March » 2010 » Untangling Knots

How to Attach Stuff to Hair Clips

Part 2: How to Attach Stuff to Hair Clips

I’m writing this to go with my pattern for a knit hair bow but it can be used to make most sewable things (like ribbons, tiny stuffed toys, cloth bows, or small knit/crocheted objects) into hair clips. I’ve noticed that a lot of hair bow patterns recommend using bobby pins to secure the bow to your hair or suggest hot gluing the bow to a barrette. I’m not too keen on either method. Bobby pins never seem to support the weight of knitting and I’ve always had bad luck hot gluing knitting. It either oozes through the stitches and ruins the project or it only glues an outer layer of fibers and peels off easily. I find that sewing the project to a clip works best. You have to have the right kind of clip to sew on. More about that further down.

Materials:
A Knit Hair Bow or whatever you want to attach
Coordinating Thread
A needle narrow enough to fit through the slits on top of the clip
Conair Hair Clips for Roller Set

A bit on the hair clips I recommend:
I find these work the best. They have a strong spring and no teeth so they’ll hold without creasing your hair. They have slits on top that make them easy to attach things to. They won’t hold back large quantities of hair but they work better than bobby pins and are much more secure. They also come in 12 pack, are cheap and available at most drug stores. Win. If you can find a different kind of clip with holes or slits on top, that should work just as well.

Diagram:

Sewing:
Thread your needle but instead of tying a knot at the end, tie a knot around the front bar of the clip (1).

Line up your bow on your clip. I try to put the center bars of the clip behind the knot of the bow so that the ends of the bow can move more freely.

Sew a few stitches around the front bar (1) and through the bow. Try to make your stitches as small as possible on the right side of the clip. Be sure the make all stitches in the same place.

Discreetly sew along the bow to the center set of bars (2). You aren’t trying to attach anything here. You’re just moving your thread from the front to the middle without a long float in the back. It shouldn’t be noticeable

Sew a few stitches around one of the center bars (2) like you did for the front bar. Move to second bar (2) by carrying the thread across the back or by sewing your way over like the previous step. Make a few stitches around the bar like you did for the others.

Discreetly sew along the bow to the back of the slits (3).

There are no bars to sew around here so sew around the inside of the slit near the base of the clip (3).

Tie a secure knot and weave your thread into the knitting a little bit before cutting. Use a small crochet hook to weave in the other thread end and you’re done!

Hair clip accomplished! Wear it with pride.

Not-So-Itty-Bitty Bow Pattern

Part 1: Not-So-Itty-Bitty Bow Pattern

There are a lot of knit bow patterns out there but most of them had something about their construction that I didn’t like. I decided to write up how I like to make knit bows. I’m breaking the directions up into two parts to keep it from being overly long and because part 2 should be useful for other things than this pattern. Part 1 would be this, the knitting pattern for bows. Part 2 will be directions for my favorite method of attaching stuff to hair clips.

I’ve included instructions for two different styles of bows. The ribbed bows are narrower and less dramatic. They work well for sets of hair clips and as embellishments. The garter stitch bows are larger and statement pieces. They require a bit more attitude to wear.

Materials For the Bow:
3.75mm Knitting Needles
DK or Worsted Weight Yarn Scraps – The red bows are Bollicine’s Dolly and the blue is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. I’ve also had good results with Berroco Ultra Alpaca

Ribbed Bow:
CO 10
Work in 1×1 ribbing for 1in or to taste
Row 1: ssk to end
Row 2: Purl to end
Row 3: Knit to end
Row 4: Purl to end
Row 5: kfbl to end
Work in 1×1 ribbing for 1in or to match
BO

Pick up and Knit four stitches across the center back of the wrong side.
Work in stockinette for 1.5in.
Bind off and attach BO edge near where you picked up the stitches. It should be a bit of a stretch.
Weave in your ends.

Garter Stitch Bow:
CO 14
Work in garter stitch for 2in or to taste
Row 1: K2tog to end
Row 2-4: Knit
Row 5: kfbl to end
Work in garter stitch for 2in or to match
Bo

Pick up and Knit four stitches across the center back of your least favorite side.
Work in garter stitch for 2.5in stretched.
Bind off and attach BO edge near where you picked up the stitches.
Weave in your ends.

To make either bow wider or narrower, work more or less stitches in increments of two.

Coming Soon:
Part 2: How to Attach Stuff to Hair Clips

Vintage Fair Isle Sweater

Awhile back I mentioned a creme blob that I was working on from a pattern in A Stitch in Time. About two weeks ago, that blob became a finished sweater. Here it is.

