Thursday, November 28, 2013

Cocoon Bout-ique

Whew,  it's been another busy couple of weeks.  Right now I'm back in school for apprenticeship classes.  I find I learn better when I have something to do, so I'm getting a fair bit of in-class knitting time.  There is something very satisfying about knitting away in a room full of mechanics.  I get some odd looks.

Being in school often means I'm done for the day much earlier then usual (unless I work after school, then I'm done much much later).  This gives me the time to focus on making my knitting awesome, and getting people to notice.

My knitting can now be found in the heart of Gottingen St. at the Cocoon Bout-ique.  It's an amazing new shop that specializes in punk, rockabilly, pin-up and alternative clothing.  The shop carries a pretty wide variety of clothing, from baby's clothes to plus sized clothes.  You can find all sorts of other little things around the shop as well. They have some amazing shoes, jewelry, hula-hoops, artwork, stickers and greeting cards etc.  It really fills a niche for awesome clothes that has been pretty much left empty since Fashionably Dead closed its doors.

It also happens to be the only place in Halifax that sells roller derby gear.  Which is great because the only other option before was to order them online and have them shipped out.  Being able to check out your gear has huge advantages, especially if you're not quite sure what you need.  I probably spent a half an hour or so checking out the different helmets making sure I got the right size. 






In other knitting news my second Etsy order came through for a pair of rainbow gloves.  Every new order is really exciting for me. For patterns I am working on writing up a PDF of the Star Trek drink cozy, and I'm also working on some rainbow mittens.  Keep an eye out for both of those!








Friday, November 15, 2013

Star Trek Drink Cozy

I've been watching a lot of Star Trek lately, both the original series and The Next Generation.
I wanted to make a drink cozy designed after the notorious red-shirted crewmen on the original series.  They are well known for being killed and replaced in the show, much like the beer in my fridge.


There is a wonderful pattern on Ravelry designed after the command shirts for TNG.  Unfortunately, this pattern was not quite what I had in mind so I grabbed my needles and set to work on my own design.


The pattern I made is based on the uniforms from the original series. Typically the red shirted crew members are part of the security team and are well known for being the expendable crew members. It is a safe bet that the red shirt will be the one who does not return from away missions.

The first draft turned out very well.  The sizing was just about where I wanted it, fitting a standard bottle. The chart for the star fleet insignia also turned out very well.  In the first draft this was knit in with intarsia style.






My second draft had a few changes. One, I used smaller needles for a tighter knit. This resulted in the whole item being smaller (of course) and made me adjust my gauge to fit the final sizing.  I also changed the red yarn used to better match the classic uniforms.  The main change was that I decided to put the insignia on using a duplicate stitch, rather then knitting it in with the base colour.  This resulted in the insignia looking much cleaner and there are no changes in gauge or holes with the colour changes.

The third and final draft fixed the gauge problem with using smaller needles.  It also helped me design the amount of rows to have for the black edging to the shirt.  I think this one nailed it!









More on Duplicate stitch: http://www.purlbee.com/knitting-tutorials-decorative/2007/10/28/duplicate-                                           stitch.html
                              Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cfmjyaaAdw