I was looking for a knit stitch pattern yesterday and came upon Craft Cookie.com .. Love this site. This is a library of knit stitch patterns that is broken down into basic knit/purl stitches, cables, lace and ribs. I especially like this pattern for the Lotus Flower Stitch. Have a look. I’ll bet your bookmark it just like I did.. ;o)
This is another of those things that I found online several years ago. I made one and let it set in my knitting box for years. I cannot tell you where I found because I really don’t remember. If you have any idea who came up with this wonderful idea I would love to know and give them the credit they deserve.
I’ve used cotton yarns to knit dish cloths and face cloths for my nightly knitting to the point that I have about 30 stacked away in drawers. I do love the plain garter stitch ones to use as face cloths. They are so soft on my skin that I seldom use anything else. However, there are only so many plain garter stitch ones a person really wants to do.. ;o/ I decided that these wonderful small projects would be good to try new things… hence the cables. After losing my cable needle a of couple times down the side of my chair, I decided to dig out this little ring and see if it works.
I love it. No more fear of ca
bles. Just wish I had pulled it out sooner. The picture above shows how the ring is used. Very practical and easy.
The picture on the left shows the finished dish cloth. The beginning of the cloth is at the bottom. This is the practice for making the cables front to back. The upper part of the cloth is practice making the cables front only. I can’t believe how much this little ring made a difference in how I feel about knitting cables.
Making one is as easy as measuring your finger. Mine is 2 ½ inches around. I wanted the ring to ½” across. Here’s what I did.
1. I cut a strip of fabric (I used cotton) about 2 ½” long by 1 ¾” wide. This time I used fabric ribbon. The selvages are tight and it’s woven closely. The grosgrain ribbon would make a good ring, but for the purpose of this tute it didn’t work out very well.. ;o)
2 I folded the cut piece in half lengthwise and pressed it with my iron.
3. I opened it back out flat and then I folded the edges back to the fold line in the middle and pressed each side.
4. For this ring, I used regular sewing thread to make my cord for the buttonhole. Crochet thread, yarn or any other cord of the right size would also work for this. I sewed the two ends of the cord together, placed them to the inside of the folded ring and sewed it very well to the end of the ring fabric. Then I continued to sew along the end, the side and the other end to completely sew the ring together. I did this with a needle and thread (please don’t look closely at the stitches..lol) because it seems the electric cord and foot pedal for my sewing machines decided to stay behind.. I guess they just didn’t want to leave! This is much faster with a sewing machine.. ;o)
5. Now I placed the ring around the finger that I wanted to use it with to decide the button placement. I marked where I wanted the button with a pen.
6. By sliding the needle with the thread still connected through the center of the fabric ring and coming out again at the mark I made for sizing, I continued bye sewing on the button with no cutting of my thread. This step you may want to do differently. You can certainly fasten your thread firmly, cut it and then come back to the mark to place your button. Either way, the button needs to be very securely sewn on. Voila’…
You now have a Cable Needle Ring…
If you decide to make one of these, please let me know. It would be nice to see if anyone else finds these as useful as I do.. ;o)
Have a wonderful day. The sun is shining here in North Texas and temps are in the low 50s. Still not too bad for this time of year. Thanksgiving is coming up soon and here’s wishes for everyone to have a lovely day with family and/or friends.. ;o)
I receive the email newsletter from the e-magazine Cross-Stitching.com . This is a great site for anyone who enjoys cross stitching and wants to keep up with what’s happening in the cross stitching community. I’m always on
the lookout for free patterns and believe me… they have some really wonderful ones.
This sampler is one I did for my son and his partner for Christmas one year. It combines a verse from a card that I received in the mail and several small free patterns that were found in different places.
Let me say here that I am in no way associated with this e-mag.. ;o) But I really do enjoy getting their newsletter and visiting their site.
Hope you day is filled with fun things to do..
After I made the rose petal soap not long ago, I found myself using one of my larger face cloths for a fingertip towel to dry my face… It felt so much better than a terry towel that I immediately found myself knitting some more. I’ve tried several different patterns, but I personally like the feel of a plain garter stitch or moss stitch better than any of the fancy stitches.
