Spring Rainbow Shawl notes

November 9, 2022 by Dr. Terri

I bought these lovely yarns from the ChemKnits Spring Mini Series. My kid and I have been enjoying her tutorials for dyeing yarn with food colouring, and so I thought this would be a nice way to support the channel and give me and kiddo a week of videos to watch. Plus he loves rainbows. He didn’t watch all of them with me, but we did a bunch!

I was looking at my 2022 Fiber Goals and decided to try doing two at once: rainbows and skipping the pattern. But in case I decide to make a pattern later, I’m putting some notes here. If you’re an experienced knitter this is probably enough to knit this shawl. If you’re not comfortable doing stuff like using a stitch dictionary to fill in a different pattern into a space, this may not be enough for you. (There’s lots of great other patterns out there though! If you like rainbows and don’t love garter stitch, I recommend Shannon Squire’s Spell Shawl which is great for fading)

Shaping: My spring rainbow shawl is an asymmetric triangle (because it’s one of the shapes I wear most).

Starting: co 7. K3, place edge marker, k5.

Right side row: work edge pattern, slip marker, k2tog, work body pattern, then knit + yarn over + knit in one stitch then k1 for a double increase at the end. (1 dec + 2 inc = 1 inc for the whole row.)

Wrong side row: k4, do body pattern, do edge pattern (no stitch count changes)

Colour changes: I 2-row striped a few times between colours to get a bit of a fade. I sort of eyeballed it to start striping in the last 25% of the ball (so around 5g of the 20g skein) then striped until I ran out of the first colour. I actually ran right to the end of the first colour then cut the second colour and spliced it in rather than worry about whether I’d have enough for the full two rows.

Body: I don’t love garter stitch, but I like some of the properties of it: it lies pretty flat and it doesn’t take much brainpower to knit it. With that in mind, I dug through stitch dictionaries and settled on a pattern that was basically k2, p2 ribbing for 4 rows, 2 rows (1 ridge) of garter stitch, then swap it so the knit sections have purls above and vice versa, then another garter ridge and swap back.

Lazy chart: – is purl on right side, knit on wrong. ” ” Is knit on right side, purl on wrong.

Edge: #249 from the Japanese knitting stitch Bible.

Note that the body pattern is a 12 row repeat and the edge chart is not, which would make this annoying to put into a single chart. So just do them separately and it’s no big deal.

Bind off: I finished my striping to finish the blue and fully switch to purple, then swapped to chart #246 from the Japanese stitch dictionary. I did a bit of math to see how many repeats I could fit, and since it wasn’t exact, i continued doing the k-yo-k increases until I had one more complete repeat.

Terri is wearing a rainbow shawl and a rainbow sweater, because one can never have too many rainbows.

Steven the Bat socks

October 31, 2022 by Dr. Terri

Years ago, a friend named the local bat who appears in the evenings at our house “Steven.” Since I can’t identify humans in the dark let alone bats, we have henceforth declared that all bats are named Steven. Which is why it’s especially appropriate to have two Stevens on your socks.

This isn’t a complete, perfectly tested pattern, but rather a recipe of components I used that you can adapt to suit you. I’m going with “the perfect is the enemy of the done” and posting what I can manage now rather than trying to be like a professional designer. As a result, this is not a beginner pattern. You’ll need a copy of the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible until I get around to making my own charts for the cables. Have fun!

Yarn

I used a delightful sock set from Valkyrie Fibers that came with the Kitty With A Cupcake Halloween box. You can use any sock set or yarns with decent contrast between them (for the colourwork) and a tonal or solid main colour (for the cables).

Stitch count / Gauge

I did my socks on 64 stitches and a US 1 needle because that works for me. The cable in these isn’t too big so whatever you use normally for plain stockinette socks will likely work for you. If you need more or fewer stitches, increase or decrease in units of 4 so the colourwork section on the bottom can be extended or reduced to fit.

Toe

I did my socks toe up on 64 stitches. I use a rounded toe as follows:

Cast on 24 stitches (12 for top, 12 for bottom) using Judy’s magic cast on.

Increase row: top: k1, m1r, k to 1 before end of top, m1l, k1. Bottom: same.

Increase every row until you reach 26 stitches per side (52 total). K one row, add another increase row, k 2 rows, add another increase row, k3 rows, add a final increase row (32 stitches per side, 64 total)

I knit around .65 inch of plain knit rows after this to get the bat to sit where I wanted.

Bat Chart

Do the top chart (starting at the center line row) for Steven. You can repeat the chart twice or do as I did and use the + motif (bottom right) to fill out the bottom. This just means fewer long floats on the bottom of the sock.

If you start at the bottom of the chart like I did, the bats will be head-up to others but head down to you. I kind of like it this way, but if you don’t then just start at the top of the chart instead.

Cable

I knit another 8 rows plain before starting the cable. I used 1 repeat of motif 101 from the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible, and added a border of two purls and a knit through the back loop on either side. I lined it up directly over Steven’s head; note that this uses an odd number of stitches so you will have one extra on one side.

Heel

I used a center-increase heel. Since my toes are wider than my ankles, I don’t quite increase all the way to double my bottom stitch count, so i increased to 60 stitches instead of 64. As a result, after turning the heel i have 60 stitches in total. I used a slip stitch heel and switched to the contrast colour when i started working on the heel stitches only.

Leg

Continue the cable pattern in front. If desired you can repeat it on the back too. If you did like I did and decreased your stitch count note again that your numbers for the back will be different than the front. I continued for two repeats of the cable because that lined up nicely, but you can do whatever.

Cuff

I used motif 200 from the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible. This is a 6 stitch motif, so if you used a different number of stitches than I did you might have to either increase/decrease/add an extra rib. I used the contrast colour.

Photos

Happy Halloween!

Steven the Bat socks with the charm bracelet from the Halloween box

Steven the Bat socks. A set of handknit socks modeled on feet. They feature a colourwork bat, a cable motif along the top of the foot and front/back of the leg, a contrast-colour slipped stitch heel, and a fancy cuff also in the contrast colour.

Queer Enough Shawl

August 6, 2022 by Dr. Terri

This one’s for all the folk who might not “look” queer: the bi folk in “straight” relationships, the trans and non-binary folk who maybe don’t “look” queer to outsiders, the ace folk, and everyone else who struggles with whether they’re really “queer enough” for a LGBTQA+ space. This free shawl pattern is intended as a gift to the many people who’ve wondered how they fit in as well as those who are gloriously out.

Queer Enough Shawl modelled by the designer, Terri Oda. It is a crescent shaped shawl featuring rays made from lace and tiny cables. The shawl has been made in bright rainbow colours.

I’m going to warn your right now that the name “Queer Enough” is also a pun on “Clear Enough” — I’m intentionally not writing out all the details because I’m worried if I aim to make it perfect and beginner-friendly it’ll never get out there. As such, I’d say this pattern requires intermediate-level pattern reading skills or the sort of mind that sees patterns easily. You might have to search for your own tutorials if you need ’em. But I know you can do it! You’re resourceful! Go you!

And if you’re the sort of person who *loves* filling in these details and just knows you can make this pattern better, please get in touch because I’m happy to have it improved, I just didn’t want to block myself from releasing it. I do plan to improve it as I go if I can.

This shawl was originally knit as part of the Quiet Queer Craftalong, a June-July knit-a-long intended to encourage folk to make things using patterns from queer designers and materials from queer dyers, kit makers, and more. I consider myself queer enough that this should count, but I always encourage you to also purchase patterns/materials from queer folk who make fiber arts part of their regular income! (I’m a computer security person professionally and get paid more than enough to be able to give away patterns but not everyone can afford to do that.)

Edit Aug 9, 2022: Added little repeat charts for each section. Also, thank you to the many people who told me the message and the title of this pattern resonated with you! <3

Shawl overview

“Queer Enough” is a top-down crescent shawl pattern with simple lace and cable “rays” that come out from a center spine.

