My fondness for rainbow chaos strikes again!
This past weekend at Maker Faire, I learned to crochet! I created a fairly ugly irregular vaguely square-shaped swatch, out of some nice yarn that frankly looked better in the ball than it does like this.
Featuring: single crochet, double crochet, accidental increases, intentional increases, decreases, gauge issues.
The pictures will live on but probably the swatch won’t; I’m sure I can find SOMETHING fun to make out of this where the riotousness of the short runs will be pleasing rather than overwhelming. Maybe a baby hat. Everything looks good in baby hats. (Shut up I do not have a problem. I can quit knitting baby hats anytime I want. Just not for very long.)
I think it’s likely to either hypnotize or blind viewers like this.
Come on, though, a bulky, warm little hat and maybe matching booties? Mittens? Both? Yes, I like this idea.
First, tho, I think I’ll try picking up some stitches and knitting a bit on the side of the swatch-- I’m curious to see how the variegation plays out in knitting vs. crochet, and to try a few stitches. What’s a couple inches more to frog, eh? My teacher-- whose name I didn’t catch because I am a terrible person-- was very patient with my hiccups and it was a relaxing way to spend some of our time there. I put myself on the list for info about teaching knitting next year, at their drop-in classes… There was spinning, knitting, crochet, and needlepoint. Plus, you know, everything else ever, but it’s a little overwhelming to try and talk about.
My QR code got a lot of compliments, if not too many actual scans, so that was fun!
ANYWAY, moving on to the actual knitting in progress… Let’s talk about t-shirt yarn.
The wicked secret of t-shirt yarn: I’m convinced it takes longer to cut a ball than it does to knit it up.
Severed Barbie head included for scale. And because I’m a geek.
Or maybe that’s just me. Or maybe it’s the size 36s talking. At any rate, that’s what I’ve been up to, mostly-- I’m well into my fourth shirt now, knitting away. It’s portable, but only just barely; the blanket already needs its own mondo tote bag. Bad subway knitting… decent car knitting, though. Aside from the mess.
Yup, actually, the real wicked secret of t-shirt yarn is the lint it creates. Bleaugh.
All in all I’m liking the fabric it creates; it’s heavy without being super-warm, nicely textured, and of course pretty soft. At least most of what I’ve knit in so far. There’s a little textural difference, because some of these are old shirts I wore eight thousand times and others are old shirts I got for free somewhere (excess con staff shirts, promotional junk, souvenirs or freebies) that just haven’t held up, or which I don’t want for whatever reason. Those haven’t gone through a thousand wash cycles so they’re not quite as cuddly.
I’m not worried in the least-- I expect I’ll wash it at least once right after finishing, since obviously it’s washable material, and I’ll want to de-lint it. So it’ll have chances to soften up through use and scrubbing.
Stretching to infinity… did I mention I’m getting almost 1 st / inch as gauge? Fffft.
I also like how the designs on the shirts give little patches of color without detracting much from the overall cohesion. I’m currently planning to stick to black and white, and possibly also grey, depending on what I’ve got on hand to cut up. I may just knit shirts up randomly as the mood strikes me, then knit a second rectangle and sew them together to add width once I hit my desired length. I am also toying with knitting it in squares and stitching together in alternating directions. Or I could try to pick stitches up along the edge… I know there are no-sew ways to do it, to attach something to both sides of an angle as you knit, I just don’t grok them.
Chances are I’ll take the path of least resistance and do two rectangles since this is supposed to be no-think knitting for me. If I get really into it I’ll make a second for my cousins to play with, with all the non-monochromatic old shirts. The texture is more the idea for them.
Speaking of the little ones, my babby sweater is slightly stalled; I’m at the stage where I need to attach the buttonbands, and I’ve had some trouble figuring out how I want to do that.
Second or third attempt, I forget.
I think the current frontrunner is this crochet chain technique, since it almost looks like a stockinette row. It’s not exactly hard but it takes more concentration than knitting so I want to leave it for times when I’m not rushed and have good lighting. My first attempt was a lot sloppier; now I’m being conscious to line up my chain better, one loop to each row of stockinette, matching the tension as nearly as I can.
One band-- the one pictured, actually-- is a little wobbly-looking because I knit it separately and grafted it down rather than knitting it up-- I didn’t want to have the colors travel on the visible edge. I’m not 100% sure if I’m okay with it-- we’ll see. If worst comes to worst, it took me about an hour to do so I’m pretty sure I’d be emotionally capable of ripping and re-doing it. Though if I were smart I’d probably have attached the good one, first.
I suspect I can tug and block it into submission, though, before I cement its current state by starting the hood. I should try to sort out which side goes under, too-- if this is the under side (I never remember how it works, I know it’s gender-dependent but I wear men’s shirts unapologetically so I always forget which is which) I’m not going to worry at all.
Playing with the macro setting on my camera, deal w/ it.
I really, really love the complexity of the color in this yarn-- it looks unequivocally blue to me on the whole, but there’s so much depth to it and the pinkish undertones manage to make it really lively, without being overwhelming. The gray-brown works better than I had hoped in contrast. I can’t wait to finish this project just to see it, and of course, to hand it over.
I’m pretty excited about the hood-- once I get to that this will be good subway knitting again! And after the hood comes the sewing up, which scares me again, buuuut after that it’ll be one more ecksmuss gift sorted out.
I just need to get my mojo back and knit a little more regularly.
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