Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Nothing Fancy Clothes Pin Bag

Like I said nothing fancy just plain little clothes pin bags done on a knitting machine. My old ones are almost gone. They held up for the longest time but then gave up, well one still is holding but not for much longer. For the store bought one I still have, I just put the larger clothes pins in and there aren't many of them.

This first one I did with just knitting a rectangle. Then I cast off the center stitches for the opening, pick up stitches on one edge, knitted a row, and cast off. Then picked up stitches for the other side, and repeated the knit one row, cast off.

For the side seams I just whipped stitch them.




This second one was done almost exactly as the first till the casting off.  I picked up the edges of the beginning row but knitted three rows after that pickup.  Then I folded those extra rows over and seamed them to the bag body.  Was experimenting to see what will hold up better with the clothes hangers I am using.

For this one I also place both edges of the sides back on the machine and knitted a couple of rows for additional strength. 




This third one I did a bit differently.  Just needed to do some practice on the machine so why not.  This is nothing fancy like I said, so why not play around with it.

I cast on only one side and did several rows.  Then I put those needles to hold and cast on the other edge and knitted it the same amount.  For the center I decided that practice manual manipulation for knitting the stitches was a good thing to do.  So I did that for the side I was on, latch hook cast on the center needles,  and hand knit the stitches for the other side.  For some reason I have this thing about knitting sides differently so this satisfied my need to have them exactly the same.

After this is was just a matter of knitting the body.  After the body was knitted took off on waste, turned it around and rehung those stitches and the beginning side stitches to finish by having the join on inside rather then outside like the other bags.   This one has all the stitches cast off in one pass.  Looks a bit neater this way.  I thought about doing a crocheted edging around the opening but then decided not to do that.  For joining the sides I did this one from the wrong side.  I didn't do that with the other two.  I wanted to see different looks to the bags.  Just play time.



For hanging the bags I took old metal clothes hangers and bent them to fit the bags and bent the top to make it set the way I want.  I really need to make one more as I have more clothes pins.

Each of these bags are wide and short in body rather then like the kind you get from the store, long and narrow.  I am short, my lines are high up, this makes it easier to reach inside the bag for the clothes pins.

My husband says they look like little short sweaters with no arm holes.  Well, they sort of are.

I used peaches 'n cream cotton yarn, two different bulky machines.  The first bag was on the Brother KH230 machine, the last two were on the Studio Mod150 machine.  The 230 is set up in my bedroom, the 150 I set up outside so I can knit out there.  Love to be outside when the weather allows for it.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Toys and knitting

I have been working on a new knitting table for outside.  My one we built, hubby and me, last year is now in a permanent place in my room where I have a machine and ribber set up.  So I won't have it for outside.  Another is needed.

So the hubby had a piece of wood, 1" thick, that he cut down to make me another table.  He attached a set of folding legs, and I sanded it yesterday.  Then he put some sealer on it.    I went to test the dryness last night and got, yep, a splinter.  I barely touched the darn thing.  So it needs more sanding.

So to the newest toy.  I got a new belt sander today.  A much bigger, much stronger sander then the little tiny thing I was using.  The trouble is I won't be able to use it till Wednesday.  The sealer that is on the table needs more drying, and I have to work the next two days.

I do like new toys and this one will be so handy.  I also have a picnic table and benches to sand and repaint.  So I will get to use this toy more very soon.

I have done another weaved knitted hat.  No picture yet.  I was gathering it off the machine last night and put a needle hook in my right middle finger.  Hurts like the dickens today.  So I haven't touched any more knitting.  Heck we took that long drive to Medford and I couldn't even work on anything.  

Thursday, June 10, 2010


I have been doing some work learning to use the garter bar.  This is the first thing I did.  I have done one of these before but it was using waste yarn to turn, and then a knitting needle (dp).  That works fine but using the garter bar is much faster.  These are not finished off yet, but I wanted to show the work thus far.

This one has rows knitted in color, then turned for one row of black to be turned again.  Then is decreased across the top till there was only three stitches left.


This next hat is a weaving with the garter bar.  I used four different colors in ribbon yarn to do this one. This yarn is from Lion Brand and is called Incredible.  I have had this sitting around wondering what to do with it.  Again the hat is not completed but I plan to do this one up soon. 


Notice the bottom section with the cuffed brim.  This is where I made a mistake.  I didn't consider that the weaving would be on the back side of the work, that is where it shows best.  You can see some of the weave on the knit side when it is stretched.  That also looks neat.

Back to the mistake.  I didn't turn that cuff after it was made and was way into the weaved part before I even had a thought about what I had done.  So I thought that maybe I could just fix that by weaving a ribbon or ribbons along the edge.

Then the hat was finished and I took a good look.  Oh no I don't want to touch this one.  That is such a cute brim that I like it just as it is.    It adds a little something to the brim that is better then the plain old brim that would normally be there.  Yep, this one is staying just like it is.

So this has been my of late playing with the knitting machine.  I have already got the brim section for another hat made but haven't gotten into the weaving part yet.  I am adding an additional four yarns to the first four.  This next four is alektra yarn and is some string with bits on the yarn, like little color squares.  This should be interesting.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Today, yesterday, the day before, and tomorrow

Rain, Rain go away, you are totally messing with my crafting. What I have to do I need to be outside for.

Gee I hate days like this.