Warning, there will be pictures of snakes in this post. If you don't want to see snakes, don't scroll down. I'll try to pad the top of the post with text so you they don't show up straight away. I am not afraid of photos of snakes but I understand that a lot of people are. As long as you all are being so polite as to not make me smell your fabric softeners I will not make you look at my snakes.
I've been on a snake knitting kick lately. I decided to publish the pattern for this one for free to test out how that works. I've embedded a PDF at the bottom of this post. I'll put it on Ravelry too.
About a year ago I saw some cheap acrylic yarn that reminded me a lot of the color of an oak snake, Pantherophis spiloides. The species in general is known as the gray rat snake. I think it's really pretty snake. I did a little research and found that the name White Oak Snake refers to the very light colored ones like I see. These are specifically found in the Florida panhandle. The species doesn't look like that everywhere. But in my woods an oak snake looks so much like a branch out of an oak tree I purposefully never put my foot down on sticks when I'm walking in the woods.
Lion Brand Heartland yarn in color Grand Canyon
OK, hopefully that puts the snake pictures below the fold, so to speak. I moved most of my photos to an external hard drive to make room on my computer so I don't have a photo of an oak snake handy. But I have some videos of them on Vimeo. Here's what an oak snake looks like. This one is puffing himself up to look big.
Oak snakes get pretty long. Wikipedia says the record is seven feet long. I wanted to make my snake as big as that so it could be a scarf or something. I didn't try to do the complicated color pattern. I just used the yarn that's beige and gray.
I started out casting on just a few stitches and knitting them like icord. I gradually increased until I liked the tail. Then I started knitting back and forth in stockinette so the fabric rolls on the sides and makes the snake shape. I started this project for my mindless knitting to take to the beach with me this summer.
Last week Hurricane Hermine came straight at me. After I got all prepared for anything in my yard to become a projectile I went in my house with all the stuff I thought I'd need to finish making this snake, put NASA TV on my iPad to follow along with the spacewalk that was proceeding with no regard to looming hurricanes, and finished my snake. That's why the following photos aren't my usual bright Ott light lab photos. I miraculously got it done before my power went out at 11:45 pm. I decided Hermine is actually a pretty good name for a snake since snake scientists are called herpetologists.
The bulk of Hermine is about five feet of 29 stitches knit back and forth in straight stockinette, knit one side, purl the back. From five feet to seven I decreased down again because oak snakes have a neck kind of section before their distinct head. Then I started knitting in the round to do the head. I used increases, short rows, and decreases to shape the head. I did a kitchener graft to close the front of the head.
Then I cut two pieces of a beige fleece blanket and sewed them together to make an inner head pillow.
Just a piece of a cheap fleece blanket. I think I got it at Walgreens on a work trip.
Cut two pieces of fleece
Whip stitched the edge, nothing fancy, no turning needed as fleece doesn't fray
Insert the eyes about 6 stitches back on the sides of the head.
I used a chopstick to open up a hole. Push the washers on the eyes
After the eyes are in, before stuffing with polyfill.
I inserted two safety eyes through the knitting and the fleece then stuffed the pillow tightly until I couldn't feel the stems of the eyes anymore. I sewed up the back of the pillow and admired my work!
The flexible construction of the snake lets you see the pillow inside the head.
It could be a scarf
The underside is not realistic because it's knit flat and allowed to roll.
It actually reminds me of what you get if you skin a snake.
Here's a full PDF of the pattern you can pop out and download. Email me if you want a Numbers spreadsheet checklist.
Beachton Cotton Cloche with Pointed Purse Stitch Summer Scarf
Another summer hat! This is my favorite indoor hat. I've been wearing a lilac version of this hat all summer. I get aura migraines if bright light shines in my eyes so I like to wear a brimmed hat at all times. This hat is loose yet secure. It keeps my hair out of my face but doesn't give me that feeling of having a ghost hat after I take it off. I can even wear it driving the car with the windows down and it doesn't blow off my head.
Here's the Ravelry entry for this pattern. Buy now for $5. I did a full three part video explaining every step of how to make the hat. If you buy the pattern you get time stamped links in the PDF to go right to the relevant part of the video. I'll also email you a Numbers file if you want to open the pattern on your iPad and use the checkboxes.
I created a 3 part video playlist on my YouTube channel, beachton123.
My mother thinks this hat would be a good chemo cap. I did some rather tragic experiments on my own hair with clippers this summer and I was embarrassed to go grocery shopping without wearing this hat, so my mother is probably right. Here's how it looks on my mannequin without a wig. I recommend the size small for this situation.
