The iClops Monster Hooded Cowl

This one-eyed monster will keep any child warm and cozy during the cold winter months plus is adorably fun to wear.

I have posted the pattern on Etsy and on Ravelry. With the chunky yarn the hooded cowl knits up fairly quickly, a one or two evening project.

Both boys and girls will love to wear this warm and cozy monster. I have even included adult size instructions for those adults who want a fun accessory this winter.

The cowl is worked in the round while the hood is worked flat but I have included instructions to work entire project flat if desired. There will be a seam if entire project is worked flat but mattress stitch can blend easily.

An over-sized button sewn onto cowl is optional.

The Simplest, Most Practical Knit Dish Cloth

I have been making my own dish clothes since I learned how to knit. My mom made all sorts of variations of crocheted dish clothes but in my opinion they stunk. It only took one use and a few hours later the thing was so stinky. Washing it never seemed to completely eliminate the smell and the older the cloth was the faster it hit cruddy dirty dish rocket stink mode. I would use the same exact cotton yarn and not have the same problem. Granted, there’s a point where all dish clothes start to stink. But my knit ones took longer to reach that time for the washing machine state.

It’s not a big secret but it might be something not commonly known. The spaces around the stitches need to breathe air to keep back the stink. All those fancy crocheted dish clothes were crunched up next to each other stitches. Rubbing shoulders scrunched. There was no room to breathe.

All you need is a set of size 10 knitting needles, cotton yarn, and to know how to cast on, knit, and bind off. That’s it. The needles need to be big to make big, airy, breathable stitches. The yarn must be cotton. I use the Peaches and Cream or whatever it’s called.

Cast on 30 stitches. It looks big but the cotton will shrink. Maybe it looks small to you. In that case, go ahead and cast on 40 stitches. I make mine with a starting 30 stitches and that works well for me. The beauty of making your own is that you can do whatever you want. If this is a first time project, go ahead and start with a 30 stitch cast on.

Now just knit. Every row, knit.

Bring side up to knitting needle to see if the knitted item creates a square. Knit until a perfect triangle forms when bringing right side up to knitting needle. Well, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It will never be perfect since it’s knitted yarn. Once you get your triangle, bind off.

I have been using these as my dish clothes for many years. They’re the best.

I wouldn’t spend too much time picking out favorite colors for these. The color fades long before the dish cloth needs to be retired. Well, you’ll get some use with pretty colors but normally not very long. They are dish cloths after all.

Gauge, The Importance of

Remember that second knitting project I ever did? First a scarf then diving straight into a sweater, a sweater that turned out to be a size 3x instead of the size small I needed. Gauge was a note at the top of the pattern, meaning nothing to me. Oh, but if we want an item to fit, gauge is everything. I think the suggested needle size for that sweater was 4 or 5 but I didn’t like using needles that size so I used size 10 or 11. Or maybe I didn’t have needles sized 4 or 5. I am certain I had a logical reason for completely disregarding the recommended size of knitting needles.

So how important is gauge, even if we use the recommended needle size? It only matters if we want to wear the finished project. Scarves, not such a big deal. Toys, does it really matter if it’s a 15” doll or 18” doll? Probably not. Gauge does matter for anything we want to wear, including hats. I saw a woman knitting a hat that looked like one of those hats meant to tuck dread locks under and she said that it was for her baby grandson. Oops. She didn’t understand gauge either.

I had a mental pause, you know, that cloudy, foggy, gray area where a thought will not step forward though you know it’s something simple and basic. For me it was double loading two socks on at the same time for magic loop. I just could not wrap my head around how to get them both on there. So I googled it. Within ten seconds of seeing the little video someone had put together I hit the duh moment (Cast on half of first one, full second one, then second half of first one. Duh.) but I kept watching the clip. That woman knit so tightly I was expecting the yarn to break every time she knit a stitch.

So, we are using the same size knitting needle as recommended but there is no denying that we all knit at different gauge. I see people knit right at the tip of the needles all the time. That impacts gauge. Some people’s knuckles turn white from the strength they use to wrap that yarn as tight as possible. That impacts gauge. Some people knit very loosely. Some knit a good inch back from the tip. Take a look at knitting needles. They slope down more and more narrow as they approach the tip. Someone knitting back at the straight section will have a different gauge than someone knitting right at the tip even if both people hold the yarn at the same tension.

Gauge is very important if you want to wear the finished item. Fortunately gauge is easy to figure out. You can do it one of two ways.

