Today the the first day of our next Curious Make Along with Franklin Habit.
From the unique shape to the gorgeous play of color, the Temple of Flora has intrigued me and had me longing to cast on, but my favorite part of this pattern is the use of the mosaic technique.
I am a huge fan of colorwork patterns and mosaic knitting is one of my favorite ways to add colorful designs. Using one color at a time makes mosaic knitting one of the easiest colorwork techniques, and it eliminates the worry of puckering due to strands pulled too tight. Additionally, because these patterns are created with slipped stitches, it makes the patterns more geometric in nature and the charts are easier to read and follow.
I have already cast on and I have been using this project to
Zauberball Crazy Cotton in color 2392 & HiKoo Cobasi DK in 2020 Color of the Year
practice my backwards knitting skills. What is knitting backwards you ask? It is exactly what it sounds like and rather than turning your work to purl the next row, you knit “back” over the stitches. It is a particularly useful skill when knitting a small number of stitches with two colors of yarn, as it keeps the yarn from tangling when you turn at the end of every row. Want to learn more? Our friend Chilly Dog is hosting a video event on April 11th to teach you this useful technique. You can learn more here.
If you want to knit along with us we have a few kits left, so order a kit and knit along, we can’t wait to see how your colors play together, and don’t forget to tag your project #curiouskal and #templeofflora
And so I undertook to do something further with my second cake of Kinky Yarn, which didn’t look to be too interesting since the painted bits that were so cute on the cake…
…didn’t penetrate past the exterior. Most of the strand remained untouched, as was immediately apparent when I uncoiled the cake.
Too much white.
Keep in mind that I am neither an experienced nor an enthusiastic dyer. My next move, therefore, was based on convenience rather than wisdom. I had used up my supplies of Textil Marabu fabric paint and Fashion Spray Marabu. So I bought the least expensive, most readily available dye I knew of.
Kool-Aid.
Oh yeahhhhhhh.
You’ve probably heard about Kool-Aid’s potential use as a dye; but in case you haven’t, here are some of points in its favor:
• It’s non-toxic. • It’s cheap. • It’s easy to find. • It’s easy to use. • It doesn’t require the use of additional acids.
And some points against it:
• It’s neither very strong nor very brilliant. • It works only with animal fibers (it will not dye cotton, linen, or synthetics). • Others may drink it before you can use it. • It may tempt an enormous, anthropomorphic jug to bust through your kitchen wall.
As I stood in line at the supermarket, I realized I hadn’t made or consumed Kool-Aid since leaving home to go to college. Prior to that, I must have drunk hundreds of millions of gallons during a childhood that straddled the 1970s and 1980s.
Ours was not a progressive household where food was concerned. My mother thought whole wheat bread was un-American and my father refused to eat it. He still does. We had dinner with the kitchen television on. All our vegetables–such as there were–came from cans. My school lunches always included a gooey, unnatural cake of some kind from Hostess, and on fancy days the standard entrée of a peanut butter sandwich was replaced by the ultimate culinary luxury–a thermos full of Spaghetti-Os.
We were not, in short, the sort of family in which one turned up one’s nose at Kool-Aid. We drank it by the gallon. It was the first thing I ever made in the kitchen, and there was a violently orange Tupperware pitcher devoted to it. It was the only beverage to which we children had free access, the only thing we could take from the fridge without permission. Thirsty? Drink some Kool-Aid. Drink as much Kool-Aid as you want, was my mother’s policy–just please stay outside during all daylight hours and don’t bother me unless somebody is broken or bleeding.
This may shock younger readers. I hasten to reassure them that my mother was not uncaring or unfeeling–quite the opposite. This is just how it used to be in America, especially during the summer. Every house in our neighborhood had a Kool-Aid pitcher, and every house had a mother who wanted to be left alone from June to September.
Out of loyalty to my longtime favorite flavor, I bought two packs of Orange. I always preferred Orange. Grape was a distant second. Fruit Punch was tolerated but never loved; to me it tasted like birthday parties. The more exotic options like Lime and Apple weren’t even on my radar. I didn’t know anyone who drank those. Maybe people who ate whole wheat bread.
Enough about drinking Kool-Aid. How do you dye with it?
Kool Aid Dyeing: A Brief and Inexpert Guide
First, if your yarn is brand new, I’d give it a wash. Nothing fancy, just wash the skein–following the manufacturer’s guidelines for fiber content–with a little soap. Then rinse out absolutely all the soap. Your water should run clear.
Then soak the yarn in clean water while you prepare your dye pot.
If you are going to work with “real” chemical dyes, that’s a big undertaking and among many other precautions, you need to use pots and spoons dedicated solely to dyeing.
With Kool-Aid, however, just grab a deepish pot that looks like it will comfortably hold your yarn.
(You can do Kool-Aid dyeing in the microwave, but my microwave is on the blink and so I’m only going to talk about the stove top.)
Dump your Kool-Aid powder into the pot. The general principle, which is not difficult to grasp, is that more powder gives deeper color. There’s a practical limit, though, so don’t go nuts. That’s all I got for you. If you’d like an extended treatise on the subject, I refer you to this splendid article from Knitty.
Pour in some water–don’t fill the pot–and stir until the powder dissolves.
Put in your yarn.
Add enough water to cover the yarn.
Put the pot over the flame and heat it until the water is just shy of boiling. Then turn off the flame, cover the pot, and let it sit for a good half hour. Stir it from time to time, if you can remember. I forgot.
In a half hour, maybe a bit more, you should hope to see that the water is clear–that means your yarn has absorbed the dye.
If the water isn’t clear, try heating up the pot again, and letting the yarn sit until the water cools.
Then rinse the yarn thoroughly and let it dry. Use warm water to rinse, as shocking hot wool with cold water may encourage felting.
I was deeply alarmed to see that when removed from the bath, my yarn was a dead ringer for Cheetohs. I hate Cheetohs.
Oh, dear.
Kinky is knit into a tight strip, which inevitably prevents dye from reaching every spot on the strand equally. So I hoped the lurid glow of the exterior fiber would probably be moderated by some paleness in the interior.
I wound my Kinky into a hank on my niddy noddy so that it would dry more quickly…
…and then hung the tied hank in the shower to let it dry.
You do not, of course, want to wind yarn that is even a little wet into a ball.
