FO stands for Finished Object. Since I started blogging, I’ve been posting WIP Wednesdays and posting individual posts for finished objects when I finish one. Many craft bloggers write FO Friday posts, so readers know when to expect posts for finished objects. The FO Friday posts I’ve seen aren’t usually as detailed as the posts I’ve written for my finished objects and they almost always include multiple items.
I have so many blog posts planned that I thought I’d go with FO Friday posts for a while. I’m going to include multiple projects in a single post, but include many of the details that I’ve included in individual post. The “About the Project” section will be shorter. If I have a pattern I want to discuss in greater detail, I’ll write a separate post about it rather than including it in the FO Friday post. I’d like to hear your thoughts on FO Friday posts versus a post per project. Which format do you prefer?
Knitty published the Clapotis pattern in 2004. It seems like everyone’s knit it — Ravelry has more than 22,000 project pages for this pattern. I’ve had it on my list of things to knit forever, but never gotten around to it. It’s not a difficult pattern to knit, but as many have noted the middle section seems to go on and on and on. The pattern has three sections: increase section, knit straight, decrease section. The “Knit Straight” section is a 12 row repeat and you are supposed to knit it 13 times. I only knit it 8 times. I tried to knit it 9 times, but ran out of yarn before finishing the decrease section and bind off. In order to knit the entire 13 repeats the pattern prescribes, I would have needed at least one more ball of yarn. The yarn I used is discontinued and the company is out of business. No one on Ravelry had the same yarn in their stash, so I couldn’t try to trade or buy another skein. I didn’t want to rip out the entire project, and it looked like it would be big enough, so I forged ahead. I ripped out the entire completed decrease section (more than 3/4 done) and the 9th straight section repeat so that I could reknit the decrease section and bind off.
Super Secret Shawl
Official Stats
Date Started: April 7, 2015
Date Finished: June 1, 2015
Pattern: Self-designed
Yarn: 880 yards Knit Picks Gloss Lace in Winter Night
This is my first attempt at designing anything. It’s straightforward — a single stitch pattern and a rectangular shawl. My single biggest snafu was estimating yardage. I measured and weighed the swatch to calculate the yardage I used to knit it. I used that information to calculate final dimensions and yardage for the shawl. These calculations were off by a significant margin. I probably needed another skein of yarn to get the dimensions I wanted. I cannibalized my swatch to get a couple extra inches. I will be doing some research on yardage calculation and trying again!
I didn’t write a post about finishing this scarf, though it’s appeared in several WIP Wednesday posts (January 22, February 4, March 25). I had to finish it so that I could weave the Dr. Who scarf on my rigid heddle loom! Since this is the fourth Houndstooth Scarf I finished (see the posts on Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw Houndstooth scarves), I felt like I didn’t necessarily learn anything new on this project. I did apply the lessons learned on the prior Houndstooth scarves, so the Slytherin is the most consistent of the four.
This is another project that I’ve been working on for a while and which has appeared in a couple of WIP Wednesday posts (February 4, February 18). As of February 18, I’d finished plying and had wound most of the yarn onto a niddy noddy. It then sat around, still on the niddy noddy, awaiting washing.
I whipped out a new cat bed to line the bookshelf where Pepper likes to sleep. Although she wasn’t very co-operative re: posing for the picture, she loves the bed. It’s now her favorite sleeping spot.
Semi-finished Projects
These projects are “semi-finished” because I’m making multiple dishcloths from the same patterns, as part of my ongoing Dishcloth Advent Calendar (details in my 2015 Plans post) project. I’ve finished at least one individual item, but am still working on making more. I need to make 18 dishcloths in each pattern, and will write blog posts with all the project details when I finish all 18.
Heart Illusion Dishcloths
I finished 9 of these in May.
Bias Knit, Crochet Cotton Dishcloth
I only finished one of these. Even with two strands held together, it took about 3 hours to knit one of these, and I didn’t even make it as big as the pattern suggests. It’ll take me a while to make all 18 of these, but I do like them.
Activities
I participated in three demos with the Weavers of Orlando. I’ve written blog posts about two of those: St. Johns River Festival of the Arts and Arts at Audubon Elementary. The third demo was just this past Friday, and I’m working on writing a post about it!
I also traveled to New England to attend my cousin’s college graduation. While there, I visited 12 yarn shops, including WEBS! I bought yarn in all the shops, and will be writing multiple blog posts about the experience. I needed to take pix of all the new stash for the posts and to update my Rav stash. I’ve been working on it and I’m just about finished. I will be posting about these shops throughout the month of June; I plan to get all the posts up no later than June 25 since several of the shops I visited are part of the 2015 I-91 Shop Hop which starts that day.
Today’s prompt is to share the contents of our knitting bag, crafting caddy, or other tool organization system with you. I don’t usually use a knitting bag and I don’t have a bag dedicated to that purpose. I keep each WIP in its own gallon-sized Ziploc bag which contains the yarn, needles, pattern, embellishments (like beads) or unusual tools needed for the project. When I will be crafting out of the house, I might just grab one of the WIP Ziplocs and toss it in my purse. If I will be working on multiple projects or the project is large, I’ll put everything into an appropriately sized bag to make it easier to carry. While I have a pretty impressive stash of yarn and fiber, I don’t have an extensive tool collection. I like my tools streamlined and multifunctional. It’s fun to dig through my stash, looking for just the right fiber. Once I find it, I want to get to work with as little fuss as possible!