Gauge/Needle Size/Yarn are all flexible. Use what feels comfortable to you and make it as big or small, thick or thin as you like to wear.

My gauge was 21 sts and 36 rows /4 inches (unblocked in pattern) and I used a US 6 needle and sock/fingering weight yarn.

Choosing colours

I used KnittedWit sock-weight yarn in an older version of a temperature rainbow kit available from the ShannaJean Etsy. These use 10g “gem” sock minis, which are smaller than the more commonly available 20g mini size. This particular yarn inspired the pattern because it has dark/light pairs of colour for the garter/lace rows to pop a bit more. These kits come with 14 colours, I only used 12 for my shawl.

You could get a nice effect by using a single main colour for one of the sections and minis for the other, or just using two skeins of yarn.

Shawl worn bunched up around the neck as a scarf

If you like to wear shawls wrapped around your neck like scarves, please note that the garter section may tend “stick out” and be more visible, particularly if it’s been a while since your shawl was blocked. If you tend to wear your shawls less bunched up, the lace section will block to be larger and potentially more visible. You can choose your colour configuration with those in mind! I used the brighter rainbow for the garter and the pastel rainbow for the lace.

Icord cast on/set up section:

Use Judy’s magic cast on to cast on 6 stitches (3 per side). We’ll be using this as a provisional cast on to make a 3-stitch icord edging, so you’re going to be leaving behind those rightmost three stitches until setup is done, and we’ll be adding one more to the “left behind” section with each row.

Row 1 (first after cast-on): knit all 6 stitches.

Rows 2-10: Slip 3 stitches to left needle and work only those 3 stitches in this row. Knit front and back in first stitch, knit next two. Do not turn work. (increases 1 stitch)

Once this is done you should have 15 stitches on the needle.

(If that all sounds terrible/confusing, you can also make a 9 row long icord and pick up 9 stitches along the side and three stitches at the beginning for a total of 15. I just wanted to try a cast on option that wouldn’t include picking up stitches.)

You can mentally divide your 15 stitches like this:

3 left icord border,
2 left shawl body,
2 for left leaning cable,
1 for center,
2 for right leaning cable,
2 right shawl body,
3 right icord border.

Row 11 (wrong side): slip 3 (place marker if you like to have a border marker), knit front and back, knit 3, place left spine marker, slip 1, place right spine marker, knit three, knit front and back (place border marker if desired), slip 3. (increased by 2, stitch count 17)

I didn’t bother with border markers, but I’ve noted where they go in case you want them. Slip them as you come to them from now on.

Row 12 (right side): knit 3, knit front and back, knit 3, right leaning 1 by 1 cable, slip spine marker, left-leaning 1 by 1 cable, knit 3, knit front and back, knit 3 (increased by 2, stitch count 19)

You’re now set up to start in a garter section.

General Pattern Overview:

Your shawl is going to come in 5 “wedges”: two matched borders on the edges, two “body” sections, and one slipped stitch spine in the center.

Right Border icord + increase:
- knit 3, knit front and back (right side, increase 1)
- knit front and back, slip 3 (wrong side, increase 1)
Right Body section: this will vary depending on whether you’re doing a garter or lace section.
Center slipped stitch spine:
- slip spine marker, knit 1, slip spine marker (right side)
- slip spine marker, slip 1, slip spine marker (wrong side)
Left body section: this will vary depending on whether you’re doing a garter or lace section.
Left border icord + increase:
- Knit front and back, knit three (right side, increase 1)
- slip three, knit front and back (wrong side, increase 1)

Don’t worry, I’ll write out the full rows below. This is to help you understand how they fit together.

Tiny cables without a cable needle:

With these little 1-1 cables, I prefer to cable without a cable needle. KnitPicks has a nice tutorial on how to do this if you’ve never tried it.

Garter Section:

The garter section features cables and a spine that “float” over the garter stitch, with 9 stitches between garter rays (10 if you include the bottom part of the cable, for a total of 11 stitches per repeat).

Right side row:

Border + increase: Knit 3, kfb
Work right wedge:
- If you have enough space before the first ray (12 stitches) to add a full repeat then do so by working a 1:1 right leaning cable, k9. This should take you to 1 stitch before the next ray
- Knit to 1 before ray, work 1:1 right leaning cable. There will always be 9 knits between cables (or 10 stitches between rays of you count the bottom of the cable as a stitch)
- If you have enough space before the center marker (12 stitches) to add a full repeat then do so. K9, 1:1 right leaning cable.
Slip center marker, knit 1, slip center marker
Work left wedge:
- If you added a repeat in the right wedge center, do it again on the left wedge center. (work 1:1 left leaning cable, k9. This should take you to the next ray.)
- Knit to the ray, work 1:1 left leaning cable. There should be 9 knits between cables in the middle
- If you added a repeat in the right wedge edge, do it again on the left wedge edge.
Increase+ border: kfb, knit 3

Wrong side row:

Slip 3, kfb
Knit to center marker but slip each ray as you come to it (I find it easier to use stitch markers to mark the rays, but you can count)
Slip center marker, slip 1, slip center marker
Knit, slipping rays when you come to them
Kfb, slip 3

Queer Enough Shawl: charts for cable sections

If you find out your stitch counts are off so there’s not enough space between rays (it should always be 9 knit stitches or 10 if you’re counting and include the bottom half of the cable) or your left and right sections aren’t set to start a new ray at the same time, you can fudge them by adding an increase or decrease next to where the ray happens; the rays can disguise the adjustment. (Or you could go back and fix the mistake, but who has time for that? I give you permission to fudge if you need it.)

If you miss a slip on a ray, you can correct it on the right side by undoing that stitch and letting the yarn hang behind.

Lace Section:

The lace section features “rays” coming out from the center spine with yarnovers on each side and a decrease on the outer edge. The center ray needs to line up with the previous row.

Right side row:

Work border + increase: k3, kfb
Work right wedge:
- If you have enough space (12 stitches) before the first ray, start a new ray with ssk, yo, k2tog, yo, knit 7 (which should take you to 3 before the first ray.)
- [knit to 3 before next ray, ssk, yo, k2tog, yo] repeat until center marker. There should be 7 knit stitches between inner rays.
- If you have enough space before the center (at least 11 stitches), start a new ray with k7, ssk, yo, k2tog, yo.
Slip center marker, k1, slip center marker
Work left wedge:
- If you worked a new repeat on the right wedge center do it again on the left. (Start a new ray with yo, ssk, yo, k2tog ssk, yo, k2tog, k7.) This should take you to the stitch before the next ray
- [knit to next ray, yo, ssk, yo, k2tog] repeat until last 4 border stitches. There should be 7 knit stitches between inner rays.
- If you increased on the right edge, do the same on the left edge. You need at least 15 stitches including the 4 stitch border+increase), start a new ray with k7, yo, ssk, yo, k2tog
Increase + border: kfb, k3

Wrong side row:

Slip 3, kfb
Purl to center marker
Slip center marker, slip 1, slip center marker
Purl to last 4 stitches
Kfb, slip 3

Queer Enough Shawl: charts for lace sections

The new rays should be paired: the two center ones happening at the same time, and the two edge ones happening at the same time (but not all 4 at once). If your stitch counts don’t match in these places, you’ve probably made a mistake. You can go back and correct it or just fudge it

In the lace section, the easiest place to adjust without it being noticeable is the decrease beside the ray: make it a double decrease (to remove an extraneous stitch) or make it a k (to add one).

Continue this section until you want to switch back to garter. I stopped after a wrong side row when I no longer had enough in my mini skein to complete two rows. You can use a scale to figure this out and maximize your use of yarn or just eyeball it. I won’t tell. I actually switched yarns near the end of a row because I got in a groove and didn’t realize I was running out of yarn a few times and I don’t find it very noticeable.

