Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first episode of Finished Objects. I'm Amo Scribere and I will be your host today as we take a look at a few wonderfully knitted items. So, without further adieu...
To start us off, we have a mini-sock. Unfortunately, I can't remember what I did with the link to the pattern for this particular piece (but it's free and online), but this wasn't too difficult to make. This is the third one I've done and I decided to vary around the coloring a bit to see how it would look.
Again, this was done with Red Heart stash yarn... this time in burgandy and white. I actually made this one for a Christmas gift exchange and stuffed candies in it. I wanted to make more for people, but I didn't have the time this year.
This is a great project for getting rid of the extra bits of yarn you have lying around!
The sock didn't take me that long to knit, but parts of it were tricky. It can easily be done in a weekend or in an afternoon if you're more experienced or a quick knitter.
Skills: Knitting (and purling) in the round, working a sock heel, simple color changes (for this pattern), joining at a gusset, decreases, Kitchener stitch, crochet chain (optional).
Pattern Rating: ntermediate. Definitely not a first project! Between working the heel and the Kitchener stitch (which isn't bad if you have good instructions), this would be an easy project for a semi-experienced sock knitter, but not necessarily something you'd want to try just after learning to knit.
Next in line, we have an amigurumi bee! This is from the pattern over at ChristineLandry.com for a
Bumble Cat Toy. The only major edit I made was that I didn't put catnip in it.
I used worsted weight Red Heart yarn that I happened to have lying around in my stash and I used bits of yarn and cloth to stuff the inside because I didn't have any real stuffing.
Most of the knitting for this project took me about an afternoon to complete, so it's definitely a quick knit.
Skills necessary (and you can follow the link to the pattern) are knitting on dpns in a round, making an I-cord (unless you just want the bee) and increasing and decreasing in the round and simple sewing and finishing techniques.
Pattern Rating: Intermediate Beginner. This probably isn't ideal for your first project, but it's a quick knit that can be done over the weekend, even if you aren't very fast (like me) and it doesn't require a huge amount of skills.
This is a bag I made for my sister for Christmas. It was based off of another Fair Isle bag, and chart only I made some interesting modifications. I re-charted the centerpiece of the shield and applied her initials. I do like how it turned out, especially since this was my first attempt at charting something for a knitting project. I also had fun working the strap, which was done in a half-double crochet. The back of the bag has solid checkermarks instead of the shield motif.
This ended up taking a very long time to finish and sadly, I didn't have it done by Christmas. It's just a lot of knitting and it took longer than I expected it to.
I used mostly materials that were either in my stash (Red Heart yarn) or lying around the house. For example, I lined the inside of the bag with an old t-shirt that had been washed. It is quite durable, which is always a plus!
Skills: Fair Isle knitting techniques, knitting in the round, basic crocheting, assembly...
Pattern Rating: Intermediate. For a Fair Isle pattern, this one was pretty simple, but it takes awhile to get the hang of handling two pieces of yarn at once. Plus, you also have the crocheting and the sewing...
Lastly, I'd like to show you something I made for myself! This is a coffee mug cozy made with Cascade 22o. Yay for luxury yarns! Okay, not really, but I kind of consider anything that's your run of the mill scratchy acrylic to be "luxury". For wool, Cascade 220 is very soft, too! And it's fairly inexpensive. The best of both worlds, I suppose...
This was made from a slight adaptation of the
POISON! Coffee Cozy pattern over at
Carissa Knits. Instead of using size 10 needles (I don't have any size 10 dpns), I used size 8s and cast on five more stitches, allowing one extra grey stitch between each of the motifs. I also knit a little bit more loosely than most people do, I've found, so that helped. Also, instead of using red and black, I used dark green and light grey, which are two of my favorite colors (along with purple and black!).
I actually finished this in about five to six hours of knitting, so it was a fast project for me. But doesn't it look cute on my coffee mug?
Skills: Fair Isle knitting, ability to follow a chart and that's about it.
Pattern Rating: Beginning Intermediate. The most tricky part for me was trying to work with dpns on a Fair Isle project (on the bag, I used circulars), so it was just a lot of things to keep track of where they were and what they were supposed to be doing.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that does it for this edition of Finished Objects. Join us next time for another new episode where we will be showing off a wine cozy and a few other surprises!