Size small on mannequin without wig. Circumference of head is 21 1/2"
I do not know a lot about losing your hair, but I do know a bit about cosplay wigs and fake bangs. I tested the hat with a few bangs I bought on Amazon to see if you can clip the bangs to the hat instead of to your hair (in the event you didn't have any hair.) You can!
Here's the size small hat and some dark and light bangs I tested
This is a wig clip I sewed to my white bangs when the original one broke in shipping. Just slip the end tines of the comb through some purl bumps on the inside of the hat.
If you clip the fringe in upside down like this it still looks cute and you don't have that itchy netting against your scalp.
I got both bangs on Amazon. The black ones are from Weixinbuy, for $2.93. They only come in black and brown. They ship direct from China and take a few weeks to arrive. The white ones are from MapofBeauty for $4.99, also a long wait to come from China. Those ones come in all the party colors, like pink and green and blue. I ordered some they call beige. They exactly match my own hair where I bleached it too much. They arrived after I already took photos.
If the clip breaks in the mail (they come in an unpadded plastic envelope) you can get replacements at Sally Beauty. I sewed one of my extra wig clips onto a knit flower. My cousin reports her first grader will come home with the flower still where she put it that morning. The clip is too hard to operate for the little girl. Apparently this is a desirable situation from the mother's point of view.
Short hair or no hair, nobody knows from behind
White bangs blend in well around the ear
Black bangs right side up held on with friction of the hat
Size small cotton cloche with bangs clipped into the hat upside down
The size medium hat fits best on my mannequin with the wig on it. (22 1/2" with wig) I made the brim a bit bigger too in the size medium. The pattern has notations for where you can add and subtract rows to adjust the size. The top stretches to fit even my 23" mannequin. It's mostly the length you need to adjust for a larger head.
The top part of this hat isn't that hard but the short rows to make the extended front brim are tricky. I could not find complete instructions for working back and forth in short rows in the round. Lots of explanations of what to do on the knit side but nothing about picking up the wraps on the purl side. I figured it out by myself. Then I figured I better make a video since I hadn't found one that describes it to my satisfaction.
I learned short rows from YouTube last year. I watched videos on regular wrap and turn, German short rows and Japanese short rows. (Eunny Jang illustrates 4 kinds of short rows in this video including two ways to do Japanese short rows.) I worked a few patterns with short rows like Purl Soho's Bandana Cowl and figured out how to do it reliably and even taught myself to knit backwards to keep from turning my work. I made those short row intensive pieces with alpaca yarn though. When I'm knitting cotton I turn the work so I can keep my gauge consistently tight.
My pattern is written for my own personal short row technique which is a hybrid of German and Japanese short rows that I totally made up. Instead of working the wrap with the next stitch after turning the work I knit it with the last stitch in the short row. I don't try to bridge the hole between the short row and the next stitch, instead I make the last stitch in the short row a lot tighter by working it the second time together with the yarn it was knit with before. This is a hybrid of how German short rows work with the marker part of Japanese short rows. My video illustrates what I mean in the pattern. The abbreviation I use is j-wrp-t for Japanese wrap and turn, but what it means is work the stitch, slip it back to the left needle, place a marker on the working yarn, then turn the work. It isn't really the same order Eunny Jang does things in her video, and picking up the yarn is totally different. I call the yarn on the marker "the wrap" even though I never wrapped it around anything.
My big breakthrough in short rows has to do with the direction of the right needle. The first problem is how to orient the wrap on the left needle, second is how to enter the two stitches with the right needle. Orient the wrap the same as the next stitch. For my technique the working legs (the side of the loop facing right) are both in the front on the knit side and in the back on the purl side. Knit side is easy. k2tog the usual way. On the purl side you have to get the needle in the real stitch first, then the wrap. This means purling two together through the back, going in the stitch first, then the wrap. Once I worked out that whichever stitch the right needle enters first comes out on top I was home free. Now I can stop knitting, turn and go back the other way and know what to do when I get back there again in any situation!
(If you don't know about wrap and turn in garter stitch where you don't even have to pick up the wraps at all you are missing the best short row experience ever. Try Purl Soho's Garter Ear Flap Hat.)
Here are more photos of the finished hat in size medium.
I start with a Turkish cast on to get that top to be sort of oval.
It's a 10 wedge increase done with lifted increases for maximum scalp coverage.
For details on the nylon trimmer line I used in the hem of the hat refer to the blog entry for the Wind and Sun Hat. It's the same idea, but a little easier to implement because you knit the hem around the hoop instead of inserting it after the hat is all done.
