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| I was taught how to knit by making this scarf, hence the large quantity of blemishes made while I was getting the hang of it. I also tried to come up with new stictches (silly, I know) while doing it, most of which turned out to be ill-advised. Fortunately, Rumphius Bear is not very picky, so he's pretty happy with it. It's actually quite a bit too big for him; there are several feet of tail hiding behind him which you can't see from this picture. (Sep 2007) |
| My first project after my "learning" scarf. . . very simple, of course, because I hadn't even learned to purl yet, so it's just a garter stitch scarf. I also still had a fairly poor sense of scale, so the scarf wraps twice around Danny Bear's fat neck with plenty of length to spare. (Sep 2007) |
| Here we have Jehoshaphat Bear wearing a practice scarf where I was trying to cable knit. This is just a K,P2,C6F,P2,K pattern, reverting to C6B halfway through (using the cable every 5 rows). Most of my early projects are really just the byproduct of me trying to teach myself new knitting methods (and usually end up being bear scarves, I guess). Since this is the first time I tried a cablestitch, you can see that I didn't quite pull hard enough on the yarn for the first stich off the cable needle, so on some of the twists there is a little bulge in the middle. (Oct 2007) |
| A shawl I threw together when teaching myself to cable knit (I made this immediately after the scarf right above this). Modeled by Darcy Bear. Darcy Bear has since expressed a bit of discontent with "boring" brown colors, so perhaps the next item I make him will be a nice bright fuchsia or something. In this case, I was experimenting with quasi-braided cables without using two cable needles, so I had a C4F,C4B in the middle of the pattern to create the illusion of a braid. I also tried to make a somewhat fancy border while using only simple stiches. (Oct 2007) |
| The first item I made for non-bear use. I made this scarf for Karen's birthday, though her bear Goeb is modeling it for the purposes of this picture. It's the first time I followed a pattern (here), and also by far the largest article I've made, as it's a bit taller than Karen is. (Bears, of course, don't really need particularly large scarves, so it's only natural that items made for human consumption are much larger.) (Oct 2007) |
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| My first hat, proudly being displayed by Matthias Bear. He only sometimes wears the hat over both ears, since he thinks it makes him look like a bit of a hoodlum and also ends up with "hat fur". Bleah. (Besides which, a lot of my bears ocassionally suffer spats of "Danny Bear hat envy.") In his hoodlum picture here, I've juxtaposed my punky bear with a basket of yarn in a sort of lame effort to create irony. This is a simple K1,P1 rib followed by some decreasing stockinette, knit on straight needles with a mattress stitch closing up the side. I thought I would be clever and have some converging SSK and K2tog stiches dancing around as I was decreasing the hat, but it didn't show up too well. (Oct 2007) |
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| I wanted to make a matching scarf for my hat, and so Balthasar Bear (a close relative of Matthias and Darcy Bear, obviously) here is shown displaying the matching set with the new scarf. This is the first knit pattern I've tried to make up myself; I discovered that it's really quite hard to come up with something that looks decent. The underlying effect I was going for (which didn't work out like I had hoped) was to have a cabled line twisting back and forth across the length of the scarf, followed by parallel lacework and a fake "mini-cable" following it made from the nubs of K2tog and SSK stitches which would follow in step with the cable stitches. (Oct 2007) |
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| My first attempt at making a plush toy. It didn't turn out nearly as well as I expected. . . much taller and less fat than I was hoping, I guess. I used the pattern found here, but slightly modified it to be more to my liking (fatter limbs, shorter body). I also adjusted the joint seams to that the limbs don't thin out to a single line when connecting to the body. The pattern itself is extremely simple, and I think it's the skill of the knitter that determines the final look. . . which means it could look a lot better. I've decided to name this one Zimmerman Bear, in deference to Elizabeth Zimmerman. It would have been Elizabeth Bear, but I wouldn't want to insult the female gender by making my little creation a girl. (Oct 2007) |
