FIGURED OUT THAT SENIOR MOMENT

KNIT PILLOW SAMPLER

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

wool yarn, cake dyes, umbrella swift, ball winder

A few weeks ago I posted about this assignment 

forgetting that the piece in front of me was mine 

and not my student's,

 senior Rachel Kannampuzha.

Midway through writing the post I finally realized it was my sampler I'd made for my demo.

but then realized that I didn't even remember what happened to it.

Still haven't figured that out,

even after an endless search since then.

But what I did find was Rachel's piece that she made here with her hand dyed yarns below.

The students had a choice about making a scarf or pillow sampler.

For my demo I chose a scarf,

but Rachel here went for a pillow top.

We saw the yarns she dyed as well as her handmade knitting needles 

 towards the end of last school year.

Well here are those yarns knit up and sewn together to make a mini blanket

which in turn she made into a pillow top

(sadly I can't find a photo of that).

This was her very first attempt at knitting,

a very difficult global skill to learn.

She also learned to crochet so she was able to put a border around the whole piece to pull it together.

As I'm looking more closely at it right now,

I believe she also crocheted the samplers together rather then sewed them.

She learned 9 different pattern stitches and was able to put 8 together into a rectangular shape.

Here is a close-up of a Log Cabin sampler,

a 2 by 2 Rib, 

Seed stitch,

Stockinette, Stripping, and Mistaken Rib,

with a bit of the cable showing down below.

What is super difficult when first learning to knit is tensioning your yarn,

but be patient,

and with enough practice,

 you will improve!

Nutty Knitters

KNIT SCARF/PILLOW SAMPLERS

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

handmade knitting needles & hand dyed yarns

Earlier this year we saw the colorful yarns these gals dyed up on their handmade knitting needles.

Well the next step was to teach them to knit with them,

and to purl & crochet too.

All of these are global skills, like learning to ride a two-wheeler,

so they are difficult to learn.

But once learned, 

you have them for the rest of your life.

Here are two of the three Intermediate girls getting started,

seniors Kaili Hamada and Daphne Chiang.

Daphne took to knitting like a duck to water because she had learned already at an earlier age,

so she was able to brush up on her skills,

but for Kaili and Bianca,

it was a bit more challenging.

I taught them 9 different patterns,

and then they had a choice whether to make a scarf or a pillow with those nine.

Kaili made a scarf with a double crocheted edging.

Daphne did a nine patch pillow with single crochet edging,

and senior Bianca Tolentino made a two sided heart pillow sampler.

I'm so proud of these three for hanging in there and learning this very difficult new skill.

Bianca loves it so much that she is making several knit scarves for friend's Xmas presents.

Newest Sampler Pillow - My Work

I'm so happy with my latest pillow sampler that I finally put together this summer.  I dyed the yarn years ago in a demonstration with food colors for my Intermediate 3-D students, then taught them to knit these 9 different samples.  But I disliked the harsh colors so I just never bothered to finish up the piece.  But this summer I was determined to get pieces finished and now I really love how it looks all together.

What really pulled it all together in my opinion is the yarn I bought to crochet around the edge with the felted flowers.   It was expensive, something like $40 for one skein, but so worth it from Pagewood Farms I believe.

Shop Update - My Work

Hand Dyed, Hand Spun, Hand Knit and Crocheted Pillows in the Shop

These were the two pillow samples that I made as examples for a new assignment I taught last school year to my Intermediate 3-D students.  I also incorporated some of my hand spun yarns into the green pillow.

Learning to dye wool yarns with food colorings, making their own knitting needles, and learning how to knit and crochet, then to turn their sampler into a pillow. 

2012-2013 Knit Pillow Sampler - My Work

This summer I wanted to try out a different pattern for my beginning knitters to learn on for this school year.  I showed off the results a couple of posts ago if you want to scroll down.   Usually we do a scarf with each square a different knit stitch.  Then they sew all of them together into a scarf.  But I love to try out new things.  So I received several e-mails about what my sampler looked like that I showed the kids before they started.  So here are my 2 samplers below.

I mentioned the other day that the kids learn about 8 pattern stitches, the most difficult being Intarsia.

In the first sampler above (brownish tones)I used cheap store bought yarns but in this sampler above I pulled out some hand dyed,  hand spun yarns from my stash.