Blue Bird of Happiness

Blue Bird of Happiness, a photo by Kelshandra on Flickr.
I'm heading to the Australian Discworld convention in two weeks!  Woot!  And because it is always more fun to have a costume for that sort of thing, after much careful consideration, to dress as the Cheerful Fairy.  Don't remember her?  She's in the Hogfather and is one of several mythical creatures who arise after the Hogfather is um, killed?  Made to not exist?


"'Excuse me madam' said Ridcully. 'But is that a chicken on your shoulder?' 'It's, er, it's, er, it's the Blue Bird of Happiness' said the Cheerful Fairy."

So I needed a blue chicken.  But I figured it would be much more amusing if my chicken was looking a bit sad and pathetic... 'my Blue Bird of Happiness hasn't been himself lately'.  A toy rubber chicken and a can of spraypaint later and things were looking a bit sad.  Paint oozing off the rubber chicken and not drying.  So I came up with a plan B; one rubber chicken pattern later, some cheap acrylic and there you go.  Not sure if I'll use him but I do sense a charity raffle contribution at the end.




Now to go and work out the rest of my costume! Any Discworld jokes for the Cheerful Fairy's joke book?  Leave a comment below.

An elephant for my nephew

It's been a while and my only excuse is that I've not been crafting (which is sad, I know).  But my nephew's first birthday was approaching so I decided to pull out the knitting needles because I found a lovely pattern for a knitted elephant. The pattern is one from the book Knitted Wild Animals by Sarah Keen.  I nearly bought the book in Lincraft but at $30 for the book, knowing that I'd make one or two animals at most, it was a bit dear.  However, happily when I got home I searched Ravelry for an elephant I found that the designer had a pattern available online- free!  Here's the link to the Woman's Day site it is available through.

The pattern is well written for the most part, there was only one part that was a little confusing (and based on Ravelry I wasn't the only one).  While the body pieces use make 1 stitches (so don't increase within a stitch but rely on making a new stitch), the other pieces use increases (knitting in the front and back).  If you don't realise this and instead continue to make stitches when making the head etc, your stitch counts will be off.

But aside from that little hiccup, it's a lovely pattern.  Easy and quick to make and looks adorable. If you wanted to make a menagerie of animals then I would say the book Knitted Wild Animals is a good buy.  If you only want to make an elephant then this is a good one to make- particularly if you are relatively new to toy making.

And the careful observers would already have realised that I've not put a tail on my elephant yet- oops!  I'll just go do that now!

Knitted bag pattern Part 1

I needed a new knitting project, I need a new handbag (the strap attachment fell off and it keeps trying to eat any knitted tops I'm wearing) and I also need to use up some of the wool in my stash (otherwise I'll not be able to buy more!)  I had five balls of Lincraft's Prism yarn in blue and beige.  It has a very slow colour change that I like- I much prefer large lengths in a colour that gently changes than wool that is constantly changing as I prefer the way it knits up.

I had a free pattern from Lincraft for a bag using the yarn but decided to tweak it a bit lot, so here's my altered version.  Warning in advance- this has ended up being quite long so I will split it into two posts- inside and outside!  I also talk a lot about different customisation options so you might want to read through the entire post before you cast on.

Front
Cast on 48 stitches.  Knit in stocking stitch for 17 rows, then knit two rows of reverse stocking.  Repeat these 19 rows, then knit 17 stitches of stocking stitch and cast off.

Back and flap
Cast on 48 stitches.  Knit in stocking stitch for 17 rows, then knit two rows of reverse stocking.  Repeat these 19 rows twice more.   At this point you should have 3 reverse stocking stitch lines ending with the two reverse stocking rows and this back should be the same size as the front piece.

To make the top and flap continue knitting as follows:
Row 1: K2, purl to last 2, K2
Row 2: K all
These two rows repeated will make the front flap in stocking stitch with a garter stitch band on either side to stop curling.  Continue for the size you wish for your flap (include an extra 8cm or so to the length to allow for the distance the flap covers to go from the top over to the front- the top bit in other words). When you nearly reach the size of the flap that you wish ending with a knit row (mine was 21 cm from the last reverse stocking rows), shape as follows for the final rows:

Row 1:  K2, P2 tog, P to last 4, P2togtbl, K2
Row 2: Knit all
Row 3: K2, ssk, ssk, K to last 4, K2 tog, K2
Row 4: Repeat Row 3

Cast off

The garter stitch edging should help the material curl up at all, but you will still probably find you need to block the material to make it lie flat.  In addition, you can line your bag including the flap to help it hold its shape- more on that in a future post.

Sides (make 2)
Cast on 12 stitches.  Knit in stocking stitch until the length of the side is the length of the front MINUS half the width of the side.  So if your front piece was 25 cm and your side was 8 cm wide like my test bag, you want to make your side 21 cm long.
NOTE- if you want to have a bag handle as part of the side, read the notes below first!

Checking the size of the bag side- this is about the right length.  The knitting needle on the right shows the seam point for the bottom of the bag.