Sure enough, the wound yarn was only moderately Cheetoh-esque. It was actually rather closer to Spaghetti-Os, of which I have only fond memories Quite a relief. And in spite of the thorough soakings and washings, much of the kink remained as gentle waves.
Gently kinky.
Now, as to what to make with it? I can’t decide. I’m still swatching.
But I’ve have had fun playing with dye, and I plan to do it again. That Kinky has encouraged me to try dyeing (not a favorite thing) and knit with bulky (also not a favorite thing) and helped me to enjoy both is nothing short of remarkable.
Next time, we’ll revisit a project I’ve set aside for a while–and talk about an exciting new direction for “Fridays with Franklin.” See you in two weeks!
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
If you want your Kinky Yarn to be kinky, you have to let it dry thoroughly before you unravel it. After I’d finished my dye jobs, I went away for a week. Probably a good thing, or I’d have been poking and prodding it to see if it was still damp. To speed it along, of course, you can uncoil the cake.
I was happy to see that the extra soak on the sprayed cake (dyed with Fashion Spray Marabu) had done some interesting things to the interior.
Oooh.
When I uncoiled the cake, I was even more excited by the effect.
Ooooooooooooh!
I was less thrilled with the painted cake (decorated with Textil Marabu) because of course the decoration was limited only to the outer surface. The inside was still blank.
Not quite ready.
If I were to use the paints again (and I would–they were a pleasure to work with) I think I’d just paint the unrolled coil. For the moment, I set aside this cake of Kinky (that is never not going to sound weird) for further manipulation.
The sprayed cake was begging to be knit up. I unraveled it from the end, rolling it into a ball as I went. Very easy. The strand was undeniably kinky.
Sure is kinky!
I wasn’t really sure what to knit with it. I decided not to decide until I’d messed around with it a little bit.
I knew I’d need a large needle, not only because Kinky is bulky but also because it’s lightly spun and lofty. If you knit a lofty yarn of any weight with a relatively small needle, you’ll squeeze the life right out of it.
I worked from plain garter stitch into moss stitch and then double moss stitch, increasing my needle size a few times to see which would give me a fabric that made me happy.
What’s more exciting than swatch photos?
Ultimately I settled on US 10 (6 mm) addi Clicks. For hands used to working with nothing much above a US 4 (3.5 mm), that took some getting used to.
Curiosity drove me onward. I really wanted to see what would happen with this stuff. I didn’t want to work only in garter stitch–too familiar. Moss stitch wasn’t much of an improvement. Double moss looked a bit better.
It made sense. This yarn was • bulky, • kinky, and • variegated.
The combination calls for a bold, simple repeating stitch pattern if you’re going to use one. Anything delicate or finely detailed will just be lost.
On a hunch, I pulled out a Victorian pattern from my collection, suggested in the nineteenth century publication Weldon’s Practical Knitter as the center for a knitted coverlet.
It’s bold, simple to knit, and makes a non-curling fabric that’s the same on both sides. Here it is, translated into modern knitting terminology.
Wedge Pattern (1880s)
Multiple of 8 sts plus 3
Row 1. Slip 1, knit 4. [Purl 1, knit 7] to last 6 sts. Purl 1, knit 5. Row 2. Slip 1, purl 4. [Knit 1, purl 7] to last 6 sts. Knit 1, purl 5. Row 3. Slip 1, knit 3. [Purl 3, knit 5] to last 7 sts. Purl 3, knit 4. Row 4. Slip 1, purl 3. [Knit 3, purl 5] to last 7 sts. Knit 3, purl 4. Row 5. Slip 1, knit 2. [Purl 5, knit 3] across. Row 6. Slip 1, purl 2. [Knit 5, purl 3] across. Row 7. Slip 1, knit 1. [Purl 7, knit 1] to last st. Knit 1. Row 8. Slip 1, purl 1. [Knit 7, purl 1] to last st. Purl 1. Row 9. Slip 1, purl 1. [Knit 7, purl 1] to last st. Knit 1. Row 10. Slip 1, knit 1. [Purl 7, knit 1] to last st. Purl 1. Row 11. Slip 1, purl 2. [Knit 5, purl 3] across. Row 12. Slip 1, knit 2. [Purl 5, knit 3] across. Row 13. Slip 1, purl 3. [Knit 3, purl 5] to last 7 sts. Knit 3, purl 4. Row 14. Slip 1, knit 3. [Purl 3, knit 5] to last 7 sts. Purl 3, knit 4. Row 15. Slip 1, purl 4. [Knit 1, purl 7] to last 6 sts. Knit 1, purl 5. Row 16. Slip 1, knit 4. [Purl 1, knit 7] to last 6 sts. Purl 1, knit 5.
How do you know which was to slip? Here’s a general tip to carry with you. Always as if to purl, unless otherwise stated; and also–if the last stitch of the previous row was a knit, slip with the working yarn in front, but if the last stitch of the previous row was a purl, slip with the working yarn in back.
The Wedge Pattern played nicely with the yarn. You can’t see the precise shapes of the wedges, but the regular changes from knit to purl gives the fabric a very interesting and pleasant faceted effect.
Happy and kinky.
I knit on 27 stitches until the yarn was almost used up, ending with Row 16. After binding off, I had a long rectangle about four feet by 18 inches.
That would be a frustratingly short scarf. But all I had to do was give a half twist in the middle and whip stitch the ends to gather to make it into a very luxurious, cozy moebius cowl.
However, as I was unable to find a willing model I must present it to you on an unwilling model: me.
Zowie!
Mysterious!
Cozy!
Okay, okay–I kid. Here it is on one of my most loyal models. As we were in a hurry she didn’t have time to put her face on.
The other cake (well–now it’s a strip) of Kinky remains to be used up after a bit of further decoration, and that’s what I’ll show you when we meet again in two weeks.
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
At the bottom was a note suggesting that I take the contents (the yarn and pompom, that is–not the sheep bowl) and make them into something. A challenge. A dare!
I’m as patriotic as the next knitter, but those colors were a curveball. Red, white, and blue is a charged combination for lots of folks–not only Americans–and it’s not often associated with chilly weather. To me, it shouts fireworks, barbecues, and swimming pools.
I briefly considered crocheting a 1970s Yankee Doodle bikini,
but
a) HiKoo Simplicity streeeeeeeeeeetches when soaking wet, and
b) I couldn’t think of any place to stick the pompom that wouldn’t be either ridiculous or indecent.