     One, knit a swatch in pattern about 20 stitches wide and 20 rows high. Then measure inside the swatch to get the stitches per inch. Ideally it’s a good idea to block the swatch. For a sweater or scarf it isn’t as necessary but for a sweater it is a good idea. I have found that if you hold up a ruler and count the stitches in 1” you can still be off. Count the stitches in 4” and then divide by 4 to get a more accurate gauge.

·         

       Two, start knitting project and after a few rows measure for gauge. The benefit for this method is that if gauge is accurate then you’ve saved yourself the time knitting the swatch and already are on your way into the project. Of course you can’t block it this way. But for a general gauge measurement it will work also.

The best way to adjust gauge when it doesn’t match the pattern’s gauge is to go up or down in needle size as needed. 

The most important thing about measuring gauge is so that you have a heads up on if you are matching the desired end size for fitted items before you complete a whole sweater, or hat, or cowl. For something like a scarf it isn't the end of the world to match gauge, though it can impact how much yarn you'll use compared to what you planned for. We'll talk more about gauge in the future. 

Beading on a Jewel Loom

I have made jewelry for years and years, from wire wrapping, silver work, setting cabochons, and working with seed beads. I finally bought a $6 plastic bead loom called a Jewel Loom. It sure makes bead loom work easy. This is my first project and I am excited to make more items.

The bracelet is made with size 8 seed beads, a light brown, an earthy green, and an ivory. I repeated the three squares 3 times. Making just two or three squares would make fun earrings also.

I started with some grid paper, aka graphing paper. I was a little too delicate with the first few rows and did not pull tight enough. As a result there are some little loops of beading thread on the side. But once I got going, it was a breeze. A very fun little project that looks more complicated than it was.

The Jewel Loom has a metal bar that holds the plastic form while you thread the warp threads. Once you have the warp threads in place you pop out the metal bar and the loom holds the threads taut.

It's a very nice little loom, especially for the price. But.. it's a little small.

There are two methods of taking the finished product off the loom. 1. Cut the threads and weave them into the work. 2. weave a band of thread and saturate it with glue and let sit until dry.

Method 2 works for a clasp that will cover the band of glued thread but not so handy when not using that style of clasp. But method 1 on this loom is sort of a pain to try to weave in those short ends that result from making a 6" strip.

The average bracelet size is 7" and allowing 1" for clasp, loomed piece needs to be 6" in length. That left only short threads to weave up into work at the end. I'm guessing that the developer uses the gluing method.

It's workable but tedious. Very happy with it and I plan to make many more projects with this little loom. I also plan to make a larger one.

Welted Hand Puppets

I play with new ideas and new stitches all the time. Sometimes I just make swatches but sometimes I keep going and complete a project. The puppets came about on a whim.

I was practicing welt stitching and continued up the tube to make a hand puppet. I named him Marli. The dog thinks Marli is pretty funny. Marlie is the brown and blue guy on the right. I haven't named the orange, green, and ivory guy yet.

I really enjoy making welts. I started with the garter stitch welts. That's where you knit a set amount of rounds then purl the same number of rounds then knit again that number of rounds and then purl again. Doing it in the round makes it really easy. I wanted different colored welts and I learned that it's better to knit a round of a new color before starting the purl rounds or you get a line of dashed color.

Mixed in with the knit/purl welts are rounds of casing style welts, where you knit several rows then go back and pick up three or four rows down. I had tried this before years ago and found it tedious and horribly confusing to keep straight when trying to find specific bumps on the backside. There is a method of doing it that makes it so easy and the row just flies by.

While looking at the front of the work, if you take a look at the stockinette stitch you will see a bar on the backside of the V. To do the casing style welting, insert knitting needle from the back into the stitch along the row you want to use and move needle up and away and you will grab that bar, which is the u bump on the backside of the work. What makes it so awesome is that you can see what you're doing. You grab that bar in the row you want and place that loop onto the needle and knit the two stitches together, grab the next bar, pull that loop up and knit two together. It works up so fast and you can see exactly where you are working on the rows below. You can work a complete row or just part of the row, which gives a wrinkled effect. Pretty neat.

To make the puppet, just knit a tube for about 6" then work half the stitches flat for a few inches then decrease until there's 6 or 8 stitches left and bind off. Work the other half of the stitches in the same manner. Knit flat a mouth by repeating the knitting done on the separate halves and sew that piece inside.

I tried getting a picture of them with my hand inside but it was sort of like rubbing your head and patting your belly at the same time and the pictures turned out pretty blurry. I'll recruit a hand model and try again to capture a picture. They fairly come to life with a hand inside.

