Grab Bag Challenge and other knitting

warning: a long, yarn-related post; no fabric here, sorry!
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I had intended to get this post up ten days ago but I needed photos… then DD and the GrandBoys made a surprise visit. Needless to say, I didn’t give much thought to posting anything on my blog!

Despite the fact that I had been in a groove with my sewing over the previous few weeks, I had also completed a fair bit of knitting. My most recent post regarding knitting (as opposed to yarn) was in mid-June so I’m going to talk about all my projects since then; whether completed or in progress.

At the end of June I tutored two workshops: one on stranded colour knitting, the other on slipped stitch knitting so there were a few samples that needed to be knitted.

I’ve already showed you the two slipped stitch scarves in this post, so here are some other slipped-stitch patterns: a slipped stitch beanie and a sample slipped-stitch square that could be used in an afghan/blanket:

    

For the stranded colour workshop I knitted two hats; the second shows a traditional Norwegian motif I found on the internet.I couldn't get it on my head so I had to put my hands inside it for the photo – it’s not really that shape!.

 

I finished Socks for Someone #4 and cast on Socks For Someone #5; I’ve finished the first sock, except for the grafting of the toe and the sewing-in of ends, and am on the foot (cuff down) of the second. The socks are my own basic sock pattern for women; 64 stitches knitted on 2.25mm needles.

In mid-July, I tutored a workshop on shadow (aka “illusion”) knitting. I didn’t have my scarf finished in time for the workshop, although I did take it along as a work in progress. That scarf is now finished and is seen here pinned out for blocking. The pattern is Counterpoint Scarf, by Jennifer Crawford; free to Ravelry members. The yarn is discontinued: Moda Vera Cynthia (brown) and Moda Vera Jaclyn (cream) – both DK weight, 50% acrylic/tencel. I chose brown and cream because I didn’t have any black 8ply (DK) yarn that was the same brand as any white yarn and it seemed important to have two strands that knitted up to the same gauge. All experienced knitters know that all DK weight yarns are not created equal!

In this post, I talked about how much yarn I have. I managed to find storage for most of it, except for the “Grab Bags”. There were too many of them to fit in the space I had allocated, so knitting through those has become my priority knitting. I can’t believe my first project for the “Grab Bag Challenge” was completed last December!

I remember that, for the next project, I grabbed a bag of yarn and intended to knit a prayer shawl for the person who donated quite most of my ‘grab bag’ contents. However, the prayer shawl was a lace pattern and I had to set it aside even before I cast on; i usually knit in front of the television, and that just wasn’t TV knitting! When we moved that bag of yarn disappeared into the pile of grab bags during packing; one day it’ll turn up and I’ll be able to knit that shawl.

In the meantime, I have knitted two hats from a pattern called Bubble Gum which is available for free on Ravelry. I think I would have called the pattern “Bee Hive” or “Honey Pot” because it reminds me of a green ceramic honey pot we had when I was a child (not that it ever had honey in it)! My two hats don’t look as nice as the ones on the Ravelry page, perhaps they’ll look better after blocking or with a head in them! I've only shown one, they are basically identical – knitted from the same no-longer-available yarn from K-Mart called Triplequick, a 12 ply (bulky) yarn which I knitted on 6mm needles. It was, indeed, a quick pattern to knit and I completed the two hats, including sewing in ends, over three evenings.

I started knitting a scarf/shawlette from a simple (free from Ravelry) pattern called Forget Me Not using a discontinued yarn called Lambswool 80 (80% wool, 20% nylon) by Patons Australia. In the comments section of my Ravelry projects page I wrote: “life is too short to knit with yarn which feels like string! Even acrylic feels softer in the hand than this yarn so it has been frogged and the yarn has been given to the op shop (thrift store).” The project was aptly named Yarn Shouldn’t Feel Like String but, unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of the yarn before I gave it away!

