Skip to main content

Twinkle, Twinkle

There has been a fair amount of stash diving being done recently.  Having to find just the right colours for the knitted fruit requires searching through all the acrylic yarns to find just what would help identify that particular fruit.  While there looking around I found two skeins of 180 meters/198 yards Lane Borgoseisa Toreador yarn.  (Searching today it appears this yarn is now discontinued.)


The photo is not capturing the brilliant golden sparkle this viscose (64%) and polyester (36%) yarn offers.  It is stunning in person, you´ll just have to take my word for it.

With Xmas creeping up, I have started thinking about making some sort of tree ornament with this yarn.   My new Great White North patterns from Tin Can Knits has two ornament patterns, but neither would make the most of this yarn.  Ravelry, on the other hand, offered the perfect Six-Pointed Star Christmas Ornament pattern created by Barbara Breiter.  Her version looks like this:


And my version, which is still drying after a liberal spray of starch, looks like this


My poor twinkler is being s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d within an inch of its life because I am testing to see if spray starch can hold this shape or if some sort of fabric glue with much more body to hold will need to be used instead.  Since viscose is another word for rayon, blocking in the usual manner with water will not work.  There will be a report back on how this test star turns out.

Twinkle, twinkle little star.  How I wonder ..  if this will work or not??

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms.  (BTW

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing.  I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away.  Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close.  Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening.  As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend.  Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration.  I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting.  It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008.  (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.)  See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles.  And what about the yarn?  It is truly ex-bulky.  It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space.  Or how about the longest piece of finger knitting that measured 4,321.4 m