With three skeins of wool blend and a pompom, clearly I ought to make a hat. Alrighty, then.
Swing Time
The pompom was the key. I have in my albums a few photographs of my mother in full 1960s regalia: Mary Quant knock-offs meant to give Detroit teenagers some of the verve and spark of swinging Londoners.
I saw that in the winter of 1969 she had gone to Niagara Falls in an oversized newsboy cap topped with just such a big, fluffy faux fur pompom. It perfectly matched her dressy short overcoat, with equally fluffy faux fur collar and cuffs.
The effect was goofy, but fun–an ensemble for a party girl who didn’t mind if her clothes shouted a bit.
There was my answer–let the pompom be the crowning touch on a hat that was boldly graphic, happy, even silly. A hat with some swing, in Union Jack colors. You can accessorize with red, white, and blue in the winter. Sure you can. James Bond did, while parachuting off a precipice in the Alps.
It didn’t take long to realize that the effect I wanted didn’t come across in conventional, concentric stockinette stripes running ’round and ’round from the band to the crown. I’d seen that a million times. It wasn’t surprising enough to support the pompom.
I toyed with a few other ideas, like an asymmetrical Mondrian-inspired take on stranded colorwork.
That didn’t get far. It’s not a bad idea, though structurally it’s more suited to intarsia than stranding. I might come back to this one another time. But no matter what I did, in these colors I couldn’t get it to look anything other than an Uncle Sam hat gone horribly awry.
Over the Top
I’d ripped back to just the band for the fourth time when I thought about the garter stitch short rows in the cage purse. Those had been so much fun to knit. I could do the hat in garter stitch, right? No law against that. And I could also build it in successive short rows. Like this:
Each stripe would “eat up” two of the live stitches at the top of the band. The stripes would run across the top of the hat, instead of around the circumference. And there would be none of the usual decreases in the crown to interference with the progression of red, white, blue, red, white, blue.
Too Much of a Good Thing
Nothing gets me overexcited like trying out a new way to knit a familiar shape. I hate stopping to eat, or pee, or answer e-mails, or see people. I just want to go go go go go go until I find out whether it’s going to work or not.
I figured before I began that I’d need to increase in each stripe or the hat would be very short and fit like a teeny-weenie beanie. I planned the placement and rate of increases and zoomed along until in a gratifyingly short time the hat was almost off the needle. So I stuck it on my head.
I think the stitch markers really add to the je ne sais quoi.
Oh, yeah. Fetching. Yeah.
Those two weird outcroppings at the right and left would have to go–or the whole idea would have to go.
The diagnosis? The bulges were the fault of the constant, violent increasing–clearly I needed to slow it down a bit. I’d been so worried about the hat being too small that I made it too big. Too big at each side. It sprouted saddlebags.
The next version, with increases tapering off about halfway through, was better.
This better #@$!* work the second time, he thought.
I figured I could eliminate the remaining oddity in the shape with judicious blocking. HiKoo Simplicity is very malleable when wet.
As is my custom with any tam, I stretched the unblocked piece over a dinner plate. Rather than soak it, I pulled out my steam iron and shot the top and (especially) the turned edge with jets and more jets of very hot steam, until everything except the band was quite damp. (If your iron doesn’t have a steam jet option, you can do this over a boiling tea kettle if you promise to be careful with your fingers.)
Hover the hot iron near the fabric as you steam, but don’t touch the iron to the fabric.
I avoided steaming the band, because wet Simplicity stretches and a sopping wet band would have grown too large to fit properly. (Simplicity returns to its original dimensions after a spin in the tumble dryer–but then the entire hat would have come unblocked.)
Leaving the steamed hat on the plate, I set it aside to dry thoroughly overnight.
Drying things overnight is wonderful, because at some point exhaustion kicks in and I fall asleep and stop poking the piece every five minutes to see if it’s ready yet.
Crowning Touch
To find the exact center of the dry crown, I measured with the hat still on the plate and marked the spot with a locking ring stitch marker.
I tied on the pompom. (LOVaFUR poms tie on, so you can change them out and move them around if you like.)
I called over a friend who has the perfect look for a hat like this.
I held my breath. I put it on her.
I’m calling it a success.
I’m calling it groovy, baby.
I’m calling it…the Tricolor Muffin.
Coming Up…
Wouldn’t you know it, the yarn for the next project arrived while this hat was in progress. And wouldn’t you know, it’s also heavy on red, white, and blue–though this time in HiKoo Simpliworsted and with the addition of gold.
When I opened the box, somehow Rosamund (whom you may remember from The Adventure of the Warm Puppy and More Excuses to Show You Pictures of My Adorable Dog) knew the contents were intended for her. Smart girl.
Stop by in two weeks and I’ll show you what’s up.
In the meantime, we’ll be putting together a free pattern for the Tricolor Muffin. And if you don’t think you’re feeling quite up to the patriotic combo, we’ll have suggestions about other trios, other yarns, and other coordinating pompoms in the LOVaFUR line.
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
For an introduction to what goes on in this column, click here.
I grew up in a family of Jewelry Guys. Guys like my grandfather. He wore dark, conservative suits to work; but at leisure, he treated each finger to a fat, gold ring and fastened thick ropes and chains of gold around his neck and wrists. The term “bling daddy” was not then in common usage, so my grandfather was described by Marv, his favorite jeweler, as being “a connoisseur of the finer men’s accessories.”
I inherited one of my grandfather’s signet rings. It’s a lump of solid gold with his initials engraved in a script so florid that it’s totally illegible. I never wear it. First, because my grandfather’s hands were so plump that this (a pinky ring) is too large to wear on my thumb. Second, it’s so heavy that if I hung it around my neck (as a friend suggested) I would be unable to stand upright.
I did not care for my grandfather’s aesthetic. He was, in my hotheaded teenaged opinion, far too shiny far too much of the time. What with the gold decorations, the rayon camp shirts, and the Brilliantine that glued his remaining hair to his skull, he sparkled like the top of the Chrysler Building at dawn. A bit much, I thought, for a quiet, middle-class life in the Detroit suburbs.
Then I grew to manhood. And though my own gold chains and charms (all childhood gifts from grandpa’s side of the family) sit untouched next to that enormous ring, I have discovered that I, the little bauble, have not fallen far from the gewgaw tree.
