Pick-a-Stitch Software Review

I was recently given the opportunity to review the Pick-a-Stitch Knitting Software over at FaveCrafts.com. Pick-a-Stitch is a knitting stitch dictionary ("stitctionary") that comes with over 130 different knitting stitches for $17.95.  There are options to add monthly subscriptions or a la carte extra patterns so you database can keep growing. 

What did I think?  Read the review and watch the video below to find out!

Star Wars and Lego Knitting Patterns

With the holiday season approaching, I have found myself spending a lot of time researching  Star Wars Lego sets.. For some reason searching for these different lego sets inspired me to look at knitting patterns for both Star Wars themes and for Legos themselves. (There are currently no Lego Star Wars knitting patterns, but I suppose you could do some clever work with the below patterns to make a combo project!) 

There are many more Star Wars themed knitting patterns than there are Lego themed knitting patterns.  Therefore, in the lists below you will find both free and for purchase lego knitting patterns and only free Star Wars knitting patterns.  Maybe you can find a way to combine the two! 


Lego Knitting Patterns (Free)

•  Lego Brick Doorstop - Using a real brick, some bottle caps, yarn and your knitting needles, you can create a doorstop in the shape of the most common 2x4 lego brick. 
• Lego Man Mittens - Have you ever wished that your hands were circular that could only fit certain types of objects?  Well now you can have those little yellow lego minifigure hands you've always dreamed of.  The best part about this pattern?  You can make them for the whole family as the pattern is sized from babies to adults. 
• Lego Person Newborn Baby Hat - Brilliant!  This is a hat like the classic yellow lego minifigure head!  This hat does have a few crochet embellishments (bump at top of head, eyes, mouth.) 

Lego Knitting Patterns (For Purchase) All prices valid as of Dec 2012.

•  Some Assembly Required - $6.00 Knit up a lego minifigure that has removable legs and head, just like the little plastic figures you played with. 
• FREE Fancy Outfit Expansion to Some Assembly Required - Now add some fancy clothes (available through free ravelry download.)  
•  Build-a-Scarf - $6.00 A textured scarf where the stripes represent a horrizontal column of lego bricks. 

Star Wars Knitting Patterns (Free)

• Star Wars Charts - Storm Trooper, Star Wars Logo, Tie Fighter, R2D2, ATAT... Many iconic images are located here for inclusion in the project of your choice. 
• Star Wars Craft Charts - Many MANY charts of your favorite characters. (Intarsia)
• PennyIA Inartsia Star War Charts -  Even MORE star wars knitting charts
• Star Wars Hat - The Star Wars logo across the brim of the hat.  (simple skullcap)  (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Death Star - A ~14” replica of the death star! (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• R2 D2 Beanie Hat - R2's head Pattern and chart are linked to in the middle of the first post.
• R2-D2 Beanie - R2's head complete with little protruding bits (I'm not sure what the terms are for R2's parts)
• R2D2 Hat - A hat with little charted R2D2's around the brim. 
• R2D2 Knit Hat Pattern - R2's head as a beanie.
• R2D2 Beanie - Another beanie with little charted R2's around the brim.  (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Lifesize R2D2 Cozy - I am not sure exactly what is on the interior of this R2 unit... but this is certainly a full size knit R2D2.  The pattern is more of a schematic, and you can find more information here. 
• Storm Trooper Beanie - charted storm trooper heads around the brim.  (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Storm Trooper Hat - Another hat with charted storm troopers around the brim. 
•  Fettish - A stuffed Boba Fett Helmet plushie.  (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
•  Felted Light Saber - Full size!  You may want to get some kind of dowel for the interior so it doesn't become too floppy.   (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Felted Light Saber; Baby Size -  Was the previous light saber too daunting?  Make a smaller one! 
•  You Seek Yoda Hat - A beanie with long flappy yoda ears.  (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
•  Yoda Baby Bottle Cozy - The Yoda shaped pattern that inspired many of the plushies/cozies that follow.  (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Yoda iPod Cozy - based on the previous bottle cozy (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Yodagurumi - a Yoda plushie based on the previous bottle cozy.  (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
•  Yoda Hat - I love how there are ridges like the wrinkles on Yoda's forehead. 
• Felted Baby Yoda Hat - Absolutely adorable.  Ties under the neck (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Baby Yoda Sweater - A Wrap sweater that is perfect for a yoda costume.   (Pattern is available for free Ravelry.com download.  You may need to create a free account for access.)
• Knitted Yoda Doll Pattern - complete with mini light saber!  
• Star Wars At-AT Chart 
• Felted Princess Leia Hat Pattern - Double Buns as in Episode 4.  For English, scroll down to the bottom of the page. 
  
