Knitting Needle Stand

Scrap Wood Knitting Needle Stand

Well, here it is! Scrap wood boards, a few holes drilled at strategic intervals and depths and my stand holds the tips to my interchangeable cable needles, my double-pointed and long straights! It even has a little pencil ledge in front!

I just put a few needles in to try it out. This one will hold up to 3.75mm needles — one for the larger needles is on order

I was going to write the needle sizes on before it was varathaned and then we thought better of that — so right now there are little stickers — albeit a little uneven — for the sizes; that way it’s a little more flexible.

Scrap Wood Knitting Needle Stand

A Coming Together

Some of you may know that I publish patterns under a few different labels: currently South Mountain ~ Naturally, PurpleSage Designs and Cranberry Ocean Knits.  It all started with one little pattern — a celtic knot I had envisioned for the Celtic Jenna Rose pattern — I wanted to chart a closed-ring cable and with the patient assistance of  Jenna H of Knits ‘n’ Wovens, it came to be.

I love yarn. I adore hand spun, hand-dyed yarn from indie dyers and designers; the talent that abounds in that community awes me! I could spend days in a yarn shop like Gaspereau Valley Fibres and have to be dragged out!  However, I am a practical person who fully knows that yarns that utilize economy of scale are a very important part of the knitting world, too.

The three pattern lines just slowly emerged — all on their own, honest!!  Because each line focuses on its own special types of yarns:

~~ South Mountain ~ Naturally patterns are written for 100% natural yarns;

~~ PurpleSage Designs patterns are natural yarns /blends and

~~ Cranberry Ocean Knits patterns focus is on easy-care, easy-on-the-pocketbook acrylic and acrylic blends

My intention was to keep them separate. However, as the pattern lines expand, the thought of keeping 3 websites up-to-date seems a little daunting and will take way too much time away from my knitting

So, over the next few weeks/months you’ll see some changes to the PurpleSage Designs website as it becomes the portal to all three pattern lines.

Recycling old glasses cases

It’s not just a way to remember who your optometrist is!

This glasses case has a spring-loaded lid so it clamps shut quite nicely.

Great way to transport hooks, stitch markers, stitch holders, sewing needles and all those little items that get lost in the bottom of your knitting, crocheting or sewing bag.

You can even use the cleaning cloth that you always get with a pair of glasses as a needle/pin holder – just fold the cloth in half, stab your pins/needles in and out of the cloth on one half of the folded cloth. Then, fold it in half again (or roll it) to cover the needles and tuck it into the ‘carrier’.

Just a thought!

And I’m still working on reversing that pattern for the Long Skinny Scarf, but it doesn’t look good — I have a variation but it’s not a true mirror image, so I’ll knit a few rows and take a picture and see what you think!

Blocking – the Thrifty Way

I have recycled 12″ x 12″ ceiling tile to use as a blocking board. The front (good side) of the ceiling tile has a painted surface which is very hard.

The back of the tile, however, is a softer surface to pin into and because the ceiling tiles interlock, I can create any size blocking board I need.

I cover the ceiling tile with a towel.

Then I lay grid interfacing (sold at fabric stores – it’s interfacing weight and my version has dots at 1″ intervals) over the towel. The grid helps me keep my garment true and makes blocking to a specific size very easy.

Celtic Jenna Rose and Toddler Irish

Celtic Jenna Rose
Here’s another teaser picture! I have been rewriting the draft pattern — honest!

I’m procrastinating just a little because it’s hard going back to scribble notes after 6 months — not recommended!!

Test Knitting
I decided to only have the centre panel test knit for this design since there is no body shaping to the top itself.

Pattern Publishing
For now, I publish all of my own patterns.

It’s hard to know which is better — booklet or full page format. Some people love the booklet format because its very transportable; others keep all of their patterns in plastic page protectors so really like full page patterns best.

The first 5 PurpleSage patterns were published using MS Publisher using a half-page booklet format.

Certainly there are pros and cons to the Publisher program itself, but since I don’t create drafts in that program and there are some issues when I copy from Word and Excel into Publisher, I thought I would use a full-page, 2-column Word format for the Celtic Jenna Rose sleeveless top pattern.

The pattern writing is actually taking way more time than the designing / knitting. One of the reasons, of course, is that the presentation of the pattern is so important — it’s not only the accuracy of the numbers and directions and clarity of same, it’s also the format

• booklet vs full-page
• columns vs full-width
• picture placement
• fonts and styles
• which techniques to include

and then there’s the photography! I spent most of yesterday afternoon with “Kes” .

