other, as far apart as you want for your stripes.  My yarn is dyed with suuuper long stripes (I think around 12 yards), so it was wound across my whole apartment – from the corner of the living room to the end of the dining room (granted, my apt is small).  You can make the stripes as long as you want, but this tutorial is kind of optimized for long stripes…

It’s easier to keep your yarn in place with towels around the chairs, so it doesn’t slide.  On one of the chairs, wrap the yarn in sections – I wanted 5 colors striping, so there are 5 sections.  Wind the yarn around the back of one chair, over to the other chair, around the back, and back over to the first – it’s just like winding yarn around your knees or a swift, but just longer, in a huge loop.  On one chair, keep it in order in the sections (wind from top to bottom, and repeat), and the other chair can just be all in one big section.  (Careful with cats, they like yarn you know.)

Tie each of the sections together behind the chair – I color coded mine because I wanted to dye them in a certain color order.  If you don’t care about the order, don’t worry about color coding (and if you’re not lucky enough to find scraps of yarn in each of the colors you’re dyeing, you can just use whatever scraps you can find and write down a key, like black=blue, etc).  Then carefully take off the top section loop and wind it over to the other chair, or just kind of fold it, however you can keep it from getting all tangled.

Tie the yarn together in the back of the other chair, in a figure 8, holding all the yarn securely – this will be where the colors change.  Then tie that first section into a kind of hank, close to the back tie…  Repeat for each section, carefully making 5 (or however many sections you have) different hanks, all attached together at the top:

If you dye them like that, you’ll get major tangling problems later, so you’ll want to add a couple more ties to each hank section – it doesn’t really matter how you tie them, as long as it holds the yarn in place, but not too tightly…

Now soak your yarn and get ready to dye!  For a little color-mixing bonus info, I wanted to tone down my kool-aid colors a wee bit, so I blended them in shot glasses… I was using Lemon Lime, Berry Blue, Strawberry, Orange, and Lemonade (the exact same 5 colors used in my crock pot yarn) – I mixed a little green into the orange, a little orange into the green, a little green into the blue, a little orange into the yellow, and a little blue into the red.  There’s not a huge difference, but if I were to compare my colors to the straight-from-the-packets colors, you’d probably see it…

I dyed this yarn on the stove top, which I think is easiest for this kind of striping – you could use microwave or crock pot methods if you prefer.  You’ll need to set up your dye pot (heat up the water before adding yarn and dye), a bowl with your pre-soaked yarn, and another bowl – I like putting a colander in the other bowl, which helps the yarn cool faster.  Take the first section you want to dye and place it in the heated dye pot, submerging it right up to the edge where all the sections are tied together, but make sure no yarn from the other sections touches the water.

Add color and dye the first section, then lift it out with a spoon (or tongs) and place it into the other bowl (or colander).  Place the next section into the dye pot, and repeat for each section, always being careful to dye up to the end, but not into the other sections.  When dyeing the last color, you can try to fill in any spots that didn’t get dyed from the other sections – I dyed yellow last for this reason, since yellow overlapping with other colors wouldn’t be a problem.

Once it’s cooled, rinsed, and squeezed dry, try to get it all untangled the best you can and hang to dry for a day or two.  When dry, replicate the way it was wound on the chairs.  Start with the side where the colors meet, then untie one section at a time and loop it onto the other chair.  Then hand-wind it all up into a ball – you’ll have to weave it through the loop sometimes to untangle parts, so trying to wind it into a hank instead of a ball can be disastrous (I know from experience)!

Now you have a big, awesome ball of striping yarn! Yay!

Wind it into a hank if you want to photograph it or keep it around for awhile before knitting or crocheting (or weaving) it up…

Mine knit up in these big fat stripes! Fun!  This is a hat – of course, if knitting something like a sweater, the stripes would be more narrow, and on something like mittens, they would be much wider… and, on a finer weight yarn, they’d be more narrow too…  (By the way, my base yarn is Imperial Stock Ranch’s bulky Lopi wool.)

