Knitting Tips: Blocking Longies

You need a zillion pins and a place to pin the longies. I have foam pads I use for blocking, but you can do it on a pillow or even the carpet in an out of the way spot. You need your tape measure.

Wash the wool (and lanolize if needed) - I like to spin mine in the washer for a few to get out the excess moisture, or you can roll them in a towel.

Begin pinning:
Pin the hip both sides right under the waistband - measure and make sure you are placing them correctly.

Pin the hip both sides at top of leg. Check measurements.

Pin the crotch gusset - check rise measurements.
Now, pin the hip seams both sides from waistband to top of legs. Then I pin across the top of the legs from hip seam to crotch gusset. Then I pin under the waistband across the front. Double check hip & rise measurements.

Now pin the ankles hip side & inseam side. Check your inseam measurement and also use the same measurement along the outer seam from where you pinned the top of the leg. Now pin all around the perimeter of the legs.

Allow to dry.

Blocking will also even up your stitches and make your knitting more uniform in general.

After future washings, you will find that generally your blocking holds. You may have a time or two you might want to pin a few key places while it dries, but you generally won't have to do this major pinning again.

Blocking will make small adjustments to measurements, but it will not make major changes.

The Undersea Playscape and Merfolk

I made this a bit ago and I'm really proud of it. It took many, many hours (I tried to keep track and came out with about 25!), but it was a lot of fun. I've had it up for sale on Holiday Lane (the Hyena Cart Holiday Congo) - if it doesn't sell, my youngest daughter, Rylee, will get it for Christmas. She and her sister have a different looking mermaid cove that I made them last year, but she told me they NEED this one so they don't have to share!









And just for the heck of it - here are some pictures of the Mermaid cove I made for my daughters last year:

Some Needlefelted toys

The Whimsical Market is doing a Pink Themed Stocking today, so I made some pink toys. When thinking of ideas, 2 things called out to me - fairies & mermaids. I wanted an inexpensive item and a moderate priced item. I decided on a Flower Fairy and a pink flower for my moderate priced item. I really enjoyed the embroidery on the fairy. The wings took me a little while to figure out, at first I wanted wool felt fabric wings, but that just wasn't working for me. So I finally decided on wool needle felted wings.

The flower ended up a bit larger than I had first envisioned. I was thinking a flower chair at first, but it kinda took on a life of its own (as projects tend to do). The flower center is a nice deep purple (didn't photograph well) and the steam is a rich forest green wool/silk blend.


Then for my inexpensive item - a hot pink mermaid. I took a cotton pipecleaner and wrapped it with white wool for the torso and then bend the legs into fins and wrapped them with hot pink wool. I gave her a hot pink halter top and needle felted it all so it was firm. The hair is needle felted wool too.

The Pinwheel Sweater

A picture of the finished sweater. The way it is shown is how an older child would wear it, with a small collar. For a baby, you would fold up the arms, turn the sweater upside down and the excess material makes a hood. I'm not sure how practical this item is - it has no closures and I see it falling off easily, especially as a baby would wear it. But it sure does look cute and was a lot of fun to knit.

Beginnings

Sheeple that I am, I've decided I need to start a blog. So, this is the start.

Every blog needs a purpose, so the purpose of this blog is a place for me to ramble on about my latest crafty project. I will try to be entertaining, but I make no real promises.

Yesterday I finished a commissioned knit project. I made the Pinwheel Sweater in a beautiful wool yarn (BFL) gradient dyed in rainbow colors. Its a neat object - a sweater designed to fit from babyhood till the preschool years. It was not a hard pattern to knit and it went fairly quickly. I did a crochet edging instead of the I-cord edging the pattern called for. Unfortunately, I had to redo the edging several times because the first few tries I ran out of yarn. By the time I finished it, I was VERY glad to see it done. Right now it is all pinned up for blocking - when it dries I'll take a few pictures.

My current project is a pink needle felted flower. I plan on making a bendy flower fairy to go with it.

Coming up ASAP is a hat and longies set. I think I'll do the hat first to play with the designs and colors and then do the longies after. The customer chose some pretty colors - black, pale yellow, wine and raspberry (a pinkish red). I want the design to include some hearts and flowers. I'm hoping to cast on for the hat within the next 24 hours.