Name That Yarn Contest Winner!

A winner has been chosen!  

Many congratulations to Crystal Wood, who submitted the winning entry for this year's Name That Yarn contest, with her entry of Las Vegas Casinos, Past & Present.

Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for our new line of summer yarns, all bearing names based on this theme.

Thanks to everyone else who entered, there were so many creative suggestions, I couldn't believe it!  It also bears mentioning that there were 3 themes that were suggested 5+ times:

• Beatles songs
• Types of birds
• Greek mythology

Even if your entry wasn't a winner this year, there's a good chance it may make an appearance in our rotation of yarn names anyway; there were too many good ones to pass up!

Featured Yarn :: Barnes Drive

Barnes Drive

Beautiful mellow shades of purple rayon and cotton are combined to make this lightweight, machine-washable yarn.

• Fiber Content: 63 rayon / 31 cotton-rayon blend / 6 cotton
• Yardage: 450 yards
• Yarn Weight: DK
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Machine wash / dry OK
• Pattern Suggestions: Bell Sleeve Pullover

Also available in our online shop!

What Are Stitch Markers Used For?

When I was in fourth grade, my math teacher had a catch phrase that he would repeat at least once every day, clearly imparting that if we were to walk away from Algebra II with any lasting knowledge, it should be this: "Mathematicians are lazy people."  

I think about this all the time, in fact:

• When I spend two hours designing a spreadsheet that will calculate payroll withholding
• When I hand-color a complicated cable chart so that instead of constantly decoding symbols, I can just glance at what "color" the next stitch is and know what that means
• Or when I design a cross-canceling set of ratios to arrive at the coefficient that will allow me to convert the European n/m yarn weight standard to yards per pound (496.05, FTW!)

Pretty much any time I frontload some work which seems like a lot of extra effort, but that will save me time and hassle in the longrun. 

This is how I feel about stitch markers.  They're certainly not necessary for most of the projects that call for them, but if you know how to use them in the right way, you'll be saving yourself a TON of time, and headaches...I promise.

If you're new to the world of knitting, you may find yourself trying to wade through all these accessories and notions that come along with it.
 


Stitch markers are the most commonly used among all these, and you've you've probably seen them referenced in nearly any pattern you've attempted.  So what exactly are these things, and how do you use them?

There are two kinds of stitch markers: closed, and split.

Closed stitch markers, various sizes

  Split stitch marker

These little rings just slip right onto your needle, in between stitches (or hanging off of the stitch itself, if you're using split markers).  Simply put, stitch markers are there to take the burden of counting off your shoulders.

Let's say you're working on a tank top, on a circular needle, with 140 stitches making up the circumference.  When you get to the waist shaping, you'll need to taper those 140 stitches down by decreasing on either side.



If you're counting to 70 in your head in between each decrease, you're making it too hard for yourself!

Instead, you can just count to 70 on your very first trip around the needles, toss a stitch marker on the needle, and then all you'll need to remember is to decrease (K2tog) on each side of this marker, every time you pass it on each round.  (When you get to the marker, all you need to do is slip it from one needle to the other.)  Look at all the mental energy you've just freed up for listening to your favorite podcast while you knit!

So that's the primary convenience of a stitch marker: it's your signal to do something different from the norm, when you meet up with it on your needles.

But, stitch markers can also help you count.  Let's say you're starting a big project, and you need to cast on 100 stitches.  Sure you can keep track in your head as you go, but getting derailed after you've already cast on 50+ stitches can be a huge pain.
 


Instead, slip a stitch marker on your needle after every 10 stitches.  If you lose count and want to verify how many stitches you've cast on so far, all you need to do is count your stitch markers and multiply by 10.

 


And finally, let's talk about lace.

A lace chart like this one will show you one repeat of the lace pattern, and assume that you will repeat these 8 stitches over and over, until the end of the round.  


Now of course it's possible to work this lace chart without stitch markers, but think about how frustrating it would be to get to the end of a row of 160 stitches, and to realize that you have an extra two stitches unaccounted for -- that means somewhere along the way your counting got off, and the pattern for that row will be shifted.

I have found myself stranded without a pack of stitch markers often enough to discover that hair elastics will do the trick just as well

However, if you place a stitch marker after each 8-stitch repeat, you can easily isolate the problem and spot where you went wrong.  In fact, I find that just the act of placing and slipping the markers forces me to double-check every repeat and make sure I'm not off track.

Moral of the story?  Add a pack of stitch markers to your knitting bag, stat.  You won't regret it.

Featured Yarn :: Broad

Broad

A variegated bamboo is paired with a deep teal cotton, and a lighter aqua cotton, in this rich, cozy yarn.

• Fiber Content: 70 cotton / 30 bamboo
• Yardage: ~360 yards
• Yarn Weight: Worsted
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Machine wash / dry OK
• Pattern Suggestions: Scalloped Baby Blanket

Also available in our online shop!