Here are the YouTube links to skip to the relevant parts of the instructions.
ime Stamps for Cotton Cloche
I made up a new hat the summer of 2016. I wanted a shape like a Panama hat with open work on the sides to make it summery. This is what I came up with.
Size Small in Lily Sugar'n Cream Light Blue and Hot Green
I worked on this pattern as a spreadsheet in Numbers. I converted the whole thing to a PDF and uploaded it to Ravelry where you can buy now for $5. If that link doesn't work try going to the pattern on Ravelry directly.
Size Small in Hushabye white and sage
This is the first pattern I've published. I recognize that I'm violating the scientific method by trying every new idea I have all at once instead of testing them one at a time against a control.
Full row-by-row pattern written out as a checklist
Duplicate entire pattern three times for different sizes
Complete test fit patterns for just part of the design in three sizes
Over an hour of video instruction for not only how, but why, I made the hat this way
Links with time stamp to take you straight to the relevant part of the video tutorial embedded in the row-by-row pattern
Precise weight of yarn used in the prototypes
Video includes making mistakes and then fixing them
Regarding yarn
I tested this hat in two kinds of yarn, Lily Sugar'n Cream, which comes in all kinds of colors, and Baby Bee Hushabye, which comes in Angel, Naked, Baby Sage and not a lot else. (I bought up all the Apricot Jam they had when it was discontinued and I'm making a really cute dumbo octopus out of it.) Both of these are machine washable yarns. I have not yet washed one of these hats in the machine with the nylon cable in place.
I weigh my yarn before and after projects with a 3 decimal place electronic scale that is good for up to 500 g. I put this information in the pattern in case you have some partial balls of yarn left and you want to know if it's enough. A partial skein of Lily Sugar'n Cream will do the bottom of the brim but you need MORE THAN A FULL SKEIN for the main color of the hat. (If you have the regular 70g skeins of this yarn.) If you are buying yarn for a two color hat you need to get 3 skeins, 1 skein of contrast color and 2 of main color. 2 skeins is enough if you do it all one color.
In the Hushabye 50/50 cotton/acrylic blend you need one skein of each color. You could do the child size and adult small with one skein all one color. The size large requires almost a whole skein for just the main color so it would not be enough for a one color hat.
I tested the child size with the contrast color of the brim in a different yarn, a black microfiber. This did NOT work well. The top and bottom of the brim really have to be the same kind of yarn or it just doesn't come out exactly even. I also did the lace part of that one with US 10 needles and it just looked sloppy. That's why I went down to US 9 on the white and green hat.
That Fancy Brim
The brim of this hat is held out with nylon weed trimmer line. You can buy a wide variety of colors and sizes at Home Depot and in the Garden Center at Walmart. The orange color from Walmart has a strange dusty quality I don't like so I have been using the smoother .095" line from Home Depot. I have yet to find a white version. It's all outrageous colors. It doesn't show through the hat though. If you know somebody with a weed trimmer ask them to give you about two arm lengths of whatever they've got and you'll have more than enough.
The size large hat brim is so heavy the nylon line drooped. I redid that one with a stainless steel cable leftover from a curtain installation. It's the IKEA Dignitet curtain wire and it is outstanding. They give you a lot extra. You could hang your curtains and make several hats with the leftover wire.
I've used aluminum floral wire in hats and that works too. But you have to be careful not to bend it out of shape. This springy stuff is a lot more forgiving.
For the drawstring in the hat I used a shoelace in the white hat. I couldn't match the color of the other ones with a shoelace so I braided some of the yarn to make a drawstring.
My dad gave me a bag full of cord locks because he bought a bunch of them from China for some project. I looked on Amazon and found a lot of different kinds. But if you want just one email me and I'll send you one in the mail. I can throw in some nylon line too if you need it.
I got my clear heat shrink tubing from Parts Express. I did the white hat with the ends of the cable butted together inside a stirring straw and then heat shrink over it. Since I finished my last hat I discovered Capri Sun straws at the family beach week. Capri Sun straws fit snuggly over .095"line (which is marked 1.65mm but that's a mistake. 0.095" is 2.413 mm) round trimmer line. The .080" (2mm) is small enough to double it over itself in the 1/8" heat shrink.
Round trimmer line from Walmart and a Capri Sun straw
Round trimmer line from Home Depot, Capri Sun straw, plus heat shrink tubing, no heat applied
I wonder if the heavier line, a Capri Sun straw cut down to 2", and 1/8" heat shrink over that would be even better than the overlapped green line I used in the 100% cotton hat in blue and green.