If you’re feeling fancy you can start the lace repeat a bit early and fit only one yarn over and decrease in. I’ll leave this as an exercise to the reader. Please note that although the shawl increases are all on the outside, because of the way the rays tilt you will have +1 space to count towards your repeat in both the center and edge sections. So if you start your half-lace the instant you can, you’re going to need to keep it going twice before you get to a full repeat. If none of this makes sense just do the repeats when you’ve got the full 11 stitches and save yourself the headache.

Lace to Garter Transition Row:

I found one extra yarn over helps make the cabled rays and the lace rays line up better. They won’t line up perfectly unless you block it very carefully (and as you’ll see below, that’s not an option in my life) but I like the transitions better this way.

Close up of shawl showing the transition between lace and garter sections and the fact that my rays aren’t perfectly straight.

Right side row:

Knit 3, kfb
Right side: knit to 3 before each ray, ssk, yo, 1:1 right leaning cable, knit to center marker
Slip center marker, k1, slip center marker
Left side: knit to ray, 1:1 left leaning cable, yo, k2tog, knit to last 4 stitches
kfb, knit 3

For the wrong side row and onwards follow the garter pattern.

Queer Enough Shawl: Chart for transition rows

Continue swapping between garter and lace sections until you run out of yarn or you decide you’re done.

Charts

These charts are intended to help you see visually how to line up the sections so that the rays continue in unbroken lines. (The lines will, however, still be a little wobbly at the transition unless you’re very careful about blocking them. It’s ok.)

Here’s a very-wide chart to show how everything fits together:

And here’s it split into two hopefully more readable segments:

Right side chart. Note that the left side of the chart will line up with the Left Side Chart)

Left Side chart. This needs to line up with the Right side one)

If I try to make a printable version of the pattern I guess I’ll have to make these prettier.

Final section:

For my shawl, I ended on a lace section. I like the way the lace can be blocked to points so I used a strechy bind off added a picot at the end of each ray. If you don’t like frilly edges, you could also try ending on a garter section and using an icord bind off.

Start the last two rows on a wrong side row: slip 3, kfb, knit to 4 before end, kfb, slip 3. Turn work.

We’re going to do a stretchy picot bindoff where the picots go over the end of each ray.

Bind off part: knit 2, take two on right hand needle and knit 2 together through back loop (bound off 1 stitch). After that first pair, you can just k1, knit 2 on right hand needle together through back loop. (Every time you add a picot you’ll be back to the knit 2 beginning again, though.)
Picot part: cable cast on 2 then continuing binding off as before.

Bind off with picot row: bind off 1, picot, bind off until stitch before ray, picot. Continue in this manner until you reach the center spine. On the left side of the shawl, switch to adding picots after binding off the ray stitch. Add one more picot when you reach 2 stitches left at the end.

Close up of the shawl showing the center picot after blocking.

Finishing the Shawl

Like most lace projects, this shawl should be wet-blocked and stretched well for best effect.

Rainbow shawl being spun in a salad spinner. This is one way to remove some excess water after soaking (another example would be to wrap it in a towel and squish)

People always seem to have questions about blocking. Unfortunately, my process is ridiculous because I have a child who wants to help. So here it is for posterity, but what you should do is search for someone else’s blocking instructions if you need them.

Shawl blocking in progress. You definitely don’t need this many blocking wires.

Blocking this shawl was a lengthy process:

1. Soak shawl
2. Squeeze shawl and put in salad spinner
3. Child hears salad spinner and nearly has meltdown because he wanted to do it. I manage to negotiate not re-wetting the shawl so we can “start over”
4. Dog hears child with salad spinner and comes to investigate
5. Child determines that face licks are detrimental to his process and banishes dog from kitchen.
6. Dog waits a few minutes then goes around to the other door and gets banished again.
7. Child decides this moment must be recorded (see reel), gets mad at mom for not hitting the video button and instead getting the second picture.
8. Shawl is finally released from its torment and taken downstairs. Gate is locked so dog can’t follow.
9. Dad opens gate to follow and brief altercation with child ensues. Dad insists he is not a dog who has learned to open gates, and not trying to horn in on special shawl blocking activity.
10. Blocking mats have previously been used for pom pom snowball fight and some cleaning must occur.
11. Shawl is blocked while child adds “traps” with extra pins and wires and a “timer” made from a stitch counter.
12. Child explains his creative process in great detail. Possibly as an attempt to postpone bedtime.

And there you have it, 12 “easy” steps. As I said, search for someone else’s blocking tutorial if you need one that doesn’t include child management.

I hope this is enough that at least a few people can make a Queer Enough shawl of their own. Thanks for reading!

Books: July 31, 2022

August 5, 2022 by Dr. Terri

A set of books lies beside a rainbow sweater and a neon rainbow lace shawl.

Playdate sweater has 1.5 sleeves and I sewed the pocket linings in, but then my hands decided sleeve knitting was uncomfortable so it’s taking a break and I’m working on the rainbow shawl which has made it all the way to purple! I actually have most of a blog post ready to go with the pattern just waiting for me to finish and get pictures and stuff. (Note: I’m posting the book reviews to the blog late this week; the shawl is now finished and the sweater nearly so!)

Playdate pattern by @tincanknits yarn from @passionknits_yarn
Shawl pattern by me, yarn from @knittedwit

My books:

I really liked The Bone Spindle! It’s a fairy tale mashup with sleeping beauty as a prince who needs saving, lots of magic, tragic backstories, and queer romance for one of the main characters. Gonna have a long wait for the next one and that was kind of a cliffhanger ending.

And a knitting pattern book in this batch of library returns: I picked up Curls to see if I wanted to buy it before the author took all her patterns down. I liked the concept but wound up buying Curls 3 since I couldn’t just borrow that one from the library. Haven’t knit anything from it yet but probably one of these days!

Kid books:

These 4 are easy readers so simple sentences and ugh, I do not enjoy this type of book. But kid liked them. I’m glad I don’t have to read the inane one about the princesses and pets again. The Hello Ninja one at least didn’t make me feel like my brain was dribbling out my ears, and I could see why elephant and piggy are so popular with kids.

Patio Stones pattern preview

April 23, 2020 by Dr. Terri

My yarn subscription for this year is the Made Here Yarn Club 2020 from Sincere Sheep, which was a splurge but one I could afford and one that focuses on local makers. Pretty cool!

I decided to make up my own pattern (after getting partway through a lovely hat and realizing I wasn’t feeling it). I haven’t written the whole thing up yet, but I have a chart and some basic instructions. So… here’s a little preview. But I promise I’ll be making something finished eventually!

Patio Stones (pattern preview)

This asymmetric triangle shawl was made with 300 yards of Sincere Sheet Covet (dk weight) and a US-5 needle. It would probably be just as lovely (and not quite as heavyweight) with ~400 yards of fingering on whatever needle size you prefer.

Setup:

co 4 stitches

RS: kfb, k to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k

WS: k2, p to last stitch, kfb (increases 1 stitch)

repeat until you have 15 stitches, ending on a WS row

Main Body:

Follow chart 1. Blue section is repeated, but for first run it will be repeated 0 times.

Note that the chart starts from the bottom, I just haven’t flipped the numbers over yet because this is a preview and not a completed pattern yet. The pink stitches can be replaced with k1, k2tog if you prefer. If you know how to cable without a cable needle for these little 1 over 1 cables, do that. It’s so much easier.

Cast off:

When you’re close to your desired size (or running out of yarn) repeat the eyelet section (rows 5-3 on the chart above) and then bind off.

I know, I know, it’s got some work to go before it’s ready for publishing, but it’s been sitting in my drafts for weeks and I wanted to put it out there in case my toddler poured coffee on my computer before I got it finished!

Laser engraved toy dog collars

February 6, 2018 by Dr. Terri

Yup, you read that right.

I have a Glowforge laser cutter/engraver that had so many delays in manufacturing that it wound up arriving when I was 9 months pregnant. So it hasn’t gotten quite as much use as I’d planned, but I did use it for some holiday presents! And then I forgot to take pictures of most of them. But I did take pictures of these!