I’d love to see your yarn!  Have fun!

You may not even know about these, but way back at the beginning of this blog, almost 3 years ago, I did a couple of kool-aid yarn dyeing tutorials.  They were specifically how-tos for getting particular kinds of variegation (as opposed to dyeing basics) – part 1 being three blending colors, part 2 longer stripes of random-order solids.  (I’ve just gone back and edited these old posts a little, changing some bad advice I’d given and some minor details, but not anything major.)

So, after 3 years and countless skeins of dyeing experience have now passed, I want to do a couple of new dyeing tutorials for you!  (For the basics of dyeing, if you’re new to it, see the link list in my first tutorial, since this post is only meant for this particular variegation method, not for kool-aid dyeing in general.)

I recently dyed up a skein of bulky yarn (Imperial Stock Ranch Lopi) with 5 different colors in my crock pot, for a spotty, kettle dyed kind of look, as you can see above.  Dyeing in a crock pot is different from dyeing in a pot on the stove because the water is more still, so the dye tends to stick to the yarn where it falls more, and colors tend to blend together less.  This makes a variegated yarn with more defined colors, instead of just a few colors which are blended together.  My specific flavors used were: Lemon Lime, Orange, Strawberry, Berry Blue, and Lemonade.

To get this look, you’ll need a crock pot (I got mine at my local Goodwill outlet for around $5), wool yarn (or a blend with other animal fibers like alpaca, angora, cashmere – a small percentage, like 15% or less, of something man made, like nylon or rayon, would be ok) in hank form, several colors of kool-aid, a large spoon, a colander, and vinegar is optional since kool-aid already has acid, but I usually use a little anyway because I feel like it might help with colorfastness.

So, start by filling the crock pot with water (and a little vinegar if you want) and submerging the yarn in there.  Let it soak a bit, then turn on the heat and put the lid on – the yarn should soak for at least 15 minutes or so (longer is fine) before dyeing, and the lid should fog up to show that it’s hot.  (My vintage pot only has two settings – medium and high – so I usually use medium and it works well.)

Now you can add your first colors – this is all up to you, but I’ll just tell you exactly how I made this particular yarn.  First, I covered one half of the yarn in the pot with orange, and the other half with green (lemon lime), sprinkled directly from the packet into the pot.  Orange and green are complimentary colors (edit: no they’re not! what was I thinking?! but they don’t always blend well, which I what I meant), which means you need to be careful about putting them together, but it doesn’t have to be avoided completely – green with some orange makes an olive green color, and orange with a little green makes a darker orange.  So, I tried not to overlap them at all on purpose, but I knew that if they bled into each other a little, it would be fine.

Cover with the lid and let it sit until the dye fully absorbs into the yarn, so the water looks clear and the yarn is colored.  Now use your spoon to turn the yarn over, so all the undyed yarn from the bottom is now on top.  I tried to keep it arranged the way it was, just flipped, so that the bottom layer stayed orange on one side and green on the other side.  I poured blue on the half that had green below, and red on the side that had orange below.  This was because green and blue blend well, as do red and orange (blue+orange or red+green, not so much) and the top colors were likely to do some blending with the bottom colors.  Red and blue were chosen to add next to each other for the same reason, to make some purple when they touch and blend.

Cover and let the dye absorb again, then use your spoon to turn the yarn around and search for white spots.  I used my last color, yellow (lemonade), which would blend well with all of the other colors, especially since lemonade kool-aid is really light and subtle, to fill in any white spots I could find.  When I found white, I’d arrange the yarn with the spoon so as much white as possible was on top, sprinkle on some lemonade, and cover to let it dye.  Then I kept repeating the white investigation and dyeing until the yellow packet was all used up.  (As you can see, the powder sits on the water surface a little before sinking to the yarn – if it doesn’t sink down right away, you can push it down with the spoon, but this might mix the colors more than you want.)