YouTube
Here are some video links with time stamps for critical parts of the pattern. I can imagine a scenario where somebody prints out the pages for the size they are working or maybe their computer won't open the links from the PDF. I tested that my ipad will open the YouTube links in the PDF from iBooks on my iPad but I confess I only test print the first 3 pages of this. I'm seriously anti-paper.
Part 4
Starts with washing and blocking and goes into reinforcing line and drawstring. Didn't break out time stamps as this is all sort of making it up as you go along.
https://youtu.be/1fujY52G3LM
This lace pattern I used is based on the Lily of the Valley video by Pleasant Seas. I modified it for exactly two vertical repeats so there aren’t any unconnected branches at the top and bottom. Refer to the original if you would like a repeating version of that neat lace pattern.
A Golden Orb Weaver spider set up house right outside my knitting lab. When I saw her there with her two diminutive male companions suspended in mid air, a nearly invisible web of golden threads connecting between a tree and the ground I thought, "Oooo! I wonder if I can knit with that?" So I went inside and got a toilet paper roll and started winding the web onto the roll. I combined several strands together with my fingers when possible, like spinning wool into yarn, but some of what I collected was single strand fibers.
Then I went inside and got my smallest knitting needles, size 1 aluminum ones. I cast on with a single strand. It stuck tight to the needle and I couldn't move it.
I peeled it off and rolled it into a ball and started again with Addi Lace nickel plated brass needles, the slickest needle I own. The smallest I had was a US size 4, 3.5 mm. I got a thick piece of fiber that I'd made from rolling together the middle of the web and I cast on 15 stitches. I knit a few rows on those needles. It worked pretty good. Then I tried some size 2 bamboo needles. Those were nice because they were so light. The silk tried to stick if I tried to push it along the needle with my finger, but if I tugged it along by grabbing the fabric underneath it was possible.
In conclusion, yes, I can knit spider silk. It is amazingly strong and fine and very hard to see. My LED Ott Light was key. Joining the fibers together is a dream. Just hold a new piece side by side with what is coming out of the work and roll it gently between your fingers. I doubled it back and forth on itself sometimes to try to make it big enough to see.
I'm most proud of myself for seeing I'd dropped a stitch and then I was able to pick it up back up through three rows.
Binding off was a disaster. I should have spun up some thicker fiber to do the bind off. I did a decrease bind off with a single strand and it just wadded up on me.
It is very sticky. I stretched the final piece of fabric to 1" x 1.5" on a piece of foam core with pins. When I pulled out the pins it stayed there.
This isn't really useful at all. If I am ever stranded on a desert island I will look for some wild cotton plants to spin together with spider silk to bulk it up before I try to knit myself new clothes.
It does remind me of some yellow kevlar arm protectors I have. I wonder if they made the kevlar yellow on purpose to look like this spider silk?
Back at Easter one of my new-mother cousins asked me if I could make a soft toy rattle. She showed me one somebody gave her. It's the Leka Rattle from IKEA and you get 2 for $2.99. I really can't compete with that in a handmade item. It's a little cat with a face embroidered on both sides. The simple cat shape is sewn with right sides together. Then it is turned and stuffed with polyester filling and a rattle insert. It gave me the idea to buy fabric printed with animals that I could sew back-to-back in a similar way.
This turns out to be harder than it sounds. I showed some of my early prototypes to my aunt who is a retired kindergarten teacher. She suggested I use the big piece of printed fabric and the individual toys together as a learning tool. Make a mat with velcro dots to stick the matching animals in place. Interesting. I kept thinking about that while I waited for rattle inserts and a new sewing machine foot pedal to come in the mail.
Finding 1: A rare earth magnet will hold up a toy by the steel balls in a high quality rattle insert.
I ordered 10 rattle inserts from CRS Crafts to play with them. (They are very good. Much louder than the tiny rattles I got in a pack of 50 for $6 from Amazon. They aren't even worth a link.) When they got here I noticed how heavy they were from the steel balls inside. I tested what happened if I put them next to a magnet. It had incredible holding power. The magnet would stick through several layers of fabric. This made me go looking through my magnet stash. I had a package of 12 small rare earth magnets with a hole in them. Perfect for sewing. It could eliminate the velcro that would ruin the look of the face of the thing.
This is not working
Finally I felt like trying the whole idea. I put it off for a long time because I knew it was going to be hard to precisely cut out and sew those complex shapes when the fabric is printed with the animals practically overlapping. It doesn't give enough extra fabric to work with.
Finally I realized I can just make a rectangle and have parts of animals at the edges. I think I have a mental disability where I am bothered by representational art that is partially obscured in presentation. Apparently normal people don't care even a little bit!