Yes, she has a name
This is Kes: the mannequin that a lovely person donated to me through Freecycle — what a great way to recycle.

She’s a little worse for wear — little chip off the nose and a “birthmark” on the cheek and hairless — but she’s been a wonderful help! Much easier taking pictures of her than of me through the looking glass!

Irish toddler Sweater (August 12 post)
I started the sample knit for this design and decided that, as much as I like seamless garments, this one would have to have underarm seams — with the cable patterns and centrepiece design it became too complicated to write the directions for all 5 sizes.

I did consider charting it exclusively, but reading charts is not an easy knit for some people.

So, a frogging I went and I will start anew on straight needles and see how it progresses.

Okay, back to work for me!

Recycled Cereal Box Storage

Just a little update on my recycled cereal box storage system (see July 25th post).

A month and a half into it and it’s working very well!

And — to extrapolate — once the project/pattern is finished, you can take the label off, fold the “top” down to close the box and put the label back on the outside and it’s ready for semi-permanent storage. All of the pieces are in one spot and if you stack them on a shelf with the label toward the front, think of the fun you can have alphabetizing??? You know you want to!!!

Don’t stab yourself

The top I’m currently knitting has some cabling and what to do with that extra needle (I must confess I don’t always use a cable needle — sometimes just and extra dp) when it’s not in use? (I know some fearless knitters do it without cable needles, but for me somehow that method extremely cumbersome and slow.)

And then just the other day, as I was removing this hairband from my ponytail and wrapped it around my wrist for temporary storage — aha!!!!

Now, I’ve tried this with some other ponytail holders that were all fabric on the outside and did not meet with great success — the needle ended up under the cushions of my favourite chair — again

However, this particular hairband has the elastic stitching on the inside of the band (you can see the dark lines in the first picture) and so provides some grip to hold the needle.

Recycling – not! or A $2.40 Lesson

So disappointed!

The lovely knit silk top I wrote about on Friday will not become anything from my needles!

I carefully hand-washed it and laid it flat to dry. But once it was dry — there was that “distinctive” silk odour (which I’m told some people like but I think smells like bad fish). Now, I checked for that odour when I purchased the top and it was not present. Hmmm, a conundrum — maybe the recommended dry cleaning would avoid this phenomenon. Too sad — not about to go there.

Recycling, Un-Bumping Cast-off in the Round

Recycling
I’m determined to follow up on my recycling quandary so today I purchased a deep sage green 100% silk top to unravel ($2.40 at Guy’s Frenchy’s). It’s currently being washed so I’ll have to post pictures later. It is destined to become a lace scarf.

Knitting Techniques
This is not a new technique by any means, but very handy if you knit in the round. When you cast off in the round, the rows are always offset leaving a bump or jog. Here’s one way to avoid that. Today I uploaded a series of pictures and descriptions on the PurpleSage Designs website.

Organize: Swatch Book

So, even though I really, really dislike the thought of “wasting” yarn by making and actually keeping the swatch, I know that as I build my Swatch Book I will appreciate the amount of work it will save in the future.

Imagine having a swatch already made for a project! This is especially helpful if you like to use certain yarn again and again.

Here you see a copy of my Swatch Book page. Blanks for

• name of yarn
• where purchased
• date purchased
• colourway
• weight / yardage [meters]
• size of needles / hook used; type of needles/hook (wood, aluminum, plastic, steel)
• gauge (measured in at least 3 or 4 places and averaged); I always record dry gauge (as I knit/crocheted it) and washed gauge and record how I washed and dried the swatch
• cost
• Comments area for : how I felt about the yarn while I was making the swatch e.g. soft, scratchy, stiff, silky, slippery, yarn split, many knots, colour came off on my fingers, did the texture change with washing/drying, change in swatch dimensions, blocking info, etc.

Then I attach the swatch to the page, place it in a page protector and file in a binder for easy access. If you have a lot of swatches, the binder can be organized by dividing it by 1) gauge or 2) yarn content or 3) brand of yarn depending on how you’ll later want to retrieve the information.

If you’d like a copy (MSWord or pdf format), just email me at knitannapolis_at_yahoo_dot_ca and I’ll be happy to send you the form.