Then came another hat when I grabbed a bag containing 3 skeins of Sirda Octo, an 8ply (DK)  blend of 80% wool and 20% nylon. I have never successfully knitted a beret; I always seem to have too many rounds and get a lump in the middle where it should lie flat. I had hoped this one would be different; it’s a very pretty lace pattern and the decreases are included in the pattern. But I should have looked at the pictures of the Elfunny Beret on Ravelry more carefully: it had a deliberate ‘lump’ in the centre, accented by doing extra rows! I had to remove the extra rows and add a couple of extra rounds of decreases to make it work. Here it is blocking with the dinner plate still inside! Unfortunately, it’s supposed to be adult size but there's no way I can get it on my medium-size head! Ah well, someone will live it, I’m sure.

WM grabbed the next bag (my current knitting project, along with Socks for Someone #5): it contained 329g of yarn called Lincoln Buffalo Wool. The only additional information on the label was that it was mothproofed* pure wool, 6ply (a heavy sportweight or light DK), colour 488, Taupe. No needle size was recommended. I couldn’t find any information online about this yarn specifically or the yarn company in general. It may have been mothproofed forty years ago but I have had to deal with quite a lot of insect damage as I knitted which has left me with lots of ends to sew in! I know it is more than forty years old: the Australian wool industry adopted the metric scheme in 1971 and these balls were labelled “1 oz”!

I decided this time to knit something where gauge was not so crucial and finally settled on  a pattern of a triangular scarf or shawlette called Springtime Bandit. The original pattern was knitted in 10ply (Aran) but I have seen it knitted in 4ply (sock) so it’s obviously very versatile. I didn’t know how far 329g of yarn would go; 8ply wool yarn usually contains about 200m to every 100g so this could be as much as 650m. If it’s a lighter weight than 8ply, it may go even further! The designer, Kate Gagnon Osborn, recommends four pattern repeats; I have done twelve and still have four skeins for the edging!

It has knitted up like 8ply (DK) on 4.5mm needles. Since I am usually a looser-than-average knitter, it will be interesting to see how it goes after blocking! This is what it looks like so far:

 

I don't’ think I’d describe it as ‘taupe’; its more milk chocolate!

The Grab Bag Challenge is fun; I have no idea what the bag will contain until it is actually in my hands (I’m not allowed to return it to the box, I have to knit it and use up as much of the yarn as possible) the fun part is choosing a pattern that works for the amount of yarn I have (long live Ravelry!) and seeing how it knits up. Most of the bags contain only small amounts so there’ll probably be a lot of hats and/or scarves in my future but that just adds to the fun: small projects are quickly finished then a new bag is selected!

It’s winter: cold and raining here (thank God, we were in a drought and needed rain desperately) so it’s great weather to curl up under a hand-knitted blanket/afghan and knit away!

What are you working on at the moment?

Grab Bag Challenge #1

It’s taken much longer than it should have to complete this first challenge!

I started with one solitary 20 gram ball of long-discontinued Panda Double Bubble, a boucle-style 5ply (sport weight) 100% acrylic yarn. I’m not even sure how I know it was sport weight – I must have found it on the internet somewhere because it’s not in Ravelry’s yarn database!

Logic told me to give it away; after all, what can you do with 20g of yarn? But the colour was so pretty – just right for a little girl – so the challenge was to find something useful I could knit with 20g.

I have no idea how much length there is in a 20g ball of sport-weight acrylic yarn. I know that there are between 250 and 300 metres of yarn in 100g of acrylic 8ply (DK), therefore there are about 50 to 60 metres to 20g. This is sport-weight not DK, so I figured I probably had about 70-80 metres to play with.

And here is where Ravelry shines. I opened the pattern search page, ticked the filters for acrylic, sport-weight, 70m or less, free knitting patterns (or those in my library) that had photos. From the 25 patterns shown, I found two hat patterns that I thought would work with this yarn and chose Jeffrey’s Stripey Hat by Heather Wells, simply because I liked the shape better.

Ambitiously, I cast on 120 stitches (the 3-6 months size) on 2.75mm needles (I couldn't find my 3.25mm needles).

