Tag: intarsia

Chunky Polka Dots

On By elizabeth kay boothIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
elizabeth kay booth polka dot scarf
Polka Dot Scarf

Not too long ago, I posted a holiday gift guide of sorts. Please allow me to respectfully add one more item of my own design to the list. This scarf, which was claimed by my daughter about 5 minutes after I started working on it, is super fast, even though it involves intarsia, and is the perfect gift for a young girl. My daughter is 9, and it is hard to find patterns for kids that age. Most of the books only take kids’ sizes up through 6 or 7, and even stores seem to skip age 9. Style-wise, kids, especially girls, that age are at a difficult stage. They’re done with the Disney princesses, but not quite ready for all the stuff targeted at teenagers.

My daughter went to a birthday party a few months back and came home with a polka-dotted gift bag. The bag sat around our house staring at me for a few weeks before I finally threw it out. But when our shop got a shipment of Zumie, I had a jolt of inspiration. Polka dots and chunky knit seem to fit the bill for 9 year-old girliness crossed with a move toward growing up. You can have your own fun picking out the colors, as I did, or you can ask your little lady what her favorite colors are.

Aside from my new free pattern, I offer one more little goodie. I have, up until now, been posting all my patterns on Ravelry, as it is the only place I’m able to process transactions on patterns for purchase. Other freebies, such as the Doubles Remix cowl have simply been blog posts. I thought it would be helpful for everyone if all my patterns were in one place. Starting with this new pattern, plus all others, you may now visit the newly created Patterns page. For now, all of my for-sale patterns are on the main page, and the free patterns are separated into the dropdown. As I continue to design and add patterns, I will do my best to keep it easy for you to find what you want. For instance, once I add a few more crochet patterns, there will be another dropdown for those. In the meantime, I hope this new page makes it easier to find things. Enjoy browsing my little portfolio of designs, and I hope, enjoy crafting them! Many thanks to all of you who read my blog, make my designs, and support me as a designer! Please share your photos of finished objects on Ravelry with me, because I would love to see!

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Ding, Dong the Witch Is Dead…Errr, the Train Is Done!

On By elizabeth kay boothIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

There is a deceptive project I have been working on since before Christmas. I started around December 15 with the intention of giving it to my son for Christmas. It is the train from the Knitpicks Land and Sea Play Set (no longer available, but look on Ravelry for photos!). My son loves trains, and there is a very cute train as part of the set. I was smart enough to realize I didn’t have a chance of finishing the entire set for the holidays, but I was hoping to give him the train for Christmas and the rest of the toys throughout the year. Ha! Valentine’s Day came and went, and I might have had the engine partway done. Easter came, and I was working on the windows. After disciplining myself to work on it EVERY DAY from the start of May until his birthday on the 31, I have finally managed to finish it!

This was not a particularly fun project, but sometimes, when you learn as much as I did, it is worth suffering through. I have red marks all over my stomach from stabbing myself with the teeny, tiny metal DPNs, but I now know how to do intarsia and I-cord, not to mention the very valuable lesson of not being deceived by a project that has a small result. There must be as many stitches in the train as in a small shrug! Anyway, I would just like to share with other knitters who, like myself, are still learning: first off, when working with size 1 or 2 DPNs, buy wood ones, not metal. The metal stabs you if you hold the knitting too close to your body plus it’s hard on your hands when you’re knitting. Second, don’t let intarsia scare you! It really is not nearly as hard as people make it sound. To be honest, it’s just more fiddly because the yarns get a little twisted after you knit a few rows. But as long as you are always bringing the new color yarn from underneath, you are doing intarsia! I-cord is also not difficult so don’t let anyone scare you off.

And if you were wondering, my son does love it. The look on his face when he opened his present was worth it, and it didn’t seem to bother him at all that it came on his birthday instead of Christmas. Now I just need to get some wood DPNs and finish the other 3 toys in the set!