I used Rown 4 Ply Soft for the cream and RYC Cashsoft 4 Ply for the color work. My LYS didn’t have the 4 Ply Soft in colors I liked but they had the right colors in Cashsoft. I used 3.75 mm needles and 2.75 mm needles. Here’s the closest picture to the true colors:

The pattern took me a little less than two months to finish which I was rather impressed with because it was my first project with fingering weight yarn. The finishing was done surprisingly promptly because I had midterms and apparently seaming is less unpleasant than studying. The sweater even got a button sewn on in a reasonable amount of time! I used a cute navy and white vintage button that I only have one of. It came in a bag of mixed buttons and I had been dying to use it because it’s so cute.

Here’s what the sleeve and back look like. I always force myself to photograph more than just the front of the sweater because it drives me crazy when I can’t get a good idea of what other people’s/magazine’s garments look like from other angles. All creases/wrinkles/funny spots are from sloppy blocking. Oops.

I wore it with my black pencil skirt for these pictures. The sweater pattern is from 1946 so I just dressed with that in mind. I was a little worried that the silhouette wouldn’t work on me. I know I can pull off late 40s, 50s, and early 60s fashion. It’s the slice of time where my body type fits the shape clothing imitated so most of the styles work on me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pull off the drapey top because my chest is so large. Luckily it seems to work on me. I’m going to play around with the sweater and see what else I can wear it with. The challenge is to not look too costumey.

For those of you interested, I knit the third size which has a 42 inch chest for my 40 inch chest. It seems like a good amount of ease to me. I converted the body into the round so I didn’t have side seams. I also eliminated the second row of +’s in the color work because my gauge was off in my fair isle and this corrected the problem.

Nor Cal cross section

My friend Sarah from school is from Boston and had never been to California. She came to visit me for part of our spring break and we ended up seeing a cross section of California. Seriously. I live close to Sacramento when I’m in California and from there we went both ways on 80. Here are some pictures that we took on our adventures.

Our base was my parents’ house in Placer County. We hit In-N-Out because it’s mandatory and delicious. While there, we saw some guys who were wearing Wranglers, cowboy boots and one had a cowboy hat. This amused Sarah because apparently she doesn’t see these items worn without irony or as a fashion statement very often.

The next day we drove across the valley to the Bay area. Lots of farms and cows. It’s kind of boring but it’s where our food comes from.

We got lost in the East Bay for a bit due to some sketchy directions but we finally met our friend Kevin at the BART station near his house in Oakland. We took the BART over to the Embarcadero stop in San Francisco. We headed over to pier 39 with the help of Muni. We walked around down by the water towards the Fishermans Warf.

Many pictures were taken of things like the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sea Lions, and my personal favorite, Alcatraz Island. I love how creepy it is.

It was a bit bizarre to be wandering about in California with Kevin and Sarah because I’m so used to doing wandering around Washington with them. We made a stop to get bread at Boudin and crab at a stand by the water. Kevin decided he was not a crab fan so we went to In-N-Out again.

From there, Kevin realized that we weren’t too far from North Beach. We walked over to there and went to Cafe Trieste because Kevin likes their coffee. Sitting there, we decided Sarah should see Union Square and we walked over there. Then we decided to walk all the way down Market to the BART station we started at. Kevin and I had never walked that much in SF before. I think we walked around for four hours.

A couple days later, Sarah and I set out from my parents house with my mom, sister (who is back from LDN) and dog to see the Northernmost Redwood Giants. There is a grove of them in Tahoe National Forest. The road up is very windy and dodgy. I’m glad I wasn’t driving.

We were a few miles from the grove when snow started popping up in the road where there was shade, despite the weather being fairly warm. Eventually we hit a spot where the road was covered in five inches of icy snow. It hadn’t been plowed. We decided to turn around and go to Grouse Falls instead because it was a bit lower in elevation. Unfortunately the same thing happened. We got a few miles from where the trail started and the road was too snowy to drive without chains. Boo. We got out and walked around a bit because my fat dog was getting antsy.

Despite not getting to see some really big trees or a cool water fall, Sarah still had a good time because there were some great views. We stopped at a turn out to look at this canyon that a river (The American I think?) cuts through.

I love the Sierra Nevadas. They’re beautiful. Bean was fascinated by all the new stuff. My sister ran around with her on the leash. I’m sure the drive wasn’t fun for Bean but the area is definitely worth visiting.

