Tag Archives: Knit

February… Celebrate the love of Zelda and Link

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Hey! Listen!  its only 7 days into the month of February and I’ve gotten my stocking done!  I started this one with the desire to have a slightly nicer cuff.  So there are bobbles and Triforces.

How fitting that the Triforce is encircled in a stitch called the Trinity Stitch!

After that I went with a classic white stocking with a green heel and toe to complement the cuff.    This one I went a bit longer…. and then finished it off with a Link on one side and a Princess Zelda on the other.    I am not super happy with the pink of the faces and arms so I may redo those into a slightly darker shade to differentiate them more.  (Mental Note:  Add “flesh” to yarn shopping list)

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Terran up a Holiday Stocking!

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Do you know how hard it is to find Creep looking yarn?  Or the right combination of magenta and burgundy for a Zerg logo?  This is just one of the quandaries a knitter of geekery  things finds them contemplating in the yarn aisle.

With the danger of crossing some fashionable holiday boundary… I went with a nice solid black Christmas Stocking.  Over knit stitch with a golden Terran logo.

To Boldly Go….. into New Years Resolutions

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So this year I decided to get off my bum and make my crafting work a bit harder for me.   So my resolution/goal this year is to knit one Christmas Stocking each month from now through October, and then list them for sale in October/November.  I worry that I am not a super fast knitter and I am hoping this will give me a nice little pile of stock that hopefully some people are interested in.

So for this month, partially inspired by the amount of yarn I still had after finishing my last laptop case, I present this month’s stocking… the “Kirk”

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Kirk is a 2-sided design, so it can be hung facing either direction.  Laid flat, and unstretched he is 8 inches wide and 15 inches from cuff to bottom of the heel.  He has a sturdy thick knitted cord suitable for hanging.

Pattern adapted from the cross-stitch pattern created by Nancy Sims seen here.

It’s a laptop case, not a Tri-corder Jim!

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So I hinted at this one in my last post, but I’ve held off posting until I was able to give it to my very Trek fan friend, Todd.   Personally I would have felt a little tacky to post it, have him see it and then later given it with an “oh yeah and its yours”  so anonymous and partially anonymous (Hi mom!) internet people had to wait.

One fleece lined, Captain Kirk flavored laptop case.  Pattern is the same on both sides:

What's a laptop cap'n? Well its like a Tri-corder only larger and with a viewing screen.

Gotta Knit them All: Rapidash Messenger

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Pokeball

Properly oriented Pokéball (white side down)

Ben has a friend/co-worker that is majorly into Pokémon.  He also commented that I should make him a pokémon laptop case.  While I could have gone with something simple like a three color pokéball design, naturally I didn’t go with JUST a pokéball design.

So I employed the finest in friend espionage to uncover which was his favorite Pokémonster.

Naturally he didn’t like something simple likeJigglypuff or everyone’s meme favorite Mudkip; his favorite was Rapidash, a flaming unicorn type.

Rapidash

Game Sprite of Rapidash

On the plus side game characters are all pixel based sprites, which makes pixelating an image into a stitch chart relatively easy.  1 pixel = 1 stitch.  So finding a sprite image of Rapidash wasn’t too difficult.

However, game design and development has come a long way in building up from things like Space invaders of 11 pixels and one color creatures to the mighty Rapidash with his 80 by 80 pixels sprite with multiple colors even for shading.

So I started knitting, but when I finally got the completed Rapidash panel side done, it was clear that this was not going to be small enough to be a laptop case.  And so a messenger bag design was born.  On the back side, with the layered fleece behind it being the laptop zipper pocket was the Rapidash side of the bag.

Rapidash

Rapidash sprite in knit

I used some bouclé yarn in autumn colors for my fire details, and mixed a strand of light colored needlepoint yarn with my darker beige in places to make an in-between shading spaces.   My first attempt was to knit with all these colors going all the time but it was rather chaotic, so I stuck with doing a stitch over my red and white stitches in the end.

The other side was a rather simple Pokéball design with a giant silver painted button for a clasp.

Pokebag

Pokébag with button clasp

Inside, the bag is double fleece lined (red on top of white) which enabled the feature of a zippered laptop sleeve on one side and a double pocket for Kindle and 3DS on the button side of the bag.

