cosmicpluto knits!

whoa, an FO!

Hey! I finished one of my crochet projects!

I’ve had a sad, naked couch cushion for ages (well, not that naked – I put a bed pillowcase on it) and it was finally time to do something about it. I really love how this turned out, and I’ve always wanted to make more housewaresy stuff with my vast collection of yarn.

The front is a Wool-eater square, while the back is a granny square.

Let me tell you, the granny square side was WAY faster than the Wool-eater side – all those extra loops in the Wool-eater really slow me down. The yarn is all Cascade 220, 2 skeins of the teal and little scrap half-or-third skeins of the yellows.

I single crocheted the two sides together along three of the sides, holding the two pieces wrong sides together. For the last side, the opening, I single crocheted along the front and back separately, and added some chains to close it up.

Super fun!

rip and re-crochet

Along with my Wool-eater obsession, I also started another crochet project – a ripple blanket. I’d bought a bunch of Cascade Eco Wool awhile ago with the plan of making a knitted blanket, but once the crochet took hold it only seemed natural to crochet it instead!

I started with a 5mm hook and a single strand.

That didn’t really seem right though, so I ripped it all out (after finishing a whole huge ball of Eco wool!) and started again, this time with two strands of yarn and a 6.5mm hook.

It’s going to take even more yarn than I’d bought, but that’s ok! It’s really nice and thick, and goes really quickly with the big hook. The only downside is that I can’t do as long in a sitting as with smaller yarn – the motions are pretty taxing on my wrist.

I also finally, finally got back to my spinning wheel after ages away from it!

I had this BRIGHT teal merino half spun up already, so it didn’t take too long to finish it up. It’s 420 yards of fingering weight 2-ply, and very soft.

After that, I needed something quick from the wheel, so I grabbed a lone bump of Pear Tree Merino roving and spun that up really quick-and-dirty style. It’s very inconsistent, but really soft and fluffy. I love spinning long draw!

This one is 216 yards of 2ply worsted(ish) weight. Not sure what I’ll do with it, but for now I’ll just take the relaxation of sitting at the spinning wheel with something good on the tv.

friday things

Finally measured my giant wool-eater against the cushion – why is this cover taking so long?! Because it’s an 18″ pillow, that’s why. Hrmph.

I can really only do 1 tier at a sitting now, because my wrist doesn’t love crochet.

But for some more instant gratification, I started a yellow granny square for the back of the pillow.

Ahh, that’s better! The Wool-eater has an extra wrap on each stitch (double yo) and lots of extra twists and turns, so this double crochet granny square feels a lot quicker.

Alas, I must put down the crochet and work on my deadline knitting project.

It’s a sweet lace piece for my upcoming collection, in Malabrigo sock. We’ve got a date picked for the photoshoot, a photographer, a stylist, a model and a makeup artist – exciting!

wednesday things

There’s so much I want to share with you all, but there’s lots still under wraps for the time being! I’m working hard on new patterns though.

In the meanwhile…more Wool-eater? Are you sick of this yet?

I laid out the squares I had completed, just to get a sense of how many I will need total for a full-size blanket.

The answer is…a lot. Maybe 3 times as many as I have? Each square is 7.25″ right now, and I’ll be adding another border round to each to tie it all together. Crazy colours, right? I also whipped up a BIG wool-eater square, out of some teal Cascade 220, for the front of a cushion cover.

It’s 12″ wide. I need to figure out how I’m going to do the rest of the cover – I’m thinking maybe just some nice grey wool in a plainer stitch for the back.

In case you missed it, the link to the pattern! Wool-eater.

I also finished up a pair of nice bright green socks – the yarn is Socks that Rock, but I appear to have misplaced the label when I tossed this ball into my sock yarn bin.

2.25 mm needles, 64 sts, plain and basic. What with all the projects I have on the needles that I have to think about, it’s really lovely to have a pair of plain socks on the go as well, for a break!

on the needles

What’s on my needles? Lots, but not a lot I can share with you!

Squishy garter stitch in Colinette Jitterbug.

A random scrap endeavour – i-cord knit with the very last bits of sock yarns, held double and Russian joined together for no ends. Maybe one day I can make a rug out of this.

Just off the needles, a super plain cardigan knit out of superwash merino I’ve had in the stash forever. Still needs the ends woven in and a zipper. I promise I’ll grab some FO shots when it’s done! It was quite nice just knitting something that didn’t require a lot of thinking.

more wool-eater

My pace is slowing down a bit after my initial excitement, mostly because I remembered that crochet is harder on my hands and wrists than knitting is! I’ll have to take it easy.

I’m using a lot of scrappy bits of yarn for my blocks, mostly Koigu KPPPM with some Socks that Rock and random one-off leftover balls in my stash. I did discover that I have enough Koigu semi-solids to knit a striped sweater, so I’m considering not using those in the blanket! Currently my plan is to crochet around each block with cream before joining them together – although I only have 10 blocks so far, so we’ll see what happens.

My most favourite square, so far: