Saturday, October 30, 2004

Pictures!

Nothing too exciting, but I did snap a few pictures of what I've been doing, knitting-wise lately.

First, the dreaded Dale Pluto Coat...
Here are the sleeves with the looped cuffs. They look rather like gauntlets, don't they. In fact, they are quite lovely to touch. When I have been LIP (looping in public), strangers have approached me to fondle the cuffs. It has a strange persian lamb quality to it, sort of like the cuffs on granny's melton coats.


And here is the lower edge. Note the wine glass. This trim is driving me to drink. Honestly, the more I loop on it, the more there is to do. Before I started the loop trim, I entertained a fantasy of creating a different collar for the coat, more reminiscent of a granny's persian lamb trim collar and less like the little stand-up mandarin type collar shown on the pattern. I now realize the folly of my dreams.


Oh, and here are some of the bits and pieces of my Flower Power Bags. (note eldest child peeking behind the knitted bits) I might try to felt the straps tonight to get an idea of how they will behave.




I'm using a different yarn for some of the straps. I have used almost exclusively Cascade 220 for these bags, but it isn't that readily available in Canada (except through a couple mail-order businesses) and it can be a bit pricey for felting. So, I found this at Wal-Mart (yeah, yeah, I know, Wal-Mart is single-handedly bringing down the standard of living for North America, but I needed feltable yarn cheap!)



This is a Bernat product, very inexpensive and it claims to be 100% Merino Wool suitable for, nay designed for, felting. We shall see.

A couple notes about Bernat's Lana:

- I suspect that it is a trial marketing effort, because it has very limited distribution and isn't even mentioned on the otherwise verbose Bernat website. I did snag a couple skeins figuring that it may not be continued past its initial shipment.

- It is available only in the dreaded Eaton's men's department colours of the 1970's: cream, french blue, navy, camel, brown, grey, and black. Even those banal colour names imply greater vivacity than the actual product shades deliver. Hence the reason I am only going to consider sourcing the black yarn from Bernat. (additional grouse...even the black isn't a nice as the Cascade black...not as deep, more ash, less rich...Ok, done colour bashing Bernat)



Oh, and when I'm finished the Flower Power Bags that I'm completing to order, I'm going to do a little experiment with some Noro oddballs that I have lying around. My concern with using Noro Kureyon as the base for the Flower Power Bag is that it won't felt up to a sufficiently thick fabric. Unlike the other yarns I've used for these bags, the colour variations in the Noro won't allow me to use a double strand and preserve the striping. I will experiment with different needle sizes (I usually use a 6.5 mm for felting Kureyon) and see what happens. Since I usually line the bags, I might try a fusible (possibly double sided) interface on the inside of the bag to give the Kureyon a little more "umph".

Well, that's about it for knitting news. I'll try to remember to snap some photos of my adorable urchins before they head out for trick or treating tomorrow!

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