Time Out for a Turtle

January 25, 2010| Lindy| 0 Comments | 2:55 pm

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Introducing my version of Sheldon the Turtle:

This project was not on my list — but I couldn’t resist!

This toy turtle knits up fairly quickly and makes a very soft, cuddly toy that is about 8 inches long and about 5 inches high. I used the yarn called for in the pattern — Knit Picks Shine Sport, but I changed one of the colors. The original colors are “Grass” and “Green Apple” — the “Green Apple” is the main color. Well, I used “Harbour” for the main color and then used “Green Apple” for the contrasting color. These are the colors my DIL is using for the baby’s room, along with a turtle theme. So now my grandson has a snuggly soft turtle to match. (BTW – he’s scheduled to arrive this Thursday!)

I really like the Knit Picks Shine Sport yarn. It’s a blend of 60% cotton and 40% Modal and it is really soft. I just loved the way it knit up. Shine also comes in a worsted weight yarn — and I’ve ordered some for a couple of other toys I have in my “someday” queue. (I know — the stash grows…)

Yesterday at the knit meetup, I learned that Knit Picks has several patterns for costumes for Sheldon. Since the body and the shell are separate pieces — it’s really easy to change Sheldon’s shell for another outfit… who knew? The patterns are free. There’s also a Sheldon group on Ravelry. Links listed below:

Sheldon Pattern — Knitty.com
Knit Picks Sheldon Patterns
Sheldon! Ravelry Group

1 thought on “Time Out for a Turtle”

Amanda says:

January 25, 2010 at 9:52 pm

Oh that is too cute!

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WIP: Pi Shawl — Hibernating Since 2008…WIP: Pi Shawl — Hibernating Since 2008…

In the Knitter’s Almanac, Elizabeth Zimmerman suggests doing a Pi Shawl during the month of July as a perfect knitting project to take along with you on your summer travels. Well, I started a Pi Shawl following her instructions in the Knitter’s Almanac in July of 2008. Umm, yeah. July 2008. I took this project with me during that summer on various trips, including a trip to Spain in September. But then, for some reason I don’t fully remember, I set it aside — and left it sitting until July 2010.

As you can see from the above photo, I had made quite a bit of progress on this shawl. In fact, I had made it all the way to the last set of increases, with 576 stitches on the needles. If you are not familiar with the concept of the Pi Shawl — it is simply this: you start out with a small number of stitches (9 in this case) and double the number of stitches every so many rows. The number of rows between increases grows by 3’s or thereabouts and you end up with a circular shawl made up of a whole lot of stitches. (EZ writes that you can keep increasing as long as you wish — but she stops at 576 as it seems to be enough. I think I agree.)

So — after I figured out where I had left off, I started knitting away on those 576 stitches using the lace patterns given in the Knitter’s Almanac. When I started this shawl, my plan was to knit it per EZ’s instructions. Knitting the lace patterns required knitting 42 rounds and I decided to knit an additional 2 rounds after that. Here’s what it looks like at this point:

Here a two additional views. The first is looking down at the center of the shawl with the circular needle underneath and the other is looking down with the circular needles on top.

It looks like a big lacey bag at this point. And it is really difficult to tell exactly how large this shawl actually is. I’m estimating that it is somewhere around 60″ in diameter, but I really won’t know until I get it off the needles and get it blocked.

Now, getting the shawl off the needles is going to take some time. This is because I am knitting on a lace border and using up the edge stitches as I go. I am using the lace border pattern on page 82 of the Knitter’s Almanac. Now, this was a bit tricky to get started — because it doesn’t really tell you how to incorporate knitting off stitches when you knit the lace pattern. EZ does describe the basic process earlier in the chapter — but the specific directions are not given with the lace border pattern itself.

It took me a little while to figure things out — and since I don’t want to have an issue with dropping any of those 576 stitches, I started by putting in a lifeline. From this point forward, I am using the right needle of my circular needle and a dpn to knit the border, so I put a point protector on the left needle to prevent stitches from sliding off and cast on 11 stitches for the border:

The lace border pattern consists of 4 rows, and you K2Tog each time you knit back toward the shawl’s edge stitches, incorporating 1 edge stitch into the border. This means you use up 2 stitches every 4 rows of border. (Yeah…it’s gonna take awhile.) Here’s the start of the border after 20 rows:

I like the border… Only 566 stitches to go. I hope to finish this before the end of July. I will post pictures of the finished shawl when I get it blocked.

Here’s a link to Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac

Back from HiatusBack from Hiatus

It has been nearly 6 months since I last wrote a post. This was due in part to the fact that my office was in the process of being remodeled, as well as the busy holiday seasons (Thanskgiving, Christmas, & New Year’s). I am glad to say that my office is now finished and looks quite lovely — but I am still unpacking things. I have made a promise to myself that when I unpacked the hastily packed boxes, that I would take the time to go through them and eliminate things that I no longer used, need or want. So far I have kept that promise and I am gradually putting the things I have decided to keep in their new homes. I have 4 boxes left to unpack.

One of the most difficult tasks for me as I unpacked was to sort through the many years accumulation of knitting and crochet magazines, patterns and pattern books. I love books. And I have a lot of knitting and crochet books. I am proud to say that I was focused enough to really let go of those that I will never use and those that are really out of date. I gave a few to some of my knitting friends, but in the end — most of the old magazines ended up being recycled. Are you someone who collects books and magazines? If you are — you know how much of a struggle it was for me to finally let them go.

But now — I have plenty of room for NEW BOOKS! 🙂

One of the changes that I have made over my 50 years (yes, 50!) of knitting is that I no longer buy knitting patterns, books of knitting patterns or those knitting magazines that you can find in your local supermarket. As I have written in this blog before, since I first read Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears, I have moved from buying patterns to buying books on techniques and stitch libraries. These days when I see something in a magazine that I think I would like to knit — I study it for the details — i.e. the design elements, the stitchery, etc. — and then I sit down and figure out how to knit it up without the pattern — I draft my own essentially. I find I am much happier with the results.

I am doing that now — what I have on my needles is a raglan cardigan sweater, knitted from the top down — size 18 months. I hope when I finish this little sweater that I will be able to develop another sweater calculator for doing top down raglan sweaters. I’ll post it when I am certain that it works correctly.

For those of you who wish to move beyond following written patterns — Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books are a great way to start.

Knitted striped socks

I finished my striped socks yesterday morning. I am pleased with how they turned out. I used a self-striping yarn from Patons Yarns and it was fascinating to see the stripes evolve as the socks knit up.

I did not really use a pattern for these socks. There are literally thousands of free sock patterns available on the internet, but you really don’t need them if you understand the basics of knitting socks. I started with a gauge swatch and used my foot measurements to determine the number of stitches I needed. The “how to” of this seems to be enough for a separate post, so I will place that in my queue for future topics.

I choose to do a picot hem at the top of the cuff, a 3 by 1 rib for the cuff and instep, a slipped stitched heel flap with a square heel turn. My mentors for these socks were Nancy Bush – I consulted her book “Knitting on the Road” for advice on the square heel and Cat Bordhi, whose book “Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles” contains a wealth of information on how to knit socks.

Knitting socks on two circular needles

I used the two socks on two circular needles for this pair of socks. I prefer to knit socks two at a time, because when you’ve finished, you have a pair of socks and don’t have to go back and knit that second sock. You can knit socks two at a time using either two circulars – as shown here in my photo – Or you can use the magic loop technique. I started another pair of socks last night using this technique – so I’ll post about them later.