There’s the West and East of Northern California for you. Other than seeing a cross section of the State, our only other spring break accomplishment was finishing season 4 of Dawson’s Creek. It was a pretty damn good spring break

The first 6 photos were taken by Sarah. Thanks for letting me use them.

Silence

It’s midterms week this week. Boo. The unfortunate part about this midterms week is that I haven’t had time to photograph anything. I have a sweater nicely blocked and waiting to be modeled. I have a pattern for knit hair bows and instructions on how to attach them to hair clips that are waiting for their accompanying photos. Normally this wouldn’t be that big of a deal but tomorrow I’m leaving for California without my lap top. It’s spring break. (Yay!) I had been planning on setting up some auto-posts but I haven’t had time to take pictures so I’ve got nothing. Expect a giant mass of posts starting March 21 when I get back. Until then you’ll have to make do without my rambling posts and pretty pictures. Sorry. My bad.

On a happier note, my University approved my app to study abroad at University of Lancaster. Hurrah!

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Sketchy

The other day Ysolda posted a picture of her sketchbook. It got me thinking about the current state of disaster that is my desk and my current method for drawing and designing my ideas.

It’s a pretty bad system. I scribble my drawings in pen on whatever notebook, piece of paper, or Post-It note that is handy. That would be the sketch I made for my Veronica cardigan in my notebook that I keep lists in. In between my to-do lists and grocery lists are some knitting sketches. Who knows where the notes that go with the sketches are. I write almost all my notes on Post-It notes. My desk is smothered in Post-It notes with things like charts, stitch counts and gauges scribbled on them. My desk is also covered in yarn scraps, knitting needles and other random crafty stuff but lets pretend it’s not. (There is a reason why these pictures were taken on the window sill.) I also keep my notes on my computer on Notepad but that’s actually an organized system and that step is a little farther along in the process than the sketchy-scribbly step.

I decided to buy myself a nice notebook that could be dedicated to design sketches alone. Happy uhmm… Midterm to me! I picked out one with an elastic strap so that I could keep swatches for current projects in there. Shall we take a look inside?

Here we see the sketch of my next knitting project on not lined paper! I also picked up some art pencils so that I don’t have to sketch in pen anymore. Fancy, right? Accompanying my sketch is one of the many swatches I need to do for this project and a Post-It with my oddly drawn lace chart. Everything is in one place and easy to find and understand! I won’t have to search my desk and try to figure out which Post-It goes to which project! I’m kind of excited about this but we’ll see how long my organization will last.

How do you keep track of your ideas and organize them?

Overdressed and Cold

I haven’t done a ramble-about-dressing-myself post in a while so new readers be warned. That’s what this is.

Anyways, you may have noticed that I have a love for dresses and skirts. Frequently I’m faced with two basic problems because of this. Problem #1: I feel overdressed sometimes. Some things that I like to wear look too much like work wear or too formal. Problem #2: I have to keep in mind the weather now. I’m from California and I still tend to buy clothes that reflect that. At the base of most of my outfits will be something summery. I wear sleeveless tops and dresses year round and make them weather appropriate by throwing on some layers.

Those were the problems that plagued me with the purple dress I wore yesterday. Out of my giant cardigan collection, the only one that looked right with the dress was my Veronica cardigan. That cardigan was too warm for the spring weather and it also looks a bit too dressy to me because of how it matches the dress overly well. When I wear the dress I often feel like I look like I should be going to a party or something. Yesterday I tried to figure out a way to casual-down and warm-up the dress. I tried on a million sweaters and none of them really worked for me. They all had color and/or cut issues I was staring at my teal H&M knit dress in my closet and found myself wishing I had a sweater that color because it would work well with the colors in the floral dress. Then I remembered a sewing pattern I own.

It’s Simplicity 3673. It’s a reprint of a vintage pattern and it features a very similar neckline to the dress in question. With the styling of the pattern in mind, I finally came up with a way to make my dress warm enough and more casual.

I layered the purple dress over my teal dress and it worked! I was pretty pleased with myself because I love the dress and really wanted it to work in my wardrobe. I’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with my two problems in most outfits so it this dress was particularly frustrating. The long term (and now secondary solution) is to knit a more casual sweater to go with the dress. I already have yarn that picks up the yellow in the dress but it will have to wait awhile because I have so much that I want to knit before it.