The only difference is where I put the decorations.
My weakness? Cuff links.
Oh, sweet sainted Harry Winston how I do love cuff links. My collection is ridiculous.
No, that’s not all of them. Not even close.
I wear them, yes. I but I don’t wear them absolutely every day; and even if I did, no person needs this many cuff links. It’s not as though they wear out frequently. And most cuffed shirts come with, you know, buttons. Buttons are far more convenient. Buttons are practical. Buttons make sense.
Yet I keep on buying cuff links.
The Perfect Motif
Not that I buy indiscriminately. Heavens, no. Aside from the potentially catastrophic drain on my bank balance, the most frustrating thing about the cuff link obsession is that modern jewelers assume men want links reflecting one of these lifestyles:
These do not appeal to me, but the cuff link world tips heavily to designs incorporating golf tees, horseshoes, mallards, anchors, propellers, aces and spades, and huge weird agglomerations of colored rhinestones stuck in large chunks of all that glitters but is not gold.
No, thank you.
When I do find a set that expresses Who I Am as a Cuff Link Wearer, I snatch it right up. For example, florals. I love flowers. These anonymous Art Nouveau snowdrops were in a jar in a Seattle antiques mall. I got ’em for less than twenty bucks.
And these beanies? A gift, from a friend whose husband wore them for years on the bench as a judge. I may ask to be buried in them.
Those are propellers I can dig. (And they spin!)
Do It Yourself
I am delighted to find that some of the paraphernalia of traditional American and European menswear is making a comeback. There are burgeoning cuff link collectors groups, and groups for men who like suits, and what-have-you.
Most manufacturers have yet to catch up with the modern diversity of tastes, though. So it’s a relief and a pleasure to learn that if you have access to a supplier like Makers’ Mercantile, which carries the full line of Skacel Buttons, you can quite easily make handsome, fun cuff links that speak to those outside the horsie-duckie-boaty set.
There are many ways to go about making cufflinks from buttons. I’m going to show two in this column. Both methods are accessible to people who are not otherwise deeply into making jewelry, and who haven’t got any special jewelry-making equipment at home.
First, though, let’s have a look at a few buttons.
Two-button links require, as the name suggests, two buttons for each cuff. They are double-sided, meaning the finished link is decorative on both sides. They are not only extra handsome, they’re also best for shank buttons whose shanks are difficult or impossible to remove.
Pliers (left) and Nippers (right)
To make them, you’ll need:
• four shank buttons, matching or coordinating
• two four-inch lengths of 18-gauge craft wire
• wire nippers
• needle nose pliers
The buttons I chose for this method are from Skacel’s line of European glass. I could have ground or filed off the shanks (more about that in the next section), but there’s a risk of breakage. Also, I am deeply enamored of this design and wanted to multiply it by four.
Step 1. Slide the wire through the shank of the first button and, using the pliers, bend back half an inch of the wire.The first button is now loosely secured in place.
Note: 18-gauge wire is sturdy enough not to snap from normal use, but flexible enough that you won’t need brute strength to work with it. Most folks can easily bend and twist it with fingers, but pliers will make it easier to be precise.
Step 2. Slide the other end of the wire through the shank of the second button, until the button rests against the cut end of the first bend.
Step 3. Bend back the free end of the wire to loosely secure the second button.
Step 4. With the pliers, gently coil the free end of the wire around and around the length of wire connecting the buttons, starting just past the shank of the second button. Continue to coil until you reach the shank of the first button.
Step 5. With the nippers, snip off the remainder of the wire.
Step 6. With the pliers, press the cut end of the wire into the coil to secure.
And there you have a double-sided cufflink.
IMPORTANT NOTE. In this case, I am using four of the same button. But here’s a caveat: some buttons may be the right diameter to serve as links, but may also be too thick to easily fit through a ready-made buttonhole. That is, in fact, the case with these glass buttons.
Does it mean I can’t use these? Not at all. My preferred shirt brand is extra-generous with the buttonholes, so these will squeak through. But what I will likely do for ease of dressing is replace the second button with a smaller, coordinating button like this one, BR0971G14, which is 14mm rather than 18mm:
Then only the smaller button need pass through the holes. Combining a smaller button and a larger button looks perfectly fine, and does allow you (if you so desire) to use quite large and flashy buttons for the outside of your two-button link. That’s an especially fun way to dress up a plain blouse, by the way.
Method Two: Lever-Back Links
This is even simpler than method one. ‘
cuff link blanks
You will need:
• two buttons, matching or coordinating
• two good-quality cuff link blanks, available from Makers’ Mercantile
• a metal file or a motorized grinding tool
• a hot glue gun
• safety glasses or goggles
• a small vise (if using motorized grinder)
First, we want to get rid of the button shanks.
Before we do that, keep in mind that we’re dealing with metal. Bits of it tend to fly off as we work. This isn’t difficult, and it’s nothing to be scared of. However, reasonable safety precautions are vital. First, eye protection: safety goggles or safety glasses.
Second, do this only in area where you will not endanger others–keep pets, kids, nosy partners, etcetera, well away. A workshop, garage, or outdoor space is a best bet; and always do a thorough sweep/vacuum afterwards to remove all metal debris you create.
On all the metal-back buttons I selected, I was able to easily snip off the shanks…
…using a pair of standard, inexpensive wire nippers–easily procured from a hardware dealer, and likely already sitting in your toolbox if you have one.
Post clipping, all the buttons still had vestigial nubbins on the back.
To make a really nice set of links, we want to remove the nubbins and create a completely flat surface.
There are two options. The first works perfectly well, but takes a little longer. Use a metal file…
…and file away by hand until the nubbins are gone. It takes less time than you think.
Or, if you have a little motorized helper like a Dremel, you can pop in a metal-grinding attachment (this is Dremel Head 8193)…
…and use it to grind off the nubs after you have placed the button securely in a vise…
…which I like to drape with a piece of scrap cloth or (better) a thin rubber pad to avoid scraping the finish on the public side of the button.
After grinding, give the button a minute to cool down completely before you take it out of the vise.
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Do not ever attempt to grind the back of a button with a motorized tool while holding the button in your hand.
