Knits by Meliss

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Give Peace A Chance.

Back about two months ago (although it honestly feels like it was about two years ago) you may remember that I gave a speech about Knits by Meliss at a convention. Cool, but not exactly the point.

Well, after I was done talking about myself, one of the participants approached me and asked if I could make her a peace sign hat. I agreed. I thought it would be kind of fun. And besides, how hard would it be to make a peace sign hat?

Very.

But this afternoon I think I've finally conquered peace — or at least the sign part!

It took three tries and a whole lot of patience...

For my first try, I couldn't find a pattern to make a peace sign that I liked, so I decided to knit a plain hat in the round and then make a peace sign applique to attach to the outside... It seemed like a great idea at the time, but unfortunately failed miserably....

The applique looks OK from the front, but when viewed from the side it looks pretty silly. Unfortunately, even if it hadn't popped out so much, I would have had to redo the peace sign part because I sewed it on too high on the hat, so it sits awkwardly high up on the forehead. Whoops!

Next time I try this technique, I'll use thinner yarn so that the effect isn't quite so 3D...

For my second try, I looked up peace sign cross-stitch patterns and found one that I could alter to work for the hat. This version totally would have worked but I miscalculated how many stitches to cast on and accidentally made the hat 4.5 inches wider than I meant too... I was going to try make it work, but when I started knitting in the pattern, it went all wonky, then I dropped a stitch, and things got awkward when I tried to fix it... so I decided to start over. Again.

Third time's a charm! This time I think I made it a good width (slightly larger than I would normally have made an adult hat, per her request) and I managed to knit in the pattern without doing anything strange or dropping any stitches.

I'm pretty sure it's a miracle!

Friday, May 27, 2011

How Cute Is This?

I subscribe to The Weekly Stitch, the newsletter for Lion Brand Yarns, and for the past few weeks they have been releasing select nature motifs to commemorate their book 75 Birds, Butterflies & Little Beasts to Knit by Lesley Stanfield. This super adorable crochet strawberry is this week's design.

I have no idea what I could use it for, but it really makes me want to try to learn how to crochet again.