Project Share: Victorian Memo Frame for Helmar

In The Studio

jvanderbeek_helmar-victorian_memo_frame

Hey, guys! Today I have a new, fun, and fairly quick project up over on the Helmar Design Team blog. Apparently my interest in Victoriana has not yet waned, and probably won’t for a while, so the fussy, frilly-ness of this project is mainly due to that. But, you know, it’s kinda fun to do fussy and frilly every now and then.

jvanderbeek_feb2015_roadmapofalivedinheart_mixedmedia_canvas

Also, if you didn’t see it earlier this month, my February Gauche Alchemy project was a very texture-heavy red canvas for the love/hate-themed challenge (and you might recognize the hearts from the last Helmar project). There’s still some time to create your own project and submit it for the February challenge. Remember, anything goes as long as it’s inspired by this month’s challenge board!

February Challenge Inspiration

February Challenge Inspiration

Finally, here’s that doll sweater I mentioned in the last post. This is the first “right” prototype of the pattern. I’ve since made it a second time in a longer, oversized-cardigan style and I’ve got a third one on the needles even longer as as coat.

Tessa modeling her winter-appropriate "bookish" look.

Tessa modeling her winter-appropriate “bookish” look.

Did I mention I bought more dolls? There were some unbeatable deals on Amazon a few months ago and I got a total case of itchy spending finger and picked up two girls for less than one would normally cost (Tezca and Lipoca). Then I found a Yeolume (Pullip’s daughter from the future, serious, the “storyline” of these dolls is rather amusing) in Tuesday Morning, and finally brought home a Byul (Dal’s best friend); again from Amazon, again at a great deal. She’s the one who needs a bit of work due to a broken arm and her replacement body arrived ahead of schedule so she’ll be in the dolly O.R. before too long.

It’s the little things, folks, that make us smile, right?

The One Time You WANT Holes in Your Knitting

64 Arts

That’s right, friends, we’re moving from one needle-art to another and starting off the topic of lace!

26 Lacemaking

Crocheting thread or vegetable fibers to create a net, showing, with holes and crocheted areas, patterns of birds, animals, temples, houses, etc.

And even though this art specifies crocheting, I’m going to start with knitted lace because that’s what I’m slightly more proficient at.

Among knitters there seem to be two camps equally divided between two impressive skills: cables and lace. Cables are, of course, those patterns featuring a braided look like on the bulky fisherman’s sweaters and so forth whereas lace is the art of putting holes exactly where you want them. Both are complicated in their own right, but I’m fantastic with cables and lousy with lace.

Well, not altogether lousy, just not as skilled–but I’m getting better with each project.

For instance, years ago I was involved in a shawl swap and received this lovely, gossamer wrap as my gift.

A sage-green knitted shawl

It’s beautiful, don’t you think? And at over 6 feet long I shudder to think of how long it took her to knit!

This Braching Out scarf pattern from knitty.com reminds me of it and says it’s fairly easy to knit. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl next time I’m looking for a project.

For that same swap I attempted to knit my partner a similarly lacy shawl only to repeatedly get off-pattern. After at least 3 restarts (but possibly more like 10–I’m stubborn, if not always skilled) I gave up that pattern and stuck with my strengths: I knit a very warm and dense shawl in shades of yellow, orange and red and, yes, it included cables. Though I likened the finished product to a fuzzy, cabled candy corn, my swap partner swore she loved it.

One of these days I’ll try that sunflower-lace pattern again. Maybe.

But I’m not completely thumbs when it comes to lace, I just need a simple pattern to follow and even I’ve been known to produce pretty, functional and lacy fiber objects. Like this 6-stitch lace pattern that I made into a lightweight shrug that works fairly well as a “stunt shrug” when I try on wedding dresses, to see how they’ll look with a cardigan or other sleeve contrivance.

Lace shrug

Perhaps the project I’m most proud of, though, is this lace/net/mesh (all boils down to the same thing in knitting, really) bag that is perfect for trips to the farmers market as it stretches to accommodate a week’s worth of veggies when the shopping is good. It’s a variation on the Itsybitsy bag from knitty.com (I made, I think, half again as many rounds of the mesh portion to make a deeper bag, but not as wide as the Kitchen Sink version of the pattern).

Knitted mesh/lace shopping bag

In knitting lace, the hole-making stitch is generally a yarn over–abbreviated YO in patterns–and something new knitters accidentally do as they learn: all it means is to wrap the yarn around the needle between two existing stitches, creating one from nothing. With nothing to anchor it below, it makes a hole when you come back around and knit (or purl) this yarn over like any other stitch. In order to keep the right number of stitches and not have the incredibly widening object happening on you, it’s generally called for the knit or purl two stitches together for each added yarn over.

It’s a simple thing, true, but with each inventive way of spacing and treating those “extra” stitches, the beautiful lace patterns come out.

Of course, there’s also “cheater’s lace” as I like to call the practice of knitting rather small yarns on plenty-big needles–all of your stitches get spaced out pretty evenly so it looks like lace without the yarn-overs!

If you’re interested in trying your hands at knitted lace, both of the patterns I’ve linked in this article are good starting points (well, okay, one I’m guessing on, but it seems safe enough if you remember which line you’re on). Two things to keep in mind, though:

  1. Knitted lace often shows off best in single color knitting. Self-striping yarn is fabulous for socks and scarves, but can obscure a delicate pattern and make it harder for new knitters to read the pattern when they’re also trying to distinguish the color changes.
  2. Always deploy a safety net! Once you’ve finished a pattern repeat (or a few if it’s a pattern of only a couple rows at a time), stop and thread a length of contrasting yarn or even dental floss through every stitch on your needle before beginning the pattern repeat again. This way, should you get turned around or off a stitch a few rows up, you can safely frog (aka rip-it! rip-it!) back to your safety net/line and know exactly where to start again.

So, are you willing to cast on a new lace project for the new year? Whose ready to be daring!