I picked up these puppies at a toy store downtown, and wanted to customize them. I did some quick measurements and used the leather that came with the machine, so it was already prepped.

The idea was that these should be removable so they could also be used as bracelets (or just removed entirely if the kids didn’t like them), so I put in snaps. Or rather, I should say that I put in one snap, then was so frustrated with the second one that I begged J for help and even he had trouble getting it to sit securely in the leather. Next time, I buy heavier duty snaps instead of pretty ones!

Still, I like how they turned out, and the pups themselves are cute. Next time I go by the leather store, I might get some heavier snaps and make myself a ruler bracelet!

Medallion hat using Jimmy Beans Big Beanie Bag – April 2017

September 9, 2017 by Dr. Terri

I’ve actually *just* as of September cancelled my Big Beanie Bag subscription, because I’m anticipating a busy fall and my projects have piled up to the point where I need a break. Still, I have managed to knit some of them up!

April’s Bag looked like this:

And here’s a photo summary of what I made with it:

Basically, I started casting on for the included pattern, realized I wanted to do something a bit more fancy with the yarn, and made up a new pattern on the spot with more colourwork and a shorter shaping. I’ve become a huge fan of having little hats that can live in my coat pockets so the pompom also had to go. This one became a present to my grandmother, since my Mom mentioned that she could also use a lighter fall pocket hat, and I thought the colours would suit her the minute I took them out of the bag. Such pretty heathers!

Yarn

The yarn is all Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok. I love the lightly heathered colours, and they were soft enough for hat use for my tastes. This was a great yarn to sample: gorgeous colours, nice to work with. I’m not sure if I’d go out of my way to find it again since I’m spoiled for choice in the Portland area, but it was definitely a treat to get it as a sample!

Pattern

This was pretty off-the-cuff and untested, but here’s a rough pattern:

Needle size: 8.
Pattern is in multiples of 8. If you need it bigger or smaller, add or subtract in multiples of 8.
(My head is 24 inches, for reference. Do a gauge swatch, calculate from there.)

Brim:
Cast on 104 (13×8) in the round using main colour.
Knit 1.5 inches of 1×1 twisted ribbing (it doesn’t have to be twisted, but I like the way it looks)
Knit 1.5 inches plus a few rows so the turned brim doesn’t cover the pattern of straight stockinette.

Colourwork:
Follow colour chart as below or written pattern:

MC-G = Main Colour (in this case, light grey)
CC-V = contrast colour one (in this case, dark violet)
CC-F = contrast colour two (in this case, fuchsia)
CC-P = contrast colour three (in this case, pink)

First band of colour is dark violet:
Row 1: {k3 in MC-G, k3 in CC-V, k2 in MC-G} repeat 13 times
Row 2: {k2 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v, k1 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v, k1 in MC-G} repeat
Row 3: {k1 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v, k3 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v} repeat
Second band of colour is fuchsia:
Row 4: {k3 in MC-g, k3 in CC-F, k2 in MC-G}
Row 5: {k1 in MC-G, k1 in CC-F} repeat
Row 6: repeat row 4. That is, {k3 in MC-g, k3 in CC-F, k2 in MC-G}
Third band of colour is pink:
Row 7: repeat row 3 only with pink in place of fuschia
Row 8: repeat row 2 with colour substitution
Row 9: repeat row 1 with colour substitution

Tie off colours and continue in main colour.
knit 1.5 inches of stockinette (or desired height for your head).

Decreases:
If you did more or less than 13×8 = 104 stitches at the beginning, you’ll need to adjust things accordingly. (e.g. if you did 12×8, you’ll start with a k11 instead of a k12)

Row 0: {k12, k2tog} repeat
Row 1: {k11, k2tog} repeat
Row 2: {k10, k2tog} repeat
and so on down until you get to a few stitches left and can tie them all together nicely.

Here’s a somewhat lousy picture of it on my head (before I blocked it, in case you’re wondering why it looks a bit wonky):

And post-blocking:

I gave this to my grandmother when I was out visiting in July, but I imagine she hasn’t had much chance to use it, so who knows if she’ll really like it! It was fun to knit, though, and I hope it’ll be useful to her as the weather cools.

Incidentally, I’m going to miss my yarn subscription: Jimmy Beans really did a nice job of giving me something new to try every month. But I was having trouble finding a few days to a week or so out of every month to actually do a new project. I imagine you’ll be seeing me write up random projects for quite some time before I run out of beanie bags, though, so taking some time off is the right choice even if I’m going to miss the new-yarn-every-month aspect. I did notice that Yarn Of the Month has a new owner and I’m tempted to try it out again, since 2 tiny balls of yarn for swatching is much easier to fit into my schedule, but I’m holding fast to taking a break for now. 🙂

Triangle Hat

November 26, 2016 by Dr. Terri

I bought some mini skeins from Knitted Wit to make a hat, but then the pattern that I was sure I had didn’t seem to exist in my pattern collection, so I made it up as I went and this is the result. (I suspect in hindsight that I might have been thinking of the triangle mitts from the Knitpicks 2015 spring accessories and not a hat at all.)

Edit: Someone on Ravelry pointed out to me that this is eerily close to a pattern from Twisted, which I almost certainly saw when I bought my yarn. This is a made-from-scratch hat with different triangle sizes and fewer colours and probably wildly different math since it was sized from my swatch and my head, so I’m quite sure that it’s legally fine, but I feel uncomfortable about it looking so much like someone else’s paid pattern, so I’ll be reworking the colourwork before re-releasing it. (It seems a shame to lose all that work I did on figuring out the crown-shaping decreases and all for myself, so the new chart will be around the same size as the old one.) I’ve taken it off ravelry but will leave it up here for my own convenience while I knit a new sample. I’m sorry!

I’m calling this Triangle Hat, but you have to think of this song when you say it to get the full effect of what’s inside my head. Or perhaps you’d rather not.

If you prefer, there is also a printable Triangle Hat pdf, and it’s on ravelry as well.

Triangle hat

Needle size: 6
Yarn: Knitted Wit Superwash Worsted. I am utterly in love with this yarn and immediately made two more hats after this one and will likely buy more at the next available opportunity.
1 ball main colour, 3 “gobstoppers” in contrasting colours
(This gets you two hats with leftovers)
Gauge: 21 sts per 4 inches
Sizing:
This pattern was designed to fit my head, which measures just under 24 inches. If you need something larger or smaller, the pattern happens in groups of 8, and you can scale up or down to fit your needs. For example, for a 1 year old child with a head circumference of 18 inches, you’d want 6 inches less, and the closest multiple of 8 would be 32, so you should cast on 80 stitches.

Not sure how big your intended recipient’s head might be? Here’s a head size chart. I am amused to discover that I have a “large” head as I know quite a few people with heads much larger than mine!

Brim

For “one size fits most” adult hat: CO 112 in the round.
The brim is around 1 inch of ribbing. I did the k2 through the back loop to make the stitches pop a bit more.

Rows 1-13: {k2 through the back loop, p2} repeat around

Pattern

Apologies for the chart having been done in a spreadsheet program so the numbers don’t match, but start at the bottom (with the two main colour rows) and work your way up (or make your triangles upside-down relative to mine, that’s cool too).

