Slow But Steady

Apparently wins the race...
This week (I know it's Wednesday but I've lost track of the week already!) I've managed little pieces here and there, but still, not much has rolled out of the factory doors!

I've made a little bit of progress on the Granny Stripe Blanket, it's now a whole three rows taller! (Hopefully more soon as I finish more bits and pieces off) To read more about that one check it out here.

There has been some work done on a lovely pair of legwarmers, which will be making their way here hopefully along with a pattern before too long, so that is to look forward to.

Apart from that, I've been panicking along with a whole ton of work from my Module 11 work, which is why there has been a sad lack of making recently, but hopefully when I get back on top of it all it will begin to pick up the pace again and we'll have lots of lovely made things to share! :)

Plodding Along

This week has been somewhat a slow week in the factory of things. I've been keeping up with our new module at Flybe, and making stuff has taken a little bit of a back seat, but we'll get around that, I just need to get a move on!

Today I made some more progress on the Polka Dot Knickers! I got the elastic sewn in to the two legs and the waist band, although this is only the first bit of elastic sewing, so they look rather crumpled and will begin to look better once I've managed to do all of the top stitching.

I did actually start to do the top stitching on one of the legs, and it is a very long and fiddly task. I got nearly all of the way around the leg and then the bobbin ran out and I decided that it was enough for today!

I have also started another blanket for a friend, but I'm not going to post that one until it has been finished and delivered, he doesn't want to see it until it's done.

Hopefully I'll get back on track soon! xx

And Done.

On one quiet, hungover morning in Wales, I quietly knitted away and I finished the cover of the cushion that I have been making for a little while now. It was a happy moment to see the cover being finished.

The final steps are now for it to be sewn onto the cushion, and finally installed at the house in Wales.

The quite celebratory moment when this was finished was in the house that the cushion will be in, and at the time I was with the people who would be staying there too. It was pretty good. Another project finished and time to try and start another one!

Other posts about this project:
Making the cover: Mitred Knitting

Polka Dot Knickers

One of my favourite Christmas presents this year was from Mr M's mum. Make your own polka dot knickers! Now I've made a skirt and done a little bit of quilting before, but never actually tried making knickers, or any kind of underwear to be honest. So this was one leap into the dark.

I've done my research when it comes to making clothes, it's been something that I've always had the urge to do, but never really got around to it finding all manner of excuses to not do it! But I have altered quite a number of things, luckily for this kit, you don't need too much experience, just a sewing machine.

In the kit is practically everything you need:

Fabric

Ribbon

Knicker Elastic

Thread

Hand Needles

In The Kit

Crochet Cherries

Pattern

Instructions

A Sticker for good measure (Mine went on my tool kit) 

What you also need but isn't in the kit is:

A sewing machine

Bobbin, you'll need to load the bobbin from the thread given in the kit.

Scissors, for both paper and fabric.

And as the instructions rightly point out, you're gonna need time and patience.

So to start off with the kit says to cut out the pattern from the paper. Me being me I didn't want to cut out the size of the pattern I needed, I wanted to keep the pattern for all sizes, so out came the tracing paper, and I traced over the small pattern that I needed. This did involve sticking two pieces of paper together - The A3 paper wasn't big enough!! 

Once I'd traced around the pattern it was then time to try and very carefully cut out the pieces from the paper, which was quite difficult, as I didn't draw my lines bold enough... Lesson for next time.

Now the pattern pieces are ready, I can then cut the pieces out of the fabric. Now there are a lot of different ways to cut the fabric. The suggested method is to pin the pieces to the fabric and cut around them. Being an engineer the amount of inaccuracy that can happen using this method makes me slightly nervous, so I tend to avoid this approach. The other well known way is to lay the fabric out, hold the pattern down with pattern weights and use a rotary cutter to cut out the parts. Now I don't have many snazzy things to make my stuff with, so I have come up with a way of doing it that is accurate and doesn't need many snazzy items. 

First of all, I iron my fabric so that it lays flat, creases and bumpy bits add to the inaccuracy of the size of the pattern! Then laying the fabric on a hard surface, I place the pattern on the top and draw around the pattern piece onto the back of the fabric. Drawing onto the fabric can be done with a tailor's chalk, but I just use a biro pen. Biro comes out in the wash and will draw easily on the fabric, win. win. 

When drawing around the pattern piece it can have a tendency to wiggle if you're not careful, this is where pattern weights can come in handy, not having any of my own I used a heavy gin bottle. Anything that is heavy enough can come in handy for this, even your half finished cup of tea! 

Once all the pieces have been cut out it is usually a good idea to iron out any creased bits if there are any.

Now, Let the sewing begin! 

The general steps is to match up the bottom pieces of all three parts and sew them together, the front and back pieces facing each other and the gusset. Then the sides get sewn together and you have what seems like a large pair of knickers! It's looking great already! 