• Wookie Slippers - Fuzzy slippers! (also available as a PDF)
  
• Star Wars Golf Club Covers - I had trouble finding all of the charts, but here are some of the detailed ones that she highlighted:  Darth Vader, Boba Fett and Storm Trooper.  Update - C3PO and Chewy! 

I'm sure there could be other Lego and Star Wars themed knitting patterns out there, but these are the ones that I found from this initial search.  Will you knit any of them?

Thick and Quick Hat

I suppose a hat could be something other than hat shaped (like a cow shaped hat), but I find the title of this pattern silly enough (in a good way) to want to knit it.  Welcome to my construction of the Hat Shaped Hat!

I used ~136 g (85 yards) of Wool ease thick and quick on size 13 knitting needles.  This hat was certainly thick and quick to knit, easily finished in an afternoon.

My gauge is fine for width, but a little short for length. Therefore I did #17 total rows of ribbing to get ~ 5" of ribbing.  I followed the rest of the directions as written and BOOM a wonderful watch cap.  (Sorry, a "hat shaped" hat.)   What a great pattern to now have in my library.

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Are you on Pinterest?

 

Rock Island

I have been in love with the Rock Island pattern FOREVER! I was a little intimidated starting this project from all I had read on the project notes. Since I wanted to make sure that I completed it in 2012, I needed to give myself enough time to take a break from the intense 2 sided lace. Thankfully, this is a project knit from the bottom up, so it will only go faster and faster as I make progress.

I used Grinning Gargoyle shimmer lace (104 g to start) and size 6 knitting needles.  I had 41 g left in the end which means that I consumed 63 g, ~550 yards. 

The first of many repeats.

First comes the lace border, which is knit sideways... A repeat of ~70 times! I know I will obsessively count this multiple times... The two sided chart is a little hard to follow since the symbols have different meanings on the RS and WS. I therefore added colored dashes to each stitch on the chart to help me keep track of SSK and K2tog without needing to check if I'm on RS or WS.

I'm having issues with this yarn. It is soft, and the color is great... but the Stellina has many breaks in it and they are sticking out. This is driving me crazy. Ultimately I don't think anyone else would even notice... I just may need to think twice about using stellina yarns in lace projects in the future.  (Update:  by the time I had finished the shawl the breaks in the stellina had stopped bothering me.  I suppose it was just something that took some getting used to.  

The border. Oh the border. 70+ repeats of an 8 row double sided lace. The pattern isnt' hard to follow (especially after I color coded it!) but it is just taking forever. I need to stop counting every couple of repeats, because it seems like I'm making no progress. (I should add that this isn't painful, but requires attention.)  Halfway through the border I decided that it may be prudent to insert a lifeline.  My first lifeline is inserted after 37 edge repeats.  This is really serving more as a counting marker than as a lifeline (I doubt I'd rip back 10 repeats!)  Second after 50 repeats.   Third after 60.  The end is in sight!  The second half of these repeats are going much faster than the first half.

I checked both edges of the border to make sure they were still ~ the same size. 