Row 14-15: knit all stitches in main colour
First triangle section:
16: {k7 in colour1, k1 in main colour} repeat around
17: {k1 in main colour, k5 in colour1, k2 in main colour} repeat around
18: {k2 in main colour, k3 in colour1, k3 in main colour} repeat around
19: {k3 in main colour, k1 in colour1, k4 in main colour} repeat around
Second triangle section:
20: {k3 in colour2, k1 in main colour, k4 in colour2} repeat around
21: {k2 in colour2, k3 in main colour, k3 in colour2} repeat around
22: {k1 in colour2, k5 in main colour, k2 in colour2} repeat around
23: {k7 in main colour, k1 in colour2} repeat around
Third triangle section:
24-27: repeat first triangle section but using 3rd colour instead of first

Rows 28-37: Continue to knit all stitches in main colour for another 9 rows (or desired height)

Decreasing

38: {k14, k2tog} repeat around
39: k around
40: {k13, k2tog} repeat around
41: k around
42: {k12, k2tog} repeat around
43: k around
44: {k11, k2tog} repeat around
45: k around
46: {k10, k2tog} repeat around
47: {k9, k2tog} repeat around
48: {k8, k2tog} repeat around
49: {k7, k2tog} repeat around
50: {k6, k2tog} repeat around
51: {k5, k2tog} repeat around
52: {k4, k2tog} repeat around
53: {k3, k2tog} repeat around
54: {k2, k2tog} repeat around
55: {k1, k2tog} repeat around
56: {k2tog} repeat around.
Cut yarn and thread through remaining stitches to close the top of the hat then tie off.

Crochet Pokéball Postcard Pattern

August 21, 2016 by Dr. Terri

My favourite local yarn store, Black Sheep at Orenco, got turned into a pokémon gym with the advent of Pokémon Go, and I was so pleased by this that I thought I’d make a pattern! Now, pokéball patterns are a dime a dozen, but what I wanted was something that would be easy to print up nicely and give away, so that’s what I made. I’ll have a batch to give away at Albuquerque Mini Maker Faire on Aug 27-28, and hopefully the lovely folk at Black Sheep at Orenco will let me give away some there too.

Here’s the pages as images, but if you’d like to print it yourself or save it in your collection, I recommend the Pokeball postcard pattern pdf. It’s intended for a 4×6 postcard, or both sides will print onto a single 8.5×11″ sheet of paper. (Also, you can queue it as Pokéball Postcard on ravelry.)

(The text version of the pattern is at the bottom of this post)

Need help? There are lots of great tutorials out there, including video tutorials on youtube. If the first one you find doesn’t work for you, there’s many more options!

Here’s a few tutorials you might need for this pattern:

Magic loop
Single crochet
Increase
Invisible decrease (I used a slightly different version on the postcard, but this tutorial has great pictures!)

Still confused? You can probably also find an expert or a class at your local yarn store.

Love the pattern and want to thank me? Here’s a few things you can do:

I don’t take tips, but I love seeing photos of what people have done with my patterns, so feel free to drop me an email at terri (at) toybox.ca.
Make a pokeball and leave it for someone to find at your local pokestop or gym!
Buy something at Black Sheep at Orenco so my favourite yarn store stays in business. (If you’re a crocheter and haven’t tried Teresa Ruch’s tencel, I recommend splurging on a ball and making a shawl or scarf. Such saturated colours with beautiful shine; the pictures hardly do it justice!)
Buy something from my pattern editor’s most excellent store Flying Corgi Studios. I’m a big fan of her teacup pincushions, as you may have noticed in my photos!

Feel free to print this pattern out for friends or strangers and do whatever you’d like with your pokeballs! (Although please don’t hurt anyone with them!)

Crochet PoKéBall

A free amigurumi pattern by Terri Oda

Materials: Yarn in red, white, black. Crochet hook appropriate for yarn or smaller to avoid holes.
Yarn needle. Stuffing (polyfill and/or beans work well)
Picture uses worsted weight and size I or 5.5mm hook.
sc single crochet
inc increase by doing two single crochet in a single crochet stitch
dec “invisible” decrease: pull up loop in outside-of-ball half of next stitch, then full following stitch. Finish by pulling though all 3 loops on hook.
When starting your next stitch, be careful not to re-use the 2nd stitch in the decrease by accident.

Button:
0 (white): 6 sc in a magic circle loop
There are great tutorials for magic circles online!
1 (black): Switch colours to black, 2sc in each stitch (for total of 12 stitches)
Cut yarn, leaving a long black tail for sewing
Ball:
0 (red): 6 sc in a magic circle loop (6 stitches)
1 (red): increase (inc) 6 times (12 stitches)
2 (red): { inc in next stitch, sc in following one } repeat 6 times (18 stitches total)
3 (red): { inc, sc, sc } 6 times (24 stitches)
4 (red): { inc, sc 3 times } 6 times (30 stitches)
5-7 (red): sc around (30 stitches)
8 (black): change to black, sc around (30 stitches)
Don’t worry if your colour change looks obvious, it will be covered by the button.
9-11 (white): change to white, sc around (30 stitches)
12 (white): { dec, sc 3 times } 6 times (24 stitches)
13 (white): { dec, sc, sc } 6 times (18 stitches)
Start filling ball. You may need to stuff more as you go
14 (white): { dec, sc } 6 times (12 stitches)
15 (white): dec 6 times (6 stitches). Last chance to stuff!
Cut thread and pull through to close circle.

Sew button onto ball, covering the area with colour change. Toss at a pokémon to catch it!

Pi day t-shirt (free silhouette cut file)

May 16, 2016 by Dr. Terri

I designed this shirt for my sister as part of a belated pi day present:

This was done using my Roboknife (also known as a Silhouette Portrait Craft Cutter, but that’s way too much of a mouthful to talk about my robotic knife. Well, okay, it’s more of a scalpel, but whatever.) and two colours of heat transfer vinyl (HTV). This is surprisingly nice stuff to work with, once you get the cut settings right on your roboknife.

Here’s the pi day t-shirt .studio3 file. There’s been updates to the silhouette cutting software since this was created, but hopefully it’ll still work.

When you open it up, you should see two pieces in there, reversed because of the way HTV is applied:

View of the pi day shirt pattern in silhouette studio: on the left is digits of pi with a pi-symbol hole in the centre. On the right is the corresponding pi symbol as a separate piece. Both are reversed because they are intended for heat transfer vinyl, which applies backwards.

I basically grabbed the first hundred digits of pi, made a nice block out of them, then used the pi symbol to cut a hole so that I wouldn’t be layering things that wouldn’t be seen in the final design. (This tutorial on layering HTV is very helpful if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) If I were going to make this design, I would use a thicker font for the background part, and one that was easier to weed. This looks lovely but it was a pain to pull out the little centres, especially those 0’s with the dots that had to be left behind!

3am math art. Really wishing I'd thought of using a stencil font for this. So much weeding.

A photo posted by Terri Oda (@drterriko) on Mar 19, 2016 at 3:01am PDT

Plus, after all that work I’m worried that eventually the lettering will come off in the dryer. My sister says she’s been a bit afraid to wear it and decided to save it for when it would be seen by people who’d appreciate it, and I can’t blame her!

Japanese Knot Bag

March 31, 2016 by Dr. Terri

I was browsing this thread about project bags, saw this design, and thought I should try it out. A quick search of the internet found me some basic instructions (this tutorial has particularly decent pictures and nice clear indications of where to sew), so I free-handed a pattern and gave it a shot.

In the picture above, you can see my free-handed pattern. I knew I wanted a project bag for my current knitting project (the sweater) that always has me carrying at least two balls of yarn (that’s to allow me to switch back and forth between two balls and avoid abrupt colour changes when I switch balls). So I basically put the two balls and proto-sweater on my grocery store ad and drew around it.

You cut two of both the inner and outer colours, then pin them right-sides in.

Then sew the outside/bottom edge of the bag EXCEPT the outside handles. Basically, start below the handle part and sew along the bottom until you get to where the handle starts on the other side. If you look at that first picture of my template, you’re basically ignoring everything above the grocery store ad likes that say “organic” on one side and “home & family care” on the other. Snip along the curve if you want it to sit better.

Also, sew the top flat part of the handles at this point.

Then, you turn the inner lining right-side out and stick it into the bag, re-pin, and sew the whole top curve INCLUDING the handles but only the one side of them.