The next part is the hardest so far. It's sewing in the elastic. The method of doing it is easy, it just takes some fiddly moments, and a lot of patience (and in my case swearing!). The idea is that you put pins in the elastic, so it is separated into four equal sections and the same is done for the leg hole (or waist)  and then the pins are matched up with each other and the elastic is pinned into place then, sew together. The first leg I was doing great with the sewing, until I found out that I'd pinned and sewn the elastic to the wrong side of the fabric... Great. So I unpicked the elastic and put the project down for the next time. 

So this is where this post ends, but I will finish these knickers off and post the rest of the making soon!

Carriage Brake Maintenance

This weekend the factory of things had taken a break from making, and went to Wales for some fixing!

This weekend I have been fitting new break blocks and adjusting the breaks and triple valves on the Talyllyn Railway, the world's first preserved railway. This is the railway that I do the most of my volunteering on, as is well worth a visit, to ride on or watch the little trains trundle their way up the valley!

Mitred Knitting: Cushion Cover

Recently I was tasked with making a knitted cushion cover. I took this as a good way to try something new, so off I went to the library and trawled through a load of books on knitting (old fashioned I know, but I love the library!) and found out about mitred knitting, and I decided to make my own pattern for a cushion cover using different colour pieces of yarn to create a square pattern with a twist!

For those who are unfamiliar with the idea of mitred knitting, it's a way to knit several pieces of yarn together with little to no sewing the parts together.

What I found out was that there is a way to make about three different shapes, a big square, and L shape, a rectangle and a little square, all with the same base pattern.

The base pattern starts with the small square and the other shapes are done by repeating the pattern of the small square.

To start with one of the following shapes needs to be knitted on its own, I started with a small square as I found it easier but there are no rules as to what you can and can't knit! After one of the squares has been knitted, the next one is knitted, but when casting on loops are made through the edge of another square. This joins the two squares together, with no sewing.

The small square pattern is:

Cast on 19 sts

Row 1 and every odd row: k to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif. (The ending to this I've explained here in my scarf pattern.)
Row 2: k8, sl1, k2tog, psso, k7, sl1 pwise wyif (17)
Row 4: k7, sl1, k2tog, psso, k6, sl1 pwise wyif (15)
Row 6: k6, sl1, k2tog, psso, k5, sl1 pwise wyif (13)
Row 8: k5, sl1, k2tog, psso, k4, sl1 pwise wyif (11)
Row 10: k4, sl1, k2tog, psso, k3, sl1 pwise wyif (9)
Row 12: k3, sl1, k2tog, psso, k2, sl1 pwise wyif (7)
Row 14: k2, sl1, k2tog, psso, k1, sl1 pwise wyif (5)
Row 16: k1, sl1, k2tog, psso, sl1 pwise wyif (3)
Row 18: sl1, k2tog, psso, cut yarn and pull through last stitch to cast off.

To make any of the larger sizes the square pattern is repeated, so to make the rectangle the pattern will start:

Cast on 38.
Row 1: k38
Row 2: k8, sl1, k2tog, psso, k8, k8, sl1, k2tog, psso, k7, sl1 pwise wyif.

The 'L' shaped size has three repeats, and the large square four in the style mentioned above. I find it easier when working a square made up of more then one little square, to put stitch markers every 19 stitches, so I can easily see where to start and finish the repeat of the pattern.

Now to actually join the the squares together the second has to be knitted onto the first, this is done when casting on, as loops are pulled through the edges of the first square. Lets say we wanted to add another small square to our first small square.
To start with cast on 9 stitches on your needle, the 10th stitch should be in the corner of the square. The next 9 stitches are pulled through the edge loops of the square, under the two pieces that make the neat straight edge:

Needle passed under edge loops

When I'm casting on stitches through the first square, I always pull them through from the front, which means that the messy bit is at the back. To do this I find it easier to swap the needles over in my hands, and sort of knit the loops as if they were another stitch!

Most of the cast on rows that I knit onto other squares have a mixture of stitches both through the side of the previous square and just cast on to the needle.

Both loops and cast on

With this style of mitred knitting a huge variety of different shapes can be made, and some really nice effects achieved. The cushion case I am covering is 20 inches by 20 inches, so I had a large square to try and knit. With my tension and using double knit wool with size 9 needles, the small square measures 2 inches by 2 inches, so I drew out on square paper a large square, which was 20 squares by 20 squares on the paper, and I drew out within that square the shapes and sizes of the smaller squares made using this pattern to make the large cushion cover size!

If you are planning to make something to a specific size like a cushion cover then it would be best to knit one square with the wool and needles that you plan to use, then measure the square and you then will have an idea of how many squares and how large you need to make the final piece.

The beauty of this pattern is that when making something larger, you can plan it out and stick to the design you've planned, or just grab the needles and wool and knit whatever you decide is best next, and all variations are easy to do, and the spontaneous nature of the project can be really fun!

I haven't completely finished the cushion cover yet, but I am most of the way there, and with it laid out you can get a good idea of the finished product, I'm now excited to get it all done and put together.

The Nearly Finished Cover