Category-free but not dull. A few stripes, some knit-purl patterns, some crazy shaping.





Bee Socks, completed Summer 2006:


An experiment in a toe-up heel flap, outlined here. Seems to have worked all right.



Fish Blanket, Summer 2006:


For a college friend's baby. I really enjoyed knitting the fish, and the finishing wasn't too bad. Now I'm thinking about fish scarves.



Brioche Helmet Hat, Summer 2006:


A hat for my mom's cousin's husband (we're closer than that description makes us sound). The pattern is the Brioche Helmet Hat from the Fall '05 Interweave Knits. I've knit it before, and upsized it to fit a grownup head.



Green Striped Sweater, Summer 2006:


The yarn in this sweater composed the first thing I made when I got back into knitting. I loved the yarn, but the sweater itself was too short and loosely knit, so I ripped the whole thing out after living with it for a few years, and reknit it into this. It fits much better. The green at the bottom and cuffs is a nearly identical yarn because I ran out of the other yarn.



Primary color socks, Summer 2006:


Plain socks, toe up.



Brioche Helmet hat (upsized for adults), Spring 2006:


The pattern is from the Fall 2005 Interweave knits. To make it adult sized and reasonably proportional, I looked at the difference in stitch counts between the two children's sizes and made my adult size larger by the same amount. It came out all right. This is for one of my cousins.



Brain Slug, Winter 2006:



A brainslug. Why not? Pattern will be forthcoming.



Cornwall Sweater, Summer/Fall 2005:


The pattern is Cornwall, from Alice Starmore's Fisherman's Sweaters. I used Cascade 220, and needed to go down a needle size to hit gauge. It fits J great in a heavy-duty winter sweater way.

Some modifications:

-The green stripe is a pretty minor change, but a nice one. The original is all one color. It made the armhole gussets (the diamond shape that J's displaying) tricky, though, because the sleeves were picked up and knit in the round towards the cuff, so I needed to figure out how to do intarsia, and in the round, as I went. I like that the gusset is all one color, though--it's the type of detail one would never see on a storebought sweater.

-Another detail one would never get on a storebought sweater: personalization. J's initials are knitted into the gussets (The "C" he's displaying is pretty clear on my monitor, so you might be able to see it). It's kind of silly, yeah, but I like being able to put a little secret into something handmade. Otherwise, why not just go to KMart?



Brioche Hat, Summer 2005:



The pattern is from the Fall 2005 issue of Interweave Knits, and I used some label-less worsted weight wool that I've had for ages. I just wanted to see what brioche stitch was like, and this little hat was the perfect thing. I really like the half-earflaps. At some point I'll probably write up a larger version for myself.



Cheerful socks, Summer 2005:



Socks for Jeremy. Toe up, using some self-striping Regia mixed with one of the sock yarns from Elann.com.



Dulaan stuff, Summer 2005:



Some little things for the Dulaan project. I used my usual boring hat recipe, a little smaller than usual for kid-sized heads, and likewise made the mittens up as I went along.



White Cat, Summer 2005:


A little white cat, based on this pattern, but with worsted weight yarn and increased-gauge-appropriate needles. It's for a friend's baby that just recently joined the planet.



Brain, Hyperbolic Space, or maybe a fungus, Summer 2005:


I saw a webpage.... somewhere, where they were crocheting hyperbolic planes. (Here are some knit ones, but I discovered, as this author says, that the knit ones are a pain to make.) It's super easy, even with barely-competent crochet skills like mine. one simply makes two stitches in every previously-made stitch, so the first round has 4 stitches, the second 8, the third 16, etc., etc. I went until I ran out of yarn, and the resulting pointless thing is between the size of a baseball and softball. I attached a rubber band to the center and bounce it from my hand like a yoyo when I'm jittery.



Bunny Finger Puppet, Spring 2005:

I was bored of my projects one night and decided to make a finger puppet. I've since used it to amuse small children staring back between the seat cushions on flights. And Jeremy.



Magpie Socks, Spring 2005:


Blinding, blinding socks. I started them in February, when I was working on two gray projects in gray cold weather and gray gray gray.

These couldn't be mistaken for gray by the blind.

Turns out it's impossible to photograph because of the varigation, but I put my full name in capital letters on the lower ankle portion of one sock, and made a sort of pictograph of my name (which very roughly translates to "Sacred Vegetable Pickers", if you're curious) on the other. The upper half of the sock leg is plain ribbing, so when worn normally the ribbing will be folded down over the entertaining bits, making for a decoder-ring level of secrecy. It kept me amused when I would otherwise have been doing boring ribbing.



Gir the Robot, late Winter 2005:
Gir, one of the characters from the cartoon Invader Zim, is seen here seen making friends with the other self-absorbed cartoon robot toy in my house.


And a more recent version, lounging with the original:

He was a lot of fun to make, and good for me, since I can tend to take knitting a little too seriously.