With the back of your buttons nice and smooth, fetch your cuff link blanks and your hot glue gun.
pew pew pew
Apply a nice blob of hot glue to the pad on the blank, spreading it out a bit but keeping away from the edges…
…and immediately press it against the center back of the button.
The glue will set quickly, but let the piece sit and harden for a good 30 minutes before you try to put it on. If you find any stray “hairs” of glue showing, they’re easy to pick off before you give the link a final buff with a clean cloth.
Should you mess up, by the way–say, you don’t put the two surfaces together quite quickly enough and they won’t stick–it’s possible to pick off the dry glue and try again. Ask me how I know.
Cuff Link Giving Guide
In less than an hour, I found myself with multiple new, cute sets of cuff links–all of them slick enough for me to wear in a dressy setting. I can’t keep them all, sadly, so I’ve been thinking about who else might like to have them.
Zap! Splat!
Suited To: Comic Book Fans, Gamers, Superheroes, Illustrators, Stylish Street Fighters
Skulls
Suited To: Undertakers, Horror Fans, Bikers, Anatomy Professors, Goth Bankers, The Undead
Kitties
Suited To: Cat People, People with Cats, Cat Fanciers, Most Knitters You Will Ever Know, Veterinarians
Oak Leaf and Acorns
Suited To: Academics, Botanists, Lumberjacks, Tree Surgeons, Squirrels, Piglet
Next Time…
I put away the glue gun, roll up my sleeves, and try to figure out what to do when Makers’ Mercantile sends me this.
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
I almost feel as though this week I should begin with an apology for the lack of drama in what follows.
I try to give you a good read, truly I do, with laughs and thrills and the occasional car chase; but you can’t, as my grandmother famously said while on a date with Mick Jagger, always get what you want.
There are knitters who steer clear of making purses and bags on principle, just to avoid woven linings. This is a great pity. A knit or crochet bag with a woven lining will be stronger and more durable, less inclined to droop and pull out of shape, and less liable to catch and snag everything you put into it.
And sewing is not (or at least, need not be) the trauma some think it is. A simple bag lining is about as simple as sewing gets. More about that in a minute.
Make It Snappy
Now, the “official” pattern that comes with cage purse kits is available as a free download from Makers’ Mercantile. I used it as my guide for designing a lining of my own, and as usual I decided to make some adjustments. I don’t think I’ve ever followed anyone’s pattern exactly as written.
I decided to install the snaps, which are included with the cage,
before sewing in the lining, whereas the pattern suggests you do the reverse. On your purse, you choose.
If you’ve never put in a snap before, rest assured these are a breeze. Since my bag was quite freeform at the top, I put it into the cage to see exactly where the male* halves of my snaps (pictured above) needed to be in order to line up with the female* halves of the snaps on the cage (which come already installed). I marked these spots on the liner with locking ring stitch markers.
Then you make a little sandwich with each snap, one by one, like this…
…with the post on the back of the snap stuck right through the knitted fabric.
Then you place the cylinder tool…
over the nubbin on the front of the snap, and tap the cylinder with a hammer. I do mean tap. Brute force is not required. It took me two modest taps to get each snap set firmly. Boom.
I’ve never felt more butch.
The knitted portion of my liner being thus completed, it was time to add the woven lining.
Line It Up
The official pattern for the cage purse gives full instructions for this part of the project, so I’ll confine myself to a few notes about linings generally.
First. Use the best woven (as opposed to commercial knit/jersey) fabric you can afford. It need not be expensive; but if you have the choice, buy from a reputable retailer who carries reputable lines.
If you buy in person, give the fabric a good fondle and a few firm tugs. If it looksflimsy and feels sleazy, if the printing is muddy, if it seems inclined stretch out of shape easily, if you can read a comic book through it, it probably won’t stand up well to the demands placed on a handbag. It may, in fact, fall apart as you sew with it. Fabrics whose standard retail prices are super cheap are usually super cheap for good reason.
…because in my social circle, it’s inevitable that whoever gets this purse is going to stuff it with balls of yarn. She will probably also have at least one cat.
Note: The lighting in this shot tipped the blue quite a bit. It’s really far closer to the navy in the previous photograph.
Second. Don’t skimp on the preparatory steps.
Sewing has a different flow than either knitting or crochet. Both knitting and crochet consist, in the main, of knitting and crocheting. Other stuff–seaming, blocking, weaving in–comes in at the end. We front-load the fun. Sewing insists that you begin with planning, measuring, cutting, pinning. It takes time to get to the sewing part of sewing.
This feels ass-backwards somewhat odd to those of us who knit and crochet.
Listen. If you hate the preliminary steps, that’s okay. Acknowledge that. Embrace that. Then take a breath and do them anyway. It may help to have a good friend supervise you.
“After you weave in all those ends and take your measurements, you may have a cookie.”
Since my liner pattern was something I cooked up myself, I measured the end product to be certain it would accommodate the lining described in the official pattern. Turns out my liner was a smidge taller and a smidge narrower. I adjusted my cut pieces accordingly.
Measure twice, cut once. Maybe measure three times.
Third. Don’t let unfamiliar techniques frighten you.
When I teach Introduction to Hand Sewing, we end our class project with slip stitch–the same stitch that joins the woven lining to the knitting liner. Students often approach slip stitch with trepidation because it looks like a magic trick. You sew and sew, and when you’re finished you can’t see the sewing. You just have two fabrics that are now joined, invisibly.
Cool, right?
And you can do it. Yes, you can. Most of what used to be called plain sewing–the toolkit of handmade stitches necessary to turn out everyday items–was taught as a matter of course to little girls for centuries.
Are you going to let some little Dickensian imp in a dirty pinafore sew circles around you?
Heck no.
Here is all there is behind the “magic” of slip stitch.
After the lining pieces have been sewn together, turn and press the lining fabric to the wrong side as directed in the pattern.
Kindly note my new, adorable fire engine red Bohin embroidery scissors in background.
Place the liner inside the lining…
…and secure it with a generous number of straight pins so that you can focus on your stitching.
Step One.
Thread your sewing needle with a coordinating thread, and tie a stout knot at the end.
Bring the needle up through the fabric at point A, which you will notice is right on the fold of the lining. (Alternatively, especially if the ghost of my late grandmother is watching you, instead of using a knot you may secure the beginning with a series of tiny stitches at point A. This is called a “tack.”)
Step Two.
Take a small stitch in the liner (knitted) fabric at Point B (directly above Point A, near the top edge of the woven lining). Note: My stitches into the liner all went around–rather than through–strands of yarn, as this felt more secure than splitting strands with the sewing needle.
Step Three.
Take a horizontal stitch into the fold+ of the woven lining by putting the needle in at Point C and out at Point D.
Step Four.
Take a horizontal stitch into the knitted liner from Point E to Point F, near to and parallel to the top edge of the woven lining.
Repeat Steps Three and Four all the way around the liner. Every few stitches, gently pull the thread to even out the tension of the sewing stitches. You want the lining to lie smooth against the liner– don’t pull so hard that puckers begin to form. When the seam is complete, fasten off with a discreet, small tack in the woven lining.
That’s it.
+Some say just behind the fold. Your choice. In sewing, as in knitting and crochet, there are many paths to the same destination.
In the Bag
What else can I say? I’m really pleased with it. I wanted the sinuous lines of the short rows to wiggle and play against the straight edges of the cage, and they do.
It could be about an inch bigger all around at the base, to really fill up the cage; but that’s about all I’d change.
What’s more: as the liner is held to the cage with snaps, it can be removed and replaced with any number of other linings whenever inspiration strikes or your mood changes.
It didn’t even take long to knit–comparable to a hat. I’m already thinking of other liners–crocheted, embroidered, woven. And other yarns, too. These were all left over from previous Fridays with Franklin projects, but they could have been:
assorted lengths of handspun…
souvenir yarns collected on a memorable trip…
the leftover yarn from a favorite sweater for a matching sweater/purse combo
bits of yarn (and blobs of knitting) contributed by a members of a group to make a special farewell or birthday gift…
And the yarns you put into a cage liner are right there, with you, visible and useful. A souvenir afghan is lovely, but it usually has to stay at home. Not to mention that the usual everybody-knit-a-square afghan requires a lot of work and a mountain of yarn. A souvenir/commemorative cage purse is well within the grasp of knitters or knitting groups who are short on cash, pressed for time, or just plain lazy.
Coming Up
The next Fridays with Franklin will be the first in which I get to use a vise and power tools. That’s all I’m telling you right now. Nope, sorry. My lips are buttoned.
*I’m not trying to be cute. That’s what they’re called.
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
I was at a gathering once with a knitter who held up her shawl-in-progress and squealed, “This has been so much fun to knit! I’m actually slowing down because I don’t want it to end!”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
I am often sick to death of even a fun project weeks…months…years…before I bind off. This is nothing to boast of, and explains the shameful state of the dimmest corner of my workroom. There lie projects that it would be wrong to describe as “hibernating,” unless you would agree that the buried and fossilized remains of cretaceous reptiles are just having a nap down there.
…was so much fun to work on that I had to force myself to stop and bind off.
There were no great departures from the plan I tested in the miniature version. I knit the oval(ish) bottom in HiKoo Simpliworsted 952 (Peacock Tonal), beginning at the center with Judy’s Magic Cast On…
Please take a moment to admire my handsome bottom. Thank you.
…and was even more pleased with the results this time, since I used stitch markers right from the start and therefore didn’t misplace my increases quite so often.
When the bottom was big enough, I took stock of how many live stitches I had (answer: 108). This divides obligingly into four, which settled the question of how many stitches I’d use as the basis for each short-rowed blob of color (answer: 27). Since the bag would have no further shaping, it would always take me about four blobs* to go around once.
Given that I’d be using four different yarn bases in eight different colorways, I felt sure I could use a consistent base number without the blobs looking too much alike. I really wanted to avoid uniformity, to give this bag an organic feel, like layers of sediment** that had built up naturally atop one another.
Here is the recipe for a blob:
Row 1 (RS): Join the new color, knit 27 stitches. Wrap and turn a stitch in the adjacent blob (see part two).
Row 2 (WS): Knit all stitches in the new color. Wrap and turn a stitch in the adjacent blob.
Row 3 (RS): Knit to penultimate stitch of blob (1 stitch less than previous row). Wrap and turn.
Row 4 (WS): As Row 3.
Repeat Rows 3 and 4 until blob reaches desired blobbiness, ending with a WS row. Break working yarn, leaving a tail of 5-6 inches to weave in later.
Turn work. Slip the live stitches of the just-completed blob from left needle to right needle as if to purl until your right needle tip is wherever you’d like the next blob to begin. Begin again from Row 1 for next blob.
For added verve, vary the length and/or starting point of some blobs by a stitch or two. Pretty much anything you do is going to look interesting and quite possibly beautiful.
Tiny tip: when joining in each new color, leave the tail hanging on the right side of the fabric like this:
When you join a new yarn, let the tail hang on the right side of the work.
As you work, the tail gets pinched between the stitches on either side; and your first stitch won’t pull loose quite so readily as when you leave the tail hanging on the wrong side. (When it’s time to weave in ends, just bring the tail through to the wrong side and proceed as usual.)
…whereas HiKoo Rylie was so fine in comparison to Kenzington and the various forms of Simpliworstedthat I decided to knit it with a strand of each colorway (086 Periwinkle and 087 Freesia) held double.
I was thrilled with the blend.
Good blobs, on the whole; but as they all came from the bright-blue-into-purple camp I was afraid the bag might tip over into something too sweetly candy-colored for my taste.
I decided to run a occasional stripe of this through the fabric to break things up. Since the two colors of Rylie had worked so well together, I decided to try a strand each of colorways 980 and 7653 together….
…and you could see it from fifteen feet away. It screamed. So I ripped back and tried again with two strands of 7653 together.
Better. Rather than short-rowed blobs, these occasional bits of Leinen Los were short-rowed stripes. In other words, work all the way from the first stitch of the round to the last, wrap and turn, and knit back in the other direction. I could have knit a round and then purled a round–but I was having so much fun with the short rows I didn’t want to stop.
In fact, my enthusiasm never flagged. When at length it struck me that I ought to take a measurement and see if I’d made the bag tall enough, I was an inch over the target.
You know what? I really like it.
Once the ends have been woven in, I’ll give it a wet block to settle it into to its final proportions.
Then, the final step before it goes into the cage: a woven fabric lining. I love a woven lining in a knit or crocheted bag. I plan to plunder with pleasure the Makers’ Mercantile lines of lovely cotton prints. Did you know Makers’ Mercantile carries deluxe cotton prints, among other fabrics and trims?
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
“I felt this piece ought to be as simple as possible.”
And I’d written this:
“This piece will be nothing but garter stripes.”
Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Nice Bottom
After I’d posted Options 1 and 2…
…of course Options 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 presented themselves at the darnedest moments. Walking Rosamund, waiting for the subway, showering, listening to upstairs neighbor’s kid practice her tap dancing at 4 a.m.
The more I turned over the ideas, the more I felt I’d like work the liner all in one piece. What about a bottom worked circularly? Could I do that?
It seemed to me I could.
This was my sketch.
The cast on you see referenced there is, of course, Judy’s Magic Cast on by the (let us now praise famous knitters) Judy Becker. She describes how to do better than I ever could, here at Knitty.com.
Judy invented it as a gorgeous and fuss-free beginning for toe-up socks, but I’ve never used it for toe-up socks. I’ve used it countless times, though, as either the circular beginning of a piece I want to grow outwards from the center; or whenever I want a cast on to work first in one direction (from the bottom row of stitches), and then in the other (from the top row).
(You may have noticed that the swatch, when it would no longer lie flat on one circular needle, got moved to two circular needles. A very slick designer would have put it on two identical addi® Olive Wood circulars so it would look pretty for the photograph. I, on the other hand, often make design decisions based on what’s closest to the couch. And this is a column about the realities of creativity. So here it is on one olive needle and one needle (of the same size, at least) from my set of addi® Click Interchangeables. Sue me.)
The above is what I think of as a proof-of-concept swatch–concrete evidence that the basic idea has merit. Even though I messed up the placement of my increases now and again (until I broke down and added the stitch markers), and even though I got an oval instead of a rectangle, the bottom is handsome and lies down as required.
I’m pretty sure I could move towards a rectangle by diddling the increase points, but I’m starting to groove on the idea of a curvy bag in a square cage.
Bonus: I don’t have to do a darn thing to get the sides going–just continue to work around on the live stitches, without further increases.
When I had swatched enough to convince myself this would be a suitable foundation, I decided to nail down a strategy for the sides.
Short Cut
Just garter stripes, right? That’s what I said. Just garter stripes.
Since these theoretical garter stripes would continue in the round, I’d have to purl every other row. I don’t mind purling. The bottom of the bag was purled on every other round.
But I’ve sometimes worked a “circular” piece of garter stitch with short rows. Usually I do it because my purl stitches and knit stitches are slightly different sizes. In some yarns, especially those with little stretch, that leads to “rowing out”–clearly visible differences in gauge from round to round. If I’m never purling, I’m never rowing out.
Short rows aren’t complicated. A short row is just a row you cease to knit before you reach the end. Instead, you turn the work and head back in the other direction. That’s all. Where you turn, you may form a gap in the fabric–but that, too is easily dealt with. More on that in a minute.
So, okay. I thought about using short rows in the bag to avoid rowing out. I hadn’t done it in multiple colors before. Feeling a little timid, I joined a new color to the bottom. Before I knew it, I was a bored with the idea of stripes.
I mean, stripes. Come on.
Even in all these different yarns and colors, stripes are just stripes.
What if I really pushed the short row idea, building up areas of each color before moving on to the next? Could I do something like this?
Only one way to find out.
Short ‘n’ Curvy
I decided to try this process for each new section of color/yarn.
1. On the right side, join in the new color (here, it’s HiKoo Simpliworsted in 033 Red Hat Purple) and knit some number of stitches. My first thought was to make it a pretty random number, since this a random jumble of leftover yarns I’m working with.
2. At the end of this first row, perform a wrap-and-turn to help prevent a gap at the turning point. A wrap and turn isn’t difficult. Just knit to the turning point, and slip the next (unworked) stitch from the left needle to the right needle as if to purl.
…then bring the working yarn between the needle tips to the near side of the work…
…then return the slipped stitch to the left needle….
Turn the work. Carry on knitting. Since we’re making garter stitch, the working yarn will already be where you need it to be, on what is now the far side of the work. That’s it. (Note: In most stockinette stitch short row techniques, there’s a maneuver for for picking up a wrap the next time you encounter it. In garter stitch, we don’t need to do that. Yay.)
3. Make each row one stitch shorter than the previous row. Wrap and turn at the end of every row. After you’ve done this for a little while, you’ll have built up a sweet little blob of color.
4. When you feel that the blob is just about the right size, or when you can’t get any shorter with your rows, finish a wrong side row and then knit part of the way across a right side row.
5. At this point, join in a new color for the next blob, on this same right side row. You’ll be back at Step 1.
Working in this fashion will gradually take you all the way around the live stitches at the edge of the bottom–and when you’re back to the beginning, just carry on with more short row blobs in different colors until the bag is as tall as it needs to be.
Such is my theory, anyhow. How did the swatch look?
After doing this with three different colors (and two different yarns) on my swatch…
…I decided to take the piece off the needles and see what I was getting.
I’m excited. I think the curvy top selvedge is something we might want to accentuate.
With a little more swatching to refine the details, I feel confident we’ll be on the way to a fun to knit (and fun to look at) liner for the purse.
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
It scarcely seems possible, but by the close of this series we will have reached the fiftieth installment of Fridays with Franklin. Fifty! Can you imagine?
I was flipping through my binder of shade cards from Makers’ Mercantile looking for the next yarn to play with when my elbow knocked over a little basket of yarn that was sitting on the work table. Odd balls of yarn spilled all over the floor. Or they would have, if they’d hit the floor. Instead they spilled all over the four open boxes on the floor that were already full of other odd balls of yarn. You couldn’t actually see the floor.
It appears that nearly fifty columns full of knitting, crochet, and weaving have landed me with quite the buffet of leftovers.
That’s not something to cry about, I know; but please keep in mind that I live in a large city and do my work in a very small room. How small? Not much larger than the footprint of a king-sized bed. It is crammed, absolutely crammed, with things I need. Here, I’ve drawn you a little plan:
Of course, what you don’t see in the plan are the things I have hanging from the walls and ceiling, including my Schacht Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom, my card weaving loom from John Mullarkey, my swift, my project bags full of things in progress, and other hanging bags full of weaving, spinning, and embroidery tools. Every inch is spoken for.