| Emmeline Bear modeling a scarf I made for Jonathan's birthday (my second item made for human use). It's a juxtaposition of a bright color with a more "guy"-oriented pattern than the lace scarf. The pattern was exceptionally easy; just knit and purl -- I widened Ann Budd's pattern (here) by ten stitches to get a width I was happier with. If I had to do it over, I would have done the added stitches differently, but I think it turned out okay. I also tried to put the initials "JL" into the scarf, though in retrospect I should have put a seed stitch border around it to avoid all of the puckering. I'm especially happy with the horizontal cable on the bottom of the "J" and "L", which I found here. (Nov 2007) |
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| My second plush toy, which will be a gift for Katherine. I think this turned out considerably better than the first. I knit this from a Kramer Yarn pattern (here; PDF), but for my yarn I used a Lamb's Pride bulky 85% wool/15% mohair blend. (The pattern doesn't specify, but it needs about 120-130 yards with size 13 needles and bulky weight yarn.) I also felted this pig to tighten up the stitches and get the nice fuzzy look. I had planned on "cooking" the pig in a big pot over the stove and stirring with some kitchen utensils to shrink the fabric, but got lazy and just threw it in the washing machine. Unfortunately, I think his head got caught in something and agitated more than the rest of the body, because it seems to have shrunk preferentially. Oh well. On the right is the picture of the pig before his traumatic washing machine experience (and before the eyes/nostrils got embroidered on). The pictuers don't provide any scale, but he was about a twelve to fourteen inches long before shrinking and about ten inches after shrinking. (Nov 2007) |
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| I decided to go for a fitted item and made a cardigan, here being worn by Eleazar Bear. For some stupid reason, I decided not to use a pattern and just sort of made it up as I went along (it's just stockinette with some ribbing on the borders, anyway). "Stand on the shoulders of Debbie Bliss," was the unheeded advice someone gave me. In any event, I measured my bear out for his outfit, but then while knitting, thought to myself, "oh what the heck, I'll add a few extra stitches to make it looser." Here's my pearl of wisdom learned from that experience: don't do that. You can see that it's a bit too big for him. (Dec 2007) |
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| My first try at a real lace item, worn here by Sosthenes Bear. I sometimes refer to it as the "useless scarf," since having a scarf full of holes sort of defeats the purpose of having a scarf. I made it extra long (around six feet) so that one could wrap it several times to compensate for the holes in the scarf. Useless. . . but at least it looks pretty good. The pattern is the "branching out" pattern found here.(Jan 2008) |
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| Jessica Bear wearing her custom-made sweater. I was a lot more careful this time around as compared to Eleazar Bear's cardigan, and so it actually fits very well. It was a good exercise in learning to do a lot of things for the first time, such as intarsia, picking up stitches, shaping, and seaming shoulders properly. Jessica Bear really likes it -- she has been wearing it 24/7 since first trying it on! In the last picture, she's also wearing the next project I made, a pink charity hat. (June 2008) |
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| The first of a series of hats knit for charity, all with the same underlying pattern but different colorwork. I used these to teach myself various techniques, such as fair isle in the round, jogless stripes, magic loop, purl-wise long-tail cast-on, etc. This one is being worn by Leonard Bear. I started knitting these (as well as Jessica Bear's sweater) because I'm at the seaming stage for a large blanket I'm making, and I can't seam on the subway. . . but still want something to knit during my daily commute. (The blanket is also why there aren't any projects from February to May 2008.) (June 2008) |
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| The next charity hat, being modeled by Snowball Bear. (June 2008) |
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| Boo Bear, wearing another charity hat. (June 2008) |
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| The last charity hat in the sequence, at this for a while. I'll take a few weeks off from making these. (June 2008) |
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| Ezekiel the baby dragon, from the "Norberta" pattern on knitty. He looks a bit dopey since I tried to embroider whites with the eyes, which is probably a good bit beyond my skill level. (June 2008) |
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Last Updated June 2008 |
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