Down the Clay Button Rabbit Hole

You may remember that when I finished my Adult Surprise Jacket I was a little stuck for buttons.

Don't worry if you don't remember it was several months ago.

Anyway. I worked the button holes recommended in the pattern, which are over three or four stitches. At a gauge of 3.5 stitches to the inch they are some big button holes, which means I needed big buttons.

Also, it's such a colorful sweater I knew they'd have to be either really boring buttons to not compete or really fancy buttons to hold their own.

At the time the women in the library knitting group suggested I get some Fimo clay and make my own buttons.

Of course at the time I laughed because I don't do those kinds of crafts. But the idea got into my head and I mulled it over on a regular basis.

Mulling led to watching many videos on YouTube which led to me believing that I could make buttons if I put my mind to it.

By the time I came to that conclusion it was after Michael's had a sale on clay. Not only did I miss the sale but their supplies were pretty devastated.

It wasn't really a problem in the end since I just wanted the primary colors along with black and white. I wasn't looking to make a big investment. After all, I just needed 5 buttons and didn't know if I would be successful or enjoy it.

As a result, instead of buying actual Fimo brand clay I bought the off-brand for $1.29 a block. It seemed to work fine, but since this is the first time I've ever used such a clay I can't really compare.

Plotting
Before plunging in I wisely took the time to consider how I wanted the buttons to look.

This led to perusing Flickr for "fimo buttons" to see what other people had done. There are a lot of pretty buttons out there!

Because of the size of my buttonholes I decided my buttons would have to be around 1" across. I also thought square buttons would be good to echo the angular stripes in the jacket.

I knew wanted some of those classic stripey buttons you see. They seemed attainable because a YouTube video from TheCraftsChannel made them look really easy.

I liked the flowers as well, but they looked harder and I didn't think I felt that ambitious.

Since a template was in order I drew several 1" x 1" squares on a piece of paper and doodled some ideas. Then I finally plunged in.

Stripes!
The first cane I made was the black/white and purple ones. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I cut a few slices off and it actually looked like it was supposed to!

All excited I showed it to Hubby. "Is that how it's supposed to look?" he asked. I confirmed it was. He said he was proud of me.

He's so supportive.

After making that first cane it was time for dinner and I wasn't able to return to the buttons for a week. It was very annoying.

But then last Saturday I woke up at 3 A.M. and couldn't fall back to sleep. In my sleep deprived state I thought it would be a good time to work on the buttons.

I made the green/yellow and blue cane. Then I made the red/purple swirl. The goal was to use as many of the colors from the jacket in the buttons as I could.

I found that it was easier than I expected, but also took longer.

I didn't invest in tools at all, just used what I had around the house, but I could see how the supplies available at the craft store would have been helpful.

For instance, the stuff I bought is labeled "non-toxic" but I didn't want it on food prep equipment. Therefore, although I was using my normal rolling pin, I was putting the clay between sheets of cling wrap.

Also, I was using a box cutter and a razor blade to do the cutting. The box cutter was fine for trimming, but the striped blocks were often longer than the razor blade forcing me to make two cuts. The people in the videos had long blades that allowed them to slice down on a block in one smooth motion.

Flowers!
Eventually, I started to get sleepy again, but I was on a roll and didn't want to have to clean up and then haul everything out again.

Perhaps because I was sleep deprived I decided to give flowers a whirl. Once again, they were easier than I anticipated.

I'm pleased with them because they are my first attempt, however I learned some things right away.

I should have made the red part of the petals thicker.

I also should have made the notch in the white part of the petal and the purple stripe that filled it deeper.

I am, however, very pleased with my black/yellow center swirl.

Oh, there's another thing, I kept making things scaled down because I didn't want to them to be huge or use up all my clay. Well, bigger is sort of better. I think you could get the details, like the purple stripe in my petals, better if you make them bigger. Then you just roll it down to the size you want. Of course that means more buttons but you don't have to bake them all at once.

A problem I had was consistency in thickness when I rolled the slabs out and when I cut slices. I think you can tell the thick/thin issue in a few of the buttons. Both problems probably stemmed from inexperience.