Once the dyeing is complete, turn off the heat, and let it sit in the water to cool for awhile (until cooled to room temperature is best, but not totally necessary).  Now scoop the skein out with the spoon, into the colander in the sink, and let it cool all the way to room temperature there.  Rinse a bit, with water of the same temperature, and squeeze the water out as much as you can, without twisting.  Roll up in a towel to dry more, shake it out, then hang to dry (in the shower, or on a hanger in a doorway, or on a coat rack, etc) overnight or until totally dry.  Ball up and knit!

A note about my yarn, and the colors I used… red bleeds like crazy, way more than any other color, so even though I used exactly equal amounts of the 5 colors, the red really took over the skein.  (The photo below shows how much red there is.)  So, if you are using the same (or similar) colors as me, and want more even variegation of the colors, I think it would be wise to use about half a packet of red instead of a whole packet.

But, that said, I still love this yarn, and knitting with hand-dyed variegated yarn (that you dyed yourself!) is unbelievably fun and satisfying, an experience I think every knitter should try!  With yarn like this, every stitch is different from the last!

Oh yeah, I should show you, this is the same method I used to dye these yarns (and more):

Fun! Yay! And I’d love to see your yarns dyed using this how-to! (you could link to photos in the comments, or add them to the leethal flickr group!)

Now for part 3 of my Fingerless Mitts Times 3 tutorials from Craft: 10!  Knit Gradient Mitts!  It’s written as more of a how-to than a normal knitting pattern, with step-by-step instructions and photos to go with them!  I made it into a free PDF – download it directly here or head over to ravelry to add it to your library – and I’m pasting it all right here as well…. enjoy!

This is a fantastic project for beginner knitters bored with scarves – just don’t be scared off by the double pointed needles, which are very easy to use once you get the hang of them. By knitting in the round with DPNs, you only need to know the knit stitch (no purling) and there will be no seams to sew.

Pattern is for sizes Small[Medium, Large].  Pictured are small and large.
(Small will fit kids or women with smallish hands, medium is for most women, and large is for most men.)

Materials:

• Set of size US 11 double pointed needles
• 30[35, 40] yards each of two colors of bulky yarn, or multiple strands of finer yarn held together (2 strands chunky, 3 strands worsted, 4 strands DK/sport weight)
• Tapestry/yarn needle

Gauge is about 3 stitches per inch (un-stretched).

Step 1: Cast-On.
Cast-On 18[21, 24] stitches around 3 double pointed needles with Color 1 (C1), so there will be 6[7, 8] stitches on each needle (pictured below, left – with multiple strands of yarn held together to equal a bulky yarn weight).

Step 2: Knit up to the thumbhole.
2a. Join in a circle and knit 5 rows in the round with C1, then knit one row with the second yarn color (C2).  Switch back to C1, with the tail end of C2 over C1 working yarn from left to right, and the working end of C2 over C1 from right to left (pictured below, right).  Bringing the new yarn underneath and over the old when changing colors prevents holes at the seam.

2b. Following the chart below for color changes, knit up to the C2 stripe that includes the thumbhole.  Carry the yarn up across the stripes without tension, and bring the new yarn over the old with each change.  Knit the first stitch of each new stripe a bit more loosely than the rest to allow for stretch at the seam. (pictured below – how the color change seam should look when turned inside out.)

Step 3: Make the thumbhole.
3a. Knit the first 2 rows of the 5 row C2 stripe normally.  On the third row, bind off 4[5, 6] stitches in the center of the first needle for the left-hand mitt, the third needle for the right-hand mitt (pictured below, left).

3b. Knit around to the hole, then cast back on those 4[5, 6] stitches using a single cast-on (also called wrap cast-on or loop cast-on) (pictured below, right).  Cast on the thumbhole stitches tightly, since they will become looser when you knit into them.  Finish knitting that row, and knit the last row of the C2 stripe normally.