The first obstacle came when I realised that working with that boucle yarn on small gauge needles caused a great deal of pain in my left forearm and elbow. I could only knit about 300 stitches then I had to stop! So it took several days before I realised I was running out of yarn faster than I was running out of pattern! ;-)

I ripped it all out and decided to knit the newborn size. I cast on again but my arm ached worse than ever. I wondered if the small gauge was the problem. There was only one way to find out – I needed to locate my 3.25mm needles. (That’s the problem with having guests staying – things get shoved away to make room for extra beds).

With 3.25mm needles in hand, I cast on again. Still some aches but not as bad as before. It must be the combination of the acrylic boucle yarn and the small needles - - I knit socks on 2.25mm needles and have never experienced “knitter’s elbow”!

Taking it slowly so as not to aggravate my arm further, I completed the hat in four days.

the colour in this photo is the most accurate

The hat will go into my stockpile until I hear of a charity needing hats for newborn babies.
I had more yarn leftover than I thought, so I planned to knit a pin-cushion for my own use.

After four attempts at double knitting with a single yarn, I gave up. Three times I dropped stitches and couldn’t find them in the boucle bumps. The last time I had obviously not slipped my stitches correctly because I didn’t end up with a tube I could fill! This has never happened to me before – I assume it was because I’m too tired to concentrate properly (we've had a lifestyle change and I’m now getting up three hours earlier than my natural inclination). my arm is throbbing from four hours of knitting that yarn so I’m going to cut my losses; who knows, I may pick up the yarn again some day but, if not, it will go in the bag of scraps DD uses to needle punch toys for cats at the animal adoption agency!

Time to grab a new bag and find a pattern to use up the yarn it contains!

If you’d like to join me in this challenge, grab some odd balls of yarn or some orphaned quilt blocks or fabrics that work together (you get the idea), put them in a non-see through bag, then label it on the outside with generic labels (eg 2 x 50g balls 8ply wool/nylon blend); one 12” orphaned block; three fat quarters). You want to have a general idea of what's inside, not a specific one. Seal all the bags and place them in a drawer, cupboard, basket, box or tote bag. Grab one bag at random and make something using as much of the contents as you can. No putting one bag back to grab another – the challenge is to use up what's in the bag and therefore use up items that you have had around for a while but don't quite know what to do with!

There’s no linky party for this challenge (I’ll create one if enough people are interested) but there’s a button and ‘grab code’ in my sidebar if you want to add it to your blog. You can leave a comment on this (or any other) post to invite me and others to come and see what you’ve done with the contents of your “grab bag” and I’ll put a link here on my blog which will, hopefully, drive some traffic over to your blog!

Won’t you join me? We all have miscellaneous items we keep avoiding!

knitting "grab bags"

Over the last couple of years, maybe longer, WM has been bringing home yarn as an elderly friend slowly de-clutters her home. Knowing that I have no more storage space in the wardrobe where I store yarn, he has been quietly storing it in the garage.

On Boxing Day (26 December, a holiday here in Australia), I wondered whether there was any dark coloured 8ply (DK) acrylic in the bags to add to my current project (rather than buying more yarn unnecessarily). WM accompanied me to the garage and, to my surprise, began hauling out bags and boxes from all over the place. I had no idea that there were so many!

Just as well my car was out of the garage. The space was quickly filled with two cartons, six large garbage (trash) bags and several smaller bags.

Two of the bags contained fleece (one straight off the sheep's back with bits of vegetation included!); these were obviously intended for DD because I don't spin.

Yesterday, while WM was at work, I hauled those bags and boxes into the living room and started going through them. The first thing I found was a beautifully knitted and obviously much loved blanket that had been repaired over the years but was now beyond repair. The far corner in the photo is just about hanging off! The blanket was in a bag labelled "Mrs Walker's rug". I have no idea who Mrs Walker was but I love the intricately knitted blocks and the colourful ruffled edging makes me smile! I have ear-marked this one for the local animal shelter -- I'm sure the dogs won't mind the holes!

The process of emptying each bag took several hours, deciding what was worth keeping, what could be given to the charity shop (thrift store) and what should just be thrown away (very little as it happens; I am a child of a "Depression" baby and we learnt to recycle, reuse or make do long before it was fashionable. I am also a hoarder, and believe that most things will be useful "one day"!) As I went, I added the yarns I was stashing into my Ravelry account.