The Plain Garter Stitch pattern is very easy for a beginner…
I used Peaches and Cream Cotton Yarn and size 8 needles.
The pattern is worked back and forth so either straight or circular needles can be used… Gauge is not important.
Cast on 40 stitches using any cast on you would like.
Row 1. Slipping the first stitch of every row, knit across all 40 stitches.
Row 3. Repeat Row 1 until you have your towel as long as you would like. Mine are about 14 to 16 inches long.
The Moss Stitch Pattern consists of the knit and the purl stitch..
For this one I used the samePeaches and Cream Cotton Yarn.
I used size 8 knitting needles as before.
Cast on 41 stitches in any cast on you like to use.
Row 1: Knit 1, purl 1 across row ending with a knit 1.
Row 2: Repeat row 1
Continue repeating row 1 until your towel is as long as you like.
It’s been an up and down kind of week around here. My computer went a bit wicked and had to be replaced.. ;o( But it’s all done now and things are back to normal..;o)
We are finally getting to use our new fireplace at least for a little while each day and I love that..
I should never have opened my Halcyon Yarn email… sigh.. There is an article in there about rug hooking. Now..a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away… I needle punched a bedspread to fit my son’s crib. We called it punch work and used a punch needle to make chenille but it is basically the same thing. It was the cutest thing you have ever seen. There was a carousel horse surrounded by a circle of color and ribbons that surrounded the edges. It was lovely. This was used on the crib for all my babes.. Well.. it was one of those irreplaceable things lost in the tornado.. I have often wondered about taking that craft up again. It’s only been 45 years… hmmm
This time I would like to do a few rugs to put beside the beds since I really don’t want (and don’t have) any carpet in my house. Take a look at the video. Susan Stephenson shows the basics of designing your own rugs.
Very tempting for me to run to Hobby Lobby and BEGIN! lol Will try to resist the urge for a bit.. at least until I finish a few of my many UFOs.. Or maybe not…
Have a wonderful day.. ;o)
I REALLY need new bath rugs. And I REALLY don’t want to go to the big box store and spend money on rugs that can’t be washed unless you just LOVE having all those little pithy balls rolling around in your dryer when the rubber backing starts flaking off. So… I’ve decided to use this tutorial and make my own… I’m even thinking about making some bedside rugs using this method.
Eco Bath Rug - Green It Yourself
When I finish mine, I’ll put up some pics.. ;o)
Have a wonderful day!
Somewhere on the web, ages ago, I found this idea. What I’m trying to say this early in the morning is this.. this wonderful idea is not mine! I cannot remember where I saw it so if you have seen this idea before and know who came up with it.. please let me know and I will give credit to that creative person.. ;o)
I have company coming. I’ve thought for a long time about trying this, but with company coming I found this to be just the creative oomph I needed . So here’s what I did…
I bought a package of meltable glycerin soap, honey/almond fragrance and packages of red and green rose petals that were found over on the wedding aisle. A strip of waxed paper was used to place the wet petals on to dry.
I melted one bar of the glycerin soap in a microwave safe bowl. With my microwave it took about 30 seconds on high… checking every 10 seconds to make sure the soap melted but did not burn. After the soap was completely melted, I dipped each petal in the clear soap to cover it, lifted it with tweezers for a second to let extra soap run off and placed the petal on the wax paper right side up. The soap on the petal and in the bowl solidified quickly. The bowl had to be placed back in the microwave every 4th or 5th petal to remelt the film that cooled across the top of the soap. The soap that adhered to the the ends of the tweezers was easily pulled off and placed a back in the bowl with each re-melt. I found that one bar of melted soap would produce around 25 petals of soap with some cooled soap left in the bowl.
A couple of petals that did not come out well were used to test the soap. I found that each petal could be used multiple times before the soap was exhausted. It has a medium lather, but it left my hands feeling soft. All in all… I give this project a 9 out of 10.. ;o)
The finished rose petals turned out lovely. It took only a few minutes for them to dry, but I allowed about 15 minutes to be sure. I placed mine in a new soap dish beside some hand knitted face cloths in the guest bath. You could use an antique cup and saucer, a tiny basket, a few placed in plastic wrap and placed inside a coffee mug … Putting these in a basket with hand knit face towels and home made olive oil/sugar scrub would make a truly lovely and useful gift. Many, many ways to use this lovely soap.
