Flagel Knitting Files

This popped into my in basket recently.  Someone from Knit and Crochet Now  found a knitted skeleton. An anatomically correct knitted skeleton This work was done by one Ben Cuevas , a very talented knitting fiber artist/sculptor.   The work is called, "Transcending the Material" and was installed at the Wassaic Project  in New York this summer.  I encourage you to go to Ben's website so you can marvel at the detail he has knit into this project. I am in awe.  My hats off to you man, this is an excellent way to represent the unskinned and unfleshed human form.   Thanks to you, Ben Cuevas for sharing your work with the rest of us, especially on this night of all hallows eve.

This week one of my colleagues showed me work he had done using the Wordle  website.  He used it to help us identify what our customers were saying about their experience with us.  I'd seen it used by Stephen Colbert on his show to calibrate his audience's interests and thought it was an interesting tool. I went to the web site to see how difficult it was to use and found even I, a relatively ignorant technology user, could make it work.  It occurred to me that it might be helpful for me to put the language I use from this blog into it to help determine what words I'm using more than perhaps I should. Wordle.net's view of my blog  The bigger the word, the more often it is used.  It appears dog, hot, yarn and time are all heavily used by me.  Considering yarn is what I'm talking about I expected it to come out a big winner.  But time and hot dog?  OK time is a problem because there just doesn't seem to be enough and ho...

A few days ago I talked about the apple core I made using Susie Johns:  20 to Make: Knitted Fruit .  The first was a green Granny Smith.  I said I'd make a second and when I did it would be made up in red.  Here's the result A  Red Delicious core These little projects are wonderful for using up all the mini scraps left over from other bigger projects.  The meat of this apple was knit with bulky yarn split to make it possible to be used with #2 US or 2.75 mm needles.  It is a bit fuzzy so I'll probably use my battery-operated sweater shaver to defrizz it.  But all said and done, I like the white colour with the darker lines running through it.  The combination makes a satisfying and believable apple meat. As an aside, as I worked on this, Mike, the cat got bored with me, or with my knitting or both.  He was so bored he found watching the gas fireplace more interesting than watching me.  You just have to love a ca...

My first, which makes it special. This was the first project I made from Susie Johns' 20 to Make: Knitted Fast Food . Truth be known it was the hot dog that attracted me to the book. I love the European style bun (not quite positioned properly here) with the darker crust and the lighter interior. It was the colour of the hot dog that was so exciting to find. I picked up this yarn at the local Daiso store for $1, a steal to be sure. ( Hey, I'm  knitting a hot dog here not a sweater, any port in the storm would do.) Susie's hot dog colour There is this colour, the one Susie used for her hot dog.  But to me this just wasn't right. The hot dog doesn't include any red meat. Perhaps it works if you're eating/knitting a chicken or turkey or who knows what type of hot dog. So I said, no to this option. So many options, and I'm clueless Then there is all of this, well not really the purple/mauve or the dark brown, but all the rest of them. There is a...

Yesterday I added to my stash causing me to feel guilty about the clutter I create by not managing it.  The sun was out today and the view from the living room window was more beautiful than it has been for several days.  I took this as a sign to do something and not just think about doing something.  (Why, you might ask?  The sun makes me feel like moving and the rain makes me feel like I should hunker down.) The sunny view today from my living room So it was time to do something around my "work area."  (Note the avoidance of the stash.  I'll tackle that bigger task later.  Hold me to that, OK?)  Paul is very tolerant about my knitting obsession, but there are times when this fastidious supporter gets a bit frustrated.  So before that happens I moved to organize my stuff in the living space we share.   (Thankfully my stash is a mess in a separate room with a door that closes behind it.) Where the magic happens as well as ...

It started on Wednesday, October 19 when I received the following e-mail from my LYS: Sat Oct 22 thru Fri Oct 28 we will celebrate our 3rd Anniversary at Black Sheep Yarns  by offering you up to 50% off selected yarns. Each $20 purchase entitles you to an entry into our raffle for door prizes ! I told myself no, you shouldn't go, don't go.  My stash is already too big.  View from my living room on Saturday, October 22 about 8 am But then I got up this morning and the weather was wet, again.  I know, what a shock it is rainy in greater Vancouver this time of year. And Paul is off taping 4 episodes of his show all day so I'm left here alone with my obsession and a 50% sale on selected yarns starting at 10 am. I fight it telling myself what I really need to do is organize my stash, again, so I can find the cotton or wool or specially coloured stuff when I need it. Do I do any of that, you ask? No, of course not. But I do think about organizing and...

Bacon and an egg What does one do with lots of knitted food?  I've given some to my nephew's two little girls.  His wife runs childcare out of their home, and I thought the kids would enjoy having a full array of goodies.  So they have a hot dog, hamburger, fries, bologna and cheese sandwich on whole wheat, fries, piece of cake, cupcake etc. (They will all be revealed in time.)  Almost all were made using Susie Johns' 20 to Make:  Knitted Fast Food. Here's breakfast: an egg, sunny side up, and a piece of bacon.  The most difficult task in this project was finding the right colour of red for the bacon.  Once I succeeded there the rest was simple.  The yolk of the egg is stuffed with a bit of fiberfill, backed with cardboard and sewn to the white. I especially like to eat my morning eggs off a red plate and this colour helped my knitted egg as well, I think. Making this up saved me from having to clean the ...