Buttons!
Once I finished making the four motifs I packed them together with blue clay, rolled them to smooth things out, then wrapped them.

And immediately realized I should have used a different color core for the green/yellow cane or packed it with a different color. Oh, well, too late by then.

Oh, and another reason bigger would have been better is for size consistence. First I tried to roll the other canes down to the size of the red/purple swirl. Then everything got reduced again once I was shaping the final square button.

Finally the moment of truth came. I sliced up my buttons...and was disappointed.

They were smaller than I wanted and you couldn't see the motifs well.

Since I'd already invested all that time and clay in them I had nothing to loose.

I laid them all between two pieces of cellophane and took the rolling pin to them.

Magically they expanded and the designs were more visible. Huzzah!

After working so hard on the individual motifs I decided I didn't want them obscured by holes and yarn. I rolled up some scraps, sliced it up, and made shanks for the square buttons and the two big flower buttons that were test slices. I made holes in the other test slices since they have blank spots that won't suffer from being obscured.

The square buttons look good on the jacket, if I do say so myself. They aren't all 1". I took the biggest ones for the jacket, but I'm still going to have to sew some of the button holes shut a little. I suppose that is better than having to make them bigger. And I'm totally going to put a smaller one on each pocket...once I knit pockets.

More to come?
I didn't use up all of the canes to make the square buttons. I also didn't use up all the clay in general. I've wrapped it all carefully in cellophane and a Ziplock bag to keep it from drying out.

I think I have enough buttons for now, but I'm prepared if I get the bug again.

You will not be surprised to hear that I'm trying to figure out ways to put buttons on everything now.

I'm going to make another hot water bottle cover (oh, I never told you about the first one) and I'm going to put buttons on it.

And I'm trying to figure out how to work buttons into the next Schleppy Sweater I knit.

Seriously, I created a (controllable) monster.

Bias-V Progress

It took me a few days to recover from the chaos of the stripes colliding with the shaping.

I resorted to building a massive chart of the entire sweater in Excel to see how it would all work together.

Yes, that took an hour or two.

Why the entire sweater? Because I thought it would be easier to have the stripes progress up the chart and seeing where the colors end up rather than trying to start at the armholes and having to determine the color placement from the sweater.

The chart turned out to be a good idea not only for the stripes but also for the neck shaping.

Despite having reworked the numbers for the v-neck shaping I rebelled against the new figures and was going to go with my original math.

However, when I plotted it on the chart I saw that it did indeed not work. The neck shaping stopped at a point beyond the end of the shoulder shaping. There was a distinct lack of stitches where stitches needed to be for both sets of shaping to happen.

It was a simple matter of flipping the page over to get to the new neck numbers. I plotted them with a red boarder so I could really see the difference. I also had to replot the shoulders since they were based on the top of the v-neck. I was able to cross-reference the revised chart rows with the number of rows I had predicted for the armholes in my original round of number crunching.

I'm pretty sure everything is happy now, but the real test will be when the sweater is done.

The result of plotting the stripes was that I decided to maintain the charcoal grey on left shoulder even though it's only going to be three stitches. I like having the colors continue.

I was also able to see that the dark blue was not going to jump across the gap and eat the black/white yarn until all the way up at the shoulder.

What I did was box out the shape of the sweater, then copy paste the colors up to the neck shaping.

Then when I got to the neck shaping I used a lighter version of all the colors to plot them across empty space. This allowed me to follow their natural progression. Also, it gave me a chart of the back of the sweater.

After all that work I realized there was something I could have done to make my charting life easier.

I made the chart by copying each individual color two rows at a time, moving my cursor up and over, and pasting.

The next day, after I was all done, I realized I could have copied the two rows all the way across the sweater. The relation of the colors to each other would have been maintained just as well.

sigh.

Pockets?

I want to put pockets on my Adult Surprise Jacket.

In the pattern EZ says not to try to position them in advance.

She suggests putting on the finished jacket, noting where your hands naturally want to go, and placing the pocket in that location.

Now that I finally have buttons (a whole other saga. Oh there have been things to blog about, I just haven't been blogging) I can get a better idea of how the jacket actually hangs.