It’s going to look kind of goofy as you turn it right-side out:

You pretty much have a big oval bag attached in the center with handles sticking out. Wrap it all around and you get a bag with holes in the handles on either side. You need the holes in both handles for it to turn correctly, don’t try to do something clever like I did or you’ll be making friends with the seam ripper. There’s probably some way to do that so it works, but I wasn’t going to experiment too much.

Iron the edges so they’re folded in and then complete the seams, do a bit of stitching at the bottom of each handle for strength, and voila, you have a bag!

You fold the long handle through the short one, and it stays reasonably closed and looks like it could be a cousin to the little hobo bag on a stick of the type you see in cartoons (wikipedia tells me this is called a bindle).

It’s a pretty simple project, on the same scale as my favourite drawstring bag, but with curvy seams instead of a fiddly drawstring.

We’ll see how it does after I’ve toted it around for a while, but it certainly looks prettier than the beat up old small cloth conference bag that I was using before! This is also a great bag to hang on a wrist if you’re knitting while standing in line or just want your yarn close at hand so it doesn’t get tangled or tempt a kitty.

Overall, I think I’d need to be a bit more careful if I were giving this as a gift, since I didn’t love my final seams that much, but I like it enough that I kept my freehanded template in case I want to make another!

Pi day swap!

March 14, 2016 by Dr. Terri

One of the Ravelry groups I enjoy runs a pi/e themed yarn swap and I decided to participate this year because seriously, how awesome is that? The deal was that you had to include yarn or spinning fiber, some edible goodies, a handcrafted item, and other goodies related to pi or pie. Target value was $30-40, which was actually hard shopping in all the yarn crawl stores with their beautiful handpainted, hand-made items! But I managed!

My swapee likes batman, so I made her a project bag which *might* have just been an excuse for me to buy some batman fabrics.

It’s reversible, so here’s the outside and the inside:

I also made some papercraft pie boxes to fit the bag and some tea into. The lemon meringue one is a pattern from the silhouette store, and I modified it to make a blueberry pie one since I was putting blueberry tea inside:

I also made some magnets and a button, and a whole set of pretty stitch markers suitable for even bulky needles, but I didn’t take pictures of those separately.

Here’s two views of the whole package:

It included lovely yarn from Thoroughly Thwacked, a Brittany Crochet hook that my swapee was looking for, and some wooden buttons that I thought looked cool as well as the other things I mentioned. I hope it suited her!

And, since I’m sure you’re all curious, here’s the package I got from my upstream partner:

I see she noticed that I like tea 🙂

Also, check out the amazing little cherry pi pie charm:

And the hat fits perfectly!

Easy Kitty Hat

November 30, 2015 by Dr. Terri

Remember my simple hat post? It’s been done for a while now. The cloud helpfully made a collage out of my selfie attempts showcasing the finished object:

Easy Kitty Hat Collage

What’s fun about this hat is that it’s actually just a rectangular bag that you wear on your head. the “ears” aren’t built in at all, they’re an artifact of your head filling out everything except the corners of the bag, leaving you with “ears” made out of the corners. Here is it looking flat and hanging out on a tree in my backyard:

I put the pattern in the last post, but here it is a bit more fleshed out.

Pattern

Link to this pattern on Ravelry in case you want to add it to your queue!

Super short version of the pattern
1. Cast on 126 stitches and join in the round
2. { k2 p2 } repeat until you have around 1″ of brim
3. knit in stockinette for another 6″
4. Divide stitches evenly on two needles, (63 stitches on each) and graft closed with kitchener stitch.

That will get you a 21″ hat assuming a gauge of 6 sts/inch in your yarn. But if you want to use different yarn or have a different sized head, read on for more detailed instructions!

Yarn: Misti Tui from Misti Alpaca. Sport weight, chains of thin alpaca.
Any yarn would do, though, just do the calculation for your head circumference.
What’s the gauge? 6 st/inch on US 7 (4.5mm)
What’s my head circumference? Around 21 inches
Calculating…
Since I didn’t want much negative ease (i.e. stretch), that meant 21 inches x 6 stitches/inch = cast on 126 stitches

Brim ribbing (1 inch/2.5 cm): Cast on 126 stitches and join for knitting in the round
{k3, p1, k1, p1} repeat 21 times (or as many times as you have inches of head circumference)
Repeat brim rows until you reach an inch or so then switch to stockinette

Main hat (6 inches/15 cm): knit in stockinette (e.g. knit all stitches in the round) until hat measures a total of 7 inches (17.5cm), including the brim.

Finishing:
Arrange on two needles with equal numbers of stitches (63 for my hat) and graft using kitchener stitch.

Notes

This can be done with any yarn, although the ears may not look as ear-like in a really bulky one. Just do the calculations for your head circumference!

If I were doing this again, I’d do a simpler brim ribbing. You can’t really tell this from a k2p2 ribbing unless you’re looking for it.

I went the knit in the round + kitchener route because I like knitting in the round and having a seamless hat. If knitting in the round or kitchener stitch is not for you, you could knit flat and sew up the sides.

If you want, you could also put a few sewed stitches in to keep the ears in place. I actually like them as they are because they’re a bit moldable for expressiveness if I want to be more sad kitty. Or I can tuck them in so they don’t lay weirdly under my bike helmet.

Kitty Hat

Also, just for fun, here’s a picture of what the path down the side of my house looked like around when this hat was finished:

We’re a bit past fall and it’s now freezing every night and thawing every day. That hat still meets my needs! I *really* love this hat: it fits in my pocket or under my bike helmet. I’ve already bought myself yarn to make a backup copy because it’s so handy that I’m afraid I’ll misplace it!

Homemade Heartbleed pillow

October 12, 2015 by Dr. Terri

Perhaps the most well-known of open source bugs this year is heartbleed, notable as much for its marketing as technical merit.

There’s a tradition at work of decorating people’s cubes when they’re on sabbatical, and while I wasn’t the one who came up with the idea to decorate our fearless leader’s cube with things representing the many well-marketed open source bugs, I was the person who brought in the first piece:

There wasn’t exactly a pattern for this:
Step 1 Draw half a big heart (to make sure it’s symmetrical) and cut out two of them.
Step 2 Cut a long strip with tapered ends to go over the top (to give the pillow some extra width at the top — you can’t see it in the photo but it’s about the width of my palm).
Step 3 Cut various thinner strips to be the bleeding drips.
Step 4 Sew each side of top to tapered strip
Step 5 Carefully sew bottom of two hearts together, placing drips at appropriate intervals.
Step 6 Curse and pull out drips and re-sew so they actually hang correctly. Several times.
Step 7 Leave a hole so you can flip the thing right-side out and stuff, then curse because you have no red thread and spawn another search of the house because it’s much too late to go out and buy thread.

Since my office (and indeed, half of the house) had no floor, there was a lot of frantic searching for the sewing machine. I don’t mind free-handing a pattern, but sewing through 3 layers of polar fleece by hand isn’t my favourite activity! Thankfully, we did find the sewing machine, but in the end, the only red thread I could find came from a promotional sewing kit I got from Raytheon at some Grace Hopper Celebration past. Seems sort of hilariously appropriate.

End result: one very one-of-a-kind throw pillow.

I’m sort of surprised that no one has started marketing open source bug merchandise, to be honest. I’ll bet there’s a market!

A simple hat in progress

October 4, 2015 by Dr. Terri

Most of my energies have gone into the new house lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been making things too, just that I haven’t had as much time for writing up of late. So here’s what’s currently on the needles while I start sorting through the backlog of photos and creations:

This is from a little ball of Misti Alpaca that I picked up on the last day of my tatting class (more on that later!) as a treat. And it *is* a treat. I wish I could justify the cost and time of a sweater made out of this stuff — its light, soft, and seems pretty warm. Maybe someday.

The plan, half-executed, is to make a little tiny soft hat that can be stuffed in a jacket pocket. A thin tuque, I guess. Since it’s dark, it currently reminds me of what my sister and I called “crime hats” on Buffy (due to her penchant for putting on a tuque before doing anything vaguely criminal in a several episodes).

