Self-Striping Hats

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I've become obsessed with self-striping yarn. It's so fun! Every new row I find myself in anxious anticipation, watching the colors change. It's neat. Here's a hat I made for myself out of one skein of Filatura DiCrosa's 127 Print yarn in color 41:





And I made three baby hats for the Caps to the Capital program out of Moda Dea Sassy Stripes:



(I made two more but haven't taken pictures of them yet.)

Now I'm back to knitting an entrelac baby blanket out of Patons SWS. I'm seriously addicted to self-striping yarn!

Photo Quilt

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So, I know this isn't technically knitting, but it is crafty so I think it belongs on my blog. Plus, I worked on this for three days nonstop, so I figure I should show it off.

Here's what I'm talking about:



I made a photo quilt for my mom's 60th birthday. I decided it would have 60 photos (for obvious reasons), but in the end I had to make 62 blocks. Technically there are only 60 photos, 'cause one block says "Happy Birthday, Mom!" and one block is a drawing of DNA. (My mom's a geneticist.)

I didn't have time to order the fabric sheets you can print directly on to, so I had to use the iron-on transfer paper. It left the quilt with a kind of plastic-y feel, but it was all I could use at the time.

So I printed out 60-some pictures (extra for the ones that got messed up) on an ink-jet printer and ironed them all on to off-white 100% cotton fabric. Then I joined them all together using the 4-thread safety stitch on my Elna serger. I could have done it on my sewing machine, no problem, but I the serger made the wrong side really clean.

Then I serged the borders on, sewed the batting to the fleece backing, and then sewed it all together. It literally took three days of nonstop work. I was tired. But it was worth it—my mom really loves it. Here are a few detail shots:







And here's mom checking it out:



(Her hat is a birthday cake that says "Over the Hill." She doesn't normally dress like that.)

Self-Striping One-Skein Hat

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I felt like making myself a hat. So I went down to Michael Levine's in Los Angeles and found some Filatura DiCrosa's "127 Print" yarn in color 41. I bought two skeins, but was lucky to get away with only using one for this hat:





I took these pics using my fabulous built-in iSight camera. The camera is fabulous because it's convenient, but it's less-than-fabulous when I'm under artificial lighting (like I was tonight).

Of course, I have a small head, so most people would probably have to use more than one skein to make a hat.

By the way, my new obsession is self-striping yarn. I can't get enough. (See my previous post about my Noro Kureyon scarf for more.)

So, here I am left with a lonely ball of 127 Print. Any suggestions of what I should do with it?

Baby Dress and Entrelac Scarf

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All behold the return of Nocturnal Knits! It's been a while since I've posted any new creations. The simple explanation for this is because I haven't done much knitting in the past few months, shame on me. I was going through a bit of a dry spell. After graduating from my Master's program in May, I immediately jumped into a full-time job that, sadly, wouldn't allow me to knit at work. (I only broke that rule once so that I could knit my coworker some fingerless gloves to combat the overactive air conditioner in our office.)

But then, a few months ago, a good friend of mine asked if she could commission me to make her a baby gift. She didn't have any requests, other than it be awesome so that she could be the baby's favorite aunt, so I was able to create something brand new.

I decided I wanted to make a baby dress with a knit bodice and a sewn-on eyelet skirt. I would use a similar method as the previous baby dress I made for my niece a few years ago. However, I wanted to spice this one up a bit. Here's what I came up with:



I started by making the waistband with the intarsia hearts. I then made the two top pieces and sewed them on to the waistband. The top straps go all the way down to the back of the band, so it's kind of like a tank top. I got the eyelet fabric at Michael Levine's in downtown L.A. Even though you cant really see it, there's a pink cotton lining underneath the skirt. So that it would be really gathered, I used a whole yard of fabric (though not the whole width) to make the skirt.

After I finished the dress, I decided I needed to make somthing for myself. I'm going to be going to the Sundance Film Festival in January, so I wanted a nice scarf I would wear while waiting in line for movies in the snow. I had seen on Craftster a lot of the Lady Eleanor entrelac stoles and they were very intriguing. However, I didn't want to spend a million dollars on Noro yarn, so I decided just to make a thinner and shorter version. Here's what happened:



I used three balls of Noro Kureyon that I got on eBay, so I wasn't quite sure how long it would be or how the colors would look. In the end, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Here are my foster kittens modeling the scarf:



And all on its own:



I'm really into the self-striping and self-patterning yarns right now, so expect a few more entries on this theme.