Purple Floral Dress: H&M – Teal Dress: H&M – Shoes: Jeffrey Campbell

Does anyone else have the problem that when it comes to blog content, when it rains, it pours? I have very little to write about for ages and then I have so much stuff at once that I have to space it out over weeks. Does that happen to anyone else?

Zoz Cowl Pattern

I had a hard time coming up with a name for this pattern. I thought about calling it Zzzs because the stitch pattern looks sort of Z shaped but I wasn’t really happy with the name. Sometimes I read numbers as letters and the other day when I looked down at the ball band to the yarn I used for this, I read “Zoz”. It just kind of stuck. Zoz is a cozy cowl featuring a migrating ribbing that is broken up by eyelets. The ribbing gives it a little more structure when it’s tucked into a coat and the eyelets help prevent the alpaca from being too toasty.

Materials:
1 skein of Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Grande or 110 yards of Bulky Yarn
8mm circular needles
Stitch Marker

Gauge of repeated rows 1-2: 10st x 15rows = 4x4in

Finished Measurements: Approximately 24 inches around and 10 inches deep.

Key:
- P Purl
o Yo Yarn Over
_ K Knit
/ K2tog Knit two together

Pattern:
Cast on 60 stitches and join in the round. Place marker.

With Chart:

Chart represents 1/6 of the stitches. Each chart row is meant to be repeated 6 times per knit row.

Work rows 1-10 of the chart.
Repeat rows 1-2 ten times.
Work rows 1-10 of the chart.
Bind Off.

With out Chart:

Round 1: *P2, yo, k2tog, k1; repeat from * to end of round.
Round 2: *P2, k3; repeat from * to end of round.
Round 3: *K1, p2, yo, k2tog; repeat from * to end of round.
Round 4: K1 *p2, k3; repeat from * to last 4 sts, p2, k1, slip st to right needle, remove marker, pass slipped st back, and place marker. This is now the beginning of the round. Remaining st becomes part of the next round.
Round 5: *K2tog, k1, p2, yo; repeat from * to end of round.
Round 6: K2, *p2, k3; rep from * to last 3 sts, p2, k1.
Round 7: *Yo, k2tog, k1, p2; repeat from * to end of round.
Round 8: *K3, p2; repeat from * to end of round.
Round 9: *P1, yo, k2tog, k1, p1; repeat from * to end of round.
Round 10: P1, *k3, p2; rep from * to last 4 sts, k3, p1.

Repeat Rounds 1-2 10 times
Work Rounds 1-10.
Bind off.

Mods: If you have more yarn, you can make a deeper cowl by repeating rows 1-2 more than 10 times. If you want a wider cowl, increase your stitch count by increments of 5.

July 12, 2010: I’ve updated the pattern to correct some errors. Thank you StacyKnitsIt for pointing them out. I appreciate it.

I’m so excited!

I can’t wait!

p.s. thank you to my roommate for lending me your tea set for this photo shoot.

Winter Hair Clips

Some recent rainy weather has forced me to bring my favorite hat back out. I don’t like hoods so I always wear a woolly hat (this one is actually alpaca) to keep the majority of my hair dry. This summer/fall, I knit some bow hair clips that I quite enjoy wearing. Hats conflicted with the hair clips because they sat weirdly on top of them and I had to take them out. Earlier this winter I figured out a way to wear my hair clips with my hat and when the weather got nice I promptly forgot about sharing it.

I discovered that the curler clips that I use to make hair clips slide beautifully between the stitches on the band of my favorite hat.

See? No damage and it gives me a chance to add a bit of variety to a kind of plain hat. I have no idea why my plainest hat is my favorite. I’ve knit hats with cables, lace, and bobbles in ever color imaginable but this is the only one I really wear.

A small word of warning if you decide to try this: Avoid hair clips with teeth. They’re probably going to do damage to your hat. The clips I use are smooth. The other thing that you’ll need to keep in mind is the size of your clip in relation to the gauge of your hat. The ribbing of my hat was knit on 3.75mm needles and the legs of the clip are 3mm. I wouldn’t use a clip that was any bigger than that for this hat and I wouldn’t use these clips on a finer gauge hat.

And finally, I know that this is going to be extremely redundant and obvious but I’m going to write up how I like to make my little knit hair bow clips. There are so many patterns out there with no shaping that suggest you use bobby pins to wear them. Bleh.

ETA: Okay, maybe it will be less redundant than I thought. I searched “Knit Hair Bows” on Ravelry and only got seven patterns, one of which was my own Dapper pattern.