Well… the sun is up and it looks like it will be another warm day. Cooler temps are expected tomorrow and for several days after that. By cooler temps I mean in the 80s… ;o) We did all our running around yesterday so I have this morning to myself (woo hoo) and this afternoon for the Red River Fiber Arts group. Gonna be a good day.. ;o) Hope yours is too..
I’ve made tissue covers before but never with the embellishments I used in several of my other projects.. like this needle book… When I found this pattern by Suzanne Surfass I decided that the plain jane ones I’ve been making were ok, but… I really want to do one of THESE…
The pattern is free and gives straightforward instructions, but remember… with crazy embellishment you never have to slavishly follow instructions. If you would rather do machine embroidery over those seams…go right ahead. If you prefer ribbon roses where she has beads…go ahead. That’s the beauty of crazy embellishment.
We have some of that HOT Texas weather back but all in all… it’s like the guy at check out at Brahm’s said yesterday.. “At least it’s not in the 100s!” And I shut right up! ;o)
Have a wonderful day.. ;o)
When I put together my little baby cap, I used the first pom pom I have made in a long time. I know there are little gadgets out in the commercial world that will help with this task. But…what if don’t have one of those??? …..hmmm…
Years ago as a young stay at home mother, with only one income for the family, there wasn’t much money for those little gadgets. So I was taught to make them using only my fingers, yarn and a pair of scissors.
First… cut a piece of your yarn/string about 7 to 8 inches long and lay aside.
Begin by wrapping the yarn around your 3 middle fingers loosely.
Continue to wrap until you have a pretty full “ball” on your fingers.
Slide the “ball” of yarn off your fingers gently .. keeping them aligned as closely as possible. Using the piece of yarn/string that you cut earlier, wrap it around the center of the flattened “ball” and pull tightly… tie with a firm knot.
It should look like this at this stage. Do not clip off the string you used to tie it with. This will be used later to attach the pom pom to your project.
Using sharp-pointed scissors, slide the scissors into the loops formed when the “ball” was tied together and begin to clip them open… going completely around the circle.
After going completely around you will find that there will be loops that have been missed. Go around again looking for those missed loops and be sure that you have cut them all.
Holding the thread you will use to attach the pom pom with as closely to the ball as you can, begin to clip the pile into a round ball. Using the picture as a guide you can see that clipping will firm up the ball into a nice round shape.
Continue clipping until the pom pom is in the shape of a ball. You will probably have made several “rounds”… clip the longer threads, fluff the ball to make any stragglers stand out, clip the stragglers then fluff again. In the end you will have a lovely little pom pom.
Using this technique you can make them any size you would like. You don’t need to buy several sizes of gadgets. These little pom poms can be made into almost anything you can imagine. Make a basketful and then attach them all together in the shape of a doll.. or maybe a puppy… Use tiny ones for buttons. If you use cotton yarn to make them, they are completely washable and safe for baby. ;o)
I hope you find this tutorial useful and as much fun to use as I had putting it together for you. ;o)
We are so enjoying the cooler weather that has been with us for the last few days. It looks like the 100° days will be back, but at least we’ve had a breather. ;o)
Have a wonderful day…
Can’t seem to get too engrossed in any one thing so I’ve just been doing a little “easy knitting
” in the evenings when watching television with my sweet DH. I haven’t really decided why I am stuck on baby things… maybe it’s the possibility of great grandbabies.. ;o) Would that be cool or what? ♥
I began to think about that and decided I would be the pattern up for this very simple hat pattern. When I was a very young mother I had a very talented mother in law who taught me how to crochet, knit, do punch work and sew. I crocheted constantly for years and made something for each child. Now I’m finally using the knitting and it’s time to pass along some of that knowledge.
The pattern for this is a free pattern… found here.
I taken the photos and will be putting up a tutorial for “How to make a pom pom with no extra tools”. Give me a day or so to play with the pics.. ;o)
Hope everyone is staying out of the heat… It’s been over 100° in our part of the country for weeks… and it’s not even August yet.. ;o/
Have a good day…