Step 4: Finish and repeat.
4a. Finish knitting the mitt in color pattern up to the top, then bind off (pictured below, left).  Bind off not too tightly, but also not too loosely to prevent curling.

4b. Tie off and weave in the ends. (pictured below, right)

4c. Repeat all steps for the second mitt.

Tutorial and photos by Lee Meredith, 2009.
For personal use only.
Originally published in Craft: magazine issue 10.

Remember the Fingerless Mitts Times 3 project I had in Craft: 10 back in February? Well, now that it’s getting colder, I want to share the tutorials with all of you do stuff! readers! I’m dividing the 3 mitt types into 2 parts, because the first 2 go together – the 2 different recycled sock mitts, shown together below.  So I’m just going to cut and paste my original article/tutorial, which was edited and cut down a bit to fit in the magazine… here we go!

I always have cold hands, but being a crafter, photographer, all-around doer of stuff, I feel trapped when my fingers are covered, so fingerless mitts are the perfect solution! Way back in my early knitting years, when I feared patterns and loved fat yarn and quick knits, I developed my super easy, fingerless, shapeless, fat and squishy “ninja mitts,” as I’ve always called them. Then when I dove into recycled crafting I cut up some old socks and came up with a couple versions of sock mitts – which are warmer than you’d think, and super comfortable! All the mitt designs are great for finger mobility, can be pulled up over balled fists for extra warmth, or can be taken off the thumb and pushed back onto wrists for eating or added dexterity. Once you make yourself a pair or three, with all that mitt agility, you will indeed feel like a ninja!

Version 1: No-Sew Sock Mitts

Materials

• 1 Pair of socks that won’t unravel easily
• Scissors
• Optional sewing machine or embellishing materials

Step 1: First Cut.
Cut the first sock straight across the ankle, just above the heel (above, left).

Step 2: Cut the Thumbhole.
Try on the footless sock with the end that was the top at your thumb and check where you want the thumbhole to be. For mitts that will keep your hands warmer, put the thumbhole down further from the top; for mitts just meant for wrist-warming, the hole can be closer to the top. Make a small cut – smaller than you think it should be – then try on the mitt to see if you need to make it bigger (below). Make small snips until it fits comfortably.

Step 3: Repeat for second mitt.
Hold the first mitt up to the second sock and repeat the two cuts to match (above, right).  If the socks have noticeable seams, keep them on opposite sides of the thumbholes on the two mitts.

Step 4: Optional sewing or embellishment.
4a. This is the “no-sew” version, so this step is completely optional, but if you want to use a pair of socks that will unravel, you can sew a zig zag stitch around the bottoms and thumbholes of each mitt to prevent that from happening (below).  If you decide to sew around the mitts to prevent unraveling, it’ll create a cute ruffled edge.

4b. If you want to dress up your mitts, you can add some decorative buttons, stitching, or other embellishments – be creative! (below)

Version 2: Multi-Sock Mitts

Materials

• 2 or more pairs of socks with similar thickness and stretchiness
• Scissors
• Sewing machine with zig zag stitch

I’m showing you how to make a basic 2-sock pair of mitts, but you can use the same concepts to take pieces from several socks and make a crazier set. You can even use the leftover feet from version 1 and incorporate them into some multi-sock mitts!

Step 1: Cut up socks.
Cut each of the socks into 2 or 3 loops, cutting straight across the ankle just above the heel, somewhere in the middle of the ankle, and if the foot is not too worn, cut just below the heel and above the toe. The loops do not need to be the same width, but each sock should be cut symmetrically to its mate. (below)  The heels and toes can be tossed in your scrap fabric stash, or the trash.  (side note: I made that “diagram” in like 3 seconds because I was under the impression that Craft’s illustrator would re-do it, but they printed mine!  I was a little bit horrified when I saw it printed, but now I laugh about it…)

Step 2: Design your mitts.
Put the loops in order, switching between the two different patterns. Your mitts will look best if you use the tops of one pair for the tops of the mitts, and the tops of the other pair for the bottoms. (below, left)  If one pair of socks is a bit bigger or stretchier than the other, use that one for the bottoms of the mitts.