WIP :: Bikini in a Bag comes to the rescue

I didn't expect to spend my week crocheting bra cups, but that's exactly what I did.

This tank top I'm working on, I'm realizing, has entered my life with the sole purpose of teaching me to understand structural composition from the inside-out.  It's as if seeing the picture of this tank top a couple weeks ago merely planted the seed in my head that it was somehow possible to create something like this, the same way that leafing through food blogs reminds you that, oh yeah, blue cheese scallion biscuits are something that could exist, and supposedly this is one way to get there...but not the only way.

Blue Cheese Scallion Drop Biscuits :: image via Smitten Kitchen

Now that the great cleanse of 2011 is over, I'll be whipping up a batch of these very soon...

I've tried three totally different approaches to bra cups this week, because the version that came with this pattern, at least for the smaller-cup size, just didn't jive in my brain.  

So I went on a week-long Mad Men bender, raveling and unraveling the same yarn over and over, in this form, and this form, and this form.

Bikini in a Bag, from The Happy Hooker

This is why I love crochet.  This part of the pattern isn't working for ya?  Just switch it out for another.  It would have felt frustrating and futile to try to figure this out by such a shoot-in-the-dark, haphazard method, except that crocheting is so dang fast that it felt more like I was making a swatch than a frogging an entire garment five times over, each time I finished a cup, held it up, and realized that it was totally misshapen.  

Plus, I learned a lot along the way.  Such as: those absurdly-large shell stitches at the top of the cup (7 dc in the top loop of every round) serve the purpose of keeping the cup from curving too much, which is pretty important if you don't have a whole lot to fill the cups with.  

On my first attempt, I thought those 7 dc shell stitches made the cup look too tall and narrow, so I drastically cut them down to 3 dc shells for the first 5 rows, and then just single crochet for the remaining 7...and then realized that without the total number of stitches growing each round, as the size of the round grew in surface area, I was inadvertently pulling the fabric in to create a curved surface.

I tried a few different versions and combinations of increase stitches until I found the one that perfectly fit my body: 5 rows of the 7 dc shell increases as prescribed in the pattern, and then 7 rows of 5 dc shell increases, before adding on the lacy border around the edge.  

I feel like given my sudden new propensity for crocheted tank tops, this was a worthwhile investment of time; now that I'm getting the hang of the general structure of these tops, this is a pattern I can now sub in to any of these patterns if I'm not digging or understanding the designer's approach, knowing that as long as the cups are joined along the bottom edge and then somehow connected to the body, it'll all work out.

FO :: Crochet Tank Top

Woohoo! Do you see that, Portland?  The sun is out, I'm sitting here in the shop with the front door open, only two days away from finishing my cleanse (and resuming my love affair with cold-brewed iced coffee), and I can't stop crocheting tank tops.

 Crochet top :: adapted from this pattern

rayon / cotton / bamboo blend :: 422 yards

Cost of materials: $25.21

This was one that I started a couple months ago during a trip to Chicago, and is now officially the second full on piece of clothing I've crocheted, finally branching out from bags and afghans.

My favorite thing about these crocheted tops is that the construction is so simple.  You start with two symmetrical triangle pieces, which make up the "bra" part of the top.  

They are joined together in the very first row of the body, which then continues down as long as you'd like to make it, in whatever pattern you want, until it's the right length.  

In this case I used a cool series of triple crochet shell stitches and posts, which makes for a long, flowy body (to be worn over long flowy skirts this summer!).

I can't wait to wear this while I sit at picnic tables in the sun with friends after work and sip on local IPAs...but for the next three days at least, my refreshing beverages revolve around tall frosty mason jars of my now-perfected banana-berry-almond smoothies.

Featured Yarn :: Marion

Marion

Four shades of purple are combined in this yarn -- cotton, rayon, acrylic, and lurex mix to give this sportweight yarn a nice mellow lavender color, with a little sparkle from the lurex.

• Fiber Content: 39 cotton / 36 acrylic / 16 rayon / 9 lurex
• Yardage: ~690 yards
• Yarn Weight: Sport
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Machine wash / dry OK
• Pattern Suggestions: Nona's Baby Jacket

Also available in our online shop!

WIP :: Crochet Manon Top

I just can't get enough of these crocheted tank tops.  This week, after finishing up the project I've been working on at the shop, I started shopping around in my Ravelry queue, and immediately jumped on this one that I've had my eye on:

Crochet Top Manon by Fashion Martina

 

I'm going to add a few inches to the bottom so it's more of a flowy, waist-length top, but I am totally loving coming up with these rayon-cotton blends, and how vintage-y they look crocheted up in these flowery motifs.  