During the sorting, I found two partially-made blankets. The "Christmas" one (thus named because of the colours) was crocheted and was already very heavy. I will rip it out and knit the yarn into something else. The second photo is closer to the real colours but the green is even more vibrant!

The one-day-I’ll-be-a-tartan rug I will discuss with my mother-in-law (she has made at least two of these tartan blankets in the past) and I’ll probably finish it. Seems a shame to waste all that hard work, although I could just give it to the animal shelter (it’s acrylic) after I sew all the ends in!

I also found two bags of very small knitted pieces, perhaps they were tension squares (gauge swatches). I think I’ll join these to make a blanket for the animal adoption agency. If I rip them all out, I ‘d only have to re-knit them into something else!

I found the pieces of a baby's cardigan, which I will finish if I can match the yarn to do the button bands.

I found several balls of wool made in Australia that weighed “one ounce”. That may not be too remarkable if you're not an Aussie knitter but the wool industry which, for many years, was the most important primary industry in Australia (we grew up hearing that "Australia rode on the sheep's back") has all but gone -- most commercially available yarn may be grown here but it is processed overseas. Additionally, the Australian wool industry changed over to the metric system in 1971. That makes those balls of yarn at least 42 years old!

The six balls of mohair are showing their age -- hard as steel wool. I'm thinking that a good soak in hair conditioner will restore their softness; if not, off to the charity shop they go! Speaking of mohair, I also found an acrylic/mohair blend that was being reclaimed from a commercially knitted garment, made in Indonesia! It's a pretty coloured yarn so I finished the ripping out (a slow process with mohair).

I found some good quality pre-1971 variegated Paton's Totem yarn. Most of it is knitted up into what would have been, in my opinion, a very ugly garment. I have ripped it all out and will think of another use for it. No, the photo is not out of focus – the yarn is just hard on the eyes! Way too much of that brown!

There were a few kilos, that's several pounds to my non-metric friends, of very brightly-coloured yarn which was too thick and too harsh to knit with. I'm assuming our dear friend had done some rug making in the past! That is all going to the charity shop, along with a bag of odds and ends and several balls of eyelash yarn -- life's too short and I have too much yarn to knit things I really can't stand!

All the 8ply (DK) acrylic (it just keeps coming) has been put in the box I reserve for that yarn. Yarn taht was too good to throw away or give away but which I cant figure out what to do with has been put in one bag labelled “miscellaneous – to be sorted”. I think most of it is wool or wool blends but, since there is only one 50g ball (or less) of each type/colour, I have put it aside for now.

All the other yarn I plan to keep has been packaged up and labelled. I have never done this before but it seems like a good idea! I am going to put all the bags in the drawer under the spare bed (where we used to keep spare clothes for the Grandsons when they lived nearby and visited often). It seems to me that, instead of knitting big projects like blankets (I started another one on Christmas Eve), I should knit lots of smaller projects and use up some of this yarn. It would be more useful keeping someone warm this winter (June to August in Australia) than taking up space in our house!

So, I'm calling these "grab bags"* and I'm going to make it both a game and a challenge for myself. Either WM or I will open the drawer, grab the first bag that comes to hand, and I will knit the contents of that bag into something useful until the yarn is used up. That shouldn't take too long considering the small amounts of most of each type of yarn.Then I will repeat the process until all the "grab bags" are done! If I enjoy the challenge, I will go through the boxes of donated yarn and old UFOs hiding in the bottom of the wardrobe, rip out where necessary, and make some more "grab bags"!

*This idea was partially inspired by Carol over at Fun Threads who makes quilts from challenge bags which I think are provided by her guild. It is also reminiscent of the sock challenge that was popular on the "knitternet" a few years ago where knitters put sock yarn and an appropriate pattern in bags, one for each month of the year, and randomly pulled out a bag each month.

Stay tuned for lots of smaller knitted objects!

Now what should I do with the blanket that’s in progress…?