Knit Off Purl Then Purl Off Knit

Grafting, aka Kitchener's stitch can be so intimidating. I know that I was intimidated by it when I first heard of it. But I was willing to give it a try. Give it a try I did, and thoroughly mucked it up. So, I did what I am sure a lot of us do, I avoided trying it again.

You can't make socks without Kitchener's stitch. Well, okay, you can make them but they will either be pointy as you decrease your way down to two stitches or they will have a big clump of gathered stitches right at the toe tips. Neither of those versions really do us much good.

I tried this grafting business once again. I started with matching number of stitches on both needles yet somewhere along the way I had two more stitches on the back needle than the front needle. Hmmm... let's adjust by working something twice but not really twice since we have to decrease so grab this stitch and not work that stitch but we needed that so back to working twice but now I have too many on the other needle. Yep.

Then it clicked. Sometimes that happens to me. Okay, that happens a lot. I just can't "see" what I'm supposed to be doing or I just can't keep track of what I'm doing and since I don't really know why I'm doing what I'm doing when following instructions I just blindly forge ahead. Sometimes I can go years without knowing what I'm doing but doing it anyway. And then it will suddenly click. It's kind of like when we go from black and white to color in The Wizard of Oz.

Kitchener's Stitch

Needle 1 will be front needle and Needle 2 will be back needle.

First, prepare for Kitchener’s stitch by sliding tapestry needle purlwise into first stitch on needle 1 then knitwise into first stitch on needle two.  Be careful to keep the working yarn from sneaking up over the needles as you work. Now we begin.

Insert tapestry needle knitwise into first stitch on Needle 1 and push it off Needle 1 then insert tapestry needle into second stitch purlwise.

Now insert tapestry needle into first stitch purlwise on Needle 2 and push it off Needle 2 then into second stitch purlwise.

Let’s go back to needle 1 and insert tapestry needle knitwise into stitch 2 and push it off needle 1 then purlwise into stitch 3. Now needle 2’s turn. Insert tapestry needle purlwise into stitch 2 and push it off needle 2 then knitwise into stitch 3.

See the pattern? For stockinette stitch there’s an easy mantra I recite, “knit off purl then purl off knit”. It’s technically knitwise and purlwise but saying “knit off purl then purl off knit” kept it straight for me. The closest needle, Needle 1 will always be knit off purl and the farthest needle, Needle 2, will always be purl off knit for stockinette stitch joins.

It's kind of like when we go from black and white to color in The Wizard of Oz. 

That's the mantra: knit off purl then purl off knit.

Repeat that and it will all go from black and white to color. This is only for stockinette but it's the best place to start. 

Winter Chunky Headbands

I designed these fun but functional chunky headbands. Living in Northern Minnesota means the winters get cold and the wind is blustery. Made with chunky yarn, these headbands keep the ears warm and block the wind. For climates not as cold as the Northland, a headband is a great alternative to winter hats, providing that extra coverage.

Ears make any accessory more fun. Boys would also like to wear the brown bear ears shown above or the wolf ears below the bear ears. Grrrr! There's a wide range of colors available in chunky yarns.

My model's blue eyes pop with the blue headband. Pink, brown, blue, or purple, any color choice is a winner!

If ears don't fit in with an older child's fashion sense, the headband can be made without the ears. Perfect for tweens, teens, or adults. I just love this stylish, cozy headband. I think a lot of adults would enjoy this headband with or without the ears. We like to have fun also. It will be sure to put a smile on people's faces.

The pattern includes instructions for baby to adult sizes, with or without ears. Pattern can be found here on Etsy and here on Ravelry.

I included instructions for Beginners with a few options for more advanced knitters. With the large yarn it works up very quickly.

Quilted Log Cabin Coasters

The scrap buster Quilted Log Cabin Coasters.

I have a box of scraps. You know what I'm talking about. That awesome fabric piece that you are convinced that you can find a way to use it because it's just too pretty to throw away. All those pieces find their way into The Box. This project is a way to use up all that fabric in The Box.

Talk about the best scrap project!

These make fantastic gifts but you’ll want a few sets yourself. Warning, making these gets a bit addictive because they are so fast, easy, and fun. Since they are a scrap buster, don’t worry about making six exactly identical coasters. In fact, I made a point to make them all slightly different by having 5 of the 6 pieces the same and at least 1 piece not match the rest. That keeps the cohesive feeling but also makes them unique.

This is the best scrap buster project!