 

I'll be honest with you, this pattern is not an easy one to read, and the first motif I did was a process of trial and error -- having to guess at what the designer meant by certain directions, try it out, see that it left me with the wrong number of stitches, or repeats, in a round, and then try something else until eventually it worked out.  

This process actually demonstrated one of my favorite things about crochet: you can totally wing it as you go, and no one will be the wiser.  And even better, although I still prefer written instructions as my default for crochet, it's forced me to learn how to read crochet charts for the first time, as a way of double-checking my work.

I'm finding that the construction of these "motifs" (the flowery part below the bra) is totally the same idea as making a granny square: you start by chaining a ring, creating a series of loops and stitches, and as crochet around and around, growing the square outwards with each round, the number of stitches you make in each space -- or chains you make while skipping stitches from the previous round -- dictate the "picture" of each motif.

 

Although this is done on a smaller hook than I've worked with for awhile (usually J or H is my go-to fave), these motifs go surprisingly fast (it's because of all that empty lacey space!), and since there are only four of them, I'm close to being able to join them together and start on the bra part.

How to convert your purse into a messenger bag

This has been a week of creative workarounds.  For starters, I'm doing my annual May cleanse for the next two weeks, which puts a moratorium on a hefty amount of the ingredients I consume daily: gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, nightshades, alcohol, caffeine, red meat, and sugar.  

"So what are you eating?!" is usually the first question I get when I tell people about this, and the answer is, actually, a lot -- but it does push me to come up with creative meal ideas, like the recent faux tuna casserole I made this week, with sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions, brown rice pasta, and a cashew-dill cream sauce!

Cashew-dill cream sauce :: recipe at Six Dollars A Day

The other major event this week was that, in honor of breaking 70 degrees on Wednesday (how awesome was that?!), I made the official switch from my big waterproof winter messenger bag, to a cute spring purse.  

This is a true sign of spring for me, that the threat of a downpour during my commute has finally receded enough that I can trust my bike basket to carry my lunch, I only need to carry an additional 1-2 layers as opposed to the winter routine of 3-4, and I can successfully carry all that I need for the day in an actual purse.  

Messenger bags are handy when you're hauling 3 phases of a day around with you, but so cumbersome when you want to meet up with a friend for drinks after work and you have to arrange yourself on a barstool with a bag that could be confused for a frame pack at your feet.

But there's also the converse dilemma: how do you carry a cute, springy, over-the-shoulder purse while you're biking?  Not on your shoulders, that's for sure.  I recently scored this purse at a clothing swap I hosted, and lucky for me, its construction includes two metal rings.  Between those, a crochet hook, and a bounty of cotton yarn at my disposal, I knew there had to be a solution.

It begins with these.  Only $2 each at Freddy's, and they allow for a sturdy way to join the straps, but quickly detachable, so once I arrive at my destination, I can just snap off the strap and stick it in the purse!

I started by crocheting a simple chain out of one of our heavier cottons -- strong, not too stretchy, cheap, and tough -- as long as I wanted the strap to be.

Now, attaching it to the clasp on the end looks tricky, but I use this method I devised a few years ago when I went through a big phase of buying belts at thrift shops, cutting off the belt part, and using the awesome vintage buckles to make crocheted belts from my own yarn.

All you need to do is stick the hook through the closed link on the end, pretending that it's a strand of yarn, and single-crocheting around it just as if it were the next stitch in a chain: insert the hook through...

Yarn over and pull it through that "loop" (i.e. the clasp)...

Yarn over again, and pull it through both loops on the hook, successfully joining the yarn to the clasp.

Repeat 5-6 more times, until you've made enough stitches around the clasp to cover one side of it with these strong stitches.

Now, turn your work, make slip stitches through these 5-6 stitches that are around the clasp, and then go back down your long chain and single crochet your first row, joining the second clasp in the same way once you reach the other end.

Now, break the yarn, and start a new color, beginning by joining it to the clasp and making 5-6 stitches around the clasp in the same way you did with the first color.

Once you meet up with the long chain, start single-crocheting into the other side of it, working your way down the chain towards the other end.

I wanted to make this strap nice and thick, so that the weight would be more evenly distributed, and not put as much pressure on the yarn at the clasps, strong as it is.  

Using alternating colors, I crocheted a second row on each side of the strap, making it 4 rows wide in total.

I wove in all the ends, hooked the clasps onto the purse loops, and now am set for spring riding -- no matter what the occasion.

Featured Yarn :: Ravenna

Ravenna

This is a mostly-cotton blend of reds, burnt orange, and a dusty rose, with just a tiny bit of tweed that will show through in your work.

• Fiber Content: 94 cotton / 6 rayon
• Yardage: 260 yards
• Yarn Weight: DK
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Machine wash/dry OK
• Pattern Suggestions: Magnolia Sweater Vest

Also available in our online shop!