I’m writing this post a few days after the St. Johns River Festival of the Arts (see my blog post about that), when I spent two entire days in the Weavers of Orlando booth, doing demos. On Saturday, I mostly spun and on Sunday I mostly wove. I also brought a knitting project with me. This is the most stuff I ever carry at a time, so I figured I would take pictures of everything in the bag. It’ll give you a good sense of the scope of my tools.
My Knit Kit
I love my Knit Kit. It’s the one thing I carry with me wherever I’m crafting. It fits in my purse and it’s got all the everyday tools I might need in a pinch. I had a Knit Kit, but left it at my sister’s when I was helping her move, so I just bought a new one at Distaff Day in January.
It’s got a row counter, double-ended crochet hook, tape measure, and blade built into it. The cover on the bag is a needle / hook sizer. The interior compartment holds a pair of folding scissors, stitch markers, and tip protectors. I never use tip protectors and don’t like the rubber stitch markers, so I removed them and stocked the back with my own preferred tools:
Two tapestry needles, a sewing needling, a key for KnitPicks interchangeable needles, lobster claw clasps, gourd safety pins, and jump rings with interior dimensions of 3mm, 5 mm, 8 mm, and 10 mm.
I use the jump rings as stitch markers. I use the lobster claw clasps and the gourd safety pins (available on Amazon (affiliate link)) as row markers.
Spinning Supplies
Of course, I had the Cormo that I’m currently spinning.
I had extra bobbins, just in case I filled the one on the wheel.
I had the two metal posts for my built-in lazy Kate, the ball of yarn I’m using for leaders, and spinning wheel oil. I take the metal posts of the lazy Kate out of the wheel when I’m transporting it so that they don’t damage my car.
Weaving Supplies
I had a pile of warping sticks. I brought some with me to place around the knots as I wound the beginning part of the weaving on the cloth beam. The rest of these came out of the weaving. They’re dirty because they fell out of the weaving on to the pavement or floor as I wove and because the llama yarn that is my current warp is pretty hairy and shedding a lot. Fortunately, they are easy to clean since they are vinyl.
Bobbins with the yarns for the current project and empty ones that I already used.
The balls of yarns for the current project, for when I need to wind more yarn on the bobbins.
The card telling me how many inches of each color to weave, and a pen to cross off when I’ve finished that section. (If you want to weave a Dr. Who scarf, don’t bother trying to copy this down from here. Next week, I’ll have a blog post with a link to the Google spreadsheet that has all the information you need).
Miscellaneous Bag Contents
The Super Secret Shawl in its project bag, in case I wanted to knit rather than spin or weave. I ended up not knitting at all during the weekend.
A finished Summit shawl, knit by a friend. She asked me to block it for her and gave it to me while we were at the Festival.
The apron I was wearing while doing demos on Sunday.
Not in the Bag
I have a few tools that I really like, but didn’t need to carry over this weekend.
My fiber scale. I have a kitchen scale that I use only for cooking, and this scale which I use only for fiber-related purposes. I weigh dye on it. I weigh leftover skeins of yarn to calculate the yardage in a finished object. I weigh loom waste to calculate how much yardage I lost in the waste. I weigh bags of fiber to see how much I have left to spin. I love this scale. It weighs in either grams (down to 0.1 gram) or ounces. It has a tare function so I can put a bowl on top, reset the weight to zero and put larger items in the bowl for easier weighing. It weighs up to 2000 g (about 5 pounds), which is sufficient for my fibery purposes.
My mini scissors. When I travel, I take the foldable scissors out of the Knit Kit and put them in my checked luggage. Technically, I should be able to take them in carry on because they are less than 4″ long, but I hate to take the chance. If I don’t have checked luggage, I leave the foldable scissors at home and toss these mini ones into my carry on. Unfortunately, they are a little too fat to fit in the Knit Kit scissors section, but I love them anyway.
My needle notebook. My entire collection of knitting needles and crochet hooks lives in one zip up binder notebook. The entire collection. If I wanted to, I could carry all my needles with me all the time. I rarely take the notebook with me, though. I just don’t need to have all my needles with me. I probably will bring the binder with me to the TKGA Conference in July, and think it’s awesome that it is so easy for me to do so. I purchased this binder from KnitPicks, back when I first bought my interchangeable needle set in 2005 or 2006. A few of the interior zipper pockets came with the binder, and I bought more pages separately. Unfortunately, KnitPicks discontinued the binder several years ago. I think it’s the best item they’ve ever sold for needle storage and don’t know why they discontinued it!
At some point, one or the other of my cats sharpened their claws on the front 🙁
Each pouch zips shut. This one, in the very front, has the extra keys and cord end caps.
Each size cord has its own pouch. I made the labels; the pouches did not come labeled.
My crochet hooks.
US size 3 and smaller aren’t available as interchangeables and are the only needles I have as fixed circulars.
There’s usually two sizes of needle tips per section. In the mid-range of sizes (US 4-9), I have at least two pairs of tips in each size. I use larger sizes infrequently, so only have one pair of tips per size from US size 10 through US size 17.
I keep a KnitPicks needle sizer in the front pocket of the binder. KnitPicks has two different size needles (2.25 mm and 2.5 mm) marked as US 1s and two sizes (2.75 mm and 3.0 mm) marked as US 2s. I have needles in all 4 sizes, and only KnitPicks branded sizers have slots to differentiate between them.
The binder lives on a bookshelf in my office, tucked in with the fiber library.
Yesterday I finished the socks that I have been working on for the last five weeks or so. These socks are the first pair of my HPKCHC OWL project for this term. In order to meet the OWL deadlines, I have two more pairs of socks to make this month and three pairs to make in November, so I’ve really got to increase my speed on socks!
