Seaweed bowl

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Not literally a seaweed bowl.  But a glaze combo that to me looks like seaweed, and pools a deep clear blue.

pretty pools of blue.  please to note the sippy cup in the background, along with the ikea bowl with the dregs of broccoli.  KLASSY!

One dip Standard pottery glaze chambray under one dip frosted moss. I love it 

I've used this combination on at least one or two other pieces, but I think I've finally nailed it's quirks a bit more.  It pools blue where the chambray was heavy--which I used to my advantage inside the bowl and didn't quite dump all the chambray out while glazing.  But only on the inside of a bowl because this combination is super fucking runny. This piece has a bit of a ridge to act as a glaze catch, so it didn't run down the foot and onto the shelf.

see the mottling? Also say hi to my dad (and the messy kitchen).  Hi Mr. Tom! 

It's glossy, but translucent on the edges and texture and breaks a bit browny green on edges. But when the dips are too thin, it's dry. Where the frosted moss was heavier, it brings up some of the lighter colors and looks as though it'd be matte (as the frosted moss is a matte glaze on its own), but is still shiny with a bit more of a velvet sheen.

A wee tumbler

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remember what I said about shrinkage with clay? Well this one I knew was going to be wee. 

a tiny tumbler. Probably good for bourbon, right?

I normally lean toward pieces with feet, glazed in something with a bit of blue, and this piece has neither. I am pleased with the balance, both shape and weight wise, but also with the glaze.

ok maybe a little bit of blue

The first dip of glaze is cream, which is a soft semi matte, with a bit of a velvety hand to it. Interestingly it broke a bit reddish brown (shino-y) where it was heavy. Then I dipped the room in moss, which alone is a complex brown-green semi matte. Through the magic of chemistry, not only did the overlap come out glossy and somewhat translucent, but it ran a frosty baby blue at the lightest application.  

Glaze is not like paint where red and blue pigments make purple. The components of glaze change chemically in the kiln as they melt and attach themselves to the clay body, and when you combine two glazes they interact with each other as well. Even there color of the glaze when dipped doesn't necessarily correlate to the color when fired. So instead of red plus blue equals purple, it's more like bathtub plus lunchbox equals telephone. 

the inside. Totally bourbon, right?

two mugs

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I've been throwing pottery pretty consistently for the last six or so years (save a full year off when I had the littlest little, cause baby).  I started doing pottery back in high school in my outstanding and amazing Crafts elective taught by the outstanding and amazing and terrifying (in the BEST WAY) Ms. G.  That's a whole 'nother post though. 

I take classes at a local studio, which fires stoneware to cone 6.  Right now we're working through some reclaim clay, which doesn't really bother me (save the THREE times I've picked out plaster--what? BAD--and the one time I found a piece of packing strapping in my clay.  Annoying, but at least I found it).

So here are two of my most recent results.

mug the first

DETAIL OF THE HANDLE DWEEDLYBOB THING (AKA, ADDED BIT OF CLAY I SMOOSHED WITH MY FAVORITE CARVED BISQUE STAMP I MADE A FEW YEARS AGO)

I really like this first mug.  This glaze combo is Standard pottery glaze Chambray (first dip) with Frosted Moss (second dip).

I'm pleased with the translucence of the glaze, and how it settled in the stamped lines and pooled on the handle and the interior.  I'm also pretty pleased with the foot of the mug--I love big feet on pottery.  While I was trimming this one, I added a small ridge right by the foot with the idea that I'd glaze this one with one of the slightly runny glaze combos. The ridge acts as a bit of a glaze catch to keep it from running all the way down the foot and onto the shelf.  It mostly worked, too.  

The one thing is there are two bits of something or other on the interior of the mug, embedded in the glaze.  I suspect it's something that was in one of the glazes itself, and it's not easily reached to grind or polish off.  

mug the second.  please to note the SUPER KLASSY photo platform of my notebook, and background of the messy kitchen. 

drippy glaze is the best glaze! unless you have to clean the kiln shelves. then it's the worst ever.

I chose the bottom glaze on the second mug on purpose, but I'm still on the fence about it.  I like it in parts, and I love the combination with the second partial dip (which is a full dip on the interior).  After the first dip, I waxed the bottom a bit higher up so I could just dip full on into the second glaze, but the best parts, right by the handle, are where I kind of smudged the two glazes together a bit with a damp sponge, and where the wax wasn't a hard line.  

The real issue is that it ran right down and off the handle, and pooled on the shelf, so I had to grind/sand/diamond polishing block a chunk of glaze off the bottom of this one.  No foot, no glaze catch. 

This one is first dip (long dip) of Standard pottery glaze Snow on Brick, topped with Midnight Sky.  

I'm still awful with negotiating the shrinkage percentage of the clay--all clay shrinks as it dries, then again in the kiln, so to get an item of a specific size you often have to make it bigger than you eventually want.  I like big mugs and so these are a bit small for me. Eh, getting there.

 

to zip or not to zip?

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To zip or not to zip?  That is not really an option. Thing thing will have a zipper come hell or high water. The question is WHICH zipper? 

So remember that sweater I made the biggest little this winter? The warm and cozy wool hoodie that I didn't finish until April, when it turned warm?

Whelp, I finally got the zipper choices for it, from zippersource.  (I am the only reason it took forever to get them, their shipping and customer service was and is great! custom length! many colors! I am just a slacker when it comes to ordering)

dun da-da-dun, I'm Super Contrasty!

Too dull?

So which color do we like best? I purposefully chose a not-perfect-match for a bit of contrast, and I'm planning on facing the zip with  a ribbon more in the realm of the sweater than in the realm of the zip.

I'm torn: The red is a nice punch of contrasting color, but does it look too superhero? I like the slightly lighter blue, but is it too pale of a blue?

Should I--dare I say it--order a different color and put off the finishing of this sweater YET AGAIN?

I mean, who are we kidding, it's not like another week or two will really matter at this point. The kid isn't getting much wear out of it with this gross muggy humid weather.

Another little project

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back in September, i bought a few skiens of Noro Silk Garden, theoretically to do mittens with.

Well, nearly seven months later, i finally started (and finished) them. 

 

matching not matching mittens

matching not matching mittens

These are two separate colorways of Noro, which has a built in long color change stripe. I knit two rows with each skein, carrying the unused yarn up as I went.

There are many mitten patterns around, and I generally use my fairly standard made up mittens recipe:

For heavy worsted, on size 5 double pointed needles, cast on 36 stitches, knit in 2x2 rub for a while. I like long cuffs, so i did a few stripe repeats here. 

Switch to knit, and knit about an inch or so. Then begin the thumb gusset by increasing one stitch on either side of the first stitch of the round every other round until you have 13 stitches for the thumb. (Here, I actually did a slower increase of every 4 rounds, which pushes the ribbing farther down the arm).

Put the thumb stitches on waste yarn, cast on one stitch over the gap and work until you're about half an inch from the tips of your fingers. Decrease at 6 points around (divide stitches evenly over three needles and put your decrease points at the middle and ends of each needle), every other row until half your stitches are gone. Then decrease every round until you're left with 6 stitches. Pull the yarn through the 6, and fasten off.

Finish your thumb. Put the held stitches on the dpns, and join yarn. Pick up three stitches over the gap and knit until just below the length of the thumb. K1, k2tog around. K plain. K2 tog around and pull yarn through and fasten of

A blue hoodie for the biggest little

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The biggest kiddo asked for a blue hoodie with a zipper and pockets as his next sweater, and so I obliged.  And of course finished just in time for the warm weather. Sigh. At least I made it big for him, cause that kid is due for a growth spurt any time now, and when it happens, he's going to be gigantic

Blocked, dried and ready for the zipper! Just in time for summer.

By the way, this picture is horrible in terms of color accuracy, even with me futzing with filters. The sleeve cap and last few pocket pictures are closer to reality. 

I'd picked up the yarn at Rhinebeck, Carolina Homespun Cormo wool, in Morgaine, a gorgeous bright cerulean blue.  The yarn was a bit fine, so I used it held double and it was a damn good thing I overbought based on my half assed guess of yardage, as I had literally TWO YARDS of yarn left after the final kitchnering of the hood.  Just made it.

That is all the yarn that is left from the entire thing. Two yards. A narrow miss of disaster!

After searching some through ravelry favorites, and general patterns, I settled on Doverfell, by Kristen Rengren, as published in Twist Collective.  I love the texture pattern and the design of the set in pockets, plus it was already written for a zip.

Of course, that didn't mean I wasn't going to tweak the shit out of the pattern. Because I am crazy and why follow patterns when you can rework them to suit your quirks? I mean, I almost always use a tubular cast on for anything with ribbing because it's firm but stretchy and looks fantastic.

Oh, look. Lint. And a long tail/Italian tubular cast on. 

But also, for example, the pockets.  As written, the pattern called for knitting the pocket lining separate from the body, and then working the body and pocket fronts in one, and then joining the two at the top edge of the pocket, sewing the three pocket seams later in finishing. 

I don't love seams in the body of knitting, as they never stretch the way the rest of the garment does. And they're a pain to do.  So instead, I knit the linings along with the body of the cardigan.

Before picking up pocket stitches. 

Then when I reached where the top of the pockets would join, I used double pointed needles to pick up the pocket front stitches along the top of the ribbing.  Then I picked up one stitch per row, vertically, on either side of the pocket edges (where the pocket "seams" would be).  I knit up the pocket front, in the texture pattern, knitting the first and last stitches of each row together with the picked up vertical "seam" stitches at each edge.  

The stitch markers on the verticals are to mark where the top of the pocket will be (and the start of the pocket shaping).

Pocket in progress.  Note the two layers. 

The harder part was figuring out the reworked decreases to do the shaping of the upper edge of the pockets.  I wound up just drawing it out, in a semi-shorthand, just so I could work out the numbers and the angle and lean of the decreases. 

Janky shorthand diagram, the original.

Janky shorthand diagram, the original.

 I moved the decreases in from the edge to give a cleaner line to the shaping, and I'd already decided to slip the first stitch of every row to give the nice chained edge (on both the pocket and the front edges)

Almost there.  Stay on target . . . stay on target . . . 

Then, I worked the pocket front stitches together with the body stitches, and the pockets were completely done.  

Finished pocket! Smooth sailing from here on out.  

I finished up the body of the sweater, shifting the armhole shaping in a few stitches as well to echo the shaping lines of the pockets and give a more full fashioned look. And instead of binding off stitches for the shoulders, which frankly, I never do, I used the German short row technique--which is AMAZING and INVISIBLE and I LOVE IT SO  MUCH.  That way I could also three-needle-bind-off the shoulder seams instead of seaming.

Once the body was complete, I reworked the sleeves from bottom-up in the round then sleeve cap worked flat and seamed in, to totally seamless top down sleeves with short row sleeve cap.

This is one of my favorite techniques, though I inevitably have to write out more diagrams to make sure I'm centering the cap right.  I first learned it, as many did, through Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top.  (Did you know that not only is Barbara Walker a knitting guru, from the top down and the stitch dictionaries, but she also wrote the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook and a number of books on feminism, mythology and anthropology? God I fucking love her.)

I put the held underarm stitches on the needles, markers on either side for clarity, and then picked up stitches about 1 stitch every other row (not quite the 3 st to 4 row ideal ratio but it worked fine to make the numbers work),  around the armhole.  I divided the total number of stitches into thirds, with the beginning of the round at the center of the underarm stitches.

Oh hey, if you look hard enough, you could probably recreate my to-do list that's written on the back of this image.

I put markers in, because ain't no way I could keep the count right in my head as I began.  Beginning at the center of the underarm stitches, I worked up the first third of the front vertical stitches, and over the second third of the top of the cap.  Then I stopped, turned the work (again using the german short row method instead of the standard wrap and turn), worked back over that top third, PLUS ONE STITCH.  Wrap and turn, work across the top third PLUS ONE STITCH.

No to dos behind this one! Just shittily framed.

 I kept continuing along, eating up one additional stitch from the verticals every time, until I'd worked all of the verticals up and was at the underarm stitches.  Then I worked around the whole armhole as usual, working the short rowed stitches as per the german method. Voila, sleeve cap done!

Look at that perfect sleep cap! No tell tale anything of short rows! Damn it feels good to be a gangster!

Then I worked the sleeve from the top down, decreases instead of increases, ribbing, and tubular bind off to match the tubular cast on I'd done. Sleeves, done!

The hood was mainly the same as written.  Though I did add a bit more shaping to the center back line of the hood--4 more paired increases after those called for in the pattern.  A bit before wrapping up the hood, I decreased those back down again.  Then instead of three-needle-bind off for the hood itself, I kitchnered that shit. 

Now, that's some grafting of seed stitch right there!

 After all that work I wanted a nice seamless look to the hood, even it meant fudging the hell out of grafted seed stitch (figured out in part thanks to the Tricksy Knitter's tutorial).  

Thankfully texture hides most sins.  And still, a damn sight better than a visible ridge.

Now, I'm just waiting for the two zippers I ordered from ZipperSource--one red, one blue. We'll see which one looks best.  I'm debating using ribbon to cover the back of the zipper.  I think it'll look more finished and add some stabilization, but it also might be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.  We shall see.