Since they are a scrap buster, you can also sew smaller pieces together to form the bigger pieces. Example, you need fabric for a 3 ½” piece but only have 2 ½” in fabric so you can sew a 1 ½” piece to the 2 ½” to get 3 ½”.

To make a set of six coasters you will need:

12 2”x 2”

12 2”x 3 ½”

6 2”x 5”

6 5”x 5” flannel or batting

6 5”x 5” fashion fabric for backing

Sew two 2” squares together at A and B using a ¼” seam. Press seams as you go. 

Sew AB to C. 

Then sew AC to D. 

Finally sew E to DAB. 

Layer in this order, 5” square of batting, pieced 5” square right side up, and then 5” square backing fabric right side down.  Sew around stacked squares, leaving a 2”-3” opening on one side to use to turn fabric. Trim corners. 

Turn fabric. I like to reach into farthest corner from opening and pull that through then the rest comes through fairly smoothly.

Make sure all corners are poked out. You can use a chopstick or any dull pointer. Topstitch around finished square, being sure to catch opening in seam to close it. Or you can hand stitch it closed. 

To do the quilting you can get creative or just sew across the finished square a few times to hold everything in place.

Stained Glass Fingerless Mittens

Stained Glass Fingerless Mittens with Rolled Hem Top

I love fingerless mittens. They are really very practical in Northern Minnesota when the weather turns cold. I take a lot of photographs and some of the most inspiring events happen when it’s briskly cold. In Northern Minnesota “brisk” might have a slightly different connotation than in other parts of the U.S. Here, brisk means that it isn’t cold enough to cause frostbite within ten minutes of exposure to the air but it sure feels mighty uncomfortably cold, hence, brisk.

When you’re out with the camera on the tripod in the dark trying to capture the Milky Way or Northern Lights you need to be able to feel the camera controls with your fingers but that brisk night air is making your hands feel frozen. That’s where the fingerless mittens come in so handy. Just a few weeks ago we had a brisk, clear night when the Northern Lights were out and I was so glad to have my fingerless mittens.

Plus, they’re just fun and cute. When I designed these Stained Glass Fingerless Mittens they caught the attention of a lot of people and the comment was consistently, “how fun!” and “those look so fun”. I should have named them Fun Fingerless Mittens but Stained Glass Fingerless Mittens seemed to be a better fit.

You can get the pattern on Ravelry or on Etsy.

The rolled hem top is a departure from the normal style I make. Usually I like the ribbed top so that it holds tight against the hand. With the rolled hem you can roll it down to give your fingers more mobility and roll it up to cover more of your hand. Plus it's cute.

Knitting in the Round – Beginner vs Experienced

When I started designing patterns I looked into what was considered what experience level. I was startled to learn that knitting in the round is considered experienced level. I really thought that knitting in the round was a beginner level. Not necessarily easy beginner but definitely only needing a little bit of experience with getting to know the knit stitch and purl stitch to graduate to knitting in the round. Other than taking a look to make sure that the knitting isn’t twisted on the needles, knitting in the round is just a matter of placing a stitch marker and start knitting at the first stitch on the needle(s).

A good first in the round project is a simple ribbed stockinette cowl. The ribbing will keep the ends from curling up. Cowls are really on trend right now and that’s a perfect project to learn knitting in the round. Cast on desired stitches, depending on yarn size, needle size and the gauge you knit at.

For example, on size 6 needles with a worsted weight yarn (4) cast on about 80-90 stitches (keeping it an even number will make ribbing simple to keep track of because the round will always end on purl so you start new round with knit every time) Check that the stitches didn’t twist, then just start knitting into the first stitch on the other end of the circular needle. 

That’s it.

Go ahead and knit that entire first row. A few rows or a few inches of 1x1 or 2x2 ribbing will help keep the ends from curling up. Then just knit around and around until you have the height you want and do the same number of rows or inches of ribbing as at the start. Bind off loosely.

Voila! A cowl knit in the round. As simple as can be. It’s when we start with the special cast ons and bind offs and some stitch patterns that it gets into the experienced range. Don’t worry about that with the first project.

I think knitting should be fun. If it’s not fun the knitting needles just get dusty. Knitting in the round should be considered beginning level. Maybe not an easy beginning but definitely a "few projects under the belt" beginning. Give it a shot! When in doubt, bring out that nice smooth, inexpensive yarn, and don’t be afraid to rip it out. But I think you’ll find that working a ribbed, straight stockinette cowl in the round is a doable beginner project.