I put it on, buttoned it up, and pretended to put my iPhone in my non-existent pocket.

Then I froze and attached stitch markers to either side.

I spent the next hour walking around trying to spontaneously put things in my pretend pockets.

I'm not sure how much I actually managed to surprise myself, but the positioning seemed to work.

Now I have to take some measurements to make sure they match in distance from the front opening and bottom hem. I might also make them just a twinge wider.

Cutting?!
I'm a little worried about the idea of cutting the sweater to make the pockets.

Pam asked why I'm going to cut if I'm scared of the idea.

I pointed out that if I don't cut I'll have to do patch pockets. Now I suppose patch pockets would work for some people. But in my matchy-matchy world they won't work.

I'm out of most of the yarns I used to knit the sweater so I can't reproduce the stripes.

And, let's be serious, the jacket is eye-catching enough as it is without patch pockets adding to the visual interest.

Return of the Bias Striped V-Neck Shell

I recently finished a cabled hat for Hubby. I designed it, so it was no small feat. There was a lot of reworking involved. I'll tell you all the gory details in a future post, hopefully after I have the pattern written up.

I bring the hat up because it was one of those projects that left me...unsettled?...feeling at a loose end?...those phrases are a little too negative for what I'm trying to describe. I can't think of the right word at the moment, but I'm sure you felt it too.

I finished the hat and had to cleanse my knitting palate. I had to take time and savor the accomplishment of finishing the hat. I wanted to knit, but nothing I had in progress seemed appealing. What I really wanted to do was cast on for something new with some of my Rhinebeck yarn, but that would have been irresponsible.

Since I wanted my hands to be moving, but didn't want anything taxing, I fished out the Bias Striped V-Neck Shell.

Yeah, Stockinette
This is a little top I'm designing fro myself using yarn leftover from the striped sweater I made Hubby last year. I was very excited when I started it, but hit a major wall after I took that design class with Shirley Paden in July and she declared that my v-neck shaping numbers wouldn't work. Oh, and moving didn't help the situation either.

Anyway. I hauled it out and discovered that I had reworked the neck shaping numbers at some point. Also, I could still understand the pattern I'd written for myself, which was very exciting. After a quick measure to check the length I was able to jump right back into knitting it.

Boo, Fancy Stripes
However things got ugly pretty quickly.

As you can see the stripes march across the sweater to the left. On each right side row I work one more stitch in the color to the right maintaining the stitch count. So, to clarify, each color has 13 stitches (although one has 15 because the math didn't work). The light green eats the dark blue which eats the black/white and on across the sweater. As the color drops off the left I attach it to the right and continue the pattern.

This was working out very nicely, expect I didn't plan for how the armhole and neck shaping would affect the pattern. Actually I probably figured I deal with it when I got there.

Well, I'm there and I'm stuck.

As you can see in the picture the stripes already when squirrley because of the armholes. This is actually attempt number two. For my first attempt I continued the grey on the right but it ended up with only like three or four stitches between casting off the armholes and having to add in the tan/white when it dropped off the left.

(Also my pattern said to decrease two stitches each side but I bound them off and didn't end up liking how that looked. Frogging was necessitated by the double whammy of ugly shaping and bad stripes.)

On this second attempt I abandonded the grey when it was down to two stitches. It's alittle abrut, but I tell myself it's OK becuase it's under my arm. No one should be close enough to notice.

Now my problem is the chaos the neck shaping is causing. Between the neck shaping and the slide of the colors the black/white yarn in the center is rapidly disappearing. The dark blue already ate one side. Technically on the next right side row I work the dark blue is going to jump the gap. At this rate the black/white is going to get cut off in the middle of the row!

Since I'm using leftover yarn I made a lot of decisions based on conservation. I thought I'd be clever and start with the front so that if I ran out of colors it would be on the back and maybe less noticible. The v-neck was also an attempt to save yarn (less territory to cover). My ability to make sleeves will be dictated by how much yarn is left after the body is done.

I'm debating not letting the dark blue jump the gap yet. Give the black/white a chance to get ahead. But I don't know if that will distort the stripes. After all, the dark blue is being encroched upon by the green as well as the neck shaping.