Pattern so far:

Yarn? Misti Tui from Misti Alpaca. Sport weight, chains of thin alpaca.
What’s the gauge? 6 st/inch on US 7 (4.5mm)
What’s my head circumference? Around 21 inches
Since I didn’t want much negative ease (i.e. stretch), that meant 21×6 = cast on 126 stitches

Brim ribbing: {k3, p1, k1, p1} repeat 21 times
(or as many times as you have inches of head circumference)
Repeat brim rows until you reach an inch or so then switch to stockinette

My plan is to continue the stockinette without decreases to make slight kitty ears. We’ll see how it works out!

Twilight Sparkle for Katie

June 15, 2015 by Dr. Terri

I made this Twilight Sparkle for a friend and then, uh, took a year or something to get it to her. I am the worst at mailing things (in the end, J gave it to her in person and I never mailed it!)

The pattern

This is a pattern I made myself, and this Twilight Sparkle is actually one of the first ponies I made after I had actually published the pattern. (I also have a set of teensy tiny felted ones that I haven’t finished up and photographed yet… someday I’ll get through my backlog of projects to document!)

[Crochet Pony Pattern inspired by My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on my website (toybox.ca)]
[Crochet Pony Pattern inspired by My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on Ravelry]

(You can tell it’s been a while because she’s still just a unicorn!)

Photos

Since I wrote the pattern, I don’t have much more to say about it, so here’s a bunch of pictures of the pony!

Body only:

I do love that she’s a bit posable….

Those legs are surprisingly bendable!

If I wanted to her to have a bigger range of positions I could have wired her legs, but this is just the qualities of the yarn and stuffing.

Her head also moves, although maybe not as much as the legs

And here she is with a mane and tail and cutie mark: I don’t love her eyes (I haven’t found a great way to do them; these were drawn on fabric and sewn on), but she does look more expressive with them!

Closer look at her rump so you can see the cutie mark. Or make jokes about butt-shots, whatever.

Did you notice what book it is?

I chose it for photos because of the colour, but it does seem like something she might enjoy, eh?

Maybe one day I’ll do a version with the wings…

Or at least one for myself!

Overall, my biggest regret on this one was not sending her out sooner. Sorry about the delay, Katie!

Butterfly Baby Sweater (simplified top-down one piece cardigan for self-striping sock yarn)

June 19, 2014 by Dr. Terri

Remember my post about pictures of knitting in sunlight? I think it’s about time I post a few finished photos to go with that, isn’t it?

The project was a baby sweater, again for baby V, who probably qualifies as a toddler now that she’s, well, toddling!

My pattern is based off Eyelet Baby Cardigan pattern from Looking Glass Knits.

Which was in turn based off this baby cardigan pattern from DROPS Design

I’d originally intended to just do the Eyelet Baby Cardigan pattern as written, but I thought it was too busy to have the eyelets with the self-striping yarn, and then on top of that I found the way the pattern was written had me doing too much math as I knit which broke my flow of creating. I must have knit and unknit this 3 times before I gave up and just wrote out my own pattern:

Pattern

Size: 9 months
Gauge: 8 st = 1 inch

inc – k front and back?

In my case, that was knitpicks felici and size 3 needles.

Yarn:

Main colour: One ball of knitpicks felici (sock yarn). If I’d had more, though, I would have used one-and-a-bit-more.
Edging colour: some fluffy baby yarn that I’ve long since lost the label for. It is probably sport weight, not sock yarn weight.

0: CO 84 st.
1-3: k across (garter stitch)
4: make buttonhole (k2, yo, k2tog), k to end
5-8: k across (garter stitch)
9: k4, p to last 4 stitches, then k4
(We’ll do this for all odd rows, really)
10: k, increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [92]
eg: k4 (border), k3, inc (k10, inc) * 7, k3, k4 (border)
12: k, increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [100]
eg: k4 (border), k4, inc (k11, inc) * 7, k3, k4 (border)
14: k, increasing by SEVEN spaced evenly [107]
eg: k4, k1, inc (k15, inc) * 6, k1, k4
** In original, pattern row was here **
(See “additional lace details” below if you want to know my embellishments)
16: k
**
18: buttonhole, increasing by SIXTEEN spaced evenly [123]
eg: (k2, yo, k2tog), k5, inc (k6, inc) * 15, k4, k4
20: k, increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [131]
eg: k4, k1, inc, (k16, inc) * 7, k2, k4
22: k, increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [139]
eg: k4, k2, inc, (k17, inc) * 7, k2, k4
24: k, increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [147]
eg: k4, k3, inc (k18, inc) *7, k2 k4
26: k, increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [155]
eg: k4, k4, inc (k19, inc) * 7, k2, k4
**
28: k
30: k
32: buttonhole (k2, yo, k2tog), k
***
34:k increasing by SIXTEEN spaced evenly [171]
eg k4, k6, inc, (k9, inc) * 15, k6, k4
36: k4, k increasing by SIXTEEN spaced evenly [187]
eg k4, k7, inc, (k10, inc) * 15, k6, k4
38: k4, k increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [195]
eg k4, k2, inc, (k25, inc) * 7 , k2, k4
40: k4, k increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [203]
eg k4, k3, inc, (k26, inc) * 7 , k2, k4
42: k4, k increasing by EIGHT spaced evenly [211]
eg k4, k4, inc, (k27, inc) * 7 , k2, k4
**
44: k
**
46: buttonhole, k increasing by TWENTY FOUR spaced evenly [235]
eg (k2, yo, k2tog), k10, inc, (k8, inc) * 23 , k9, k4
48: k4, k increasing by NINE spaced evenly [244]
eg k4, k1, inc, (k28, inc) * 8, k2, k4
50: k4, k increasing by NINE spaced evenly [253]
eg k4, k2, inc, (k29, inc) * 8, k2, k4

Buttonholes: continue every 14 rows (at 60, 74, 88, 102…)

Divide stitches for arms:
Row 52: k39, slip 51 st to holder, k 73 [back], slip 51 st to holder, k39.

Work body (151 st):

Work in stockinette until… well, in my case it was until I was almost out of yarn, but in theory the original pattern said 10″.

Work edging:

Swap to edging yarn. In my case, this was a white baby yarn that was actually a bit thicker than the sock yarn used for the main body.

Work feather and fan as per original pattern, repeating this three times:
Row 1: knit.
Row 2: k4, p to last 4 stitches, k4.
Row 3: k5, (yo, k1) three times, (k2tog 6 times), *(yo, k1) six times, (k2tog 6 times); rep from * until last 7 stitches, (yo, k1) three times, k4.
Row 4: knit.

Work two rows of garter stitch and bind off.

Work sleeves:

Put 51 arm stitches on a needle.

Knit in stockinette until desired length is reach. I wanted short sleeves, so that was 4 rows for me. Note that this will make intentionally wide sleeves. I hear dressing babies is hard.

Swap to edging colour, and add an eyelet edging to suggest the lace of the feather and fan in the bottom:

1 (RS): k all the way across
2-3: k across
4: repeat (p2tog, yo)
5-7: k across
bind off

Additional lace details

And one final photo:

As you can see, I actually didn’t use the most basic pattern. I added in lace details in the sections marked with ** above.

In the two one-row sections (rows 18, 44), this was

repeat: (k2 tog, y0)

And in the larger section, I used the following pattern, with appropriate padding to make it line up nicely (i.e. a few extra k stitches at beginning/end).

28: repeat (k1, yo, sl1 k1 psso, k3, k2tog, yo)
30: repeat (k2, yo, sl1 k1 psso, k1, k2tog, yo, k1)
32: repeat (k3, yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo k2)

(purl on the odd rows as per rest of pattern).

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if the lace details were necessary on this particular self-striping yarn, but they do look cute enough.

