Knit-Nerd-Rant

Hello all! I promise I haven't forgotten this blog, or making patterns for others to enjoy.  Part of the delay has been my being too busy, and part of it is that my now 7.5 year old laptop is really starting to show its age. So, the most recent one is designed because I needed to use this absolutely scrumptious yarn I found at Scrap DC's Labor Day weekend sale.  It's called Peru Chunky Luxury (out of production now). It's 70% Merino, 20% alpaca, and 10% silk, and entirely yummy.  The only problem is that all I had was a 73 yard (50 gram) skein, and this needed to be used for something worn near the face because of reasons. That or it would be kept as a pet. I also found at Scrap DC an unlabeled single twist wool yarn that is probably some sort of merino/lambswool and is lovely and soft as well, and a nice contrasting color.  All together, I knew it wasn't going to be able to create anything large. So, after finding some patterns online for similar short sc...

Keep in mind, that this was totally designed on the fly, and I'm going back and re-constructing what I did, so please forgive me for and alert me to any errors you see! Luckily, many years of experience sewing long before I even picked up my first knitting needles helped me confidently make my set-in sleeves.  They may not be the prettiest buttonholes, but dammit, that's who I figured it out. Translations: CO - cast on K - knit P - purl M1 - make one K2tog - knit 2 together P2tog - purl 2 together Equipment: 1 size 6 circular needle (24" long at the very least), 4 size 6 double-pointed needles, some scrap yarn, and a yarn needle for sewing in the loose ends. Making buttonholes: I totally stumbled on this method, so I don't know if it's got a name somewhere, but here is the way I did it Knit full length of body for the particular stage in the pattern, until the last 6 stitches K1, chain bind off next 3 stitches, leaving 2 remaining P2 This is the ...

As I was trying to find an intarsia pattern for the back of my planned cardigan, I wanted to find something that would be unexpected - not something sweet and wholesome that someone's grandmother would make.  I combed through the internet looking for something, then I realized I could create my own pattern! So I found an image that was from a color-in page for a kid's pirate-themed party of a skull and crossbones.  I increased the size of the image and set it as the background on an Excel spreadsheet.  I then re-sized the cells so that they would resemble that of knit stitches (while now I realize my error, I should have aimed to make them square, but mine were a bit more narrow than that).  Then I carefully formatted all the cells that would be the contrast color for the pattern by selecting them and using the "Check Cell" pre-fab formatting.  This meant that the contrast cells were all dark grey and had an extra border.  Then I took the full field (...