Now I wish I had knit the back first so I would have complete stripes to refrence. I would have been able to plot the flow of the colors on the front against the colors on the back and decide how to work the slide.

Lightbulb!
Seriously. As I was just sitting here typing this post it occured to me to work up a chart with the colors. Brilliant! It won't be easy because of the shift, but I can color it all in then slice out the neck.

Excellent. This should fix the problem and is easier than knitting and ripping.

I know what I'll be doing tonight.

2011: The Year of the Sweater

My resolution this year is to be more organized.

Might as well set my sights high!

Part of my new organized lifestyle will be blogging regularly again. One could say the year is off to a bad start since it's already Jan 3, however I don't usually blog on the weekends so I gave myself a pass.

At the end of last year my grand plan was to blog in the morning as a way to get the creative juices flowing. We all know how well that worked out. Now my plan is to blog after lunch, like I used to. We'll see how that goes.

Enough babble, on to the yarn and knitting content!

Needs Must as the Needles Drive
I own a lot of yarn.

Not as much as some people. My yarn collection doesn't take up an entire room in the house, but it is getting a bit tight in the dining room credenza.

This would not have been an issue when we lived in Connecticut, since that was a three bedroom house with a 1/2 finished basement and a walk up attic. It is an issue here in New Hampshire since we're in a spacious one bedroom apartment.

I've owned some of this yarn for a while now and feel bad that it's being ignored. I also own some very lovely stuff that I'd like to knit already.

In this hoard of mine I have yarn to make several sweaters. These quantities of yarn were generally bought with a project in mind.

Since sweaters take quite a bit of yarn, I figure if I set myself the task of knitting some of these long coveted sweaters I'll make a serious dent in my hoard.

Based on previous sweaters it takes me between one and two months to knit a sweater if I stay focused. If I work through my list it should carry me through the year nicely.

In no order the sweaters I have on tap are:

1. My Celtic Critter Cardigan
2. Hubby's Vertical Box Stitch Sweater
3. Finishing my Bias-V Neck Sweater
   
4. Aunt Kim's Vines and Lace Sweater
5. Brother's Ruben
6. My Cap Sleeve Cabled Sweater
7. My Rainbow Schleppy Sweater
8. My Sherbert Schleppy Sweater
9. Red Top-Down Cardigan from KFI samples
   

Not Sweaters Exclusively
When I like a yarn I won't randomly buy several thousand yarns for a patternless sweater I might make someday, instead I'll try to buy a sock yarn equivalent. The result being that I have quite a hoard of sock yarn in addition to my sweater hoard.

So although I say this is The Year of the Sweater I'll be knitting other things as well. Primarily I have a number of UFO WIPs I have to finish. Some socks, a pair of fingerless mitts, a scarf. It would be nice to finish those things up.

Also, I got a hot water bottle for Christmas. I asked for one so I could knit it a cover. This morning I finally cast on for one.

I know I usually advocate project monogamy, but I'll have to be good about having a project rotation this year if I'm going to accomplish everything I want to.

The important thing to remember in all this is to be relaxed about the situation. Knitting should be fun and should not add stress to my life. I have a goal, and a list, but it's all for guidance. None of it is required.

What goals are you setting yourself?

Rhinebeck 2010: Sweater Yarn

What I should have done was blog about the yarn I bought at Rhinebeck in the days after Rhinebeck. Then I would have benefited from the extra traffic of people looking for news from the festival.

That, however, would have required organization and I had other things on my mind when I got home.

In fact, I didn't even enter the yarn into my Ravelry stash until this weekend.

Since October my haul has been sitting on the dining room table. Hubby straightened up the dining room a few weeks ago and asked if I could please get my yarn of the the table now? His follow up question was if the was room for me to put it away.

I assured him there was, I just hadn't cataloged it yet. Of course when I did go to put it away things got a little dicey, but it all fit.

Fun With A Purpose
I went in with some goals. More to avoid disappointment than to prevent overspending. I figure if I'm going to make impulse purchases I should at least have projects in mind so I could buy an adequate amount of yarn.