Best Friend Scarf, Fall 2004:


I made something that my picky friend likes! Hooray! Done in a basketweave pattern with alpaca.



Shapely Tank Top, Summer 2004:

A variation on this White Lies pattern. The variation is the 3 ribs in a fake princess seam--I moved the purl grooves around by locating the pattern decreases and increases just inside that area. Worked okay, if I did another tank top I'd do it again but make sure the fake seam goes over the boob like it's supposed to.



Two Bad Hats, Summer 2004:


This is all I had of those orangey and red yarns--they were tiny balls that my gramma taught me to knit on. When I ran out of yarn, I'd unravel my knitting and make her cast on for me again. I'd been trying to get rid of them for awhile, but they kept insisting on looking bad next to their neighbors. This way, they look almost-intentional. I was practicing a very basic hat pattern I wrote for a friend learning to knit. They'll eventually either go to a charity or someone's patient 3-year-old.



Big Red Coat, Summer 2004:

Meh. I like the color, and I like the idea of a cropped-ish chunky little fall jacket, but the shoulders are too narrow for me to be comfortable. Notice that in the picture, the coat naturally hangs way way open, despite being the right dimensions for my chest measurement, according to the pattern (a sidebar: this is why you'll never see me in a fitted women's buttondown shirt unless I get me some seamstressing skills. Either the front buttons from the chest up gape open, or else it's baggy and sloppy looking below. Help!). In the good-idea-I-didn't-think-through department, I made up some pockets after I'd knit all the pieces and put them in along the side seam, which is too far back to pretend like you're comfortable. The first thing I've made for myself that I don't find excuses to wear.



A Foolish Scarf, Winter 2004:


My gramma hinted that a scarf made from that silly furry stuff would entertain her. So I made her one for her birthday. I think of her as a pretty practical woman--after all, she raised 5 children, and taught me to knit and sew. But there's no one I'd rather see wear something feathery and utterly unnecessary. Hope you like it, gramma.



First Socks, Winter 2004:

My first pair of socks. They fit just fine, as you can see.



Grover Purse, Summer 2003:

I got some fuzzy yarn as a gift from a non-knitter, who cut all the bands off the yarn so it would look nice in the box. Doh. So I have no idea what this stuff is, but when I knit a swatch of it, J claimed I'd killed a Muppet for its hide. I needed a low key I-have-no-pockets-but-need-my-keys type of bag, and so I made something up. The swirly effect (if you can see it) is just from moving the knits and purls around. I also stuck I-cord around all the edges, which helped to give it a more finished look. It suits my purposes.



Triangular Hair thing, Summer 2003:

Made from leftovers of the stripey sweater--having something made of soft merino wool just to keep my hair out of my eyes seems like a sinful luxury, but there wasn't enough for much else. Made up the pattern as I went along. I have the I-cord going the whole way across in the dark color--it's a detail I like.



Knit stripey Merino sweater, spring 2003:

The first sweater I made since I've gotten back into knitting. Adapted from a completely different sweater in Knitter's Stash that was nevertheless plain enough for me to adapt to my own purposes. The wool is lovely--a gift from my in-laws. The sweater's not so hot, quality-wise--I now see a lot of small, fixable problems. It's hard to be Zen about it, but I did the best I could at the time, and improved a lot by the end.



Zigzag Afghan, Summer 2001ish:

This is a huge hideous crocheted afghan. I love it. Even though I made this thing, I still respond to the question "Do you know how to crochet?" with "No." I've looked at crochet books, and have no idea what they're talking about. My gramma and mom showed me how to make a chain, and I just figured it out from there.

The directions for this blanket, as told to me by my mom: "you make a long chain, a little longer than you want the actual blanket to be. You just go back and forth--you know how to do that--and wherever you want there to be a point, you just add a loop, or take one away, and keep going until you're sick of it." There. So don't ask me about it. I'll never crochet something major again.

I also discovered the concept of "felting" in this piece. See the white zigzags, and how the acrylic yarn around it is kind of bunchy? Yeah, that was leftover wool from the first sweater I made (no picture, no idea where it went). Boy was I surprized when I pulled it out of the washing machine.



Seussian Scarf, Spring 2000ish:

Jeremy requested a scarf. "A really long one," he said, "the ones from the store aren't usually long enough. And no wierd colors." This is what he got. It's a little too long, actually--we've worn it simultaneously on cold days, only half-jokingly. But it works. It has stockinette/reverse stockinette stripes every 10 or so rows, which you can see as slightly lighter and darker stripes within each color block if you look carefully. I'd never heard of garter stitch at the time. Good for me.








Anyone interested in how I made any of these things: You have a few options. A: Figure it out on your own. B: Contact me (tjane1216, then the "at" symbol, excite.com), although if it's copyrighted (as in, I didn't just make something up), I'll only be able to direct you to a reference. C: Never find out what I did, and wonder forever.