85 g remain after the border is complete.  I blocked out both ends of the border just to make sure that my bind off edge is as stretchy as the cast on.  It looks pretty good!

Putting in the lifelines when I did ended up being somewhere serendipitous.  It was easy for me to figure out where the middle repeat (#36) was so when I was picking up stitches I had some good benchmarks.
Success!  just enough stitches!

I used centered double decreases (S2tog, K1, Psso) instead of the SK2P used in the pattern ONLY for the center most stitch.  I followed the rest of the directions exactly.    Maybe this was a mistake, as it draws more attention to the center... but given that the of the shaw is designed pretty symmetrical I wanted to be consistent.  

As advised by others on Raverly, I inserted a safety line before beginning the 24 lace rows.  Many people have needed to rip back to start this section over again, and I want to make sure that my new simple garter rows are protected.  I counted my sts and I have 135 before marker, 136 on the other. Perfect yet again!

Once you've colorcoded the chart it really isn't a big deal at all.  The stitch pattern is essentially a 6 st repeat over 4 rows, where each RS and WS row are shifted versions of each other. Once I finished the chart I could have counted the stitches again, but I really didn't feel like it.    The pattern had lined up all the way around so therefore I should have the correct number of stitches.  If not... I'll make do during the garter stitch rounds.

I kept a very careful count of the yarn remaining after each step because I was paranoid of making the yardage cutoff for a large 12 in 2012 shawl.  78 g remaining after the garter stitch round. 65 g remain after the rock island chart. 56 g remain after 24 garter stitch rows. 49 g remain after 48 garter stitch rows.   And 41 g remain after the shawl has been bound off.  I DID IT!  EXACTLY 63 g consumed!

I decided to weave in loose ends after blocking so that the ends would not pull in any unfortunate places. I wet blocked the shawl (soaking for 30 min prior to pinning out.)  I aggressively pinned out the shawl, which meant that I had to weigh down the center with a book! 

 

As usual, Indy was a little too interested in what I was doing while I was pinning out the shawl. Thankfully, he knows he is NOT ALLOWED on the blocking mats.  

I LOVE the way this shawl came out, but I think that if I were to make it again I would finish it in a crescent shape rather than a triangle.  It is easier to adjust the yardage and length as you go when you are knitting the whole top seam (plus it is easier to pin out a crescent.) 

11 shawls in 2012 have been completed!  At the time of writing this post I am half way through #12.  (The post for that shawl will be published in early 2013.)  It looks like I'm going to make it!  Time to start planning out next year's shawl adventures.

Reblocking

This has been a year of knit shawls, so I have done a lot of blocking.  I have learned a lot with each shawl.  I have never taken the time to re-block a shawl, but my first (and most frequently used) shawl was beginning to lose a bit of definition.  (Not to mention that when I first blocked it I did not even own blocking boards!) 

Before the re-block

Pinned out

Unpinned - light an airy

The shawl still had a pretty shape before the re-block, not anything like before blocking the first time around.  But re-blocking opened the whole thing up again and made it much more airy.  How often do you re-block your lace knits?

Thanksgiving Knitting Patterns

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I am thankful for so many things; my family, my friends, my readers here at ChemKnits!  I just wanted to take a moment to wish you an early happy Thanksgiving and share some amazing free Thanksgiving knitting patterns (and free Thanksgiving crochet patterns) that I found.    It is never too late to add some little fiber crafted decorations to your feast table.

 

Photo Credit Me-Liss-A via Creative Commons.

Happy Thanksgiving!  

What a Stash

How do you keep your stash organized?  Yarn is taking over my house.  I have a whole yarn cupboard, bags in the closet and in the coffee table.  I recently started putting my yarn in plastic zip locked bags.  Part of this is paranoia of something deciding to nest in my expensive wools, but it actually makes it easier to find particular yarns.

Someday I will input all of the yarn into the Ravelry database.  Until then, I will just have to remember what I have on hand!