Quick Knit Simple Pocket Doll

 Many years ago I had the blessing of knitting a few pocket dolls for a charity near home in Vermont.   Recently I met a darling little boy who was nearing his first birthday. I wanted to make him something and the pocket doll came to mind.

The actual pattern can be found on Knitting4Peace.org.

This is the one I made: (you cannot see this really but the hair is gray in case he was missing his grandpa...)

In general these are the instructions:

Cast on 32 stitches on US 4 double pointed needles.

Knit 4 rounds in shoe color.

Change to pants color and knit 12 rounds.

Change to belt color and knit 1 round.

Change to shirt color and knit 12 rounds.

Change to face color and knit 10 rounds.

Change to hair color and knit 4 rounds  then start the decrease rounds starting with K4, K2tog around.

Every other round at this point is plain knitting then K3, K2tog; K2, K2tog, K1;  K2tog. 

The final round is a plain knitting round and you will have 12 stitches.

Now comes the part where you should go look at the real pattern for the finishing work!

The yarn I used for this doll was worsted weight cotton yarn since it needed to be able to be thrown into the washing machine regularly.

The doll, including finding the yarn, and all finishing work took about 2 hours.  No.  Less than two hours.  My plan is to make a few more and send them to Knitting4Peace as a thank you for the pattern.

Have fun with this.  K4P has many other patterns as well...something for everyone who wants to contribute

Knitting for the Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild

While in Portland the kind people at the Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild allowed me to come to one of their meetings when they had Cheryl Brunette, one of my knitting heroes, come to speak. I LOVED listening to Cheryl in person and so enjoyed meeting her and speaking with her personally.  She is such a fabulous woman and a knitting mentor to thousands.

When we were at the meeting one of the people did a show and tell about a neckerchief she had made for the Fort re-enactors.  She invited us at the meeting to make and contribute more of them.  I took the pattern fully intending to make one of them. Immediately I went to several local yarn outlets (you might know I would find some wherever I am...) but they did not have the required yarn.

When I emailed the nice lady at the FVKG and told her I was not going to come through for them after all since I could not find the yarn, she kindly sent me some!  So I started the neckerchief right away.  As you will have noticed, over the last two years I have done a LOT of knitting, but only in fits and starts, and the Knitting Guild project got put away as things became more and more busy in life.

Well, yesterday I was a day I needed to do some sitting so I pulled out the bag with the neckerchief in it.  I did not like the way it looked so I tore it out and started again.  This is what it looks like as of this writing:

The brown is the border and the yellow will be close to the neck.  It is all garter stitch and quite easy to do.  You will notice this semi-nice eyelet border.  That took me a bit to get right but only because my head was in some other place, but when I restarted from scratch, something clicked and it is going together well.  There are about 30 stitches in the yellow section. The brown section stays 20 stitches the whole distance. There needs to be 80 stitches in the yellow section so you can see I have a while to go.

Anyone who wants to knit this themselves can go to Knitty.com and find the pattern.  Here is the link.

Yes, that think that looks like a frayed rag quilt on the floor really is a frayed quilt that I made years ago and used to pad some of our more fragile items in the move.  I am using for a rug under my knitting chair until such time as the couch and loveseat arrive and we make other plans...

The Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild Charity Hat Knitting Adventure

The Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild are wonderful people who do a lot of good works.  Because I went to one of their meetings they kindly send me their newsletter and invitations to participate in charity knitting.

Several weeks ago they sent me two skeins of 100% Merino wool that was spun in Turkey. It is a lovely walnut color.  I was thrilled to receive the yarn since I committed myself to refraining from purchasing new yarn until all that I currently have on hand has been knitted up...which so far I have stuck to...thus, since the hat project had to be in wool yarn and all the wool I have is committed to other projects I was not going to be able to help out without their yarn contribution.

Well,  Dear One was very happy to help me wind the yarn.  He held the yarn and I wound it with the Stanwood winder (which I LOVE and recommend highly).  This started out as a quick and easy project for the first few winds then the issues began to arise.  The yarn was not evenly skeined up!  What a bust!  Even changing the positioning of the yarn on Dear One's hands did not improve things.  After a LONG time we got the first skein wound. I had decided to let the other one alone but Dear One said he was happy to continue helping so I thought, "Why not?"  Well, that was the wrong idea.

The second skein was even worse! Way more tangles.

We worked on it for another fifteen minutes then it was so tangled that I finally got out my good Gingher scissors and cut it off and excused Dear One.

