since this was my first madrona experience i decided to ease into it slowly by only taking one afternoon class. i also decided to allow myself only a couple of hours to cruise the merchant mall - i already have enough yarn that will far exceed my life expectancy!!
my class of choice was 'entrelac basics' taught by gwen bortner. entrelac is a knitting technique that involves knitting rectangles at angles facing right and left - instead of knitting a large number of stitches, you work on a small number stitches (usually starting with 6 and using short-rows work down to 1).
to learn the technique, we knit this:
tada! a can cozy!
the perfect project - it satisfies both the process and product personality that dwells in each and everyone of us! the perfect way to learn the process of this knitting technique and the perfect usable end product - who can't use a can cozy?! i mean really - win, win, win!
i was so excited to master this technique that i came home and immediately knit two more of these to reinforce the skill!
there was a little more to these covers than just knitting - once completed, they needed to be felted and since they were relatively small, it meant hand felting which was a new experience for me! that turned out to be a pretty simple process that involved about 30 minutes of manually malling the wet yarn until it had felted to the desired size.
the yarn i used in the black and white cozies is paton's wool - the one on the right i knit on size 8 needles, the center one i knit on size 7 needles. as you can see, the middle one is about an inch shorter and not quite as heavily felted as the one on the right. the cozy on the left is knit with brown sheep lamb's pride yarn on size 7 needles. i didn't felt it as heavily as the one on the right so there is more stitch definition which is pretty much non-existent on the far right cozy.
not being able to leave this new found skill alone, i created these fingerless mitts.
they were a quick project - well, i guess that is a relative term without perimeters and for me, i guess that would be a day or two or 6 to 8 hours!
the yarn is blue moon fiber arts socks that rock lightweight in my all-time favorite color 'pond scum' combined with a nice variegated number whose name eludes me at this moment - truth be told, the skein band disappeared long ago!
i made pattern notes as i knit these and as soon as i find them i'll post the pattern.
this technique is a good thing and i'll be giving it a go, again soon!
oh, yeah, btw, i did do some damage in the merchant mall area!!
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