Last week, I mentioned that I made leg warmers for our little one using Beinstulpen im Trachtenlook which is written in German. Google translate did a pretty good job getting me some of the way there, but I did have to rely on my own experience to finish the translation. Since the pattern is free, I thought it might be worth sharing more broadly because it’s free and fun to make!
The pattern has two sizes, SM and ML, and takes ~100-120 yards of worsted weight yarn. I knit a size SM for a sie to fit someone around the 1-year mark. In terms of length, I worked 8 cable repeats and then knit 3 knit rows before casting off (~9in). There was no special reason for picking this length other than working with the goal of the leg warmers going as high up the leg as possible.
What I did:
CO 44 (48) R1-4: [K2, P2] across R5: [Knit the second stitch, then the first stitch, P2] across
I didn’t stagger the twists, but if you wanted to: CO 44 (48) R1-4: [K2, P2] across R5: [Knit the second stitch, then the first stitch, P2, K2, P2] across R6-9: [K2, P2] across R10: [K2, P2, Knit the second stitch, then the first stitch, P2] across
In terms of length, I worked 8 cable repeats and then knit 3 knit rows before casting off (~9in). There was no special reason for picking this length other than working with the goal of the leg warmers going as high up the leg as possible.
No matter how you swing it, patroning yarn shops with my husband is different from patroning yarn shops by myself. He forces me to slow down and reminds me to take a look at the gorgeous samples that the shop owner/employees have taken the time to knit up, otherwise, I’m often someone who runs in and out to pick up yarn for a specific project (a habit developed out of necessity when working for Webs Yarn Store). In fact, if he hadn’t been there when I impulsively decided to pop into Norwich Knits I probably would have walked out empty-handed instead of with the two coordinating skeins of Malabrigo that I left with.
The initial plan was to make two short sleeved Hyphen sweaters and while it’s true that I loved working the pattern (the yoke stitches were the perfect pop of interesting), my second plan was to work up a coordinating pair of pants. Then I decided to knit the sweater in a size larger and realized that I hadn’t purchased enough yarn for the pants!
With a quick pivot, I worked up a pair of coordinating leg warmers (I’ll do a separate post on that because I translated a pattern from German and it’s worth sharing!) and a hat. So happy with the end result, right down to the red flower buttons I found.
Speaking of buttons, I used my sewing machine’s button stitch to attach the red flower buttons and I’m sold. Despite the knit fabric, they are firmly attached it took a quarter of the time. 100% recommend this technique :]
Another month has come and gone, I can’t believe July will be over in two days. For the second month of Camp Loopy 2020, my hands took on the challenge of knitting a large sweater (just under 1200 yards, worsted weight) for my partner’s birthday. Before getting into the details of the challenge, I want to take a moment to discuss how much I love using Tincanknits’s Flax sweater patterns (worsted and fingering weight) without the garter stitch pannels to make classic raglan sweaters. I’ve knit several of each for myself and others and am always happy with the fit and the color pooling, but always have over 200 yards of yarn leftover. Seriously, I was anticipating this sweater needing 1400 yards! Anyways, here was the challenge for July:
The July Challenge: We are celebrating The Botany Lab, The Zoology Lab and The Entomology Lab in July.Your project needs to reflect plants, or animals, or insects.You can show this representation in the colors you pick, or the color name, or the pattern itself, or the pattern name, or the designer name.You need to use a minimum of 600 yards of yarn, single knit or crocheted (not held double).Examples for Botany Lab (plants): You could pick colors like Dragonfruit, Joshua Tree, Rose & Iris, Mountain Wildflowers, Garden Party, Holly Hock, Pomegranate Blossom, Vegetable Medley, Seaweed, Ivy.
He’s laughing at me because didn’t trust him not to get food on his sweater during dinner
I know what you’re thinking: With so many choices, why would you choose to do another flax sweater? For starters, I wanted to make something with more yardage than the minimum as I finished last month’s challenge so quickly. Due to the pandemic and working from home, I have a lot of knitting time on my hands during meetings if the project is simple enough. This brings us to my next argument for choosing a simple project: it’s simple and doesn’t require a lot of brainpower. In other words, I can use my hands to see my stitches instead of having to look at or think about what I’m working on. The most important reason, however, is that I knew my partner would love another handknit sweater (re: my feelings on the sweater curse).
I even made him a matching hat with the leftover yarn :]
Having finished this challenge in about 10 days, I’m realizing I may need to take on something bigger for August if I want the project to last. It’s weird to think that this time last year all my free time was spent hiking and traveling. We’re still hiking, but our ability to travel several hours to make a weekend event of it is temporarily out of our control. In the meantime, my partner has started requesting I knit him another sweater in a different color (for his birthday, since this one was gifted sooner), so I will take comfort in the knowledge that he loves his sweater and we still have a life time of adventure before us.
Thoughts from iswimlikeafish 