I try to keep leftover yarns organized and sorted into the bins under the bed in the next room. That’s the place where, by mutual agreement, my stash lives. If it won’t fit under the bed it has to leave the apartment. Fortunately, it’s a big bed. Good intentions don’t sort skeins, though; so I have a perpetual backlog on the workroom floor. The prettiest little tripping hazard you ever saw.
Seeing as we’re celebrating a milestone of sorts with this adventure, I think it’d be fun (and prudent) to hold back from ordering new stuff and make use of what’s already to hand.
These are wildly different yarns, in wildly different fiber blends, constructed in all manner of methods from chainette (Kenzington) to felted singles (Leinen Los).
Pushing the pile around didn’t give me fun ideas for using them all together. An obvious choice would have been some sort of scrap blanket, but one of the yarns (Leinen Los) isn’t really well suited to that. A scrappy shawl might be fun–but a shawl made with a significant quantity of hefty Kenzington might suffocate you.
Then I got a note from one of my friends at Makers’ Mercantile in which she mentioned one of their most popular kits–the Cage Purse. You may well have seen a friend with one of these, or you may well have one yourself.
The cage bit…
…comes ready to use. The fun is knitting (or crocheting) a liner for it. The open cage supports your work, which means you don’t have to resort to felting in order to get a bag that won’t droop and sag when you fill it. And because it’s a cage–well made from good leather and handsome, sturdy rivets…
…whatever sort of liner you create is beautifully shown off.
Makers’ Mercantile sells the cages as part of several kits (like this Brown Kit, or the Red Kit shown below) – each with yarn, pattern, and fabric for a lining…
…or you can buy just the cage (in a choice of colors such as Basil) and use your imagination. That’s what I decided to do.
…had so much going on (miters! shadow knitting! duplicate stitch! I-cord!) that I felt this piece ought to be as simple as possible. When you have four very different, eye-catching yarns in eight or ten colorways all smooshed together, I think it’s unwise to make the structure of the fabric complicated as well.
So, what’s the least complicated knit fabric? Probably garter stitch: when working flat, knit all stitches and all rows. I cast on for a small swatch…
…and within a few inches I got that tingle in my chest that either means I’m onto something I like, or that I shouldn’t eat half a pan of brownies right before bed. I hadn’t been eating brownies.
This is nothing but garter stripes with changes from yarn to yarn at will. Most of the colors are fairly closely related (clearly I have a thing for purples and blues), but as we noted the yarns themselves are strange bedfellows. And I like that. The fabric was looking good, and the swatch was (brace yourself) fun to knit. Truly fun.
When you find yourself smiling at a swatch, that’s a good sign.
I sketched out what I needed to make. Pretty simple, really.
All that remained before calculating my cast-on numbers was a plan for how to make that happen. There were two obvious options.
Option 1…
…was flat construction. Knit panels and sew them together. That would make sense, as garter stitch is a natural result of flat knitting. I don’t mind sewing–it’s quite fun, really, once you know a little bit about what you are doing–and the side seams would give the bag some structure.
On the other hand, a seam sewn in a fabric with this many yarns would never be invisible. Not a deal-breaker, but a point to consider. It also might be tricky to sew a good seam when joining panels where two very different yarns are meant to align at the selvedges. In fact, just getting all four sides to be exactly the same length might be a challenge.
Option 2…
…was primarily circular construction. Knit the bottom as a flat panel, then pick up and knit around the edges and work the body of the bag in the round. Without doing anything special at the corners, this bag would have softly contoured sides. It might be possible to give those corners a touch more definition using Elizabeth Zimmermann’s “phoney [sic] seams” technique–slipping the corner stitches every other round.There would be no sewing. But every other round, in order to make garter stitch, would have to be purled.
Either way, we’re talking about a ton of ends to weave in. Happily, I like weaving in ends.
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
This morning, when what was to have been the final word on the mitered, shadowed HiKoo Llamor cowl appeared online, I took a fresh look at that duplicate stitch embroidery.
It was…fine. Scattered around like speckles, albeit speckles (as I wrote) speckles for a control freak, since I was able to put them exactly where I wanted them.
Fine is fine, but don’t you hate settling for fine?
On a human neck–because that’s where a cowl counts–the piece as a whole had some of the verve I wanted, what with the happy jumble of stripes going every which way.
But the duplicate stitches in pink, the color I loved best, the key to everything, weren’t doing much. A strong color should not make a feeble show.
I ripped ’em all out and started again. This time, I echoed the triangles in the knitting with the embroidery, all the way down the line.
That was more like it.
Now, as far as I’m concerned, the piece is finished. Maybe another adjustment here or there; but the embroidered triangles are amplifying the iridescent effect I was hoping to create with the use of shadow shadow knitting.
I am not displeased. I think this might even be worthy of writing up a pattern, if folks are interested.
I’m going to call it–in honor of certain Amazon princess and her countrywomen–“Amazon’s Arrows.”
It’s not a tough knit at all, you know. Any advanced beginner should be able to handle it readily, and seasoned pros might enjoy the novelty of the construction. What do you think?
And now…back to work on our next adventure. See you in two weeks!
Tools and Materials Appearing in This Addendum
HiKoo® Llamor (100% baby llama; 109 yd per 50g ball), available in the Peruvian Palette, the Natural Palette, and the Carnival Palette Skacel Buttons from the Corozo, Agoya Shell, and Horn lines addi® Olive Wood Circular knitting needles used to work the entire project
He travels constantly to teach knitters at shops and guilds across the country and internationally; and has been a popular member of the faculties of such festivals as Vogue Knitting Live!, STITCHES Events, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Squam Arts Workshops, the Taos Wool Festival, Sock Summit, and the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.
Franklin’s varied experience in the fiber world includes contributions of writing and design to Vogue Knitting, Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Twist Collective; and a regular columns and cartoons for Mason-Dixon Knitting, PLY Magazine, Lion Brand Yarns, and Skacel Collection/Makers’ Mercantile. Many of his independently published designs are available via Ravelry.com.
He is the longtime proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on the Internet (presently on hiatus).
Franklin lives in Chicago, Illinois, cohabiting shamelessly with 15,000 books, a Schacht spinning wheel, four looms, and a colony of yarn that multiplies whenever his back is turned.
For an introduction to what goes on in this column, 
For an introduction to what goes on in this column, 
