....but then I have lots of time for knitting at the moment, though at times it's so hot that my hands get too sweaty to allow the yarn to flow!
This (not very attractive) project is a water bottle carrier. It's made with the Mission Falls 1824 cotton that I bought a little while ago.
I used 4.5mm dpns and cast on 40 stitches and worked one row knit, one row purl, one row knit, one row purl (which is how you get garter stitch in the round). After those four rows, I tried something different to get a truly random stripe pattern. I took a die and numbered my yarns from 1 to 5. I had a coin at the ready so I could flip it for heads or tails. Then at the beginning of each round, I tossed the die for the colour and the coin for the stitch (heads = knit, tails = purl).
I got in a right tangle, had to regularly straighten out my yarns, and I had WAY more purl rows than I would have liked, but I didn't cheat! When I was totally sick of fighting with the different colours, I just continued with one for the bottom part. At 7 inches long, I did one more purl row to make a ridge for the base, and then decreased like so:
K6, K2tog around
K5, K2tog around
K4, K2tog around
K3, K2tog around
K2, K2tog around
K1, K2tog around
K2tog around, use a darning needle to take the yarn through the last 6 stitches, gather them up and fasten off.
I knew if I knitted the handle as a flat strip or i-cord, I'd be at it for hours, so I cheated. A 16mm crochet hook, 5 strands of yarn (one of each colour) and 50 chain stitches had me a carrying strap in a couple of minutes! Knot it on either side and Bob's your uncle! (Sorry, British expression, don't know where the meaning of that originated.)
Now what? I don't want to go back to that child's sweater. I realised after I had done the body and part of a sleeve that the 6 skeins I bought from the thrift store didn't all match after all. Five were a brighter red, one more of a burgundy, and of course it's the burgundy one that I pulled out of the bag to knit the body. Anyway, I have also discovered that I enjoy knitting way more when I am using a yarn I love, and that if I am too cheap/thrifty/guilty about buying yarn and hold back on getting what I really want then I will lose interest and motivation to finish projects.
I have one more 100gram skein of the James Brett Marble which has blue shades in it and am trying to think of a small project which I can knit. Any ideas?
5 comments:
Bikini?!? ;-)
Ask a smartarse a question and you get a smartarsey answer....
As if you didn't already put us to shame with your knitting output. Now you're just cranking out those knitting projects. I guess you'll be out of yarn before much longer ;o)
Hmmm. A nice small project. A coin purse? You could always knit it in some fancy stitches for fun.
Yes, I will be out of yarn soon. Thankfully I am not an extravagant person, and am usually able to cover my yarn purchases with my birthday/Christmas money from my mum (if they are for me - if the knitting is a gift for someone else, it comes out of the family coffers)!
You could knit a nice little bag, but then you might be accused of being a "bag lady" ;o)
I think maybe a beret to go with my scarf and fingerless mitts...
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