Painted Moth Fiber Arts

Freelance work has been keeping me away from spinning, but I’m still finding bits of time to knit. Mostly I’m working on a tank top for my mom, but I’ve also been sneaking in some time for my own designs. I’ve got a steampunkish scarf in the works and almost completed, and a recent purchase of a flash drive prompted this quick project!

So then I had to choose. Pay $6-10 for a plain, commercial, mass-produced flash drive case, or use up scraps of sock yarn that I already had to make something that met my needs for both charm and geekiness? Hmmm…

Download: Chromosomal Flash Drive Caddy

This pattern is suitable for an advanced beginner. The cables are easy to do, and there aren’t many of them. If you have any questions, always feel free to get in touch with me for help.

And if you like my patterns, please consider donating a dollar or two to help pay for bandwidth and hosting costs! :)

My friend Emily of Emilybug.etsy.com has been experimenting with making art yarns, and I was the eager recipient of one of her trial yarns, spun up from a batch of merino that I dyed. Well, I practically demanded it, since this batch of roving was in my favorite colors. She was dismayed that the coils didn’t turn out “perfect”, but in my opinion this yarn couldn’t have been more perfect!

I only had a small amount of it, so I knew it was destined to become a cowl or fingerless mitts. It proved to be a little too chunky for mitts, so cowl it was!

I started knitting this the same evening I received the yarn, ripped it out a few times as I experimented with needle sizes and stitch patterns (proving quickly to myself that this yarn needing no stinkin’ stitch pattern, it has enough personality on its own, thank you!), stayed up way too late playing with it, then got up the next morning with a clear vision and worked through the final design in about two hours.

So, this is a very fast knit, very simple, with only some k3togs and kfbs for shaping to make it drape itself into a pleasing shape – no arranging needed after you put it on!

The finished fabric made me think of beautiful tropical waters, so just for fun, I added a felt fish. The pattern for the fish is included in the cowl pattern.

Download: Coral Reef Cowl
(this is a fairly large 17Mb pdf, so it’ll open much much faster if you right click-save target as to download it rather than opening it directly in the browser)

NB: I forgot to include gauge in the pattern. It is approximately 2-2.5 sts to the inch, using a varied weight yarn. Best thing is to just try it on as you go and make sure it fits!

This is a super simple pattern that is perfect for using up small amounts of bulky thick and thin handspun yarn. I used 30yds of a two ply that I had spun from a pile of scraps of various rovings, but if you don’t spin you would also get great results from a super bulky commercial yarn like Malabrigo Aquarella or Collinette Point 5.

This is so easy to that it hardly warrants a formal pattern! Here’s what you do:

•With US 15 needles, cast on 11 stitches. You can make it wider if you want, just make sure you have an odd number of stitches.
•K1, p1 and repeat this pattern across, ending with k1.
•Turn work and p1, k1 across, ending with p1.
•Repeat these two rows until your neckwarmer measures about 16 or 17 inches long, then bind off in pattern.
•Sew two buttons on one end of the neckwarmer. I used two different sizes of buttons for an assymetrical look. No need for buttons holes or loops – just use the space between the stitches as the button hole. My largest button is almost 1.5″ in diameter, and it still fits between the stitches.
•Wrap around your neck, button, and prepare to receive compliments!

Presenting, the Sutro Heights Hat!

Sutro Heights Park is one of my favorite parks in SF. It sits on top of a hill looking down on Ocean Beach, and the park is populated by classical looking statues and what looks like the ruins of a medieval castle – the remains of Adolph Sutro’s estate.

Sutro Heights Park is one of the many places where you can go and forget you’re in a major urban city. And on that topic…remind me to show you Glen Canyon Park sometime.

I’ve finally completed my second test knit for this hat, and since everything seems to work, I’m sharing the pattern as a downloadable and printable PDF.

If you knit it and find any errors or even just something that could have been done better, please let me know! I’ll be happy to fix or improve my pattern if you have a great suggestion.

Download: Sutro Heights Hat