Month: September 2015

ramen cardigan

Posted on by trish

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I want­ed to make a cozy, sort of slouchy fall cardi­gan that one would want to relax in. I was going to name it some­thing poet­ic like “lake­side” to evoke the relaxed cot­tage vibe, but then I post­ed an in-progress pic­ture on social media and one of my friends com­ment­ed that it looked like ramen. And I thought, that’s a much bet­ter bet­ter name for it! After all, I can relate to relax­ing at home, watch­ing movies on TV and eat­ing ramen more than I can relate to relax­ing at the cot­tage, which I’ve actu­al­ly nev­er done in my life.

This is a very easy cardi­gan to make. It is based on the one row lace pat­tern by Mag­da Makes. I made an infin­i­ty scarf for a friend one year using the pat­tern and had a lot of fun, I fig­ure I would make an entire sweater with it :D

The cardi­gan is made of 5 rec­tan­gu­lar pieces. These pieces are seamed togeth­er, then a 2x2 rib is worked along the front pieces and back of neck for collar.

It has a loose-fit­ting body with fit­ted sleeves. It’s also made with a loose gauge, so it’s pret­ty plushy.

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Mea­sure­ments of my cardigan:
Bust = 40″
Sleeve cir­cum­fer­ence = 11″
Length = 21″

Size adjust­ments:
I made the cardi­gan to fit me, but since the con­struc­tion and stitch pat­tern is so sim­ple, it would­n’t be too dif­fi­cult to adjust size. To increase or decrease width, add or sub­tract mul­ti­ple of 4 stitch­es. 4 stitch­es = approx. 1″

I used:
Worsted weight yarn, approx. 1000 yards (more yarn will be need­ed if you’re mak­ing a larg­er cardigan)
7 mm straight needles
6 mm cir­cu­lar nee­dles, 29″

What I did:

Back

With larg­er nee­dles, CO 80.

Work k2, p2 rib for 8 rows.

Work 1 row lace pat­tern by Mag­da Makes until piece is 21″, or desired length, from CO edge. Fas­ten off loosely.

Right and Left Front (make 2)

CO 28.

Work k2, p2 rib for 8 rows.

Work 1 row lace pat­tern by Mag­da Makes until piece is 21″, or desired length, from CO edge. Fas­ten off loosely.

Sleeves (make 2)

CO 40.

Work k2, p2 rib for 8 rows.

Work 1 row lace pat­tern by Mag­da Makes until piece is 17″, or desired length, from CO edge. Fas­ten off loosely.

Col­lar

With right sides togeth­er, sew shoul­der seams together.

With small­er nee­dles and right side fac­ing, pick up an even num­ber of stitch­es even­ly up the front, across back the neck, and along the oth­er front. (approx. 1 st per row-end up/down front, and 1 st in each st across back of neck works for me)

Work k2, p2 rib for 8 rows, fas­ten off purl-wise.

Assem­bly

Find mid-point of sleeve, match this point to the shoul­der seam, pin sleeve to body, then sew sleeve to body with right sides togeth­er. Repeat for the oth­er sleeve. Sew sleeve and side seams togeth­er. Weave in ends.

Throw it on and be cozy! :D

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Hap­py autumn! :D

 

this week’s awesome finds

Posted on by trish

Super cute lined paper pullover, I want one! From Knit Picks.

Often won­der how one would knit such thick wool… here’s a tuto­r­i­al from Lebenslustiger.

Love this sil­ly-look­ing rat­tler. From Lanukas (Eng­lish trans­la­tion of the pat­tern at the end of post).

Got a new grey sock? You can make your very own Pusheen plush! :D From My Pas­tel Cafe.

Awe­some night owls (or owl night lights) from BruDiy.

Just dis­cov­ered on Pin­ter­est! A free Wool and the Gang pat­tern! :D :D :D I’m a big fan of the sweater pat­terns by WATG, but almost all of their pat­terns are sold in kits, which I can’t real­ly afford… so a free sweater pat­tern is very excit­ing! Now I just have to get myself some 12mm and 25mm nee­dles. Sign up and down­load at WATG.

Build your own Love­bot and join the love inva­sion! :D Down­load the free Lego build­ing plan here. Haven’t heard the sto­ry behind Love­bot? Here’s a bit of his­to­ry from his website:

“The Love Inva­sion began as a Toron­to-based grass­roots ini­tia­tive, fea­tur­ing the deploy­ment of 100 hand-cast con­crete Love­bot sculp­tures. Act­ing as a unique and mean­ing­ful social objects placed in the paths of pedes­tri­ans, each Love­bot sculp­ture was ded­i­cat­ed to a per­son or group that per­formed a pow­er­ful act of kind­ness in their com­mu­ni­ty. The pur­pose: to illu­mi­nate the kind­ness and com­pas­sion in our city and, inspire more.”

You can read more about the Love­bot here :D and see where the Love­bots have been placed and their sto­ries here.

I try to take a pic­ture with one when­ev­er I stum­ble upon one :D

Here’s me with a Love­bot at the Junc­tion Sum­mer Fes­ti­val last year (and an avo­ca­do pop­si­cle :D)

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This is in front of Mabel’s Fable, a mag­i­cal chil­dren’s bookstore.

Photo 2014-07-14, 3 16 19 PM

This is in front of Thor Espres­so Bar near the waterfront.

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Keep an eye out for the love­ly robot if you’re in the neigh­bour­hood! Hope every­one has a won­der­ful week!

end of summer in black & white

Posted on by trish

Not that I feel par­tic­u­lar­ly sad about the end of sum­mer. I’ve had lots of fun this sum­mer, but I’m sure there will be good times in the fall and win­ter too. There’s just some­thing time­less about black and white pho­tographs, cap­tur­ing those every­day moments that are cherished.

gooderham

We vis­it the Dis­tillery Dis­trict at least once every sum­mer. Took this pic­ture while mar­veling at the gas lamps lit up at dusk.

indie ale

We got to enjoy some craft beer and lengthy con­ver­sa­tions at the Indie Ale House with our good friends, whose chil­dren were camp­ing out at their grand­par­ents’ for the week. I think this was the first time we got to do this in 10 years :P I’m by no means a con­nois­seur of beer, I most­ly order based on the names of the beer (I’m a suck­er for interesting/pretty prod­uct names, I think I’ve men­tioned this before…). So here I was hav­ing a “Rab­bit of Caer­bannog”, which I lat­er found out was “an immense­ly cute but blood­thirsty rab­bit-like mon­ster found in Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail,” accord­ing to Vil­lians Wikia.

epic shark

A majes­tic shark at the aquar­i­um. I’m quite proud of this one.

knit knit knit

Not that the sum­mer would stop me from cro­chet­ing or knit­ting, but I’m excit­ed about mak­ing cozi­er things when the weath­er is cool­er, and my hol­i­day craft­ing list, the plushy scarves and mit­tens I’m going to make new wool, and this! I’m exper­i­ment­ing with mak­ing a pat­tern and can’t wait to find out whether it will work out, and I will sure­ly share with you if it does!

And last but not least, I present to you — jel­ly­fish mag­ic at the aquarium.

The jel­ly­fish were lit up with kind of a strange pink light (I guess oth­er­wise they’d be dif­fi­cult to see since they’re translu­cent), which my phone cam­era could­n’t cap­ture very well, so I fig­ure I’d just put a black and white fil­ter on it in Insta­gram. I think it kind of cre­ates a feel­ing of being in the deep, dark sea. And it’s just so ele­gant the way jel­ly­fish move in water.

Cheers to a fab­u­lous sum­mer, and many more sum­mers to come!