Still thinking of the original rattle idea I carefully cut out, matched, and sewed some lizards face to face, turned them and stuffed them with little rattles. I just don't like the imprecise nature of this process. There's no quality control. I'm not interested in manufacturing this. I don't know how IKEA does that Leka rattle, but I'd be interested to find out. I think if you were decorating with a fabric like this and had some left over you should definitely use any extra fabric for this kind of thing in a one-off project. I'm giving this idea away for free! But be sure the finished item isn't a choking hazard. If it will fit in a toilet paper roll don't give it to an infant. My lizard experiment fails this test.
These are just OK.
But I still wanted to try my idea of putting magnets in a sewn fabric configuration to match the picture. I hit on the idea of ironing the lizards onto freezer paper to just cut them out and leave them unfinished. This turns out to work really well. Far, FAR easier than sewing them and turning them to eliminate the raw edge. I could proceed with the project.
Prepare the quilt sandwich
I cut out a long rectangle of the lizard fabric and sewed the ends together to make a tube. I rolled it around until I found a group of lizards I liked for the front. This made my seam on one side in the back. Then I got a piece of quilt batting and cut it to fit inside the tube so the top and bottom could be sewn in. The sides are just loose inside the tube. I sewed the top together on the sewing machine and turned it right side out.
Finding 2: You can sew a rare earth ring magnet with a nickel and steel needle.
I was originally worried that it would be frustrating to sew a rare earth magnet with a nickel and steel needle. The needle did pop over to the magnet but it was no problem to push it along through the fabric. This is good data.
I sewed the magnets to the BACK of the batting. The batting and fabric between the magnet and the matching lizard reduces the pull force enough to not be frightening or dangerous. Also my idea was that this whole thing could stick to a steel thing like a file cabinet or refrigerator and stay put even while somebody was messing around with the removable parts.
My method was to hold the fabric sandwich flat and lined up first. Then I stuck a needle through the place on the lizard I wanted a magnet and through the batting. Then I pulled the thread all the way through the fabric and moved it out of the way and sewed the magnet only to the batting. I tied the tail of the thread to the working thread on the inside.
Magnet sewn to the BACK of the batting, the side against the seam.
After I got all the magnets sewn on I put two more in the top corners so it would look nice stuck on the refrigerator.
(Note on the magnets I used: I got these from Harbor Freight over a year ago. They're only about 1/4" diameter. They don't have the ones with holes on the website currently. Home Depot has some 3/8" ones that are slightly bigger than this that would work. It might be good to have the extra holding power if you add layers by laminating the cards. But I expect the bigger the magnet the more difficult they will be to sew.)
After all the magnets were sewn inside I turned the raw edges along the bottom into the sandwich and sewed the bottom closed.
Next I prepared all the lizards for matching. I found two sheets of freezer paper ironed on made them nice and stiff. I cut them out after the paper was on. Then I held them over the correct lizard on the finished mat with a zinc coated washer between a third piece of freezer paper and the lizard to line it up right. Then I ironed it together.
This is probably not really durable but it worked for the experiment. I tried packing tape first but ironing freezer paper was easier. This is just a proof of concept, for a real working version safe for children the small lizard cards would need to be laminated. The minimum safe size for coins for infants is 1 3/4" diameter. So don't do this if you have a baby that can get hold of any of these parts.
Freezer paper ironed onto fabric helps raw edges not fray
I could have stopped there but I was unsure if the magnets would stay lined up under the right lizard. I decided to sew around all the lizards that had magnets sewn behind them. This is the first time I've ever done machine quilting. I used a long stitch length and pulled the thread to the back and knotted it wherever I started and stopped.
Finding 3: You can machine sew a fabric sandwich with magnets inside on an enameled steel sewing machine.
I was curious if the magnets would make it stick to the sewing machine so hard it would be impossible to guide the project. It took a little extra tugging to get it to feed properly. But with my new electronic foot pedal with an actual slow speed it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Also the little outline around the lizards that are part of the game is a helpful clue that there are a few whole lizards out of bounds. (I didn't have enough magnets to do all the repeats.)
Here it is on my storage cabinet (neé refrigerator) in my lab
Match the lizards!
I've only had one chance to user test this invention. My mother stopped by. I pulled off all the lizards and asked her to put them back. After she left I found she'd put two in the wrong place. I'm not sure if this means it is an actual challenge or if it is just not that interesting. More user testing is required.
My questions about sewing with magnets have been answered though. I'm going back to knitting. Perhaps my experience will serve as a starting point for somebody to make something better. For a decoration for grown-up geeks with the right fabric this could be a good little project. For something for kids it needs a lot of changes. I like the matte fabric finish of it the way it is now.