Strap
Option 1- Garter stitch
There are several options for bag straps.  Many knitted bags I've seen use garter stitch straps.  On the plus side, these will match your bag exactly since they are, of course, made from the same material.  On the minus side, they tend to stretch, particularly if you load up your bag the way that I do mine.  If you go this option, make your strap shorter than you want it to be to take this stretch into account.

If you have more self control in bag packing than me, then you may wish to make the sides and the strap all in one piece.  If so, just switch to garter stitch when one side is the required length, then stitch for the length of your strap (don't forget the stretch factor) before switching back to stocking for the other side.

Option 2- Icord or other cord options
Icord is another option (tons of tutorials out there online so I'll let you find one yourself).  It can either be knitted on double pointed needles or using a Knitting Nancy (anyone else have one as a kid?  I had two, one of which was my mothers from when she was a kid!).  A similar sort of cord can be made using a lucet which is a bit like a primitive ancestor of a Knitting Nancy.  Yonks ago I wrote a review of a lucet... I must dig it out and post it here

Option 3- Something else
The final option is to use some other material entirely for the bag strap.  Since there is quite a lot in the world that is is 'something else' I shall leave it to you to investigate this option

Assembly
Smart people block pieces before sewing them up.  Thanks to a combination of impatience and absent-mindedness I didn't do this, so please forgive the curly nature of the pieces in the photos below.

Sew the bottom of the front and back piece together (while you could choose to knit this as one piece, using a seam should make the bottom stronger and avoid sagging when loaded up with stuff). 

Bottom and top sewn together  and the first side in progress (the knitting needle shows the location of the bottom seam)

Sew the side panels to the front and back.  I found it best to start an the bottom of the side piece (so at the seam of the front and back) and sew up to ensure things are even.  When sewn on, the side piece should the just the right height to reach the top of the front, and to the last reverse stocking section of the back.

Sew the bottom of the side pieces on first, centred over the bottom seam

 When finished your bag should look a bit like this, or uncurly if you were good and actually blocked the pieces first!

If you didn't block it, now would be a good time.  Dampen the wool (or soak it- just bear in mind it will take much longer to dry) and pin it to shape on a suitable flat surface.  I like to use a beach towel over a cheap yoga mat because I can lay it out anywhere I like.  Once dry, the material should not curl up like it's trying to hide!

Next step is to attach the strap to the bag.  I am using some large rings I bought from the craft shop.  These will be sewn to the top of each side piece and the strap will then be attached to the rings. If you want a simple bag, you can do this step now, add your strap and call it good.

However, I am going to do something sneaky.  I am making a fitted organiser to go with this bag.  It will have pockets to hold things that otherwise disappear such as my mobile phone, and will also sneakily attach to the rings to prevent the bag from sagging out of shape too much.  Because of this, I am going to leave the rings for another post.  Trust me, it will make more sense in the end.

Click here to go straight to part 2

Tatted necklace

Long time, no blog! Blame it on a combination of starting a new job and all that stress it involves and the joy of moving- nothing saps creative energy like unpacking boxes and putting together flatpack furniture.  Which is a pity really, because I've always thought of flatpack furniture as the grown-up version of a giant lego kit!

I only have a small post- a cute little necklace that I made on the weekend before starting my new job as a teacher.  Things will probably remain fairly quiet from me as things I do in the classroom like using osmosis to shrink and expand eggs don't really fit in a craft blog (fun though- dissolve an egg in vinegar over a day or two, then place it in either pure water or a highly concentrated sugar or salt solution and see what happens).

Close up view of necklace

Necklace pinned out for blocking- curve at end due to me running out of cork board!

The necklace was from the book 'Easy Tatting' by Rozella F. Linden and was made using purple crochet cotton and black swarovski crystals.  I think it looks pretty good, can't wait to wear it out and about.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everyone!  Hope 2012 is a good one for you all.  Things have slowed down here on the crafting front in anticipation of my big move (8 days to go).  Because I've been starting to pack, that means about half my craft stuff is packed away.  I only have a few projects out (tricky since trying to decide what projects can be packed up and what should stay out until the last minute changes based on mood).

One thing I have managed to do is finish Queen Anne's Curse.  I had thought the curse would be over once I cast off, and I'd managed to catch a few stitches on the last few rounds that inexplicably jumped off the needles to sit, lurking, waiting for the moment to run away, giggling evilly.  I finished the last stitch on Christmas day and could finally spread out my work to happily gloat over.

Queen Anne's Curse, still with the life lines in

But then I pulled out the two lifelines that kept it in a sort of blobby mass.  Spreading it out for the first time I looked in horror....

The ruddy thing is way too small!  I was expecting it to be much bigger for some reason.  It is about 84 cm in diameter laid out on my bed.  And given it is made of cotton, I'm not sure if it will stretch at all by washing and blocking it (if anything, the cotton might shrink- eek!)

And if that wasn't enough, clearly one of the balls of cotton I used, despite being the same brand, dye (well, white) and type, clearly had a different colour/ thickness? than the rest.  That ring around the half way point is not a design feature- well it wasn't originally, it is now!

It is now packed it a bag to await my big move before I even think about trying to block it   Still, that was 2011.  Onward to 2012, where nothing can possibly go wrong.  Right?  Right?!