Apple core Recently I obtained another pattern book for knitting food.  I had it sent to my permanent address in the States, specifically my parents home.  This means they got it before I did and that my mom enjoyed looking through it before I got there.  The apple core really caught her eye.  Who would ever think of knitting an apple core?   Susie Johns, in  20 to Make:  Knitted Fruit ,  of course! I couldn't wait to stitch one up.  The picture above shows my first attempt.  (When I make another, because one knitted apple core is never enough, I'll use red yarn instead of green for the apple peel.  Although this green is appropriate for a Granny Smith, I think the Red Delicious will look even better.) Banana skin I also knit a banana, both the banana insides and the skin, but the entire tale of that adventure deserves its own post.   I mentioned to my Mom that I'd knit an apple core and banana skin ...

Shown below is the second throw knit for my other son's wedding shower.  This one was made in 2010, did include more repeated patterns and is another Rena Stevens' pattern for a Breezy Ruffled Throw . My version of R. Stevens' Summer Breeze Throw The colour scheme was based on the colours shown on the pattern but includes a darker blue adding more blue overall because the bride likes that colour .  Additionally it was going to North Carolina where there is lots of sun, and I love working with sunny colours during the gray Vancouver winter.  This throw was knit from north to south as shown above requiring no sewing together of pieces.  It includes two basic stitch patterns:  the wider bumpy strips and the more lacy yellow strips that break up the other colours. I have accomplished my goal of getting both sons afghans completed on time.  And I have carried Grandma Perry's tradition forward.

Not everything I knit is non-essential, though proportionally more projects are artistic than useful.  Here's a post regarding something I've made that can actually be used.  The attentive reader will quickly realize it doesn't have to fit a human form though.  The afghan I got from Grandma Perry My paternal grandmother did something for her 9 grandchildren, she crocheted an afghan for each of us when we got married.  Grandma made mine in 1975 which was a time of granny squares.  Now over 35 years old it still looks great, even though the colour scheme is so 70's. We used it a lot when I lived in North Dakota, in fact I still use it.   After the wedding two sons came along so this afghan has been washed more than a few time. Fast forward to late 2008 when my youngest son announced he was getting married the following July.  Rather than take on potential grandchildren like Grandma Perry, I adapted her idea...

So this weekend, I drove to Seattle to pick up Paul.  We got in town with just enough time for me to run into my favorite Seattle LYS (local yarn shop) before it closed.   I try to stay away from yarn shops because I have a SABLE (stash acquirement beyond life expectancy).   In other words I need no more new yarn since I own six boxes full of yarn already.  But this shop is so cute I can't help myself and the artfully arranged shelves of colourful yarn gives me great pleasure. My tape yarn (at least new to me) Fortunately or unfortunately I found the yarn above.  As you can see it is really a webbed tape and not a yarn at all.  Since I wasn't sure what to do with it, I asked and the helpful shop owner showed me a rather lovely scarf  and give me the easy instructions to make it. Using a #8 or 5 mm needle pick up 8 stitches along one side of the tape.  Then cast off those 8 stitches using stitches you pick up on the same side of the t...

Need to make something quick for a baby shower or the arrival of a newborn? These owl bibs fit the bill. The free pattern for the crocheted bibs is found on the Lion Brand Yarn website.   It is slightly modified here to better meet my tastes.  As you can tell they were relatively easy because I made 4 of them in two nights. They were a lot of fun, but I need to start knitting again.  Enough with the single hook, I miss my two needles. Nicole and Suzanne they go in the mail tomorrow.  You should see them very soon.

So much yarn, so little time The yarn above needs to be turned into 4 baby bibs in 2 days.  They'll show up in another post when they're done.  I know I named this a knitting blog, but these bibs will be crocheted. Thanks Suzanne and Nicole for giving me a reason to get going with this project.

Hamburger with the works sans onions One of my readers asked today if I was going to make a hamburger to go with the fries.  In actuality, I had knit the hamburger before the fries but have no photo of this mountain of knitting in action. Here you see my creation has a kaiser bun, a non-quarter pounder burger, lettuce leaf, and slice of tomato. Seems now in retrospect I fashioned my burger after MacDonald's, the bun is bigger than the patty.  Too bad it is so hard to see the satisfactory variation of brown in the beef.  I looked for months to find that perfect yarn. Again Susie Johns offered the pattern in 20 to Make:  Knitted Fast Food , but I got a bit carried away with the size of the lettuce leaf and thought the tomato slice was absolutely necessary.  (I like a fresh slice of tomato on my hamburger, doesn't everyone?) Actually it looks better without everything staked together, but hey if you have it, flaunt it.  So Kai did have a hamburger to...

Fat Free French Fries I've been having fun knitting fries.  I love the bright colours of gold and yellow or a combination of both.   On rainy, dark days these happy colours are a great pick-me-up.  The fry is made in one piece using a purl stitch for the edges.  Leftover foam from a local shop is used to shape each fry.  The shop was willing to not only give me free foam they also cut the strips into the appropriate proportions. The knitting instructions were found in Susie Johns' book,   20 to Make: Knitted Fast Foo d.   I've now knit dozens of them and each takes only minutes to complete.  The fun is in sewing them together and shaping the final product to look like the real thing. From the looks of it someone thought they looked good enough to eat, and this look made the time spent making them all worthwhile!  Thanks, Kai.

I have plenty of stash, most very small amounts of yarn.  It is tough to figure out what to do with all these tiny amounts and frankly I'm too cheap to throw them out.  My stash of leftovers has grown to an impressive size.  So when someone wished that she could get something "artistic" regarding donuts, I offered to knit her a couple.  Using Susie Johns', 20 to Make:  Knitted Fast Food   I found a way to cut my stash and make someone happy, hopefully. After knitting two donuts and sending them along I decided it might be fun to see what variations I could develop.  The donut to the right above was designed around one with sprinkles now available from Tim Horton's.  I added plastic with yarn on another to get a glazed look.  Tiny white beads were added to others to make them appear sugared.  Before I knew it one donut became ten. So needing a container I got a clean donut box and filled it.  Sin...