Green Grocer

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I make my own knit grocery bags.  There… I said it.  It was the first type of bag I tackled after making scarves and hats, when I decided I should attempt to make something rather practical and useful.  Sadly my photos for this post are not the best, but I thought you’d see enough to get the gist of my environmentally conscience thumb.

Empty

Newly Knit, Hot off the needles

My first bag, I followed this pattern from knitty.com.  I actually made larger i-cord handles for mine, but to me the bag felt just a bit too shapeless when I finished constructing it out of my cotton yarn.

So I decided the only solution was to use what I’d learned to build my own bag.  I followed the same directions for the base, but when I got to the sides, I decided the solution was to use the YO/drop pattern I learned way back in the very early days of making scarves.  To further enhance the effect I swapped from my smaller needles to a larger size for the yarn over row and then back to the smaller needles as I dropped the yarn overs off for the next row.  This resulted in a neat striped solid/net look.

Secondly, my experience with the i-cord handles on my first grocery sack led me to consider that perhaps just a simple knit every row handle would suit this style better, giving it more area to grip at the top of the bag.  I then crocheted the handles through the rows onto my bag in the hopes of it turning out capable of bearing a load born of the bag clerk learning that knit stretches and then deciding to bag on the principal of discovering just how much the bag will hold.

Strength testing, with about 20+ books in the bag.

I really enjoyed how the pattern came out, learned that shorter handles at first do stretch out over time, and had nothing left to do but give the bag(s) a trial run.  But what of the truly heavy items…. would my bags stack up?  I’m happy to say that repeated testing is showing that indeed they do stand up… incredibly well.   In fact, I strength tested this green one by loading it up with as many books as I could fit into it… which was someplace in the 25 paperbacks region.  I was at a point where I was more worried for the nails holding my  peg rack.

The bag pictured in this post went on to carry about a bushel of fresh picked peaches over last summer.

I’ve made this pattern in a multitude of sizes from Costco-mega-size to the personal half a bag size.  Unless they need it sooner, I toss them in the wash about once a month to keep them clean.

They are Invading the Macbook Air!

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A few posts back I made my first hat with ear flaps… and it had space invaders on it.  I really enjoyed that pattern, though tbh the hat was far too small to wear. (bummer!)   However, the bf gave me a perfect opportunity to use the pattern again.

He bought a Macbook Air a few months ago when they were new and even the Apple Store didn’t have a case that was the right size yet.  So I endeavored to make him a case.

Having never actually sewn a zipper before the mark 1 version had a few zipper related issues… and so I made the Mark 2:

He seems to like it… and there are a few people that have said nice things to him at work.  Which has made me toy with the idea of some other laptop cases.  Perhaps a Katamari one for rolling up ones laptop at the end of the day…. ^_~

Blizzcon Follow up

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Ok so I managed to knit up a second soulwell to trade for an awesome clay felpup with another con-goer.   I also had some not the right color but trial green healthstone purses:

healthstones

Photo quality a result of taking phone photos in the hotel since I forgot to before we left!

And I can say the following about the soulwell handbags current design.  Its durability is outstanding.  At one point I had $30 in quarters, a 20oz soda, a Nintendo DS, a PSP Go, my wallet and a book (hey it was on the airplane) and the base stayed steady as a rock!  The handles held up well but after carrying it around for a long day of hanging onto it… I’d say it needs a wider base under the knit…  the coathanger wire was a bit thin.   So for future renovations and request I’d update the handles.

Now onto new things!  So while we were hanging out in line waiting to get in we came up with a number of nifty crafts to try to make for next year:

  • A train set: that can be tossed down while in the vast line for the con, and then picked up quickly.  The plan is to get people all around you making the train noise.
  • Raid Icon Hats:  When you travel with a group it can be easy to miss someone…. if only you had the ability to put raid icons on!  Now one of our friends there is an electrical engineer…. we tossed this idea to him in case he can find a way to make them so awesome you can change the icon.  But if not… I’m prepared to knit!  (May also consider headbands instead of hats)
  • Handbags Suggested for next year:  A Lightwell, A cozy Fire.