Step 3: Sew them up.
3a. Turn the loop second from the bottom inside out and put it over the bottom loop, with the top edges aligned (below, right).

3b. Use a zig zag stitch to sew the loops together around the edge (below, left).  The stitching will make a ruffled edge, especially on thinner, stretchier types of socks.
3c. Repeat sewing each loop until the top one (below, right).  The fabric will stretch a bit when sewing, but try not to stretch it too much.

Step 4: Create the thumbhole.
Sew the last loop on the same as the others, but leave a hole about 1-1.5 inches wide for the thumbhole. Be sure to lock the ends of this stitch well by sewing back and forth several times since there will be tension on this stitch at the thumb (below, right).  If you want to make your mitts extra neat, sew a zig zag stitch around the thumbhole edges.

There you go!  I wear these multi-sock mitts all the time!  They are warmer than you might think, perfect for autumn days or cool evenings – and easy to take off the thumbs and pull down around wrists as wristwarmers when you don’t want your hands covered.  Love them!  Coming later this week, part 3: Knit Gradient Mitts!

do stuff! is in need of a new tutorial, don’t you think?  It’s been awhile!  This is a project I’ve been teaching at the Multnomah County Libraries all summer – my last class is coming up on Thursday and I think it’s about time I share it with the rest of you!

It’s a simple concept: cut a shape or two or more from a felted wool sweater, attach the pieces to jewelry parts – that’s it!  Well, that’s not really it though, you can make it so much more!

A little background – the yellow hoops were the first thing I made with this idea; when I made my embellished cardigan, I had some yellow ovals left over from the pockets, and I thought, hmm, I could make those into something… I cut the centers out, stuck on some earring wires, and that was that!  Rad!  I played around with the idea a bit further then, making those blue teardrops below, adding some embroidery this time:

Well then I thought, this seems like such a perfect class project – not too many materials or tools needed, super simple concept, but with infinite creative possibility!  I bet students could do all kinds of creative things with the concept, I thought… Well, hoo-boy was I right!  Check it out, these are what four crafters did in my most recent class:

I hope they don’t mind me sharing their awesome creations.  I didn’t take photos in any of the previous classes, which I now regret – every single class has had amazing pieces!  Don’t you love that pendant on the bottom?!  I do!  It was made by the library helper at the Sellwood branch, who clearly has fabulous color sense and design talent!

I made these pieces as more class examples – a matching set of earrings, fastened together with jumprings, and a bracelet, the pieces stitched together with embroidery floss, to show different ways of joining parts.

So for this project, you’ll need:

• Recycled wool sweater pieces, felted (great for using leftover scraps after making bigger projects from felted sweaters)
• Scissors
• Jewelry findings of your choice (depending on what kind of jewelry you’re making)
• Jewelry pliers
• Embroidery floss and/or thread (optional, depending on your design) and needle
• Optional cheap felt and pins for using templates

And the “tutorial” from my class handout…

This project is very free form, not requiring a step-by-step how-to, but the basic steps are:

Cut shapes from felted wool.
Use felt shapes to make jewelry, by either
-stitching pieces together with thread/embroidery floss/yarn
-or joining pieces together with jump rings.
Attach clasps, earring wires, or other finishing parts.
Add embroidery decoration or other optional embellishments.

When stitching parts together, if you want the piece to be able to stretch, use zig zags or diagonal stitches.
Use jewelry pliers to work with jumprings, clasps, and other parts to close them tightly.
Cut any shapes you want, either freehand or using a template (paper or felt).  If you want 2 identical parts, cut 1 first, then pin that one to the second piece to cut it the same.

Of course, I’m there for individual help in the classes, with using pliers, sewing, etc, so I’ve linked to a few how-to sites to help you along with any parts you’re not familiar with.  You can also use my earring making tutorial on Craftstylish for help with jewelry-making steps.  If you want a book to help, I definitely recommend Susan Beal’s Bead Simple – she’s the one who taught me how to make earrings!

These are craft felt templates I cut for students to use if they want.  If you’re not sure what shape(s) you want, or you want multiple identical shapes, it’s a good idea to play around with some cheap craft felt before cutting into your sweater.  You can try different shapes until you get it just right, then pin the shape onto your sweater and cut around it.

As for felting, this is also on my class handout (see Diane’s felting post on Craftstylish for my detail):

To make recycled wool felt at home, choose a sweater made of 100% wool, or with other animal fibers (like alpaca, angora, cashmere).  Machine wash and dry the sweater on hot or warm settings; this will shrink and “full” the sweater, turning it into felt.  If you want it thicker/denser, wash and dry it again to felt it more.

These are earrings I made during a couple of classes, and probably my favorite ones I’ve made.  Still not nearly as creative or elaborate as some of the students’ creations, but I like the simplicity of them, since they’re pretty big and bright.  (I tried to photograph myself wearing them straight on, so you could see both earrings in the same shot, and this is the best I could get, hah!)

And here are all of my earrings… Obviously, I like making earrings more than other kinds of jewelry, probably because I rarely wear jewelry besides earrings and cuffs.  I had plans to embroider on those dark grey rings, but I think I’m going to leave them alone; again, I like the simplicity…

So, I hope this was enough of a how-to for you.  Comment if you have questions and I can add more if I need to.  Grab some felted wool, jewelry findings, and embroidery floss, and have fun with it!  Take it even further by adding beads, buttons, sequins, or other bits of crafty fun!  Yay!

When I was getting ready to release leethal quick knits I realized all of my patterns so far had been cuffs/bracelets, so I designed these Penta-Coasters!  You can get the free pdf from the patterns page over there (or ravelry), and I’ll also paste the pattern below for anyone who is anti-pdf…  I made up a decrease for these that I’ve never seen before, so I made up the abbreviation (just a combination of 2 different decreases), as you can see below.

From the pattern pdf: This textured coaster is thick enough to keep water off your tabletop by either being felted or being knit super tightly with bulky yarn.  Choose a 100% wool yarn (not superwash) in a worsted weight for the felted version, or a bulky weight yarn in any fiber type for the larger one.

Choose your own yarn/needle size combination depending on if you want to felt.  If felting, knit with a bit of a loose gauge, keeping in mind you’ll be shrinking it – my samples were knit with worsted weight yarn on size US 10’s (dark blue+brown) and 10 1/2’s (light green+blue).  If not felting, you need a very tight gauge, so choose a bulky yarn and use smaller needles than you normally would – my sample was knit with Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick on size 10’s.  (I am a tight knitter, adjust needle sizes if you’re a looser knitter.)

The only abbreviation you need to know is my decrease 2 stitches method…

skp-rpr = SKP (slip, knit, pass) decrease immediately followed by KRPR (knit, return, pass, return) decrease (without the K because it’s already been done), so:
slip, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, return knit stitch to left needle, pass next stitch over knit stitch, return knit stitch to right needle by slipping it purl-wise.

Cast-on 45 stitches onto double pointed needles
Join around and knit 1 row
Purl 1 row
Knit 1 row
Repeat [k6, skp-rpr] around 1 row
Purl 1 row
Knit 1 row
Repeat [k4, skp-rpr] around 1 row
Purl 1 row
Knit 1 row
Repeat [k2, skp-rpr] around 1 row
Purl 1 row
Knit 1 row
Repeat skp-rpr around 1 row
Purl 1 row
Cut yarn, thread through stitches, pull tight and tie.

Now you can felt (or full) it if you want – I like to felt items this small by hand instead of in the washing machine, so I can control the size and shape.  I do this by filling a large bowl with hot water (as hot as your hands can handle, for me this is as hot as my faucet gets) with a little dish soap (might as well clean it while you felt) and setting it right next to the sink.  Dunk the coaster in the hot water bowl and agitate vigorously, as if it’s super dirty and you’re trying to clean it, rubbing it against itself and against your hands.  (To avoid splashing water everywhere, mostly switch between dipping it in the water and rubbing it above the water.)  Once it’s been agitating in the hot water for a bit, turn the sink on as cold as it goes and dunk the coaster under the running faucet, still rubbing it vigorously.  Switch between hot and cold, paying attention to the size and shape once you see it starting to shrink and felt.  You can control the shape by pulling it and molding it as you’re agitating in the water.  When it’s the shape and size you want, simply squeeze the water out, press it in a towel to dry it as well as you can, then lay it flat to dry.

Enjoy!

a few months ago i got the nicest package in the mail!  pete’s aunt bobbie made this super crafty, recycley t-shirt tote bag and sent me not just the bag itself, but a supernice note with a how-to for making my own!  so flippin awesome!  so this is bobbie’s tutorial, brought to you by do stuff!

start by choosing a fun t-shirt to recycle (i found this one at the bins!) and cut out rectangles from the front and back.  the best way (and bobbie’s way) is to cut equal sized rectangles from each side, but i hacked it a little because my image was on the back and the front collar went down too far – if i cut the pieces equal sizes, i would have cut into the image.  so i cut the back piece bigger than the front, and evened it out later when sewing the sides.

but now, back to the next step… after cutting the rectangles, sew the bottoms together with right sides facing.  stitch it twice for extra durability.

then sew up the 2 sides.  since my pieces were uneven, i lined up the top, and stitched down to the bottom, so that bottom seam is off center.

then fold the top edge inwards and sew a hem around.  next, cut two handle pieces from old jeans, or other sturdy fabric (but the jeans work great – fabulous idea, bobbie!) in stripes about 22 inches by 2 inches.  fold the strips in half lengthwise and sew up the edges (i sewed 3 lines, for extra flatness and just for fun).  attach the handles to the bag equal distances in from the sides, by sewing a box with an x for strength.  i sewed mine on to the outside, bobbie sewed hers in the inside, so you choose!

lastly, you need to make a flat bottom for your bag… i messed up on this step, partly because my off-center bottom seam made it much more difficult, and partly because my bag is extra narrow so i needed to sew in a much shorter distance.  so, pictured is bobbie’s well-done bottom, and, instructions in her words: with the bag inside-out, fold a triangle by lining up the bottom seam with the side seam.  stitch across about 4 inches down from the point (adjust for your bag size as needed); repeat on the other side.

my finished bag!

yay! thanks bobbie!!

oh hello there world. i’ve been so out of everything lately, it’s been a weird last couple of weeks.  pete had a semi-emergency surgery a week ago and has been home recovering since, so i’ve been working less than usual, and things like blog-reading and twitter-following almost not at all, so i’m pretty detached.  we’ve been watching lots of tv shows (the wire, party down, x-files for nerd nostalgia…) and movies and i’ve been knitting away on cuffs and brainstorming/planning some future projects.  so, speaking of cuffs, you may remember that several weeks ago i said i’d hopefully have them done in a week-ish… well yeah, that was crazy of me to think that could happen, first of all, and then i got slowed down by other things, but now i’m finally on my way to hopefully releasing the whole thing by this weekend, for real.

one thing that distracted me a bit was finding out that craftstylish has decided to go in another direction (or something) starting at the end of the month and none of us bloggers will be doing tutorials anymore.  which means a couple of things for you, dear do stuff! readers… i’ll have more time to work on my blog/website, now that all those hours per week are freed up, and if i have any fun tutorial ideas now i can post them here instead of there, so hopefully do stuff! content will be more frequent and more exciting!!  (for me, it means a less fun thing – scrambling to figure out ways to scrape rent money together, which has led to some quality brainstorming time and i’m sure will all be for the best in the long run because now i have some plans i’m super excited about!)

so, my last 3 craftstylish tutorials… out of order because this one - fabric cd cases - is my favorite!  i’d originally planned for this project to be for mother’s day, which is what mine was made for, and then show my wedding case as another example, until i realized at the last minute that it would be posted after mother’s day! so i wrote it up focusing on the wedding angle (so lucky i had that wedding case to show!) and just mentioned that it could be for other purposes, even though that’s so silly because of course it could be used for anything/anyone – any gift occasion or for yourself, as well as for music or video cds/dvds instead of photo discs. duh. but, you know, it’s wedding month, so i had to steer it in that direction.

for my mom’s gift, i filled that case with music cds because she has a new-ish job which has her driving up to several hours a day all over southern california, and no ipod hook-up in her car.  oh and also, my mom has great taste in music, so i knew i could give her a bunch of my favorite cds and she’d love them!

the case is completely hand-sewn, with a hand-knit i-cord tie.  i really (surprisingly) enjoyed hand-sewing this project – now i want to do more sewing by hand!  i get so frustrated with my cheap sewing machine so often, i love that hand-sewing puts myself in control, like with knitting!

last night, my last tutorial post went up: monogrammed napkins with recycled sheets. i love working with thrifted sheets, all the great patterns and colors! i had a hard time thinking of wedding projects, so this is a simple one, but i love how they look!

before those 2, i started off celebration month with greeting cards made from recycled materials.

basic concept, but i was happy to show how easy it is to print on grocery bag paper, something i love to do, and also to make custom envelopes with recycled paper.

i had fun decorating my different card examples (one for mother’s day, one for graduation, and one thank you) and i took way too many photos and had to cut it down tons for the post. so these are some that i couldn’t fit in…

so that’s it for now.  hey, if you’re free tomorrow evening and live in portland, my wool jewelry class still has ten spots as of right now, at the albina library (ne pdx).  it’s free, i provide the supplies, all you need to do is register, should be fun! oh oh i just thought of one other thing i can show you!  check out the hat i knit for pearl for her 1st birthday!  recycled cotton, so soft!

this week’s craftstylish tutorial was a special one to me – i designed this skirt a couple years ago for myself, and i loved the design concept (super easy, no pattern, custom fit, crazy comfy) but i loved it so much that i wanted to hold off doing a how-to… it’s silly, but i just felt like this one was better than the recycled skirt series i did here on my blog last summer, so i didn’t want it to blend in with those, so i saved it.  then i figured craftstylish having earth-friendly projects month in the springtime was the perfect chance to show my design to a bigger audience, so there it is!

but here on do stuff! i’ll share a little more with you… my first version of the skirt, that red and orange one, was a bit different, as you can see in those photos.  i’m not sure exactly how i made the panels since it was undocumented years ago, but i do know that i cut the diagonals in different directions, instead of all in the same direction. so if you want a more twisted, asymmetrical kind of design, when my tutorial says cutting the diagonal line in the same direction on each one. It doesn’t matter what direction, as long as all four are cut the same (in my case, they were all from top right to bottom left) – ignore that and cut them in different directions. then when you’re deciding on the panel order, lay them out on the ground together and see how you want to piece them together for the coolest looking lines.

i had fun twisting and twirling for our photo shoot! and being silly…

so this skirt was kind of a continuation of my recycley skirt how-to series from last summer – which were part 1: t-shirts, part 2: sheets, part 3: sweatshirts.  i also did a post about trying to make a sleeve skirt, which i plan to try again this season and post a better how-to if it works out. so, i’ve made a new category for skirts since this is an ongoing topic for me, so you can see all of them.

oh hey and speaking of bloggy things – i’ve (finally!) gotten my links page a little bit up to date, although it still needs more work.  i had pretty much completely ignored my poor links page since i first started do stuff!, over 2 years ago, but i got motivated a few nights ago to give it some attention, and now there are a ton of blogs and sites added, some new categories, and hopefully i’ll continue to keep it updated now.