measure twice, cut once!

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25

Can I tell you? This chair was much harder and more involved than I ever imagined it would be. I really thought we would have this finished in about three hours – including set up and clean up. Boy was I wrong!

I spent about six hours making this and I had Boar to help. Help is putting it mildly. I would never have finished this if he weren’t there. To be perfectly honest, I would have completely screwed it up by the second cut of wood . There is a ton of math involved – angles and opposite angles. Also, I had taken pictures of the chair and taken measurements, but I came to discover not all the necessary measurements. So we spent lots of time calculating and changing things around. gah! I think for all future chairs I shall be the lovely assistant and he shall be the one in the flannel shirt.

Would you like to see all the measuring, cutting and jig sawing that went on?

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ta-da!

Now that we have our prototype, we are planning on making more tomorrow with some changes …. we are not using screws on the arms and are going to put a longer supports under them. Boar would like to change the angle on the back. There was also some talk of using a beefier cut of wood for the leg supports.

Despite all the complications, I am thrilled with the way this came out and I got to spend the day playing with Boar and making him share his power tools! ; )

how much wood, would …..

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11

I had a fantastic time yesterday. Beautiful places & beautiful people. Plus, sun ripened tomatoes! What could be better than that?

I came home full of inspiration and surprisingly, not the fibery kind. Behold, my next project.

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Luckily Boar is home this week and will be able to walk me through my first one.

Did you hear that? The way I said first one? I am full of wood shop self confidennce – I want lots of these!

Möbius

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10

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Here is a picture of my completed Möbius by Cat Bordhi. I am so glad that Rachael linked to this pattern – it is a mind bender! Once you get past the cast on, it goes quickly. I started this on Friday and finished last night. I used Noro Kochoran – it is my first time using this yarn, but certainly won’t be the last.

So how about some helpful tips for that ever so tricky cast on?

  • first off, the directions are well written and it’s one of those times where you should just do what it says and NOT try to figure it out. I spent some misguided time trying to envision what was happening which only resulted in a headache.
  • here is a link to a video clip of the cast on – scroll about ½ way down the page it is on the left side.
  • and another link to an explanation of möbius – that bit about painting it in one color made it suddenly clear to me.

and now for the things the pattern and clip don’t tell you ……..

  • set the yarn up for using the long tail cast on method
  • you will need to make the tail long enough for twice the number of stitches than the pattern says – so it calls for 80 stitches, make that tail with enough yarn for 160 stitches.
  • in the directions when it tells you to put the yarn over your index finger use the strand that is going to the tail and not the strand that is going back to the skein.
  • when you get to the end of the cast on, you will wonder how that last stitch will stay put. If you read further in the pattern, it says, knit the first slip knot, then the next 79 stitches and then it says to knit into the double strands of the next stitch (this is the motion that anchors that last cast on stitch)
  • if you don’t trust that, like I didn’t, when you get to the end of the cast on, simply tie a little hitch in it with the yarn that’s left in the tail.
  • and one more thing – when you get to the end of your cast on, slide all of the stitches along until they get to the other needle before you place your stitch marker. This means that the right hand needle (the one that gets the stitch marker) is your working needle.

Mine came out less ‘shawly’ and more ‘scarfy’ than either Rachael’s or the one pictured with the pattern. I am hoping that it will expand with wear and am also reminding myself that in the middle of August I don’t want it wrapped around my neck, but will have a different opinion come January. I also went down a needle size with the Noro and that definitely has something to do with it.

If however I wanted it bigger, it occurs to me that the answer would not be in knitting more rows, but in casting on more stitches – so if you are using a tighter gauge yarn bear that in mind. I believe it is an 8 stitch pattern, so you would need to increase the stitch count in increments of 8.