A few days later I went back into the work room and started untangling the yarn so I could eventually wind it up into a cake.  After pulling from one end until there was not possible way to go on, I searched for the other end of the skein and finally found it, started pulling from that end and eventually had probably ten yards of yarn on the floor, another ten yards over the ironing board, and me in the middle with an almost impossible tangle in the my hands.  After a while, even I gave up for a while and went about my regular business (which included working on the hat) and left the work room for a couple of days. 

Twice I went back in and eased out another yard or two of yarn from each end.  There was still a good-sized tangle, maybe another twenty or thirty yards, when Saturday came.  I went out to do a few errands, leaving Dear One home to rest and do whatever he does when I am away.  When I returned it was obvious that he had vacuumed the floors.  I thanked him for doing that.  He then told me that he had had a terrible time vacuuming the work room because "someone left a heap of yarn on the floor and it got sucked into the rollers of the vacuum cleaner."  OH NO!!  I was going to finish untangling that yarn.  Well, that job is now over!

Here is the finished hat.

Here is the pattern.

Cast on 84 stitches of wool knitting worsted weight (size 4) with US Size 6 16-inch circular needles.  K2, P2 ribbing for 4 inches.  Switch to stockinette stitch for another 5.5 inches then start the crown decreases.
Crown decreases:  K10, K2tog around, Knit 1 round.  K9, K2tog around, Knit 1 round. Repeat the decreases going down one stitch and following with a plain knit round until you have done your K1, K2 tog around.  By this time you should probably only have a dozen stitches.  Knit 2tog around then cut yarn and pull through all stitches and tie off inside.  Weave in ends and you have a hat.

This is a very easy hat to knit and comes out a nice smallish adult or teen hat.  Because it is so easy to knit, and easy to remember the pattern, I will probably knit another one sometime.

Charity Knitting: Seamen's Church Institute

If you have yarn, and if you have needles, and if you have patterns, and if you have time, you will be able to do a lot of good knitting for good causes.  One of my recent favorite charities is the Seamen's Church Institute.  It warms my own heart to make items for these men and women who serve on the seas.  My own brother was on the sea for several years which is why I became interested in the first place.

Here is a picture of a box of slippers (Nola's Slippers) and a hat (the 1898 hat) that I put in the mail today.  It makes me happy to serve in this way.  When I get my house in order I will have more time for knitting. I think.  I hope.  So many good causes.  So much yarn ready to go!

Three pairs of Nola's Slippers, one other pair of slippers, and one 1898 hat.

Charity Knitting: Easy Premie Hats

Here are two premie hats I made recently to go along with a newborn hat.

Ribbed Hat

Cast on 48 stitches with soft worsted weight yarn and using US size 7 double pointed needles.

Knit 2, purl 2 ribbing for 4 inches.

Begin decrease rounds. 

Dec. Round 1: Knit 2, knit 2 together.  Repeat around.
Dec. Round 2:  Knit
Dec. Round 3: K1, k2tog around
Dec. Round 4:  Knit
Dec. Round 5:  K2tog around.

I think you need to do a second K2tog round to get to 6 stitches left. 

Work I-cord for 2 inches.  Bind off the 3 stitches and weave in ends.  Tie a knot in the I-cord.


Beanie Hat

Cast on 48 stitches with soft worsted weight yarn and using US size 7 double pointed needles.

Knit 1, purl 1 ribbing for 1 inch.

Knit every round until 4 inches from cast on edge.

Begin decrease rounds. 

Dec. Round 1: Knit 2, knit 2 together.  Repeat around.
Dec. Round 2:  Knit
Dec. Round 3: K1, k2tog around
Dec. Round 4:  Knit
Dec. Round 5:  K2tog around.

You may need to K2tog again to get to 6 stitches remaining.  Cut yarn with a long tail.  Thread a needle and run yarn through 6 stitches and pull tight.  Fasten off.

Make a small pompom and sew to top of hat.  Turn up brim.

Knitting: Little Gnome Hat

A dear friend sent me the link to a darling-looking hat earlier this week.  It is called the Little Gnome Knitted Peaked Hat.  Since I was at a rather low spot I spent five hours the next day and knitted up the hat.  The next morning I was awake at 3 AM (the cinnamon bun day) so I spent another hour doing the finishing-up work.  The hat is cute but I do not see lots more of them in my future.

Here is the hat with the beginning knitting done and cast off the needles.

This is the hat with the back seam sewn up and all the knitting (neck band added after back seaming) done.

This is the completed Little Gnome Knitted Peaked Hat project.  Cute, but I will only be making this for precious babies after this time.  Well, all babies are precious, but because it took me so long, what I mean is that I will most likely not use this pattern for my use-up-the-stash-as-quickly-as-possible projects.

Knitting: Nola's Knitted Slippers

The floor can be cold in the winter.  I made a pair of slippers for use in the early morning here.  Shortly after making them I found the Christmas at Sea website which has wonderful knitting patterns.  I loved the Nola Slippers and thought I would give them a try.

These slippers are made holding two strands of worsted weight yarn together.  They are nice and thick.  I may need to put some anti-slip stuff on the bottoms, though.  At least if anyone is going to actually walk around in them.

You will notice that I was using up leftover yarn and had to switch to another skein towards the end of the second slipper....

I did make some adjustments to the pattern:  for example,  I did not make the cuff doubled and I used US size 10.5 circular needles to knit them.  You really do need the circular needles but the pattern calls for smaller needles.  Because of the large needles these are loose enough that even a size 13 foot can wear them.

Since these were successful, I will make some pairs to send to the mariners.  They really will be great to keep feet warm after being in or on the water.

Knitting: #LIGHTtheWORLD Newborn Hat

This year our church has had a Christmas initiative where for 25 days we try to give service every day.  There is a website where some suggested acts of service are noted as well as a short (mostly under a minute) videos are shown.  It has been my privilege to send an email message out to our members as well as our family and other friends every day to give us a chance to light the world with our service.  As we give service,  we light up as well as those we serve.  At least, that is my experience.

One morning earlier this week, or maybe last week, I woke up somewhat after 2 AM.  Since I could not go back to sleep I sent out the daily email early then read it myself.  One of the suggestions for service was to knit a hat for a newborn in a local hospital.  Knitting being right  up my alley, I went upstairs to my yarn boxes and chose a nice light green and some needles then returned to my knitting chair beside the fire.

This hat was knit using worsted weight yarn (an orphan ball so I don't know the manufacturer) on US size 7 double-pointed needles. (My needles were not matching, but they worked!)

Cast on 56 stitches.

Knit one inch of K2, P2 ribbing.

Knit in stocking stitch until it measured  3.5 inches from cast on edge.

Crown decrease started with K2tog, K5 around. 

The alternating rounds were knit all around.

Next row:  K2tog, K4 around.

Etc  Ending with about 6 stitches on the needles.  Pull yarn through the stitches and secure.  Weave in ends. 

Give to the newborn nursery.

Handwork: Charity Knitting Project with Recycling Overtones

A couple of years ago I went to area thrift stores to find 100% wool sweaters that I could take apart for various projects.  At that time I wanted to make dryer balls instead of spending a lot of money for them.  I found a beautiful Ralph Lauren Polo Country pullover.    Eventually I pulled out the stitching at the shoulders with plans to use the sleeves for dryer balls.

Like so many of the "great ideas" that I have, this one turned out to be another failure.  The dryer balls from this sweater did not stay as balls.  When I was felting them they had dog ears and tails hanging off.  And that was just the problem with the balls themselves.  The main problem was that the dryer balls annoyed the other people drying clothes in our dryer.  Oh well.  Chalk it up to another idea which does not go over well with the rest of the family.

With no sleeves but a beautiful sweater body, I thought I could turn it into a vest with a little ribbing on the armholes.

The armhole with no ribbing in place

It was pretty easy to do.  The worst part was trying to find yarn to match the navy in the sweater. I had some Plymouth yarn that was pretty close and even had some wool in it. 

This is what I did:

Starting at the armpit, I picked up (with a crochet hook) 84 stitches more or less evenly spaced around the armhole. After putting on a marker to show where the beginning of the round started I did a K2, P2 ribbing for 5 rounds.  To bind off I used Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off(found at Knitty and also on YouTube if you prefer video tutorials) which I have discovered works very well.

Ribbing in place on first armhole

 

When I first decided to do this recycling project I intended to use this "new" vest myself.  I love the pattern and colors.  Well, how can you go wrong with navy and natural cream colors?  However,  the other night I was at a meeting of the women in our Church where the leaders made a call for winter clothing for some refugees in the area.  I am more than happy to give up this vest.  I can only wear one thing and a time and I already have a sweater for winter.  I am hoping to go through our house in the next two weeks and pull out all the winter clothes that can be cleaned and mended, if need be, to give away.  The refugees will be warm and, BIG BONUS: we will have an emptier house!