Yarn Out Update

The items for the cold weather clothing drive had to be in on Tuesday, so I spent Monday night photographing and weighing the items.  On Monday, Lucy's class had brought in 55 items.  On Tuesday, the class brought in another 52 items!  They won the competition with the other 4th grade class by 21 items (they had been behind by 10); and Lucy co-incidentally, took in 21 items.

 These are older hats from my "one day I'll attend another craft show" box.  The two upper left ones were done using a "helix stripe" technique, where you use at least three colours, knit in the round.  Knit 1/2 the stitches with the first colour, then the second half with another colour.  You're back at the start, and change to a third colour.  When you get to the first colour, drop the third--do not twist--pick up the first, and keep going.  You do not get holes.  The only secret is to never, ever frog back by taking it off the needles.  The hat in the top right is done on the machine.  Start at the right edge, cast on some number of stitches.  Every other row, decrease on one side and increase on the other.  Make it long enough to wrap around the head.  You might have to take it off on waste yarn and move it back to the right edge.  The two bottom right hats are from Ray at knitivity.com.  I've blogged about them before.  I didn't include the weight of these items in my yarn out total.

 These are all the double thick/reversible hat, done on the SK155.  The bottom camo/orange will reverse to all orange; I wasn't sure if there is a requirement of how much safety orange there must be showing when hunting.  The top one was made next and I didn't have enough orange to make the cuff be orange for both sides.

 The red and brown striped one is the first one I made.  I don't know why I opted to make the pattern for the first time using up little bits of yarns.  I thought I had tons of different reds, but in the end, I was using up foot long pieces of red.  And I had no idea if it was actually going to fit yet.  The camo and dark brown hat was made by Hugh on the LK150.  I made the scarf to match, in a 1x1 tuck pattern, then steamed it heavily to tame the curl.  The first version was wider, but too short.   It knit up with a fabulous pattern in the colours.  You can always count on Bernat yarns to give great results with their variegated yarns.  The plum and variegated hat at the top left was made by Lucy on the SK155.

 I wonder why this is sideways!  I adapted an earflap hat pattern to make it doubled all the way up, instead of just part way.  They look really tall, but once on, they're fine.  The blue scarf is another 1x1 tuck and steamed.  It's James Brett Marble, and it really loosened up/lengthened when steamed.  The lilac cowl scarf was handknit a couple years ago and wasn't quite what I wanted.

 The bottom left hat is another version of Ray's charity hat.  It uses the two yarns in the two hats on the right.  I thought they were more contrasting, but once combined, it was not nearly as contrasting as I was expecting.  This version is a little too big on me, and since it had to be seamed, I took it in a couple stitches so that the pattern matches up on the seam (not sure why the pattern is written so the seam doesn't show).  It's still a little big.  I like the hat, and his crown decreases are nicely done, but I had a hard time figuring out the transition (maybe because the chart was on the next page and I couldn't easily see how it was to flow).  When doing the double decreases, use lots of weight and check to make sure there are three loops on the needle.  The last loop you put on tends to jump off.  Also, I am considering doing this again, but using the tuck pattern in the manual.  Three rows of tuck, 4th row knits all.  The way Ray sets it up, you knit 4 rows of tuck, put those needles back by hand, pull out the next set of tuck stitches, then move the carriage to the other side for the second colour, then do 4  rows.  Too much work (even though it is easy work) LOL.
The three other hats are the sideways short row hats I created the pattern for.  These ones seemed a little too short to fold back a brim, but on a toddler you might be able to.  The bright pink is really a lot brighter!  This lower picture is a bit better.

 Meg made this hat on the LK150.  Again, another 1x1 tucked scarf on the SK155.  There wasn't a particular pattern to the variegated yarn, but the apparent randomness is actually not.  The Bernat yarn is much softer than the Red Heart Super Saver, and I think softer than the TLC Essentials.  The Red Heart feels like it will never wear out.  The Bernat yarn, especially after steaming, is almost slinky.  I wouldn't want that for a top that might stretch out, but for a scarf, it was great.

 More of the sideways hats.  The lower one is leftover yarn from a cardi

 The "surf n turf" hat that started the sideways hat epidemic.  I originally wanted to use the entire ball of yarn for the hat, but the first version was a couple rows short.  To be safe, even though the hat would be smaller, I opted to alternate with the brown.  To use the left over yarn, I made a kerchief style scarf, similar in shape/design to this one.  I didn't do the alternating stockinette and reverse stockinette.  I also altered the pattern a bit this time to try to get the second "tie" to be longer and skinnier.  More on these scarves later.

The lower scarf is the same idea as the one above, see how the point on the left isn't very pointy?  This was James Brett Marble, which I picked up in a thrift shop while visiting my parents earlier in the month.  The green scarf was using up Shetland Chunky.  Again, I thought I had plenty of the yarn, but it ended up rather short and wide.  A collar filler, not a wrap several times, scarf.  The teal mitts were handknit and are TINY.  They weigh 19grams.  They might fit a skinny 1 year old.  I wanted to make more mitts, but ran out of time.

Weight of items made specifically for the drive:   2536grams!
Yarn In to Date:       3365grams
Yarn out to Date:     3781grams
Total                         -416grams!

This does not include the yarn I got donated last week.  Still haven't weighed that.  And if the school had been accurate in the dates on the posters, I would have known the drive ended on Tuesday, and not today, and I wouldn't have bought that 340gr ball of Red Heart last weekend.  Most of the yarn I bought with the kids for the hats was totally used up.  There is some of the purpley variegated yarn left.