Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

Stitches West 2022

Because this will go on forever, the pics will be below the spoiler cut.

Stich Your State

Week 5 of The Great Yarn Challenge: stitch your state in Fair Isle and then decorate it. I went very stereotypical. 

Kind of a necklace, I guess....

This week's Great Yarn Challenge is something wearable. I ended up adapting this pattern (Ravelry link) into using i-Cord and then ended up braiding the ends too. It's out of HiKoo Simpliworsted, "Pretty as a Petunia," i.e. fancy yarn I only had 140 yards of so had to do something small. 

Hat construction, part one

I made this hat as a present, trying to recreate one the person lost. The knitting was pretty easy, but figuring out the construction of it all was a bit of a challenge.

I installed a brim and elastic, ended up sewing the fold down entirely even after installing snaps. Mostly the hardest part was getting the elastic in around the front of the hat where there wasn't obvious casing, I had to knit my own and install it in. Seems to fit, though. 

I am NOT having a photogenic head day, so here's the hat on the nearest thing I had to a head model. 

 

Duster vest, round two

After I finished this, my friend Dawn requested her own.

Duster....thing

Ravelry link for pattern.

Officially, it's just a long vest, but I ended up adding on half-sleeves in crochet since I had some leftover yarn. I also felt like the front of it needed to close a bit somehow, so I added buttons. 

It's an entire outfit now

I bought about 5 balls of yarn to make the Hibiscus Skirt, and only used about half of that. So I decided to use the rest of it up to make a matching top. Which ended up being crocheted rather than knitted. 

I was going to follow this pattern, but I could NOT get the gauge and ended up basically making up my own (figuring out how many to crochet around the boobs, but otherwise following the same style of pattern. Which worked.

And then I STILL had some yarn left, what to do with it? A friend of mine gave me her copy of "Crochet Adorned" and thus I brought it to the theater and started crocheting flowers to sew onto the top. And then I had enough left to make one more flower (albeit with a few other shades of pink) to add to the skirt too.

 

 

Hibiscus Skirt

Pattern found here. I wanted to make a cotton skirt, I found the right cotton yarn, there you go. I did it shorter than the 23 inches said in the pattern (knee length seemed quite enough already) and put in a drawstring instead of elastic since heck if I know where the elastic is.

I also finished a work in progress during the Ravellenic Games, so that's another medal, I think! 

Now this needs a tank top to go with it...with the remaining 2.5 balls of yarn I have left. 

 

What to do with a one off ball of yarn you don't know what to do with

(a) Knit some I-cord for awhile.

(b) Cast on something like 14 stitches on each side and then six stitches in the middle that are done in stockinette the whole time. Switch knitting and purling every 4 rows or so on the edges to make some kind of stockinette ridges. Leave the middle as stockinette the entire time. .

(c) When you're about out of yarn, sew the middle column together into a column, make sure you've got the I-cord placed in the middle when you do it. 

(d) Pull the drawstring to scrunch it up a bit into a frilly collar. 

Because I finished this during Shrek rehearsal and I'm sick of my pandemic hair, here's a new wig you haven't seen before.

Flare the collar up.

Fold the collar down. 

What do you think about things?

I am now a member of Gagnamagnið’. Followup from here and here. 

(Remember, this is an 8-bit thing, knitted. It's not gonna be super accurate.)

(In other news, god, I'm so sick of my flat pandemic hair and it's natural color. I did this in blonde because I'm most frequently blonde. In a few weeks after my play is over and I'm released from the "don't make sudden hair changes" contract.....)