Thursday 15 May 2014

A Bearded Man Hat

For my father-in-laws birthday, I decided to knit him a novelty hat. I had seen a few hats with attached beards before, but this pattern on Pintrest was one of the only ones I could find that wasn't crochet: DIY Knit Beard Hat Pattern



I actually didn't continue the moss stitch the whole way through because I got confused with the instructions ("knit the rest of the row" rather than "moss the rest of the row" but it does clearly say at the top to moss stitch, so that was my fault!) but it's not that obvious.




I also found the mouth hole a little too big so I just sewed up the edges to make it a little tighter. Finally I just added two little buttons to make the beard detachable.


For my hat I used two strands of yarn, one blank and one grey, just because I thought this would look cool.


 




The beard is a hilarious addition to any knitted hat (home made or bought) and is a great novelty gift!







Wednesday 14 May 2014

Personalised Patchwork Blanket - a work in progress



I got the idea to make a patchwork after I bought some knit magazines and on the front cover was a gorgeous patchwork blanket.  I decided I wanted to make my own, but personalised to me; you'll see lots of pinks and hearts. It is also a great way to practice different textures and knitting methods.

Each square is roughly 18cmx15cm unstretched, it's currently around the size of a large pillow case, but I will continue to add to it until I have a blanket, then I intend to buy a large peice of cotton material to line the back of the blanket.

Basketweave
1.  Simple Basketweave
Pattern here.
This was pretty easy to follow, alternating between knit 7 purl, and I think it is a very cool look










Entralec

2. EntrelacIf, like me, you have never knitted entrelac before, you may find the written instructions completely useless; I personally could not visualise how to do what they said, so I found this great tutorial on Youtube, broken down into each section of the knit:



Part Two - Left Edge Triangle
Part Three - Wrong Side Rectangles

Slip Stitch
3. Slip Stitch
Pattern here.
The yarn I used was a kind of fine silk texture that kept catching and fraying so it looks a bit messy in places, but otherwise this was a fun and easy pattern to follow




Back of patternUnion Jack
4. Union JackThis was my first attempt at intarsia knitting, I found this Union Jack Knitting Chart from Let's Knit and used it as a guide to make my patch. The back will end up quite messy, with lots of loose ends of yarn to bind off and tidy away. The one tip I would give is DO NOT forget to 'twist' the two threads around each other when changing colours or you may be left with a 'split' in the work.


Bobble Yarn
Bobble Yarn5. Bobble Yarn
I got this yarn for 60c in a bargain bin at Spotlight, and the inside of the label showed how to make it into a scarf. I essentially knitted a very short scarf for my patch. I'm not sure what I think of it, but it's a cool texture.


6. Purple HeartsThis pattern was an improvisation; I found this Heart Knitting Chart on Pintrest then repeated the heart pattern six times (two rows of three). To increase the height of the patch (a third row of hearts would have been too tall) I added a few stripes (one row of purple, two rows of cream, repeat three times):




Jumbo Cable
7. Jumbo Cable
Pattern here.

The pattern shows just one cable knit, I just repeated this three times to make the patch... but I'm not comepletely happy with how this one came out
 






Stripes
8. Stripes
This the first ever colour changing knit I tried and was a pattern I just made up; I think I did six rows of white and four rows of pink.








Alternating Diagonals
9. Alternating Diagonals
Pattern here.
This pattern was one I had to follow very carefully to get right but its a very cool finish; I love it in green because it looks like leaves








Zig zags
10. Zig Zags
This is another pattern I made up to practice colour changes, but I wanted to make it a bit more complicated than just stripes, so I zig-zagged the colours.








Flirtation Cable
11. Flirtation Cable
Pattern here
This pattern is for just the cable itself over 15 stitches, I decided I wanted two cables running horizontally across the patch, so I cast on 36, adding two stitches either end, and  two in between the cables... here is the amended pattern that I used:


Row 1 (RS):  P2 K3, p4, 6-st RC, p4.  K3, p4, 6-st RC, p4.
Row 2:  K4, p6, k4, p3.  K4, p6, k4, p3, k2
Row 3:  P2, 5-st LPC, 5-st RPC, 5-st LPC, p2,  5-st LPC, 5-st RPC, 5-st LPC, p2
Rows 4:   K2, P3, k4, p6, k4.  P3, k4, p6, k4.
Row 5:  P4, 6-st LC, p4, k3,  P4, 6-st LC, p4, k3, p2
Rows 6:   K2, P3, k4, p6, k4.  P3, k4, p6, k4.
Row 7:  P2, 5-st RPC, 5-st LPC, 5-st RPC, p2,  5-st RPC, 5-st LPC, 5-st RPC, p2
Row 8:  K4, p6, k4, p3,  K4, p6, k4, p3, k2
Rep rows 1–8.

I used size 6 needles and repeated the pattern 4 times, and this was big enough for my patchwork; I was really pleased with how it turned out.

12. Jumbo Stockinette
This is another 60c bargain bin find, which was supposed to make a scarf, but I used big needles (10mm I think) and just did a Stockinette stitch to make this chunky knit patch