A top goal was to correct an oversight from the previous year. Last year I saw a skein of yellow and orange yarn in the Brooks Farm booth that I really liked but didn't buy. I told myself that this year I would go straight there and buy one to make a second cropped poncho.

Well, as you probably guessed, they didn't have any. Nothing even resembling it. Since I still have all those Solo I bought in 2009 for my Celtic Critter Cardigan, I did want to buy more. I started looking for yarn that might make a good sweater for Hubby, but nothing was really catching my eye.

Finally, Mom asked something along the lines of, "Why are you so determined to buy some of this yarn?" And I said, "I don't know." After which we moved on.

However, the orange and yellow theme kept recurring during the show.

I had fallen in love with the Odette sweater from Verena Knitting Magazine and decided it getting yarn for it would be a Rhinebeck goal. It's a hip length, long sleeve pullover, slightly flared at the bottom, with interesting cables at the waist and yolk. We left the Brooks Farm booth and went into the booth that sells Aussie Wool. I'd bought some of their sock yarn last year in a wonderfully eye popping color (which I still haven't knit up).

As soon as we hit the booth we saw the great golden yarn pictured at the top of the post. It was the right gauge, right quantity, and a good price. Sold!

I also saw a skein of black and gold sock yarn, which are the school colors for Hubby's new school. Of course I just had to get it to make him a pair of socks.

Orange and Yellow and Pink!
We made and effort to target the booths up by the 4-H structures this year. We missed most of them last year because we didn't realize they were there.

As we wandered through them I encountered a booth with lovely hand dyed yarn that was super soft. It turned out to be Maple Creek Farm, where I had bought some lovely red/black/white sock yarn in 2009 (which I still haven't knit).

I started out by once again looking for yarn for a Hubby sweater. Plenty of stuff was catching my eye, but nothing that seemed appropriate for him. Then I stubmled across this fabulous color of Fredricksburg which took my yellow and orange obsession a step further by throwing pink in the mix.

Oh my goodness, it is soooo soft and snuggly. Each skein is 660 yards and it's about 5.5 stitchs to the inch. Which makes it a prime candidate for a Schleppy Sweater! So I snatched up two skeins.

Hubby Yarn
My last sweater quantity purchase was for Hubby.

He had requested a vertically striped sweater, which would be sold colors. I knew that if I could find a nice varigated yarn I could get away with knitting a simple sweater and letting the yarn do the work. I was on the prowl for jewel tones because Hubby likes strong colors.

I finally found what I was looking for in the Creatively Dyed Yarn booth. I follow her on Twitter and when I saw her tweeting about attending Rhinebeck I made a note of her booth number so I could be sure to swing by. So in this case her social media efforts paid off!

She had all these cool, cyberpunk colors that were varigated but also had splatters on them. They were enchanting. They were also a little too much for a Hubby sweater without him there to approve. Then I found some solid and semisolids in the corner. The colors were nice, the yarn was soft, and it had a good weight to it so I knew Hubby would like it. I did attempt to select one wild yarn to surround with solid colors, but the booth was crowded so it was hard to really poke around for such an involved project.

I settled on her Woodbrook yarn, which is 100% superwash wool. There was a nice silk/wool blend that I kept picking up based on colors, but I didn't want to mix fibers by having one color wool and the next color a blend.

I got two skeins each of five colors in these lovely jewel tones. Of course by the time I got home I started worrying I should have bought one color heavy. I'm sure it will work out fine. I'll just have to make sure all the colors appear with the same frequency.

Since I ended up liking the yarn, and buying quite a bit of it, I told her I follow her on twitter, which was fun. (Of course, if I'd been disappointed she never would have known I was there!)

Friends
In addition to yarn we saw a few friends. Mainly we kept running into Pam and her friend on a regular basis. This was good because we could scout out different things and suggest places to check out. We also got to each lunch with them one day and breakfast on another. So it was pretty cool.

We saw other people too, but I don't remember now.

If you think this is the only yarn I bought you don't know me very well. You have to realize I bought more sock yarn than that single skein for Hubby. But that is a post for another day.