Wrap-up

This one actually lasted for a couple of wearings, helped along no doubt by the fact that I chose colours that matched better with baby V’s existing wardrobe. (A lesson learned about trying for subversively non-pink clothes in the past… alas!) I even managed to see her wearing it when I was in town after PyCon!

I used one ball of felici because that’s what I had (I’d bought it when she was much tinier!) but I probably could have used a little bit more so it wouldn’t be so short. Even with the fluffier, larger lace edging, it was still a bit short. Not so bad since it wound up being a spring sweater, but not ideal!

Pi Baby Sweater

June 9, 2014 by Dr. Terri

My first degree is in mathematics, so MathSoc wound up being the focus of my university social life and an important sanity outlet valve for the duration of my undergrad. A couple of the lovely friends I met through Mathsoc announced they were expecting a child, and I knew immediately what I wanted to send to the shower. I mean, these are the friends who mounted their framed diplomas at right angles to each other due to mis-adjusted frames and laughed when we made mathy jokes about it looking perfectly normal.

Since math nerd baby clothes aren’t exactly the sort of thing one picks up at toys-r-us, I spent a lot of time at PyCon knitting up a gift. After not too long, the theme of I was making started to get obvious to the people around me…

I found the idea of knitting a pi sweater at pycon pretty funny. Alas, since PyCon was later this year, it was not also pi day!

Here’s the sweater front and the back design viewed together before it was finished in case your imagination hasn’t already done the rest:

The pattern for the sweater comes from a book called Style Your Own Kids’ Knits by Kate Buller, which gives you basic sweater patterns in a variety of sizes with a huge number of options. I used her font for the numbers on the bottom and my own hand-drawn pi symbol for the chest motif.

Style Your Own Kids’ Knits: Simply Choose a Pattern and Select a… by Kate Buller

I also made up a simple ribbing variation for the hem and cuffs that went something like this:

1-3: k stockinette with purl facing RS
4-6: 2×2 rib (k2, p2 on RS; p2, k2 on WS)
1-3: k stockinette with purl facing RS

I’m not going to write out all of the sweater instructions in here since I imagine the author would rather you buy her book if you want more details about sleeve variations and edgings and whatnot, but I do want to provide my charts for the front and back in case any other math nerds need a baby sweater!

Back chart:

And unblocked back piece:

Front chart:

And unblocked front piece:

Note that it’s all rumply because it hasn’t been blocked. While the mercerized cotton I chose was lovely to knit with and had great bright colours, it does look a bit lumpy in part due to my lack of experience with stranded knitting and in part due to the lack of blocking to set the stitches straighter.

I don’t have post-blocking pictures because I actually didn’t do the blocking, because I ran out of time before my flight home and I left the sweater in Ottawa with my sister so that she could bring it to the baby shower. She (apparently with some instructional help from my grandmother) did the blocking and sewed the buttons on, and was kind enough to send me a picture of the mom-to-be holding the finished sweater:

I amused myself greatly with this project, and I hope it’ll amuse my math friends and their new baby.

Obligatory Circular Ravelry link

Link to My Pi Baby Sweater pattern on Ravelry, in case you want to queue it up there. (Of course, it just links back here…).

Little Fox Tail

November 7, 2013 by Dr. Terri

When my friend K announced that he and his wife were expecting their first child, I threatened to make an inordinate number of animal hats for the kid. The first of these turned out to be a Failynn Fox Cowl, which while adorable, is also much too big for a newborn no matter what the pattern said. See the picture? Those are my full-sized adult glasses. In a pinch, I could wear this hat, and while I’m a smaller adult, I’m not that tiny.

In for a penny in for a pound: I figured if it wasn’t going to be a newborn sized present, I should make it more toddler-friendly an add a tail so it could be more of a costume. Unfortunately, there weren’t any tail patterns around that matched what I wanted, so I had to make my own.

Little Fox Tail

– Extra Bulky Yarn in two colours (I used orange and white)
– 9mm needles, either two circulars or a set of DPNs

Row 0: Cast on 16 and join ends, being careful not to twist
(I cast 8 on each circular, but whatever works for you.)
Row 1-2: k16 (all the way around)
3: {k1, increase, k3} 4 times (20)
4: k20 (all the way around)
5: {k1, increase, k2} 6 times, k2 (26)
6-11: k26 (all the way around)
12: {k2tog, k3} 6 times, k2 (22)
13: k26 (all the way around)
14: {k2tog, k9} 2 times (20)
15: k20 (all the way around)
16 {k2tog, k4} 4 times (16)
17: Change to second colour (white in my case), k16
18: {k2tog, k3} 4 times (12)
19: k12
20: {k2tog, k2} 4 times (8)
21: k8
22: {k2tog, k1} 4 times (4)
tie off to make a nice little point on the tail

I also made a seed stitch belt to attach the tail to, but for some reason I never took a picture of that. It’ll be a while before baby V gets big enough to want to play with this, but hopefully it’ll be fun when she grows into it!

Plants vs Zombies Sunflower Plushie

March 9, 2013 by Dr. Terri

Welcome to Dr. Terri’s maker blog! Since you can just read the about page to find out what’s going on here, I’m going to skip ahead to the part where I show you something I made: A plush Plants vs Zombies sunflower!

John’s father is a huge Plants vs Zombies fan, and when I went to visit for thanksgiving I was highly amused by how much time he spent playing. I thought he might get a kick out of having a sunflower plushie so sit on his desk. I could have bought one, but there didn’t seem to be any in stock that were a nice small desk size, so I bought some polar fleece and set about making a pattern:

As you can tell, my pattern isn’t exactly complex: draw a big oval for the face, petal-like shapes for the petals, and leaf-like shapes for the leaves.

Petals

I sewed little pockets to make petals, then ran a line down the centre to make them look right. There’s no stuffing in those because my fleece was thick enough and it would have made sewing them to the face really annoying. I purposely didn’t make them identical because I thought a little bit of wonkiness would look more right.

Face

I hand-drew some eyes and mouth and appliqued mine on by hand. You could easily embroider this instead (and I think that’s what they do with the licensed plushies).

Leaves

Like the petals, these are sewn as pockets with a line in the middle. You could probably put stuffing in these without making your life too hard, but I didn’t bother. Leave the pocket opening at the base of the leaf so you can just tuck the ends in and sew it to the stem.

Stem

The stem is just a tube of green. I filled it with a pair of twisted-together and folded-over pipecleaners to get it to stay up. Make sure to leave a big loop of pipecleaner at the top for sewing into the head if you want it to stay up without flopping over. If you want the sunflower to be able to stand up on its own, make the stem fairly long so you can curl it around underneath to make a base.

Assembling

Put the two head pieces face together and arrange the petals sticking in with the pocket ends out and sew around the side, leaving a large chunk of space at the bottom and 1-2 petals to fill it in. You can’t see the back of the head in my photos, but it’s just a second brown circle — you could use another colour if desired. Be careful not to overlap the petals (that much fleece is a pain to sew through) or horrifically mis-angle them, although again, some wonkiness is a-ok.

Turn the whole head right-side-out. Insert the pipecleaner loop in and adjust it to suit you, then add some stuffing. Stick your missing petals in and sew through them and the stem. (I did this by hand because it’s awkward to pin and a bit dangerous to stab your sewing machine needle into wrapped wires.)

Sew leaves onto stem. In my case, I sewed them halfway up and then bent the remaining stem in a curl so that the sunflower could stand on its own (or perhaps be wrapped around something).

I really wanted a flowerpot for this so that it could look like a roof-level plant, but we couldn’t find a sufficiently small one since I made this in November and even in the sunny southwest, that’s not really a great time to find flower pots. However, I did find a tiny craft tin bucket, so that’s what I used. The bucket is about 2 inches tall, to give you an idea. The sunflower made its way to its new home in time for his Ayyám-i-Há celebration a few weeks ago, so I figure it’s safe to share the pictures with the world now.

Enjoy!

Gallery of Plants vs Zombie Sunflower Photos