Catch of the Day ...... Not another fish (sigh)

Furballs' Catch of the Day was inspired by my furballs and a further extension to the Dumb(Fur)be(a)lls' pattern.  I had said I would not publish the DumbFurballs but perhaps I will change my mind later lol

It all started when I somehow getting tired of knitting in flat and need something different to keep my interest going.  So I went back to my root which was knitting seamless or 3D objects like cat toys. 

Whenever I use kitchen mittens or hot pads to handle scorching pot handles and lids, I will wish those things could be more fitting or smaller so they will not dip / touch the food. 

So combining my need and the experience in knitted toy, I came up with the DumbFurball first.  Then I held an adhoc conference with the furball executives and agreed on the fish theme.

The stitch patterns were chosen and designed for the best grip possible with knitted item.  Stitch pattern is reverse in the centre for a better folding compliance.  Adding an intarsia pattern and a small fish tail completed the whole picture.

The little fishy is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy Knitting :)

We want Cheese !!!!

In my household, the black and white furball is the diary master and will taste anything from milk to toast.  He loves cheese too and really doesn't matter what type lol

While I am getting bored knitting in flat all the time, I tried to switch to something that interested me and mindlessly started knitting in rounds.  Then, the tabby furball stared at me all night and the idea of a cat toy was underway.  Doing a quick research on Ravelry database, I find that the cheese patterns were published a few times but all are seamed.  As I looked at the shape, I asked myself, "Does it need to be seamed?" My answer was no.  I was sure it could be done in one string and seamless, and there went my knitting trial and making up samples.

The first thing was to get the shape right: elongated triangle with an arc edge.  That was not too difficult.

Second thing was to build up the 3D object: knitting in rounds and modular knitting were what I was looking for.

Finally needed to tried out the stitches to see how it looked and there came the sample.

For an interesting surface texture, I added some knit / purl pattern to resemble the holes in cheese.

I think it took about two to three days to make up all that and wrote out the pattern.  Knit test took another two weeks or so.  The best part of all that was that knit testers' little furballs all loved the cheese :D  I don't think it is all about the catnip in the toys, more like the love and attention spend on making it for them.  The furballs know :D

A Piece of ……. Cheese is now available in my Ravelry store

Happy Knitting :)

Diamond in Rhombus

Diamond in Rhombus is the last one in Furballs' Deck of Cards.  I left it as the last one to write up because I really had no idea what frame work to put the diamond in.  Again, negative energy saved my day.  Rhombus, rhombus, rhombus.....  I can knit one up unintentionally if my tension is not right in a bias knitting project, or I can deliberately knit one up with use of increase and decrease stitches.

A total surprise to me is the second illusion in the piece.  Somehow when the piece is done, the diamond is not "centered" in the rhombus.  I checked the chart once, I checked the chart twice, and I kept on thinking.  Here is my conclusion.  Firstly the lines of the frame work interact with the lines of the diamond to make it a little bit tilted visually.  Secondly, I think is the stitch width of the increase and decrease not totally matched, and with using them on one side consistently like in this work, the misfit magnified.  But I think this actually added in an extra charm to the finished piece lol

Diamond in Rhombus is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting :)

Club in Hexagon

Club in Hexagon is the third in the collection in Furballs' Deck of Cards.  It is also most dragged one to write for me.

Club has even more details than spade, and to limit in a framework of Hexagon of a certain size (I need to fit the size to the other coasters in the set), and I was doubting I could do it.  Just like everything, anticipation is 90% of the whole thing lol.  Once I started, I did not find it too hard to make up an illusion pattern that I like and look like a club.

To my surprise, the difficult part is not the club shape but the hexagon frame work.  Although on the chart, it looks hexagon, when knitted out, it looks more like oval than hexagon pre block.  So May be I should call the pattern "Club in Oval", so blocking is recommend to obtain shape.  For hexagon shape to make it perfect, I think either to knit it bigger in flat or do short row one with center point.  The short row one will be perfect without blocking but I do not even knot where to start with the illusion pattern lol

Club in Hexagon is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting :)

Spade in Triangle

So with the Heart in Circle completed, I went and worked on Spade in Triangle.  In this pattern, I tried to put a slightly more delicate illusion image in a piece of knitted fabric other than a square or rectangle.

I do not know why but when search for spade and illusion knitting in Ravelry, nothing came up which mean 90% chance that it is not being done before in published pattern there. Could it be because of the difficulty of the making up an illusion pattern for that shape or for some other reasons I do not know?  Oh well, I said to myself let tried it out. Do something that is "not popular" might be a challenge and I really think making the coaster / dishcloth in a set is really nice idea.

The shape of a spade has finer details than a heart and it really took me a few trials to find the fine balance between the size of the spade and the details shown. Obviously a spade is an upside down heart with a stalk, and it is the attachment of this stalk that took me the longest time. 

This pattern is very easy to follow and option to use basic stitches is given (yes, there is the "proper" version and the "happy keep going" version lol)

Spade in Triangle is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy Knitting :)

Heart in Circle

It all started with an abstract concept dishcloth.  I had chosen the stitch pattern and knitting techniques, and that included illusion / shadow knitting.

Now, my experience in illusion knitting was just knitting up a scaredy cat dishcloth following a free pattern on Ravelry.  At the time, the link between the knit and purl combo and the pattern it created was not there.

So in order to make my dishcloth creation reality, I went and tried learning illusion knitting.  After watching a video on illusion knitting, and slept on it for a night, I went and wrote up the heart pattern from scratch.  Got it in my second trial :) It is heart in a rectangle.  I wrote down the pattern for my own interest, but since there are so many heart in rectangle illusion knitting patterns, free or paid, out there. I will not join in the circus lol

And then ambition rose, and naturally tried my hand on some other images.  Spade, club and diamond came to mind immediately.  Once I made up the spade, I then relooked at the heart one.  After a little research on illusion knitting and dishcloth, I find that illusion knitting patterns for dishcloth / coaster are usually in square or rectangle.  So I think it will make a contribution to the knitting pattern world to write and publish illusion knitting (no matter how simple the pattern is, things always start small) outside of the square and rectangle, and there came the Heart in Circle.

Heart in Circle is the first of the four (4) patterns in the collection, Furballs' Deck of Cards.  The illusion heart is centre in a flat knitted disc to make a medium size coaster good for beer mug or bowl for snack during a friendly card game.  It does not take a lot of yarns to make and good to use up those small yarn balls left with big projects.

Heart in Circle is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting :)

Calico Furball

Calico Furball was written up in December 2017 and tested later but never got to the revision stage.  So finally, taking a break from knitting and creating, I took another look at the pattern with a fresh eye. I made some improvements with the goal to make it easier to follow and less guess work for inexperience knitters.  With that, I redid some of the photos to accompany the new instructions.

It uses modular knitting technique by adding one triangle after another to form the square.  To give this piece a modern look, I avoid using the traditional edge border to tame the curling edges but instead use "selvedging" in such a way that the curling is within control and forming a near to cliff like border (above).  It also added in stitch patterns for the triangle to make the piece looks more interesting, not just visually, but also for the knitting experience.  The patterns are specially chosen to match each other in stitch length and height so as to maintain a square appearance.  Each triangle is knitted a bit different and thus so many pages in the pattern.  The surface texture is very rich and the ridges make it a good a scrubbing type dishcloth.  It is also suitable to be used as hot pad  / coaster.
 

 

It is written for one colour only, but do not let it stop your creativity.  Adding colours is possible (above), and to me, the lazy way out is to use variegate (above) or striped yarns (below) :)
 

 

Calico Furball is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting